News

PERSEVERANCE Leipheimer got stronger as the race wore on in last year’s Tour.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS Leipheimer hopes to improve on his eighth place finish last year.

Robbie McEwen wants all of them to count at the Tour.

Rogers has had a kiss-filled spring

Subaru-Gary Fisher rider Nat Ross called the other day, and I could almost hear him grinning from across the Atlantic after his big 24-hour solo win at the UK’s June 21-22 Saab-Salomon Mountain Mayhem event. Held near Birmingham, England, the race is now in its sixth and most successful year, with online registration selling out its 80 solo and 380 team spots in, coincidentally, just over 24 hours. Ross — who took second at the NORBA 24-hour national championship earlier this year — didn’t have to worry about registration; his boss, mountain-bike legend Gary Fisher, co-sponsored the event

Mark Gorski will step down July 1 as chief executive officer of Tailwind Sports after eight years in the sports-marketing company’s top job. Vice president Dan Osipow, director of operations for the Tailwind-managed U.S. Postal Cycling Team, will become interim general manager. "It is with a mixture of sadness, satisfaction and new opportunity that I announce my resignation," said Gorski. "After many months of consideration, I decided that it was best for me personally, professionally, and most importantly, for my family, to step down." Gorski will be leaving the sports-marketing business

Cooke captures the stage win

Zipp 404s

Zipp 303s

Vino's fifth was good enough for first

Tri shoes for The Champ?

Red, white and you...if you hurry.

Zipp's in the bar business too

A solo win

Casagrande still in charge

Ullrich took second on Sunday

Gracia

Steb

Casagrande leads

The new leader

San Bernardino Pass

Casagrande wins stage and takes lead in Switzerland

Pecharroman

McConneloug

Green and McGrath

USA Cycling has announced its automatic selections for the U.S. team attending the 2003 World Track Championships July 30-August 3 in Stuttgart, Germany. Many of the automatic selections earned their world's-team selections by winning their respective events at the 2003 Pan Am and World Championship Qualifier last weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The U.S. team includes: Giddeon Massie (Colorado Springs) - team sprint, sprint,keirinJames Carney (Boulder, Colorado) - scratch raceColby Pearce (Boulder) - points raceStephen Alfred (Santa Cruz, California) - team sprint and keirinAnton

An all-American USPRO championship probably ain't gonna happen.

Sandy Casar (FDJeux) outkicks the bunch in stage 4.

A beautiful day for a bike race ...

... even for Vinokourov, who crashed but held onto the leader's jersey.

After what seems like months, finally, a column about … cycling. Last week, after the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia, VN.com reader Michael Batley e-mailed the following question: “Do you think it’s time for us to go to a U.S.-citizen-only pro championship? It seems like we have the numbers in the peloton to do it now. Why the continual inclusion of the Euro pros?” It’s a topic that comes up from time to time, often as a reaction to the “race within a race” situation, such as this year, where the USPRO champion and the race winner aren’t necessarily one and the same. So, I figured I’d

This just in: Rahsaan Bahati (Saturn) will be featured in People's25 “Hottest Bachelors” issue, on stands Friday, June 20. For Bahati, 21,it won’t be his first non-cycling magazine appearance — he was featuredin Details magazine a few months back, and was named by Outsideas one of 2003’s “New All-Stars.” “I’m trying to get on the podium next,” joked Bahati, one of a selectfew African-American cyclists to be signed to a pro U.S. cycling team. Bahati came to the attention of Saturn in 2000 when he was only 17 and won the Junior National Road Racing and National Criterium Championships, in

Hi Bob,I have been following your column and appreciate the legal advice you offer to cyclists. Do you have any advice about avoiding accidents for cyclists?Ted G.Menasha, WIDear Ted;That's a great question and one that I thought might best be answered by an expert. So, I went to forensic engineer James Green who specializes in reconstructing bicycle and pedestrian accidents. So here's James's list of the most effective steps you can take to avoid accident and injury:Helmet - One of the absolutely dumbest things a cyclist can do is ride without a helmet. There is no excuse for not having one

Am I hot?

Lampre's Francesco Casagrande celebrates his stage-3 victory

Can you believe a broken foot was the worst injury to come out of this wreck?

Slip-slidin' away in Colombia.

A Team Harreither/VAV Versich rider roars through El Centro, California, late Monday evening

2003 vs. 2004 Dura-Ace – which do you like better?

Six forks put to the test

Cockpit controls – looks like 'pumped-up' XTR to us

Prototype rear derailleur gets beefed up too

Disc brakes see oversize calipers and rotors

Tech report: Overwhelming developments!

Deore-XT goes two-piece in 2004

I am a Planckaerts fan. These days, such a comment will certainly turn a few heads here in Belgium,especially among the more conservative Flemish. But in my case, I am compelledto watch it. I laugh for an hour straight at all the whacky shenanigans that goon at the Planckaerts house. “DePlanckaerts” is a reality TV show on VTM featuring cycling legend,Eddy Planckaert and his family in the struggle of bankruptcy, living ina little cabin in the Ardennes. There is no argument; they are a hillbillyfamily, barely getting by. The story I heard is that Eddy lost his moneyfrom cycling in a bad

You’ve got to feel for Tara Llanes. Less than a year removed from a crash at the Durango NORBA that brought a premature end to her 2002 season, the gated-racing specialist has had another season halted mid-stride, after the Giant-Pearl Izumi rider suffered a broken foot in a car accident on Monday in Pennsylvania. Llanes, teammates Jared Rando and Dustin Adams, and team mechanic Matt Duniho were on their way to Vermont for the third stop of the NORBA NCS when their Ford F350 was involved in a crash with another vehicle. According to Giant team director Steve Westover, Adams and Rando escaped

Ullrich

Mayo and shadow

Millar preserved his podium spot

The Col du Lauteret

Armstrong stayed with his competition

Legendary 18-time RAAM racer Rob Kish at Sunday's solo field start

A couple hundred cyclists and supporters showed up Sunday morning up to follow the solo field through it's 15-mile nuetral start

The lone female solo racer, Rebecca Smith

2003 RAAM solo racer Allen Larsen kisses wife and baby goodbye on Father's day

Lance Armstrong tests his legs on the Galibier.

Mercado celebrates.

A well-managed, properly officiated and expertly driven road-race caravan can be a beautiful thing. It is a choreographed vehicular ballet, balancing cars, drivers, riders, roads and the climatic elements in a colorful montage moving along at 40kph to sometimes 80kph. On the other hand, a poorly organized and badly handled one can be a dangerous cluster … er… flick. At the Hamilton World Road Championships we’re hoping for the former. If we get the latter, I will have really screwed up. But I won’t be alone, and indeed I will be in very esteemed company, as the other guy – the guy with the

I’m sitting here waiting. I know the news is coming, it’s just a matter of when. When will Boulder begin its prairie-dog, monkeypox hospice program? For those of you unfamiliar with VeloNews’s hometown, this is the city that banned the killing of prairie dogs and enacted a “relocation” program in 1999. It was the constant inundation of stories about prairie dogs -- and the guy whose goal in life was to locate by GPS every single dog dropping in city open space -- that eventually led me to cancel my subscription to the local Boulder Daily Camera. Since the monkeypox outbreak, though, I’ve been

Going up: Ron Hudson (Sportsbook.com) and Drew Miller (Landis-Trek-VW) reach the last of 11 switchbacks on the climb to Onion Valley in the Death Valley Road Stage Race.

Lance Armstrong gets a little doctoring after a spill in stage 5.

The consequences of laying it down at 70kph ...