Road

Recent word that the UCI was poised to impose an immediate change to its equipment regulations regarding aerodynamic tubing caused a small panic at this week’s Amgen Tour of California. Rumor had it that cycling’s international governing body was ready to apply rules that would have kept a significant number of time trial bikes off the starting line in Friday’s stage 6 time trial at Solvang.

Stage 5 was the longest stage, at 134 miles, and had the lowest power readings of the Tour so far.  

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There are two bikes in the Cervélo TestTeam stable here at the Amgen Tour of California. The S2 and S3 are new aero road models and are available to consumers in 2009 and what the team is currently racing. Interestingly, none of the riders are using Cervélo’s R3 frame. Even Carlos Sastre, a R3 holdout, is competing on an aerodynamic road bike.

Garmin announces Mac compatibility

Moments before the start of stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California on Thursday morning, Lance Armstrong was waiting to be called to the line in Visalia. He had a moment for a quick conversation about Friday’s upcoming time trial in Solvang. “So, Lance, you’ve got your stolen TT bike back. Will you be using it tomorrow?” “No, that’s too risky. We don’t know what happened to it. So I’ll be riding the replacement.” “Have you tested the new bike yet?”

There’s no better combination in bike racing than sunshine, Lance, Levi … and Mark Cavendish. While America’s two top champions are the favorites with their legions of fans all along the route of this fourth Amgen Tour of California, Columbia-High Road’s Cavendish is fast becoming a crowd favorite.

Price: $245 Sizes: 133mm length Weight: 175 grams Web site: www.fullspeedahead.com The K-Wing Aero Integrated seatpost by FSA was designed with the intention of unifying the aero seat tube standards in the industry. It is highly adjustable with carbon aero spacers and the ability to direct the saddle side to side by up to five degrees. The post is built with a carbon Kevlar composite and stainless steel hardware and weighs just 175 grams.

A steep, 200-meter rising finish at the end of Thursday’s hilly 183km second stage in the Volta ao Algarve looked tailor-made for Damiano Cunego or Alberto Contador. But those big-name riders have bigger fish to fry later this year, which opened the door for Basque sprinter Koldo Fernández to pull the double, taking the stage win and the leader’s jersey. The Euskaltel-Euskadi speedster bolted ahead of Portuguese sprinter Manuel Cardoso (Liberty Seguros) to claim his first win of the year, with Gerard Ciolek (Milram) coming through third.

The French Anti-doping Agency AFLD on Thursday handed German cyclist Stefan Schumacher a two-year ban from racing in France after failing a doping test at the 2008 Tour de France, his lawyer said. The decision issued by the AFLD applies only to events contested on French soil, said Schumacher's attorney Michael Lehner. That ruling, however, may be extended globally if the German cycling federation or the UCI pursue the case. Schumacher said he would fight the ban.

Davide Rebellin (Diquigiovanni) might want to reconsider his decision to retire at the end of this season. The veteran Italian snagged his second stage win of the week at the Ruta del Sol and almost snuck away with the overall in the fourth and final stage, a 168km leg from Torrox Costa to Antequera. Joost Posthuma (Rabobank) finished nine seconds back of the attacking Rebellin with the rest of the front pack to claim a two-second victory over Xavier Tondo (Andalucía-CajaSur) in the five-day race across Spain’s Andalucía region.

Editor's Note: Mark Johnson spent stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California in a Garmin-Slipstream support car with team director Matt White and mechanic Tom Hopper.

Anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri said Thursday that a blood sample found in the laboratory central to the Operación Puerto scandal belongs to Alejandro Valverde. Torri made his claim following a hearing attended by the Spanish rider at the headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) in Rome. Upon Valverde’s arrival, the public prosecutor's office in Rome announced its own investigation into his actions.

By taking in more of California’s varied terrain this year, the organizers of the Amgen Tour of California have given the peloton some challenging new courses. But the downside has been the logistics. In order to include the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, the Sierras on Wednesday and Palomar Mountain for the finale this coming Sunday, long transfers have been inserted between every stage.

We had the opportunity to review power data from three riders from the 4th stage of the Amgen Tour of California. In addition to Gustav Larsson (Saxo Bank) and Rory Sutherland (OUCH), we also reviewed the download from Liquigas' Kjell Carlstrom. The three filled different roles on Wednesday and their power data shows just what sort of effort each of those jobs requires.

Gustav Larsson

No one was surprised when former NRC champion Laura Van Gilder got the call-up at the start of the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in Santa Rosa on Sunday. What did come as a surprise, though, was that the 44-year-old Pennsylvania-based rider with more than 300 career wins wasn’t wearing the team kit of Juice Plus as expected, but was instead outfitted as a guest rider for the local Sugar CRM team.

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Just how confident is Rabobank that its Dutch phenom will win the Amgen Tour of California’s best young rider’s competition for a third consecutive year? Consider this: the Dutch bank is sponsoring the best young rider’s competition, the leader of which wears an orange and blue near-replica of Rabobank’s team jersey. Asked about the color coordination, the 22-year-old Gesink laughed.

Even Mark Cavendish didn’t expect to win stage 5 of the Amgen Tour of California on Wednesday. “It wasn’t a stage I’d targeted,” he admitted after bringing home a furious field sprint in Clovis, just holding off Tom Boonen of Quick Step, with Saxo Bank’s J.J. Haedo in third. The field sprint meant that there were no changes in the GC, with Levi Leipheimer of Astana keeping the yellow jersey by a 24-second margin over Columbia’s Michael Rogers.

Sacramento police reported recovering Lance Armstrong’s stolen time trial bike on Wednesday. The custom Trek 1274/27.5 TTX vanished from a Team Astana truck parked outside a hotel after the Amgen Tour of California prologue, along with three road bikes belonging to Janez Brajkovic, Steve Morabito and Yaroslav Popovych. Brajkovic's bike was found Tuesday at the hotel from which the other bikes had been stolen. Hotel employees told police that the bike had been in storage and there had been "a miscommunication between the rider and the hotel."

This might be Davide Rebellin’s last season, but don’t tell him that he’s done just yet. The veteran Italian pulled off a thrilling victory in Wednesday’s third stage, a hilly course from Marbella to Benahavis through the hills along Spain’s Costa del Sol, out-kicking a stellar field to win for the first time this season. Rebellin took down Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) and relegated Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) to third in a victory that reveals the classics specialist might have one more trick up his sleeve this April before riding off into the sunset.

Racing is clicking into gear all over Europe and several big names are revving up their 2009 racing legs at this week’s Volta ao Algarve over the green hills draped along Portugal’s southern Atlantic Coast. The five-day race marks the season debut for triple-crown winner Alberto Contador (Astana), who admitted he’s here only to stretch his legs.

Price: $150 Colors: Black, silver, blue, red, and purple Weight: 77 grams Web site: www.canecreek.com The Cane Creek 110 headset, which was released last year, is now available in most of the common platforms on the market, including the tradition 1-1/8-inch, 1.5-inch, integrated, and now the Zero Stack, which is common on Giant, Scott, BMC, and Fisher frames.

Tuesday's stage marked the first bunch sprint of the Tour of California, with Thor Hushovd taking the win and Mark Cavendish in fifth. Cav’s leadout seemed to leave him without a good wheel to follow, but his 2009 Scott Addict SL was well prepared for the expected bunch gallop. Prior to the stage, we had a few minutes to catch up with Columbia-High Road team mechanic Nick Vandecauter, who gave us a quick tour of the Cavendish machine.

Today’s stage of the Amgen Tour of California may be free of rain, but snow in the high country may force a re-routing of the course, VeloNews managing editor Neal Rogers reports from the start in Merced.

With sunshine at the start Wednesday morning, and no rain in the forecast for stage 4 of the Amgen Tour of California, the 117 riders who have survived the storms are ready to discard their wet-weather gear and make the racing even more animated than it has been. “It’s been brutal, it’s been true NorCal weather for the last three or four days, and everybody’s hurting,” race leader Levi Leipheimer said Tuesday night. “The forecast’s better so we’re really looking forward to that.”

A court in Spain moved Wednesday to block an investigation by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) into doping allegations against Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde, judicial sources said. Valverde has been summoned to appear before the committee, CONI, at Rome's Olympic Stadium on Thursday to face charges related to the Operación Puerto doping scandal which erupted in Spain in 2006. The summons is the result of a blood and urine sample given by the Caisse d'Epargne rider last year during an Italian stage stop in the Tour de France.

Gustav Larsson completed stage 3 of the Tour of California under control and with no major mishaps or issues. He was in charge of protecting his Team Saxo Bank sprinter Juan Jose “JJ” Haedo.

The conversation about the magnitude and importance of the Amgen Tour of California and the Coors Classic has been improperly phrased, says the former director of the latter. It’s not a matter of one being better than the other, but instead a linear and encouraging progression of American bike racing. Standing at the finish line, Aisner was chatting away with old friends and new ones. With an ear-to-ear smile, he was clearly delighted to witness the biggest names in the sport roar across the line.

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Cancellara’s eyewear

Photographer Casey B. Gibson was taking some shots of some Garmin-Slipstream riders in the peloton Tuesday when, as Casey tells it, "Levi bounced into the frame." The Amgen Tour of California race leader was riding behind a cluster of his teammates when he bumped into Lance Armstrong's rear wheel and fell. Leipheimer bounced up, got a new bike and his teammates quickly helped pace him back to the peloton.

Everyone was expecting Columbia-High Road’s Mark Cavendish to ace his first chance of winning a stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California on Tuesday, but a tussle on the final corner kept him from even challenging the eventual stage 3 winner, Thor Hushovd of the new Cervélo TestTeam. Hushovd easily took the windblown 101.4-mile stage from San Jose to Modesto by a couple of bike lengths from three-time world champion Oscar Freire or Rabobank, with Cavendish’s lead-out man Mark Renshaw in third.

The future of Alejandro Valverde’s professional career hangs in the balance as he’s set to appear before Italian authorities on Thursday for his alleged link to the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal. Prosecutors from the Italian Olympic committee (CONI) agreed to an additional 24-hour extension, not the requested 48 hours, and said the rider is expected to appear by Thursday at 5 p.m., according to reports on the Spanish wire services.

New Mexico's Tour of the Gila stage race, scheduled to hold its 23rd annual race this May, is struggling to find enough sponsorship to hold the event, race director Jack Brennan told VeloNews Tuesday. The race organization is about $50,000 shy of reaching its $170,000 annual budget, Brennan said. He is considering down scaling the NRC event or reducing prize lists to continue. "It's a bare bones budget, as it is," Brennan said.

Gert Steegmans continues Katusha’s early season haul with the team’s second straight win at the Ruta del Sol in Tuesday’s 164km romp from the foothills near Granada to Córdoba. The big Belgian blasted ahead of teammate and yesterday’s winner Danilo Napolitano to give the Russian-backed squad its seventh win on the 2009 season. Wim Stroetinga (Milram) came through third while Joost Postuma (Rabobank) finished safely in the main pack to retain the race leader’s jersey.

It has already been reported that the Columbia-High Road team is not using Scott time trial bikes. Photos and print stories back that up and our visit to the High Road compound the day before the prologue of the Amgen Tour of California yielded no indication that Scott Plasma TT bikes have been widely embraced by the squad. Our only look at the team's new time trial rig came by examining a display model at Scott's tent in the expo. It's a beautiful ride, but it may take a little tweaking to dial it in for roadies.

Floyd Landis is not the only man making a comeback with the OUCH-Maxxis team at the Amgen Tour of California. After a year away, former Health Net-Maxxis team director Jeff Corbett is back with the organization he helped create. Corbett founded the 7Up pro team in 1998, managing and racing on its various incarnations, as the team became 7Up-Colorado Cyclist in 2000 and 7Up-Nutra Fig in 2001.

Olympic medalist Sir Chris Hoy has admitted he faces a race against time in order to be fit for the World Championships in Poland in six weeks' time. The 32-year-old Scot said Tuesday he still felt "pretty sore" after crashing out of the keirin at the World Cup in Denmark over the weekend. Hoy won three gold medals at last year's Beijing Olympics in the sprint, keirin and team sprint and he is aiming to defend his three world titles in those events in the Polish town of Pruskow.

Team Saxo Bank's Gustav Larsson recorded some impressive numbers on his SRM power meter on Monday as he worked for his team leaders. Not only was the second stage of the Amgen Tour of California contested over a tough route with two major climbs, but the weather conditions again added that unpredictable element of "man v. nature."

Disc brake squeal

Last year, Sierra Road proved to be a decisive climb in the Amgen Tour of California, placed as it was near the San Jose finish of stage 3. This year, the race hits Sierra Road, but in the opposite direction and at a much earlier point in the third stage of the race. Tuesday's route takes riders from San Jose up the steep Sierra Road climb, across Alameda County to the categorized climb of Patterson Pass, and then down into the flatlands towards Modesto.

Just how much has luck shone upon Rock Racing’s Amgen Tour of California stage 1 winner Francisco Mancebo? Consider this — not only was the Spaniard’s GC lead increased Sunday when race officials decided to shorten the stage length into Santa Rosa, thereby altering the point at which the GC would be determined, but by last year’s standards, Mancebo might not even be participating in the event.

Defending champion Levi Leipheimer (Astana) seized the lead of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California on Monday with a daring attack on the steeps of Bonny Doon just outside the finish in Santa Cruz. Thomas Peterson (Garmin-Slipstream) won stage 2, a 115.9-mile ride from Sausalito to Santa Cruz, with Michael Rogers (Columbia-Highroad) finishing third on the day and slotting into second overall. But the race clearly belonged to Leipheimer, who shot away from his rivals to chase down a disintegrating break and snatch the leader’s jersey from Rock Racing’s Francisco Mancebo.

Jonathan Chodroff (OUCH-Maxxis) and Amanda Miller (Lip Smacker) wrapped up the overall titles in the 17th John Earley Memorial Valley of the Sun stage race on Sunday outside Phoenix. Jose Garcia (Rock Racing) and Shannon Koch (Metro Volkswagen) won the finale, a criterium in the West Valley town of Buckeye that saw both the men's and women's races end in two-up sprints. The 70-minute men’s race was a highly controlled affair that saw few breaks last more than a handful of laps on the 0.8-mile, L-shaped course.

Danilo Napolitano nabbed yet another victory for the upstart Katusha team, this time in the first stage at the Vuelta a Andalucía/Ruta del Sol in Spain. Thanks to a top-notch leadout from teammates Filippo Pozzato and Gert Steegmans, the brawny Italian sprinter easily out-kicked Tom Veelers (Skil-Shimano) to win the 169.2km first stage from La Guardía de Jaén to Humilladero. Jurgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto) came through third while overnight leader Xavier Tondo (Andalucía-CajaSur) finished out of the top-10 and forfeited the race leader’s jersey.

It’s hard to imagine a more scenic race start than a crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is exactly how stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California kicks off. The 115.9-mile stage from Sausalito down the coast to Santa Cruz is something right out of a tourism book, visiting San Francisco streets, redwood forests and miles and miles of Pacific Ocean coastline.

The International Court of Arbitration upheld a two-year doping ban against deposed Italian time-trial champion Luca Ascani in a ruling issued Monday. The court, however, moved the start date of the suspension back to August 4, 2007, instead of February 27, 2008. The Italian cyclist had appealed against a doping ban, imposed by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) after he tested positive for blood-boosting drug EPO following the time trial at the Italian road cycling championships on June 26, 2007.

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Positioning is everything on days such as Sunday’s wet and cold stage between Davis and Santa Rosa. It was only stage 1, but the day proved to be a costly one for many of the pre-Tour favorites. Gustav Larsson was one of the danger men that just happened to have a flat tire at just the wrong time. George Hincapie had just the same story to tell Sunday.

Twenty-year-old Swedish national champion Emilia Fahlin (Team Columbia - High Road) received the perfect lead-out from veteran teammate, Kim Anderson, as she took the sprint win from a 13-woman break in the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in downtown Santa Rosa on Sunday. This put her two steps higher than she was on the podium at least year’s inaugural race just ahead of second placed Lauren Tamayo (Team Tibco) and Rachel Lloyd (Proman).

Although he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, Saxo Bank’s race leader Fabian Cancellara hoped to honor his Amgen Tour of California yellow jersey Sunday by pushing through his illness.

From the beginning of this Amgen Tour of California, questions have surrounded Rock Racing. Up until a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions was simply, “What will they ride?” The answer arrived with an announcement that Kestrel would provide RT900 frames and forks, and Shimano would provide wheels and components. However, a visit to the team trailer to check out the new bikes invited only more mystery.

Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo won stage 1 of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, a 107.6-mile stage held in brutal weather that not only affected racers, but the race itself. A long, Hail Mary solo effort earned Mancebo the stage and the leader’s jersey, and put Astana and the rest of the teams on the defensive, with a shattered field coming into the drenched finishing circuits in Santa Rosa. At day’s end, the list of general classification contenders shortened drastically, to those among the 18 riders who finished 67 seconds behind Mancebo.

If the roster for this year’s Tour of California is being hailed as possibly the best ever assembled on North American soil, can the same be said of the menagerie of bikes? Without a doubt, a few hours of wandering the pits before and during the prologue turned up some exotic and attractive machinery. Here are a few highlights from the prologue, the likes of which have probably never been seen before in Sacramento.

Basso's Cannondale Slice

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“Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.” —Inspector Renault, “Casablanca”

Riders weren’t the only ones going full gas the day of the prologue. Mechanics from all teams also put in strong efforts to assemble fleets of TT and road bikes, in the days and even hours leading up to the race’s kick-off. We’re not just talking fine-tuning, either, but in many cases all-out assembly. Steerer tubes were cut, components installed and tires mounted. And the pro wrenches weren’t too shy to use zip ties and electrical tape when the situation called for it.

Police in Sacramento are investigating the theft of four Team Astana bikes, including Lance Armstrong's time trial bike, from behind a team hotel overnight. Sacramento Police Department spokesman Konrad Von Schoech told the Sacramento Bee newspaper the bikes were stolen from an unmarked truck that was parked in an alley behind a hotel overnight. Von Schoech said it wasn't clear whether the thieves were targeting Amstrong. "We don't have any information that would indicate they specially went after his bike," he told the newspaper.

The first road stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California will take riders from the cycling crazy college town of Davis west into Santa Rosa, home of two-time race champion Levi Leipheimer. While there are three categorized climbs on this 107.6-mile stage, it still appears to be one for the sprinters. [nid:87869] The two main obstacles for the fast-twitch finishers will be the Howell Mt. Road climb, which tops out at about 1,800 feet and comes at mile 60, and the Petrified Forest Road climb, which is much shorter — only about 600 feet of elevation gain — and comes at mile 82.

In some ways, Saturday’s prologue at the Amgen Tour of California went according to script. Olympic time trial champion Fabian Cancellara crushed all comers, powering around the flat course like a motorbike, just as he did last year.

The opening prologue at the Ruta de Sol was a win for the little guys against the big guns. With such marquee names as Cadel Evans and Thomas Dekker (Silence-Lotto), Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Gilberto Simoni (Diquigiovanni) debuting their respective 2009 campaigns, it was unsung rider Xavier Tondo who came up big in Sunday’s 7.2km opening prologue for his locally sponsored Andalucía-CajaSur team. Tondo was a bundle of nerves when he crossed the line after posting the fastest time of 8 minutes, 31 seconds, knocking Joost Posthuma (Rabobank) out of the hot seat by a half-second.

Colombia's Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez (Diquigiovanni-Androni) won the 14th Tour de Langkawi Sunday, which ended with a criterium in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur. Serpa Perez, of the Diquigiovanni-Androni team, completed the seven-day, 1031.7km stage race with an overall time of 24:22:12. Australian Jai Crawford, representing his country's national team, took second, 27 seconds back. "I've never been an overall winner before this, as I never get to break away, said Serpa. “I'm really happy with the win. This year all my teammates have been a real help."

Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy has pulled out of racing the final day of the World Cup track meet in Copenhagen after a dramatic crash in the final of the men's keirin on Saturday. Hoy was the hero for Britain at last year's Olympics where he won three gold medals in the sprint, keirin and team sprint and in just over a month's time he will aim to defend his three world titles in those events at Pruskow, Poland. But in his first competition since Beijing the Scot was sent flying after making contact with Frenchman Kevin Sireau, who went on to win the race, in the chaotic keirin event.

Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank continued his winning ways by adding yet another impressive time trial victory today at the Tour of California prologue. His teammate, Gustav Larsson, placed 38th with a time of 4:45.