News

After nearly two decades and seven world titles astride those venerable Ritchey steel frames, the Ritchey-Yahoo! Squad will not be riding Tom’s bikes in 2001. Thomas Frischknecht — 1996 world cross-country champion — and Martino Fruet will not only be riding bikes from other builders, it looks like they’ll be riding — GASP! — aluminum frames. Frishi for one, however, will have to wait a bit before racing on the scandium Scott that he is having built. Doctors have told him that he’ll be unable to race for at least a month after a February 7 training ride accident resulted in a dislocated joint

Red Zinger Bicycle Challenge race director Len Pettyjohn, said Monday that the 2001 edition of the race is “a 100-percent certainty,” though the event will probably take place under the name of a new title sponsor. Pettyjohn told VeloNews that he would be ready to announce the identity of the race’s new title sponsor within a month. He, however, did offer one hint, noting that this year’s winner “will probably be driving home in a new car,” from a race now scheduled for August 11. Pettyjohn was also the director of the former Mercury Tour, a mountain-bike stage race in Steamboat, Colorado,

Moninger took the 2000 Zinger. If he wins this year, he may be driving home in style.

The race leader has everyone's attention

Tuft, Okazuki and Langella

The peloton enjoyed the scenery on the way to Melaka

Degano had time to celebrate

The break stayed out for nearly 200km

Barry has been active all week

Killing time in the meetings.

Juan-Carlos Pineda

No ride on Thursday

In the VeloNews road season preview issue (February 5, 2001), we inadvertently left Massachusetts’s Kevin Monahan off of the 7-Up-Colorado Cyclist team roster, and we heard about it quickly from some of our readers. We caught up with the entire team on Thursday at its Boulder, Colorado, training camp. Six inches of new snow on the ground and temperatures in the teens put a damper on the festivities. "This sucks," said newcomer Dave McCook. "I didn’t come here to ski." The team made plans for a snowshoe excursion on Friday, but Thursday was a day for indoor training, testing and team

Koerts scored Mercury's second stage win

Moninger leads the Mercury chase

Sure enough, Monahan was there.

After getting off to a late start, Prime Alliance continues to round out its team, and on Thursday it announced the addition of 20-year-old Ryan Miller, the 1999 under-23 national time trial champion. In addition to his 1999 title, Miller also won 15 national championships as a junior. The Kirkland, Washington, rider was a member of the Nutra Fig team in 2000. With the addition of Miller, Prime Alliance now boasts three of the top young Americans in Miller, 20-year-old Michael Creed (runner-up at the U-23 national road and time trial championships) and 21-year-old Danny Pate (1999 elite

Koerts and Fraser feel the heat

Frank McCormack keeps an eye on things for Saturn

The yellow jersey takes it to the line

In a deal that’s been rumored for some time, Tomac USA, the bicycle company owned and operated by legendary rider John Tomac and pioneer designer Doug Bradbury, has joined forces with American Bicycle Group, which owns Litespeed, Merlin and Quintana Roo. The deal will shift most of the marketing, production and day-to-day operations responsibilities from Tomac to American Bicycle Group. "It’s not a buyout where they own the business," Tomac said. "It’s a licensing agreement that gives us access to resources we were lacking in the past." The Tomac USA product line consists of three aluminum

With his Rabobank teammates chasing behind, Dutchman Michael Boogerd was able to sit in for a free ride in the lead group up front, and he emerged freshest from a five-man breakaway to take the win on stage 4 of the Majorca challenge. The Boogerd group also included Swiss Fabian Jeker and Spaniards Felix Garcia Casas, Francisco Cabello and Juan José de los Angeles. Those four were forced to do the bulk of the work when Rabobank took up the chase late in the race, and at the finish, Boogerd took the sprint from Jeker with relative ease. Two minutes behind, Telekom’s Erik Zabel beat out Luca

U.S. national criterium champion Laura Van Gilder will race for the TalgoAmerica.com squad for the 2001 season. In 2000, Talgo America, a North American train manufacturer with corporate offices in Seattle and Washington, D.C., signed on as a sponsor of the Altoona Cycling Team’s women’s squad. This year, Talgo takes over title sponsorship. The team will be called TalgoAmerica.com. Earlier this year, Van Gilder was expected to ride for the Canadian Intersports team, along with Catherine Marsal, Elizabeth Emery and Anne Samplonius. However, that team has yet to be finalized, and Van Gilder

There has still been no official word from the UCI regarding the fate of the cancelled mountain bike World Cup triple in Whistler, but VeloNews has learned that at least two Canadian locations, Sun Peaks Resort and Grouse Mountain, are in the process of submitting bids to replace Whistler, and are being considered by cycling’s world governing body. Sun Peaks, a ski area 45 minutes from Kamloops, British Columbia, has already been awarded this year’s Canadian national mountain biking championships. "They’ve been running Canada Cups there for a long time," said Aaron McConnell of Altitude

Koerts holds onto yellow for another day

Stage 1 winner Fraser leads the peloton

The 7-Up-Colorado Cyclist team training camp got off to a rough start on Monday when rider-manager Jeff Corbett crashed hard on the first team ride of the year outside Boulder, Colorado. Corbett fractured the L1 and T12 vertebrae in his back and sustained other assorted lacerations and bruises. He’s expected to miss at least three months of the season. Riding in gusty winds, the squad was in a tight echelon when Corbett knocked bars with teammate Kevin Monahan. "Before I could back off or anything, I was on my way down," said Corbett. The team flagged down a passing motorist, who gave

Fraser takes stage 1

Czech cyclo-cross fans in Tábor had plenty to celebrate this morning when their countrymen Martin Bina, Radomir Simunek Jr. and Jan Kunta grabbed all three podium spots in today’s junior men’s race. Indeed, Czech riders took four of the top six spots in the race and now added to the home team’s overall dominace of the championships thus far. Of the nine medals awarded to this point, Czech riders have won five. When the junior men’s team arrived in Tábor to prepare for their world championship event this morning, it looked as though attendance might be a bit on the sparse side. A week of cold

You start fast and stay out front. Simple and obvious words to live by in cyclo-cross. Here in Tábor that fast start has counted for everything. Hanka Kupfernagel, Sven Vanthourenhout and Martin Bina all rode like mad for the opening 800 feet of pavement and dove into the first stretch of dirt among the first and then stayed there. In the elite men’s race, Erwin Vervecken joined the winner’s club in the same fashion, but he had some pretty tough company when he rounded that critical turn. And starting his race at the other end of the 57-man field, American Marc Gullickson fought through the

Gully did himself proud

A little help from her friends. Kupfernagel celebrates with Germany's biggest fan.

Vantourenhout kept his cool... until he got the jersey.

Czech fans had reason to celebrate.

Long drive: they drove straight through from Brittany.

Djernis cheering section. He came from Copenhagen to cheer on Henrik

How many chickens died for these Belgian fans' toppers?

Lion in winter. More than a fan this Dutchman works for the national squad

If you keep count, Belgian colors are most prevalent

Long drive: they drove straight through from Brittany.

Djernis cheering section. He came from Copenhagen to cheer on Henrik

Lion in winter. More than a fan this Dutchman works for the national squad

If you keep count, Belgian colors are most prevalent

Groenendaal's cheering section should be large, loud and orange on Sunday

It was all a matter of keeping his cool, said Sven Vanthourenhout about winning the men’s Under-23 world cyclo-cross title on Saturday. The 20-year-old Belgian said that when he came to Tabor for the world championships, he was beginning to have doubts about his chances. But it was the pros on the formidable Belgian squad, he said, who told him to relax and convinced him that he could do it. “I was nervous even when I rode warm-up laps this morning,” Vanthourenhout said. “I wasn’t taking the right lines, I wasn’t keeping my footing….” But after the start, when he ran into trouble,

Cyclo-cross, an admittedly small niche in a relatively small sport, has a passionate fan base, especially in Europe. The world championships this weekend in Tabor in the Czech Republic have attracted fans from across the continent. Busloads of Belgians, trainloads of Dutch and long car caravans of Swiss have descended on this Czech city. And with them, they bring all the markings of true fans, hoping to make their affiliations quite clear. Flags are everywhere, but hats and the occassional spike-spined orange jumpsuit can do a lot to clarify who it is you're cheering for. Racing

The saga known as Missy took another twisted turn two weeks ago during a training ride near Durango, Colorado. According to Giove, she was riding just south of the small Colorado town when she crashed, then fell off the edge of a "17 to 25-foot high" sheer cliff. The ensuing landing left her with a broken left leg and severely strained ligaments in both knees. "It was just a routine crash until I slid right off, bike and all," said Giove, reigning national downhill champion and runner up in last year’s World Cup standings. "But broken bones are a lot better than tears, so I’m not even

Knapp is relaxed and ready.

Djernis says this may well be his last 'cross race.

Let it snow. The weather gods seem to like cyclo-cross.

Well, Kansas doesn't have these nifty Soviet-style apartment blocs.

Mapei's Paolo Bettini, who won the prestigious Liege-Bastogne-Liege race last year, was bitten by a female monkey while training in Malaysia, on January 31. The Italian champion was bitten while training in Malaysia for the Tour of Langkawi. Bettini and a group of riders were giving the monkey some sweets when, after a brusque movement by Bettini, it got scared and bit him on the left knee, according to team reports. The Mapei rider was given antibiotics as a precaution after medical advice. Copyright AFP 2001

Team Saeco officials vowed to put their disappointing 2000 season behind them as they unveiled its 2001 team line-up, in San Marino on January 30. "The program for 2001 is to improve on last year," was the blunt assessment of team manager Claudio Corti. Last year was hardly a memorable year for a team that had little to celebrate on track or road, and whose talisman Mario Cipollini saw injury curtail his appearances. But Tuesday's launch served to turn the page and fuel hope for more prosperity in the team's seventh year of competition for the red-shirted outfit. "The year 2000 was

With UCI paperwork due into USA Cycling, the Division III line-up in the U.S. is becoming clear. Among the eight U.S. teams, six are previewed in the Feb. 5 issue of VeloNews -- 7-Up-Colorado Cyclist, Zaxby's, Jelly Belly, NetZero, Prime Alliance and Noble House. Details of the two remaining teams, DeFeet-LeMond and RealityBikes.com, have come out this week. The DeFeet-LeMond team makes the move from the amateur ranks to Division III after several successful seasons. Last year, highlights included third place at the espoir national time trial championship and fourth at the elite

Heras, earlier this month, riding at the Postie's Arizona training camp.

The Mapei team held its official team launch Saturday, revealing a massive outfit that enters the 2001 season with an emphasis on young talent and internationals. Twenty-four of Mapei’s 41 riders are Italian, but this year’s line-up includes athletes from 12 different nations. Mapei’s youth movement is carried by eight new professionals, including teenagers Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland and Bernhard Eisel of Austria. Other promising young riders making their debut in the professional ranks include under-23 world champion Yevgeny Petrov of Russia and Czech hope Pavel Zerzan. Petrov, 22,

A listing of product sponsors for the newly-formed Global Racing downhill team includes one stand-out surprise: Missy Giove and Co. will ride Orange downhill rigs. Until now, the British bike manufacturer Orange hasn’t had much visibility on the World Cup circuit, though one of its biggest success stories -- South African Greg Minnaar, who was ninth overall in the 2000 World Cup -- is one of the riders on the Global team. "After seeing Greg Minnaar’s excellent performances in 2000, we sent our head mechanic Patrick Griessen to make an evaluation of the Orange program, and he was extremely

U.S. Olympian Erin Mirabella has been added to the Jane Cosmetics cycling team. The 22-year-old track racer has won seven U.S. championships and competed with the U.S. Olympic team in Sydney last September. "With everything that’s happened at USA Cycling, I was a little worried about the 2001 season, but this is just great," Mirabella said in a statement released by the team on Friday. "I rode with Odessa Gunn on Timex last year, and I know Julie Hanson and Jane Quigley really well." With Mirabella added to the team, the Jane Cosmetics line-up is now as follows: Catherine Cardwell,

The Prime Alliance cycling team continued its whirlwind winter dealing on Friday, announcing that it had added Roy Knickman to the team's management group. "He just saw it as an opportunity to come into a rapidly expanding program," said team director Kirk Willett, Knickman's former teammate on the Mercury cycling team. "It gives him a position where he can be really pivotal in the team's development." Knickman, who was named general manager, was unavailable for comment, but in the team press release he stated: "I am very excited to be involved with the Prime Alliance Cycling

Future kingpin Roy Knickman

We received word on Thursday from John Deering, the spokesman for Britain’s Linda McCartney Foods pro cycling team, that the squad has folded after encountering serious financial problems. Deering denied reports that the team’s collapse was related to the alleged embezzlement of funds by a member of the team’s management. Instead, Deering attributed the failure to a combination of factors including "a low level of support” from Linda McCartney Foods, a vegetarian food producer based in Great Britain and owned by former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney. Despite its relatively small budget, the

The Saturn cycling team unveiled its new look, and it hopes a new attitude, earlier this week as its pre-season training camp began in California. The camp opened with a one-day photo shoot at Universal Studios on Monday, and the following day the team moved to its camp base of Buellton, California, north of Santa Barbara. The men's team underwent a lot of turnover over the off-season, losing Bart Bowen, Brian Walton, Antonio Cruz, Seth Pelusi, Chris Wherry and Robbie Ventura, while adding Matt DeCanio, Eric Wohlberg, Tim Johnson, Chris Fisher, Søren Petersen and last year's

No more checkers: Saturn's new look.

Frank McCormack returns for his seventh season with Saturn.

New color scheme for the bikes, too.

Wilson (l) and Bessette (r) are key returnees.

Day 2: Atop Figueroa Mountain

DeCanio (l) and Johnson (r) join veterans like Michael Barry (c)

Marco Pantani learned Wednesday that he is again the target of a fresh criminal investigation - just weeks after receiving a suspended jail term for using performance-enhancing drugs. Italian prosecutors said the 31-year-old 1998 Tour de France and Giro d’Italia winner, is being investigated over the abnormal red blood cell levels — hematocrit — revealed in a test prior to the penultimate stage of the 1999 Tour of Italy. Those test results forced him out of the race and derailed what appeared to be a certain win and a promising season. Prosecutor Bruno Giardina said on Wednesday that

The Linda McCartney-Jacobs Creek team was in crisis talks Wednesdayafter parting company with its management, OC Racing & Promotions. News of the split with OC Racing came hours after the team postponed itslaunch, which was due to be held in London's Trafalgar Square on Friday,January 26. Press officer John Deering said, "Talks continue between Linda McCartneyand the team's representatives, Max Sciandri and Sean Yates, about forming anew management structure to continue operating the team. "All riders and staff have given their approval and support to Max andSean. There is an

Not a happy camper - Pantani (seen here at the 2000 Tour) is facing still more troubles.

His training clothes sodden, his face flushed from riding in two hours of glacial rain, Lance Armstrong burst into the lobby of Tucson's swank Westin La Paloma hotel, dropped off his Trek with a bellhop and, shivering from the cold, asked for his room key. Welcome to "sunny" southern Arizona, the place chosen for this month’s U.S. Postal Service team get-together and sponsor weekend. "That was as cold as my hands have ever been," the Texan said in response to the first question of an interview he extended to VeloNews. Already, the cold ride was a memory. Now, installed on a comfortable

Mountain-man look: Keep it or lose it?

Mercury-Viatel's new LeMond bike (click photo for large image)

Kim Smith models AutoTrader.com's new look

Australian Baden Cooke gets tested

When the Mercury camp kicked off in Woodland Hills, California, last Monday, there were some big changes from years past. One big change was the move from team director John Wordin’s old house in West Hills to his spacious new digs. No longer does Wordin’s dining room serve as the team’s office, and gone are the days of the huge semi-trailer parked outside of his house, with mechanics laboring away in his garage. Team mechanics did most of the work in building the new garage-warehouse, and the concrete around the facility was poured just days before the start of training camp last week, but

For the first time since being knocked off his bike in Florida 10 days earlier, Fred Mengoni sat up in his hospital bed to eat a real meal on Sunday evening. A friend at his bedside in St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, said that the 77-year-old president of USPRO was "doing good." In the road accident, Mengoni was knocked unconscious, broke his pelvis and several ribs; and after surgery was placed on a respirator at the hospital's intensive care unit. During his stay, the Italian-born Mengoni has been swamped with get-well messages from friends around the world,

The new headquarters

Plenty of work and storage space