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Reigning Olympic champion Samuel Sánchez says he doesn’t expect to, but still believes he can win the Vuelta a España. That’s how Sánchez assesses things after nearly a week of racing in the Vuelta, sitting 65th at 1:09 back. “Right now I don’t see myself winning, but I know that I am capable of doing it,” Sánchez said. “It’s the same thing as trying to finish in the top 10 at the Tour; it’s one thing to think but it’s altogether something else to actually do it.”

André Greipel (Columbia-HTC) made it look easy in Thursday’s 174km fifth stage at the Vuelta a España, winning his second consecutive stage and bouncing into the race leader’s golden jersey thanks to finish-line bonuses. Wearing the green points jersey, “André the Giant” came off Tom Boonen’s wheel with 100 meters to go at the end of frenetic final 10km to catapult into the double, with the stage win and leader’s jersey to assure plenty of podium time.

In terms of roadside spectators, the opening four stages of the 64th Vuelta a España through The Netherlands and Belgium were a huge success.. “Just like the Tour de France,” some of the riders said. But the interest in North America has been minimal, at best, even though the top U.S teams Columbia-HTC and Garmin-Slipstream are taking part.

Eurobike 2009 is as big as ever. Occupying more than ten huge halls, the show dwarfs almost anything in the industry for size, scope and attendance. Many European brands produce goods not even distributed in the United States, so for now we’ll focus on what looks good, what’s new, and what could be hot for 2010. Assos
Swiss clothing company Assos is well known for high quality, form fit, and function. With a new product range called Mille, Assos aims to fill a niche in its line for riders who want the function with a more forgiving fit. [nid:97355]

Alberto Contador has pulled out of the upcoming world championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland, because he does not feel he can do justice to his place in the team. Contador was crowned the yellow jersey champion in Paris on July 26 after beating a host of big rivals during the three-week cycling epic, including Luxembourg's runner-up Andy Schleck and American seven-time champion Lance Armstrong. But Contador, who pulled decided to skip the Vuelta a España as well, has now decided he is not 100 percent race fit.

Press Release

Press Release

Dear Explainer, It occurs to me that the Tour de France (and likely the other major races) could very easily have died during, or after, the major European conflicts of the past century. Luckily for us all, they didn't- but this had to be the work of a few stalwart diehards. I would be fascinated to know more about who brought the Tour de France back after WWI and WW II, and what sort of challenges they met. Do you have any thoughts or suggested readings? Thanks for your articles. I greatly enjoy them. Best in all, Rob Simpson Athens, Georgia Dear Rob,

Retail price: $3995.00 frameset. Complete bikes available with Campagnolo Super Record or Record, SRAM Red, or Shimano Dura Ace. Web site: pantanibikes.it Sales of Pantani bikes benefit the ONLUS foundation, formed by the family of the late Marco Pantani to promote his legacy and support sports programs for troubled youth.

Can I rebuild SRAM Red shifters?

As reported on VeloNews.com on August 14, Levi Leipheimer has inked a two-year deal with Lance Armstrong's new RadioShack team, the U.S. cyclist confirmed Tuesday. "There were other possibilities, but I've signed with the best team in the world, an American team that's going to sign more American riders," Leipheimer said. Leipheimer said he plans to race the Tour of California, the Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour de France in 2010. "Those are my three favorite races and top my objectives for next year," he said.

Chris Horner was among the major victims of a horrible high-speed crash Tuesday as scores of riders crashed near the end of the rainy fourth stage at the Vuelta a España. The Astana captain hit the deck with dozens of riders in a pile-up caused by a narrow run through a rain-slickened traffic circle within the 3km-to-go banner. The team later announced that Horner had broken his left hand and would leave the Vuelta.

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André Greipel doesn’t think there should be an asterisk next to his victory in Tuesday’s stage at the crash-marred finale at the Vuelta a España. Greipel was only one of six riders to make it past a horrible accident that wiped out nearly all of the major sprinters, including Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) and Tom Boonen (Quick Step).

Australian Robbie McEwen of the Katusha team has called an end to his "disastrous season" which has been marred by a bad fall and two other accidents. McEwen called his May 28 accident on the second stage of the Tour of Belgium "by far the worst one I've had during my 14-year pro career and the effect has been that my 2009 season is over."

Columbia HTC's Andre Greipel scored a stage win Tuesday at the Vuelta a Espana, on long, rainy stage — 225.5km from Venlo, in the Netherlands, to Liege in Belgium. Greipel beat Belgian Wouter Weylandt (Quick Step) and his German Columbia teammates Bert Grabsch and Marcel Sieberg to the line just moments after more than 40 riders, including overall leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, suffered a huge pile-up just 2.6km from the finish.[nid:97319]

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George Hincapie is headed to BMC for the 2010 season. The recently crowned American champion is set to join the American-Swiss team for a two-year contract. “Definitely the idea of working with the young team and helping to build the program appealed to me,” Hincapie said in a team press release. “I know a lot of the American racers on the team already and have seen how talented the young Swiss riders are, so I am very excited to help mentor the riders while also focusing on my major goals at the same time.”

Should I remove my fork's wheel retention tabs?

Garmin is introducing a new GPS-enabled cycling computer that the company says is smaller and lighter than its predecessors, has longer battery life and a more secure mounting system.

With this year’s expiration of UCI restrictions on public disclosure of new signings, the Garmin-Slipstream team has announced the addition of six new riders to its roster for 2011, including American Tom Zirbel and classics specialist Johan Van Summeren. The team has also signed Barloworld’s sprint specialist Robbie Hunter, Fuji-Servetto’s Fredrik Kessiakoff, moved Peter Stetina up from its U23 counterpart, the Felt-Holowesko Partners squad, and signed 21-year-old Michel Kreder, who currently rides for the Rabobank Continental team.

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• 1. Tom Zirbel Bissell Pro Cycling Team 1127 points
• 2. Sebastion Haedo Colavita Olive Oil/sutter Home Pro 1120 points
• 3. Rory Sutherland Ouch P/b Maxxis 952 points
• 4. Karl Menzies Ouch P/b Maxxis 660 points
• 5. Alejandro Borrajo Colavita Olive Oil/sutter Home Pro 565 points

Yes! I’m back in writing mode! This road season has been amazingly busy but still so much fun. It’s like getting the boys back together. When you have a good group of doods and you’re traveling around racing your bike it’s pretty hard to buckle down to write it all out in a journal. Now I’m gonna attempt to re-tell the awesomeness in one article.

Press Release

With both trade show season and cyclocross season just around the corner, the cycling industry is gearing up for what feels like an unprecedented onslaught of new products and technological developments. Here are just a few that we’re keeping tabs on, based on press releases pouring in the door. Look for more in the days to come, as we cover the Eurobike and Interbike trade shows, plus product intros from companies large and small.

Van Dessel updates Gin and Trombones cyclocross bikes

Perhaps it’s no mistake that Greg Henderson’s biggest road win of his career comes in the Vuelta a España. Monday’s stage-3 sprint victory for the 32-year-old Henderson caps a breakthrough season that’s also included major victories on Spanish roads, at the Clásica de Almería, the Vuelta a Murcia and the Volta a Catalunya. Holland isn’t quite Spain, but it is still the Vuelta a España despite its popular start in Benelux.

Planet Energy’s Keven Lacombe emerged from a stacked field of sprinters to win Sunday’s Chris Thater Memorial, coming to the line ahead of Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Yosvany Falcon (Champion Porsche). In Saturday's women's race, Team Tibco's Brooke Miller outsprinted Theresa Cliff_rayn (Verducci) and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) for the win. The race was both a National Racing Calendar event and a round of the USA Crits series.

New Zealander Greg Henderson (Columbia-HTC) sprinted to his first grand-tour victory on Monday in stage 3 of the 2009 Vuelta a España. The former track racer proved the fastest in a furious finale, crossing ahead of Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil) and Oscar Freire (Rabobank). Going into the final tricky corner, Henderson had a couple of Quick Steps in front of him and teammate André Greipel on his wheel. The idea was to launch the big German to the line. But things didn't work out as planned.

POM Wonderful, the largest U.S. grower of Wonderful variety pomegranates and maker of 100% pomegranate juice, today announced its sponsorship of Team Garmin-Slipstream, the American professional cycling team dedicated to ethical sporting and developing the next generation of cycling champions. The announcement comes on the heels of the team's outstanding Tour de France performance, where it was second overall with riders Bradley Wiggins and Christian Vande Velde finishing in the top ten, and at the start of the Vuelta, its third Grand Tour of the season.

George Hincapie (Columbia-HTC) rode through a wall of sound as he outsprinted Andrew Bajadali (Kelly Benefit Strategies) to win the road race Sunday at the USA Cycling Professional National Championships in his adopted hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. The pair overtook Jeff Louder (BMC Racing Team), who attacked an elite group of seven riders in the final lap of the 185km race, which featured four trips over Paris Mountain.

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Chris Horner cannot wait to get to the warmer climes of Spain. It’s not that the Astana captain doesn’t like bumping shoulders on the narrow, rainy roads of Holland, but he knows that the real battle won’t begin until the Vuelta a España transfers down to the Iberian peninsula next week. In the meantime, it’s about gritting the teeth and avoiding a costly mishap.

Gerald Ciolek (Milram) has been lurking on the edge of greatness ever since he came out of nowhere to beat Erik Zabel and claim the 2005 German national title as a 20-year-old neo-pro. After winning the 2006 U23 world title, Ciolek has patiently been collecting minor wins and close calls in bigger events. He finally got his just reward in Sunday’s second stage of the 2009 Vuelta a España, a pan-flat 203.7km ride from Assen to Emmen in the Netherlands.

Danny Pate (Garmin-Slipstream) has a long-standing relationship with the top of the results sheet at the USA Cycling Professional National Championships in Greenville, South Carolina. Pate has finished top-five in the road race every year since the event moved from Philadelphia to Greenville in 2006. A former U23 world time trial champion, Pate has skipped the time trial each of the last two seasons to focus solely on the road race at nationals and hopes to break through to the top step of the podium Sunday.

If Saturday’s rowdy and enthusiastic welcome for the Vuelta a España is any indication, next year’s Giro and Tour starts should be off the charts. An estimated 40,000 fans braved wind, cold and rain to watch SuperFabio roar into the leader’s jersey at the Vuelta, so just imagine what it’s going to be like in Amsterdam, which hosts the Giro start in May, and Rotterdam, which has the Tour’s grand depart in July. Holland is playing host to all three grand tours and the Dutch fans seem up to the task of making the pro peloton feel welcome.

Dave Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream) reaffirmed his position atop the U.S. time trial field Saturday, as he won his fourth consecutive national championship by nearly one minute on a 20.7-mile course in Greenville, South Carolina. Zabriskie blazed the winding Greenville time trial course Saturday in a time of 39:37, 1:02 faster than his winning time on the same course in 2008.

When the stage has a clock sitting at the finish line and riders start one at a time, you can almost bet the house that Fabian Cancellara is going to be fastest across the line. The big Swiss time machine reaffirmed his prowess against the clock with an impressive ride on damp but not wet roads in front of 40,000 rowdy Dutch fans to jump start the 64th Vuelta a España and snag the leader’s jersey.

Start Times – Prologue, Vuelta a España, 2009

• 1. Alberto FernÁndez Sainz Xacobeo Galiciap, starts at 3:21p.m.
• 2. Matheus Pronk Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team, starts at 3:22p.m.
• 3. Dominik Roels Team Milram, starts at 3:23p.m.
• 4. Frantisek Rabon Team Columbia-HTC, starts at 3:24p.m.
• 5. Kevin De Weert Quick Step, starts at 3:25p.m.
• 6. Francesco Tomei Lampre-NGC, starts at 3:26p.m.
• 7. Christian Meier Garmin-Slipstream, starts at 3:27p.m.
• 8.

The organizers of the U.S. Professional Road and Time Trial Championships released the following start list for Saturday's time trial in Greenville, South Carolina.

• 1. 11.30:00 Jonathan Hamblen Dlp Racing
• 2. 11.32:00 Wade Wolfenbarger Cinelli-Down Under
• 3. 11.34:00 Kiel Reijnen Jelly Belly Cycling Team
• 4. 11.36:00 Jonathan Chodroff Ouch Presented By Maxxis
• 5. 11.38:00 Matthew Crane Jelly Belly Cycling Team
• 6. 11.40:00 Omer Kem Bissell Pro Cycling

The 64th Vuelta a España clicks into gear Saturday on the Assen race track with one of its deepest and most competitive fields ever. Not only are riders racing the Vuelta to prepare for the world championships, but some of the biggest names are lining up with nothing less than all-out victory as their stated goals. With none of last year’s top-3 back to defend their podium spots, the 2009 Vuelta is wide open. A challenging course well-suited for aggressive attacks in the mountains will promise to keep things interesting all the way into the final week.

Astana is sending Tour of California champ Levi Leipheimer to the Tour of Missouri next month, in what will be Leipheimer's first race sine he broke his wrist during the Tour de France. Joining Leipheimer on the team will be 2007 Tour de Georgia winner Janez Brajkovic and Yaroslav Popovych, a Tour of Italy podium finisher and stage winner at the Tour de Georgia. "I'm still recovering from my broken wrist," Leipheimer said. "But anytime I have the opportunity to line-up for a race of this caliber in my own country, I'm going to make my best effort to participate."

Chris Horner will finally get a crack at the GC in a grand tour when the Vuelta a España clicks into gear on Saturday in Holland. That’s according to Astana sport director Sean Yates, who said the team will let Horner give it a stab for the overall classification. “Horner has progressed a lot this year, but he hasn’t had a chance to show on his own what he can do in the GC because he’s always been working for others,” Yates said. “I think he’s very motivated for the Vuelta. First he has to avoid a crash and then it’s a question of following.”

Preliminary Start List – Vuelta a España 2009

The Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships return to Greenville, South Carolina for the fourth year August 29-30 and pit the bulk of the domestic peloton against select ProTour riders in a battle for stars and stripes jerseys in the time trial and road race. 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the one-day road race national championships.

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Garmin-Slipstream's sprinter Tyler Farrar will be looking for stage wins at the Vuelta a Espana starting Saturday, and the team is sending a squad of all-rounders and sprinters to help him get his first grand tour stage win. Farrar is coming off a string of successes at the Tour de France and the Eneco Tour. Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters says he expects the success to continue.

As if the last two years hadn’t happened at all, Alexander Vinokourov is back at the Vuelta a España and back on the Astana team. Ignore that two-year racing ban for illegal blood transfusions and forget about the behind-the-scenes power struggle at Astana involving Johan Bruyneel, Vinokourov and the power cadre of Kazakh backers. At least that’s what Vinokourov wants everyone to do.

Press Release

Just in time for fall, Fort Bicycles is rolling out some great deals on cyclocross frames. A Fort all-aluminum Cross.Max frame is now selling for $349, and the carbon-aluminum Cross.Max.SSC is just $549. Both are sold as frames only (no forks), but Fort does offer SRAM, Campy, or Shimano build kits as special order items.

Press Release

@lancearmstrong: Good morning Dublin. Who wants to ride this afternoon? I do. 5:30pm at the roundabout of Fountain Road and Chesterfield Avenue. See you there. What started out as a simple Tweet from his mobile phone just hours earlier turned into a Lance Armstrong frenzy when over a thousand riders turned up at 5:30 in Dublin’s Phoenix Park Tuesday evening. An army of Armstrong fans turned up from all over Ireland, and indeed from various other countries, in the hope of getting to ride with their idol, and they were not disappointed.[nid:97151]

As we drove to the course, the small team camper bounced and creaked as it followed the motorcade of team cars along the small sinuous roads through the rural Brittany countryside. We passed dozens of cyclists ranging in age from 12 to 70, dressed in a mosaic of pro team and club colors, who were also on their way to the circuit to watch us race in Plouay.

Suspended rider Danilo Di Luca said Wednesday that he may have been the victim of a conspiracy after twice testing positive for banned blood booster CERA during this year's Giro d’Italia. Di Luca purportedly finished second in the Italian tour, which he won in 2007, but subsequently returned positive tests for the third-generation of EPO, called a Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (CERA), on both May 22 and 28. Di Luca won two stages during the Giro and held the leader's pink jersey for eight days before eventually losing to Rabobank’s Denis Menchov by just 41 seconds.

Despite his horrific crash during this year’s Tour de France, there’s no stopping the irrepressible Jens Voigt. Without suffering any permanent damage in his high-speed fall coming off the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard in the Tour’s stage 16, Voigt has accepted a one-year contract extension that will keep him a Saxo Bank jersey into the 2010 season.

Quick Step’s Tom Boonen has been told that all criminal charges relating to his use of cocaine will be dropped if he pays a 1000 Euro fine, the public prosecutor in Turnhout said Wednesday. The prosecutor said that if Boonen, the 2005 world champion and current Belgian road champion, paid the fine the case would be closed. "We consider Boonen as just another consumer of drugs, not as a famous sportsman of whom an example should be made," the public prosecutor was quoted as saying in Het Nieuwsblad newspaper.

European newspapers are reporting that Belgians Sébastien Rosseler and Gert Steegmans have signed deals to ride with Lance Armstrong's RadioShack team in 2010. According to Het Nieuwsblad, the 28-year-old Rosseler will leave the Quick Step team at season’s end, having signed a two-year deal with the RadioShack team, managed by former Discovery and Astana director Johan Bruyneel.

The Feillu brothers will be racing together on a new team for 2010, but it won’t be with Lance Armstrong’s RadioShack team. Despite hints that the promising French brothers might be headed to Armstrong’s new outfit, the pair signed a two-season deal that will keep them together at the Dutch Vacansoleil team. “I am very proud with these new signings,” said team manager Daan Luijkx. “Romain and Brice are young and have a lot of talent. They are different type of riders and fit well within the team.”

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Levi Leipheimer (Astana), who won the road race national championship on the Paris Mountain course in 2007, will not be competing in this weekend's USA Cycling Professional National Championships in Greenville, South Carolina. Leipheimer, who suffered a fractured wrist in stage 12 at the Tour de France, will miss nationals and hopes to return to the peloton at the Tour of Missouri in September.