Following his victory this weekend at the Vuelta a Burgos, Alejandro Valverde now has his eyes set on the overall title at the Vuelta a España. On Sunday, Valverde did what he needed to on the climbing stage to the Lagunas de Neila to bounce ahead of Tom Danielson (Garmin-Slipstream) and claim the overall at the 31st Burgos tour. It marked Valverde’s seventh win on the 2009 season.
For pro mountain bike racer Barry Wicks, it's all about getting back to Santa Cruz and hitting the road after being on it.
This week’s European cycling menu consists primarily of events that are already under way. The Tour of Portugal and the Tour de l’Ain and the Route de France Féminine, both in France, kicked off last week and wrap up later this week. Then this weekend, the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg brings big-time cycling back to Germany. 21st Tour de l’Ain (Fra, 2.1) August 9-12
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Aldo Ino Ilesic (Team Type 1) and Brooke Miller (Tibco) both took wins at the 22nd annual running of the Hanes Park Classic on Sunday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was the second consecutive Hanes Park win for Miller and the second win of the weekend for the U.S. national criterium champion. For Ilesic, the win was sweet retribution for his heartbreaking second-place finish during the previous evening’s NRC battle 80 miles south at the Presbyterian Hospital Invitational Criterium in Charlotte.
Canadian Geoff Kabush (Maxxis-Rocky Mountain) and Czech Katerina Nash (Luna) won Sunday's short-track races at the U.S. Cup/PROXCT event at Mt. Snow, Vermont. Kabush's win — following victories in Saturday's cross-country and last week's World Cup at Bromont, Quebec — confirmed his wave of good form, which he's hoping to ride into the world championships in Australia next month.
Portugal's Joao Cabreira (Loulé-Louletano) won Sunday’s fourth stage of the Volta a Portugal, while Nuno Ribeiro (Liberty Seguros) finished second to take the leader’s yellow jersey André Cardoso crossed third in the 158.1km stage from Trancoso to Mondim de Basto. In the overall standings, Ribeiro leads Cabreira by two seconds with David Bernabeu third at 46 seconds. After a rest day Monday, the race resume Tuesdays with a 184.6km stage from Felgueiras to Fafe.
Mickael Buffaz (Cofidis) won the first stage of the Tour de l‘Ain on Sunday. Remi Cuzin (Agritubel) and Floris Goesinnen (Skil-Shimano) finished second and third in the 146.5km stage from Bourg-en Bresse to Saint-Denis-les-Bourg.
Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) won the Tour of Burgos on Sunday. Ezequiel Mosquera (Xacobeo Galicia) won the fifth and final stage, raced over 155km between Vilviestre del Pinar and Laguna de Neila. Valverde went into the finale in third overall, one second behind Danny Pate (Garmin-Slipstream) and five behind Pate’s teammate Tom Danielson, winner of the stage-4 individual time trial. But the Spaniard leapfrogged both men to take the final overall. Danielson fell to third at 12 seconds back, while Pate plummeted to 45th at 9:27.
Lance Armstrong has another championship jersey to add to his collection — this one for winning the Colorado state pro men’s cross-country championship at Blast the Mass on Saturday in Snowmass Village. Jay Henry (Tokyo Joe’s) finished second with Len Zanni (Honey Stinger-Trek) third.
Canadian David Veilleux (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Tibco’s Brooke Miller scored solid wins in the sixth annual Presbyterian Hospital Invitational Criterium in Charlotte, North Carolina, Saturday. Veilleux rolled the dice during the final laps of the men’s race on Saturday night and came up a winner. Veillieux leapt off the front of a strong 10-man breakaway, where he was the sole Kelly rider, to hold a 14-second gap throughout the remaining three laps of racing.
Canadians don't often get a chance to race at Mt. Snow, since the venue is so often used for the U.S. national championships. But when they get a chance they make the most of it, as they did Saturday when Canada's men's and women's national champions came south of the border to score wins at the Kenda Cup East/PROXCT event.
France’s WADA-certified anti-doping laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry have confirmed positive test results from two of Danilo Di Luca’s B samples from this year’s Giro d’Italia. Di Luca twice tested positive for the the third generation of EPO, called a Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (CERA), during the Giro in May. Di Luca has denied doping and is likely to challenge any suspension that results from the confirmed tests. Di Luca’s attorney has already publicly challenged laboratory procedures at the French lab.
Tom Danielson (Garmin-Slipstream) has moved into the overall lead in Spain’s Tour de Burgos, after winning the 15km fourth stage time trial on Saturday. Danielson covered the 15km course in 17:09, edging out teammate Danny Pate by 10 seconds. Pate is now in second place in the overall standings, trailing Danielson by four seconds and one second ahead of Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne). Stage 4[nid:96487] 1. Tom Danielson (USA), Garmin-Slipstream, 15km in 17:09 2. Danny Pate (USA), Garmin-Slipstream, at 0:10 3. Alexei Markov (RUS), Katusha, at 0:16
World champion Alessandro Ballan (Lampre) won the 66th edition of the Tour of Poland on Saturday after the seventh and final stage. The 136km stage, from Rabka to Krakow, was won by Germany's André Greipel of the Columbia-HTC squad. Ballan wasn't assured of victory before Saturday's mountainous finale having only an 11-second lead over closest rival Advald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-HTC), who had won the two of the earlier stages of the race.
Race simulations are a great weapon to have in your belt. Try these training tips and you'll be plenty prepared for exploding off the start line and getting a jump on the competition.
Taylor Phinney has reported that injuries he suffered in a crash during last month’s Cascade Classic were more serious than originally suspected. Phinney, who was hospitalized after a crash in the fourth stage of the Oregon stage race, said that follow-up x-rays revealed a fracture of the dorsal surface of his C5 vertebra. Phinney was originally treated for a serious concussion. "So...turns out I broke my dorsal spine of my C5 vertebra,” Phinney announced on his Twitter account. “Explains a lot. No Tour of Utah for me!"
Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia) won a sprint finish for the sixth and penultimate stage of the Tour of Poland in Zakopane on Friday. Hagen crossed ahead of Italians Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), who holds the overall race leader's yellow jersey, and Marco Marcato after the 162km run between Kroscienko and Zakopane. "The stage was very tough. It wasn't possible to take the yellow jersey from Ballan, but tomorrow I'm going to do everything I can to take it from him and win," warned Hagen.
No rest for the weary. Ryder Hesjedal, fresh off finishing his second Tour de France, is roaring into the second half of the 2009 season. The Garmin-Slipstream rider posted a strong fifth place at last weekend’s Clásica San Sebastián and now sets his sights on a run at the overall classification at the Vuelta a España later this month before the world championships in Mendrisio. That heavy load is typical for 28-year-old Canadian, who is on the verge of major breakthrough victory.
You’ve seen it, we’ve reported on it and everyone expected it to eventually be offered for sale and now it’s finally official: Adam Craig’s Anthem X Advanced SL carbon racer will be included in Giant’s 2010 mountain bike line. The new World Cup-worthy full-suspension carbon race bike will be accompanied by a ground-up redesign of the Trance composite platform, which was absent from the line in 2009, but will be offered again in 2010 as the Trance X Advanced SL.
Utah Jazz point guard Deron Williams and Floyd Landis (OUCH) will challenge one another in their respective sports at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, on Friday, at 6:30 p.m. Landis will school Williams on the intricacies of a time trial and Williams will then challenge Landis to a three-point shoot out. Both media and the general public are invited to attend the event. Admission is free. The challenge is a promotional event in advance of the 2009 Tour of Utah, scheduled from August 18-23 throughout central Utah.
American Lawson Craddock (Hot Tubes) earned the silver medal in the time trial at the UCI Junior Road World Championships in Moscow, Russia on Friday. Craddock recorded a time of 32:54.45 on the 25.8-kilometer course, narrowly missing the world title. The Texan finished only 2.2 seconds behind Australia's Luke Durbrige who scored a time of 32:52:23. Lasse Norman Hansen of Denmark earned the bronze at 33:03.01. The only other American contesting the event, Nathan Brown (Covington, Tenn./Hot Tubes) was 34th at 34:42.62.
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We ran out of time during the Tour to cover every bit of the latest and greatest. But never fear, we saved some of the best for last.
Spanish puncheur Joaquín Rodríguez (Caisse d’Epargne) knew he had a good shot at stage victory when he saw the short but steep third-category finish-line approach in Thursday’s second stage at the Vuelta a Burgos in northern Spain. Known for explosive ability that’s helped him win, among other victories, the hilltop stage at Tirreno-Adriatico to Monte Lupone two years in a row, Rodríguez turned on the gas Thursday to win the 153km second stage and take the leader’s jersey at the five-day Burgos tour.
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The Intermontane Challenge wrapped up last week with a 30-kilometer time trial, providing a chance for Chris Sheppard (Santa Cruz-WTB-FOX) and Sue Butler (MonaVie-Cannondale) to cement their overall wins in the week-long stage race. Neither winner faced significant threats to their overall race leads, and both protected their positions by riding carefully on the sinewy singletrack of Kenna Cartwright Park just on the edge of Kamloops.
Team Type 1's Alison Powers has wrapped up her overall win of the Women's Prestige Cycling Series with a solid performance at the final event, last week's Cascade Cycling Classic in Oregon. Powers held onto the lead she established at the series' first two events, the Redlands Bicycle Classic and the Joe Martin Stage Race. While Powers' lead was insurmountable after the first few events, the series' team competition went down to the wire, with Team Tibco eventually taking the lead ahead of Powers' Team Type 1 and the Webcor team.[nid:96375]
World champion Allesandro Ballan (Lampre) won a sprint finish for the fifth stage of the Tour of Poland under the rain on Thursday. Ballan's success on the 163km stage from Strzyzow to Krynica Zdroj also gave him possession of the race leader's yellow jersey. Ballan finished ahead of Spaniard Daniel Moreno and Dutch rider Pieter Weening, who are second and third in the overall standings respectively. "I promised to fight in the Tour of Poland and I kept my word," said Ballan after crossing the finish line in a bunched sprint.
Disgraced cyclist Alexander Vinokourov continues his return to competitive cycling this week hoping to show he has not lost too much form over his two-year ban for doping. Once one of the peloton's toughest competitors Vinokourov was revealed as a cheat in 2007 when he tested positive for homologous blood doping (the injection of red cells from a donor) at the Tour de France. The scandal led to the expulsion of his team Astana from the race, and a two-year ban left his career in tatters.
Lance Armstrong might be training up in the Colorado mountains for next weekend’s Leadville 100, but backers from his new RadioShack team are already working hard behind the scenes to prepare the squad for a high-profile entrance into the elite ranks of the sport. Officials from RadioShack Corporation are planning to unveil its new branding and marketing campaign Thursday in New York and San Francisco, and the cycling team, where Armstrong will race during the 2010 season, will play a central role.
Pennsylvania's Univest Grand Prix is experiencing a late-season growth spurt. The UCI 2.2 race is adding a team time trial on Friday, Sept. 11. The 7.6-mile TTT and Saturday's 100 mile road race will make up a 2-day stage race. The Univest weekend will continue with Sunday's Univest Grand Prix Doylestown Criterium, which is not part of the Friday-Saturday stage race. The stage race is part of the USA Cycling Pro Tour. The new TTT stage will be held in Allenstown and will include two laps of a technical 3.8-mile circuit.
Columbia-HTC will bring sprinter Mark Cavendish, time trialist/GC rider Michael Rogers and strongman George Hincapie to this year's Tour of Missouri, the race announced Wednesday. Cavendish won three stages at Missouri last year, and Hincapie won the overall title in the race's first edition in 2007. The race is being held Sept. 7-13 this year. “I really enjoyed Tour of Missouri last year," Cavendish said. "Cycling fans in America are genuinely enthusiastic about watching us race, which makes for a great atmosphere.”
What a week it’s been for Euskaltel-Euskadi. First, its captain and Tour de France stage-winner, Mikel Astrarloza, pops positive for EPO in a pre-Tour doping control, some nasty business that raises questions about the team’s future, not to mention its ethical integrity. Then Igor Antón wins Sunday’s Urkiola climbing race in the heart of Basque Country to remind everyone that the “orange tide” isn’t going down without a fight.
Norwegian ace Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-HTC) won the fourth stage of the Tour of Poland on Wednesday after outshining teammate André Greipel in a sprint finish. Greipel, wearing the race leader's jersey, finished second on the 239.7-kilometer stage from Naleczow to Rzeszow but was later relegated by race officials after impeding the sprint of Australia's Allan Davis.
Alexander Vinokourov is back from his two-year doping ban, but his immediate future is anything but certain. In fact, the only thing certain about the charismatic Kazakh rider and his racing plans is shrouded in uncertainty. Besides a few vague public comments, almost no one is willing to go on the record to answer some basic questions on whether or not Vinokourov will be racing in an Astana jersey, a sure sign that something is cooking.
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Some experts believe that poor vitamin D status can often be a problem among athletes, and affect your overall health and ability to train.
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Check out CyclingTips's author page.
Steve Hed has never approached business in a conventional way. When he first met his wife, Anne, she was a struggling young triathlete who wanted to race the Ironman. She went into Grand Performance bike shop in Minneapolis because she’d heard that its owner often helped triathletes with expenses. Her heart sank when the barefoot guy covered in grease in the back of the shop turned out to be Steve Hed, the shop’s owner, but she asked anyway.
Roman Kreuziger's recent strong performances at the Tour de France, Tour of Switzerland and the Clásica San Sebastián have moved him up to third on the UCI World Ranking, just behind the much-more-heralded Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. Kreuziger, a 23-year-old with Liquigas, was ninth overall at the Tour de France, and third at the Swiss Tour (which he won in 2008). His second at San Sebastián, behind Quick Step's Carlos Barredo, moved him up from fifth to third in the new rankings released this week.
Teams are already releasing preliminary start lists for the upcoming Vuelta a España (August 29-September 20) and Rabobank will bring a strong team with sights on overall victory and stage wins. The Dutch outfit released 10 names for the Spanish tour and will look to Robert Gesink, who crashed out of the Tour de France with a fractured wrist in stage 5, to take aim for the final podium.
Mikel Astarloza – the Basque climber who facing allegations that he took the banned blood booster EPO – says he never doped ahead of the 2009 Tour de France. Astarloza, winner of stage 16 and 11th overall in the this year’s Tour, is facing a possible two-year ban after urine samples taken in an out-of-competition control June 26, but strongly declared his innocence in an emotional press conference Tuesday.
Carbon mid- and deep-section wheels are all the rage in road racing, and for good reason. A deep aerodynamic profile helps slice through the wind, and using carbon as the rim material helps keep weight to a minimum. Most high-end deep section carbon wheels have that perfect blend of light weight and improved aerodynamics.
Organizers promise some surprises in the third edition of the all-new Tour of Missouri, which kicks off on Labor Day in St. Louis and concludes a week later in Kansas City. Christian Vande Velde (Garmin) won last year’s edition, while George Hincapie (Discovery) triumphed in the inaugural event, and race director Jim Birrell says it will take a strong man to win the 2009 tour, too.
Italian Angelo Furlan (Lampre-N.G.C.) dominated a sprint finish to win the second stage of the Tour of Poland Monday. Furlan beat Belgian Jurgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto) and Argentina's Juan Jose Haedo (Saxo Bank) to take the victory in the 219km stage between Serock and Bialystok. Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil), the winner of stage was, retained the overall lead despite a tie on time with Furlan, whose teammate David Loosli sits third overall at one second back. Tuesday’s stage 3 is a 225,1km leg from Bielsk Podlaski to Lublin.
Geoff Kabush (Maxxis-Rocky Mountain) took aim at a first-ever World Cup win and hit his target in round 6 of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup, held Sunday in Bromont, Quebec. Lene Byberg (Specialized) also took her maiden World Cup win, thanks to power, prowess and an 11th-hour tire switch when she decided that mud would become a factor.
The promoters of the Tour of Elk Grove call it the "richest stage race in the world." And with more than $150,000 on the line for a 7.7km time trial, a 150km road race and a 110km criterium, the dollars-per-kilometer average is quite astronomical.
Wheels keep spinning across Europe with a full week of racing in Poland, Portugal and Spain. The ProTour calendar clicked back into gear with Saturday’s Clásica San Sebastián and again on Sunday with the start of the week-long Tour of Poland, which slipped into the calendar slot previously held by the now-defunct Tour of Germany.
Editor's note: This corrects an earlier version of the article that said Vinokourov was "expected" to ride in Astana kit. Alexander Vinokourov will return to racing Tuesday after serving a two-year doping ban for homologous blood doping at the 2007 Tour de France. Vinokourov will get back in the saddle for Tuesday's criterium race at Castillon-la-Bataille in southwestern France, organizers said.
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Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi) won the 32nd Subida a Urkiola on Sunday. Anton finished eight seconds ahead of Xavi Tondo (Andalucía-Cajasur) and nine up on Freddy Montaña (Boyaca) at the end of the 160.4km Basque Country race near Durango, Spain. Last year's champion, David Arroyo (Caisse d’Epargne), finished fourth at 10 seconds back.
Marianne Vos (Team DSB Bank) won Sunday’s Open de Suède Vargarda in Sweden, outsprinting Kirsten Wild (Cervélo TestTeam) and Emma Johansson (Red Sun Cycling Team). The 132km circuit race in Vagarda was the eighth round of the women’s 10-race World Cup. Vos has now closed to within three points of World Cup leader Johansson in the series standings, while Wild has moved up from sixth to third overall. The next round of the World Cup, the Grand Prix de Plouay-Bretagne in France, is scheduled for August 22.
Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil) sprinted to victory in the first stage of the 66th Tour of Poland on Sunday. David Loosli (Lampre-N.G.C) and Blazej Janiczak (Polska-BGZ) broke away early in the 96km circuit race in Warsaw and built a lead of some five minutes before the peloton finally retrieved them on the final lap. Columbia-HTC tried to get its train rolling for sprinter Andre Greipel, but Bozic showed him a clean pair of heels with Francesco Gavazzi (Lampre-N.G.C.) third. "It's my first victory in the ProTour, I was waiting for so long,” Bozic said.
Rising Danish prospect Jakob Fuglsang wrapped up overall victory at the Tour of Denmark on Sunday after finishing safely in the main bunch to successfully defend his crown in his national tour. Fuglsang, who won last year racing for the Designa Kokka team, and joined Saxo Bank as a stagiaire after returning from the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, where he competed in mountain biking. Racing full-time on the road this year with Saxo Bank, Fuglsang won stage 3 to take the lead and then rode to fifth in the time trial in stage 5 to defend.
The latest Tour de France doping scandal involving stage-winner Mikel Astarloza could jeopardize the future of one of Spain’s few remaining top professional teams. According to reports in the Spanish media, Astarloza’s provisional suspension for failing an out-of-competition control for the banned blood booster EPO could threaten financial backing of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team.
Carlos Barredo (Quick Step) won a wet Clásica San Sebastián in Spain's northern Basque region on Saturday. Barredo beat Czech rider Roman Kreuziger of Liquigas in a sprint to the line at the end of the 237-kilometer mountainous course that begins and ends in the city. The two were seven seconds ahead of a group led by Frenchman Mikael Delage. Canadian Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Slipstream) finished fifth.
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Mike Olheiser (warp9bikes.com/Tristar) put 43 seconds into his nearest competitor in Friday’s time trial, taking back-to-back elite national champion jerseys after his win in the road race on Thursday. Adrian Hegyvary (Hagens-Berman) took second, while Greg Krause (MapMyRide-Giant) took third. In the women’s elite time trial, the time between the top three was much slimmer, as Jessica Phillips (Team Lip Smacker) took the gold just one second ahead of Evelyn Stevens (Webcor Builders), and just 23 seconds ahead of defending champion, Alison Powers (Team Type 1). Two-timing
The Bissell Pro Cycling team issued a terse press release Friday noting that it had dismissed Kirk O’Bee for a contract breach that involved a violation of the team’s “zero-tolerance policy” regarding performance-enhancing drugs. Short on specifics, the team’s statement referred to “actions (that) are an isolated incident that occurred independently and without the knowledge of both team management and his teammates.” The team also noted that O’Bee is now cooperating with both the U.S. and World Anti-Doping Agencies to address an apparent doping violation.
Alejandro Valverde will have something to prove when the Clásica San Sebastián, one of the top one-day events on the UCI ProTour, takes places on Saturday in northern Spain. The 29-year-old Caisse d'Epargne rider was recently banned from competing in Italy for two years by the Italian Olympic Committee after he was implicated in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. The decision, which Valverde has contested, ruled him out of the Tour de France, the 16th stage of which passed through Italy.
Laurent Fignon — the two-time French winner of the Tour de France — has alleged in his new autobiography that his team was paid off by the Colombians in 1987 to allow climbing star Luís “Lucho” Herrera to claim overall victory in the Vuelta a Espana. Fignon recounts that Herrera’s team approached Fignon’s sport director Cyril Guimard at Système U-Gitane with an offer of 30,000 French francs per rider if they didn’t attack and helped ease the way for Herrera’s lone grand-tour victory of his career.
The 2009 Tour de France isn’t scandal-free anymore. Mikel Astarloza – the Basque climber from the Euskaltel-Euskadi team who won stage 16 in this year’s Tour – has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for EPO, the UCI reported Friday. The news comes as a blow to the Tour, which seemed to be leaving three years of scandal in the rear-view mirror with what appeared to be a dope-free Tour in 2009.
Alberto Contador doesn’t want to stay at Astana even if Lance Armstrong won’t be around next season. According to a report in Thursday’s L’Equipe, the two-time Tour de France winner has turned down a multi-million-euro contract extension and is trying to break his remaining year that he has with the Kazakh-backed team.
Bradley Wiggins, the Garmin-Slipstream rider who has made a spectacularly successful transition from the velodrome to the road, has released his blood profile data for the past year-and-a-half. The 29-year-old Wiggins equaled the best Tour de France finish by a Briton with fourth place in this year’s race and has said he wants to improve on that feat by 2011. The reigning individual pursuit Olympic champion and member of the gold-medal winning team pursuit squad in Beijing said he is fully committed to racing on the road, at least through 2012.
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Meredith Miller (Team Tibco) attacked out of a break to solo across the line for her first stars- and-stripes jersey on Saturday in the women’s elite road race at USA Cycling’s Junior, U23, Elite and Paralympic National Championships in Bend, Oregon.
Concerned that UCI rules for race equipment could be bad for business, several suppliers of UCI-registered teams have formed a coalition to present their concerns to the sport's governing body. The new Global Organization of Cycling Equipment Manufacturers includes most of the major suppliers to ProTour teams, including SRAM, Cannondale, Cervelo, Bianchi, FSA, Specialized and Felts. Phil White, the co-founder of Cervelo and one of the founders of GOCEM, said manufacturers provide about 100 million Euros in annual support of professional cycling.
Marketing manager Adrian Montgomery at Scott USA knows he’s got a good thing going. For one, his brand is on the upswing. After five years back in the U.S. market, Scott bicycles are gaining traction with dealers and riders alike. Scott sponsors the Columbia-HTC team, and with speedster Mark Cavendish racking up wins at a furious clip, the brand is earning more recognition than ever. Plus, with the new Plasma3 TT bike turning heads this spring at the Giro d’Italia, even more people are paying attention to Scott bikes.
Most American cycling fans credit three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond and the first U.S. rider in Tour de France, Jock Boyer, as the two who busted down the door for Lance Armstrong and the current field of U.S. riders in the European peloton. But American boots made the first real dents in Old World cycling’s tradition-bound portico in the early 1970s.
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In the latest issue of VeloNews, we reported that three road races held in Michigan and sponsored by Priority Health had been canceled for 2009 — the May 24 Priority Health Tour de Leelanau, which was to be part of USA Cycling’s Professional Tour, and the September 12 Priority Health Grand Cycling Classic and the September 13 Priority Health Ann Arbor Cycling Classic, each part of USA Cycling’s National Racing Calendar.
OUCH-Maxxis' Rory Sutherland has retaken he lead of the National Racing Calendar individual men's standings from Bissell's Tom Zirbel, who held the lead for a few weeks. A fourth place overall at the Cascade Cycling Classic helped Sutherland, who is the defending NRC champ, to take the lead.