Road

Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre) continues on good form, out-kicking Grega Bole (Amica Chips) to win the Giro del Friuli Wednesday in Pordenone, Italy. It was the third win of the season for Lorenzetto, who took two stages last week at the Giro di Sardegna. Taking third in the 188km race in northeastern Italy was Manuel Belletti (Diquigiovanni) with Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) fourth out of a lead pack of about 30 riders.

Italian Gilberto Simoni (Serramenti PVC Disquigiovanni) attacked on the last climb to win stage 3 of the Vuelta Mexico on Tuesday and take over the yellow jersey.

Fabian Cancellara’s classics campaign is in doubt following a shoulder injury that forced him out of today’s start of the five-day Vuelta a Murcia. The Olympic time trial champion recently crashed at his home in Switzerland during a training ride, injuring his right shoulder blade and throwing a wrench into his racing and training schedule ahead of the spring classics.

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With so many exhibitors combining to bring unlimited creativity to NAHBS this year, the stories and photos are far from exhausted. Among the myriad of bicycle configurations on display in Indianapolis, those with only a single cog and chainring represented a majority. Many were track bikes, urban fixed gear bikes, commuters, town bikes, and even a cyclocross bike or two.

Jackson Rodriguez (Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni) won Monday's second stage of the Vuelta Mexico, a 205km route from De Huajuapan to León-Puebla. Canadian Andrew Pinfold (OUCH-Maxxis) finished second while young American Peter Stetina of a composite U25 American team leads the Most Aggressive category of the eight-stage event.

Sid Taberlay (Sho Air-Specialized) and Krista Park (NoTubes-Magura) claimed victory at the Bonelli Park cross-country race in San Dimas, California on March 1. The race was the opening round of the inaugural US Cup, a 13-race series of mountain bike races across the United States. The race was also the first event of the Kenda Cup West, the seven-race West Coast half of the US Cup. The race opened with motorcycle rider Jason Britton, star of Speed Television’s show “Super Bikes,” riding a wheelie at the head of the men’s field through the neutral start on his stunt motorcycle.

Sitting on a plane headed back to Spain after a weekend of racing and a day spent pre-riding Paris-Roubaix sectors, I’m pretty sure that classics season is now officially open. The blister on my hand, right where the ring finger creases as I type, is a good reminder. Yep, pave is in no way easy on the body. My fingers, and the slight ache that run through them as they roam the keyboard would be reminder number 2. Moving on to other contact points with the bike; well, yeah, I’ll be reminded tomorrow.

Dutch rider Steven de Jongh will miss the upcoming spring classics due to a painful muscle tear that will require surgery.   The Quick Step veteran was unable to defend his title at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne last weekend because he thought he was suffering from tendonitis dating back to a nasty crash at the Tour of Qatar in January.   Further tests Tuesday, however, revealed that he has a torn bicep femoris muscle, the team reported.   De Jongh is scheduled for surgery on Friday at the Herentals Clinic in Belgium. He will be sidelined for at least six weeks.  

Chris Hoy, Britain's four-time Olympic track-cycling gold medalist, announced on Tuesday he was withdrawing from this month's World Championships in Poland because of injury. Hoy, who has suffered complications following a hip injury sustained when falling off his bike in the keirin final of the Copenhagen leg of the World Cup in February, said: "I'm hugely disappointed that I'm not going to be riding in the Worlds."

Change is just what Robbie McEwen needed. His move to Katusha for a two-year deal with the start-up Russian squad has put the fire back into the veteran Australian sprinter. Not that it’s ever gone away, but McEwen didn’t have his best season in 2008, coming off just five wins and getting blanked in the grand tours. McEwen will see more support in the sprints with Katusha and he already has two wins under his belt before the end of February.

Team Saxo Bank is expecting big things in this year’s Paris-Nice and brings a stacked squad that includes candidates for stage wins as well as a shot at the GC for the season’s first major stage race. Headlining the team’s GC hopes will be Fränk Schleck, winner of a stage at the Tour of California last month, while Olympic silver medalist Gustav Larsson has a chance to win the opening time trial for the “Race to the Sun,” set for March 8-15.

Dear Lennard,
You may want to do a little better research when answering these questions next time because both of your CO2 answers were completely wrong.

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With a grassroots movement that continues to flourish, a handful of pro races to show off and national championships in two disciplines being fought out on its turf, the Pacific Northwest looks to be a hotbed of cycling again in 2009. The local peloton will shift into high gear March 1 when the nearly 30-year-old Banana Belt Series hits the roads around Henry Hagg Lake, about a half hour west of Portland. Banana Belt promoter Jeff Mitchem says he expects anywhere from 350-500 participants for each of the three series races, depending on the weather.

Price: $80 Weight: 117 grams Sizes: EBB Shells 68 x 55mm Colors: Red, blue, silver, black Web site: www.ninerbikes.com Do you rely on an eccentric bottom bracket (EBB) for proper chain tension on your single speed, internally geared hub, or tandem? If so the new Niner Bio-Centric EBB may come as a relief to your current creaking and ovalized EBB shell woes.

More than 1,700 people attended Sunday's final day of the fifth annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Indianapolis, bringing the weekend’s total to almost 6,500. Exhibitors commented on Saturday’s huge crowds, and many shared the feeling that this was the best NAHBS ever. Awards for the best bikes on display were announced near the close of the show.

Lance Armstrong’s road map back to the Tour de France continues to take shape. Astana team officials confirmed to VeloNews that Armstrong is scheduled to race Milan-San Remo (March 21), Vuelta a Castilla y León (March 23-27) the Giro di Trentino (April 22-25), the Giro d’Italia (May 9-31) and the Tour de France (July 4-26).

Editor's note: Tom LeCarner, VeloNews' copy editor, is an avid cyclist who has been unable to ride and train for most of 2008 because of knee pain. He is being treated at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, using Specialized Body Geometry equipment and services at Specialized's expense and reporting on his progress in regular columns.

A series of cycling events in eastern Kentucky this summer will culminate in a UCI-sanctioned stage race for juniors. The UCI 2.1 Elite Junior Tour of the Red River Gorge kicks off on Tuesday, July 13th with a prologue in Irvine, followed later in the day with the Irvine-Winchester-Mt. Sterling-Stanton road race.

Oscar Freire (Rabobank) has pulled out of Milan-San Remo, citing injuries sustained when he fell during the Amgen Tour of California, his team announced on Monday. The 33-year-old Spaniard, who broke two ribs in the stage-4 crash, has also withdrawn from the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, which precedes the spring classic.

After an exciting opening weekend of the classics season – with Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen taking a pair of victories in Belgium – the hammerheads have plenty on their plates this week. The top draw for the first week of March is Monte Paschi Eroica in Italy, already considered a major event despite only its third year on the calendar. Spanish stage racing continues in the sunny south with the Vuelta a Murcia, where Denis Menchov (Rabobank) is the top name joining mostly Spanish riders in the five-day race.

The 2009 Giro d’Italia promises to be a star-studded affair, with defending Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre expecting to be one of the favorites duking it out for the maglia rosa. The Cervélo captain has some unfinished business of sorts with the Giro. Boasting podium spots in both the Tour (1st in 2008, 3rd in 2006) and Vuelta (2nd in 2005, 07 and 3rd in 2008), the Spanish climber only lacks a top three in the corsa rosa to join an elite club of grand tour podium finishers.

Among all the builders and the wide selections of material, color, construction and size at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, one common theme that I’ve noticed is a distinct respect for all-purpose, utilitarian bikes. Perhaps it’s a reaction to fuel prices during the summer, or simply an expression of the small builders’ ethic, but at least 70 percent of the builders on display are showing some variant of an urban town bike, a cargo bike or an all-purpose touring road bike.

Juan Pablo Magallanes of Mexico’s national squad won the opening stage of the Vuelta Mexico-TelMex, outsprinting his fellow breakaway companion, Francesco Rivera (Amica Chips Knauf). The two left the field early in the day, building up to a lead of 4:15 before being reeled back over the final lap of a nine-kilometer circuit in Lunes del Cerro, in the province of Oaxaca.

In Switzerland, French rider Rémi Pauriol (Cofidis) took his second win on the season ahead of veteran Davide Rebellin (Diquigiovanni) after the pair peeled away in the 178km GP Lugano. The 26-year-old Frenchman won the GP d’Ouverture Marseillaise to open the French calendar on Feb. 1 and takes a victory a month later on the opening weekend of the Swiss calendar. Last year, Rebellin finished second in the GP Lugano to Rinaldo Nocentini, but took revenge on his Italian rival by beating him for the overall at Paris-Nice two weeks later.

Greg Henderson scored a sprint victory in Sunday’s Clásica Almería in the Spanish one-day race controlled perfectly by the Columbia-Highroad team. Henderson out-kicked Graeme Brown (Rabobank) for his first win on the season while Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) came through third out of a reduced, 35-strong front group.