Road

Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) won the fourth stage of Spain’s Tour of Murcia and seized the overall lead on Saturday. Valverde covered the 23.3km individual time trial between Alhama de Murcie and Aledo in 32 minutes, 57 seconds, beating José Angel Gomez (Saunier Duval-Prodir) by 31 seconds and Angel Vicioso (Relax-Gam) by a further four seconds. He now has 35 seconds on Vicioso and 52 on Manuel Lloret (Fuerteventura-Canari) going into Sunday’s final stage, a comparatively flat 151km leg from Ceuti to Murcie. Di Luca wins Milan-TurinDanilo Di Luca (Liquigas) outsprinted

Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health) is two for two in Bentley’s Central Valley Classic, adding a win in Saturday’s individual time trial to his victory in Friday’s stage-1 road race and solidifying his grip on the overall lead. Meanwhile, 1994 national time-trial champion Christine Thorburn (Webcor Builders) rode to victory in the women’s race, vaulting from 16th place to take the white-and-black leader’s jersey from Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home). Australian Rory Sutherland (Health Net-Maxxis) was just four seconds slower than Jacques-Maynes, moving into second overall at 18 seconds

LAMPRE-FONDITAL1. Vila Errandonea Patxi (Sp)2. Fabio Baldato (I)3. Daniele Bennati (I)4. Claudio Corioni (I)5. David Loosli (Swi)6. Massimiliano Mori (I)7. Daniele Righi (I)8. Tadej Valjavec (SLO)CAISSE D’EPARGNE11. Joaquim Rodriguez (Sp)12. Vicente Garcia Acosta (Sp)13. David Lopez Garcia (Sp)14. Aitor Perez Arrieta (Sp)15. Francisco Perez Sanchez (Sp)16. Nicolas Portal (F)17. Vicente Reynes (Sp)18. Luis Sanchez (Sp)EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI21. Samuel Sanchez (Sp)22. Andoni Aranaga (Sp)23. Mikel Astarloza (Sp)24. Markel Irizar (Sp)25. Alan Perez (Sp)26. Ruben Perez (Sp)27. Ivan Velasco (Sp)28.

Australian Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won Friday’s third stage of the Tour of Murcia in Spain. Brown crossed ahead of compatriot Baden Cooke (Unibet.com) and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) to win the 146km stage between Puerto Lumbreras and San Pedro del Pinatar. Cooke, meanwhile, took the overall lead from José Joaquin Rojas, winner of Wednesday’s first stage. Brown and Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) sit second and third overall, respectively. High winds forced the cancellation of Thursday’s second stage. Riders, commissaires and race organizers agreed that winds as strong as

Unibet.com has failed in an appeal to have Paris-Nice race organizers include them in the field for this year's race, a source told AFP on Friday. The Belgian-Swedish cycling team is one of 20 ProTour teams that are supposed to have guaranteed admittance to all ProTour races. However, ASO, the company that runs Paris-Nice and the Tour de France among other events, refused to comply with UCI rules and opted not to invite Unibet.com to the Race to the Sun, which begins with a prologue on Sunday. "We began a procedure at the Nanterre (Paris region) court to try to be included in the

Under sunny California skies in the small Sierra foothills town of Raymond, Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health) and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) donned the leaders' jerseys after winning the first stage of Bentley's Central Valley Classic, the second race on this year's NRC calendar. Jacques-Maynes crossed solo in the men's 102.5-mile race, though Eric Wohlberg (Symmetrics) was bearing down on him in the final kilometer. "Wohlberg was closing fast,” Jacques-Maynes said. “This last 1K was the slowest 1K I've ever done. I was definitely hurting by that point. At the

A healthy North American presence will highlight next week’s Paris-Nice with no less than eight riders from five teams represented. The robust contingent reflects the continued strong position of U.S. and Canadian riders in the European peloton. Paris-Nice will mark the continental arrival of most of the Americans. Tyler Farrar (Cofidis) has been racing in Europe for nearly a month while Michael Barry (T-Mobile) was in Mallorca for his team presentation and training camp last month. Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer, joined by Discovery Channel teammate Tom Danielson, will be

It’s Alejandro Valverde against a galaxy of stars at the five-day Vuelta a Murcia starting in Spain on Wednesday. The Spanish sensation won his “hometown” race in 2004 and is fresh off overall victory at last week’s Tour of Valencia, but the lack of a summit finish and the inclusion of a tough individual time trial could spoil the chances for Balaverde. “I am not in optimum conditions to win,” Valverde told the Spanish daily AS. “After looking at the route, everything points that the climbing time trial between Alhama and Aledo will be decisive and there will be other favorites. This will

TorqueDear Lennard,I recently purchased my first full carbon bike, absolutely love it. Yet, I'm scared of over-torquing the seatpost clamp. Is there a torque wrench you could recommend that works on Allen wrenches? What's the worst that happens, the seatpost clamp needs replacing or I have this fear of the actual seat tube deforming, I'm not doing the Samsonite luggage monkey torque on it, but "hand tighten" is just too open to quantify.ThomasDear Thomas,First of all, carbon frames generally have a separate band clamp to tighten the seatpost, and, yes, the worst that can happen,

The Unibet.com team has slammed the agreement reached between the UnionCycliste Internationale and cycling's three grand tour organizers.Called to an emergency meeting organized by ProTour teams in Belgiumon Monday, the UCI and ASO, the organizer of the Tour de France, reachedan agreement to end a dispute that threatened the entire 2007 season. The agreement allowed for 18 of the 20 ProTour teams - all those exceptthe two most recent, Astana and Unibet.com - to be selected for eventsrun by ASO, RCS (Giro d’Italia) and Unipublic (Vuelta a España).In return, all three agreed to consider

Samuel Sánchez believes someday he might be able to challenge for the Tour de France, but first he wants to prove himself in the Vuelta a España. After years nipping at the edges of major success, the Euskaltel-Euskadi attacker broke through last year to finish third overall in the 2006 individual ProTour standings after an season that included victory at the GP Zürich, second at Flèche Wallone, two stages at the Vuelta al País Vasco, a stage at the Vuelta and seventh overall. He also played a key role in last year’s world championships, springing teammate Alejandro Valverde toward the

Alexandre Vinokourov just wants to win the Tour de France, but it seems all these other annoyances keep getting in the way. The reigning Vuelta a España champion expressed frustration over the escalating battle between the UCI and Tour de France organizers ASO and said he dreads the thought of a scenario that it might boil over to keep him out of the Tour yet again. He’s had enough of that already. “I can understand both sides of the conflict,” Vinokourov told VeloNews in an interview during last week’s Tour of Valencia. “It’s a difficult time for cycling. All the time the news is filled

This being my first VeloNews.com journal, let me start by introducing myself. I’m 25; hail from Boulder, Colorado, where I live with my wife, Cheynna; and ride for Team Slipstream Sports-Chipotle. The past two years, under the banner of TIAA-CREF, our program has made a slow and steady progression towards a full bi-continental program, and this year we have full schedules in both the States and Europe. As a Professional Continental team we’ll be doing some of the biggest non-ProTour races in the world and hoping for the occasional ProTour wildcard invite. In this journal I aim to provide a

This is the first of what we hope will become a regular feature on VeloNews.com. There are cyclo-cross races for cross-dressers in California, stage races named after dearly departed canines in Wyoming and a host of other events across America that offer a look into what it's like to race bikes at all levels. You don't necessarily need top pros to make it interesting. In order for the "Local Scene" to succeed, we need your help. If a race in your area deserves notice, drop us a short story, highlighting not only the racing, but some of the local character that makes it unique. Mail

German cyclist Jorg Jaksche said Monday he is ready to follow compatriot Jan Ullrich into retirement. The 2004 Paris-Nice winner has been struggling to find a team since being caught up in the Spanish Operación Puerto blood-doping scandal that broke before last year's Tour de France. "I can't really see what options I have other than stopping. My career is in ruins. I know when I'll officially announce my decision but I'll keep it to myself," he said. Jaksche is in negotiations to join second-tier Austrian team Volksbank, which has employed Ullrich as a

It took nine hours of intense haggling, but the UCI and cycling’s biggest race organizers signed a truce Monday that will save the 2007 racing season and avert a major crisis that threatened to split the sport. Next week’s Paris-Nice will start as planned without the possibility of sanctions against participating teams after cycling’s governing body and Tour de France organizer ASO hammered out a temporary agreement to keep cycling’s racing calendar intact through the 2007 season. “I am happy that the sport has got out of this crisis and look forward to a season where cycling can be the

If Alejandro Valverde is the here-and-now in Spanish cycling, Alberto Contador is the big hope for the future. The 24-year-old has been nipping at the edge of major success the past few seasons and since signing a two-year deal with Discovery Channel, the Madrileño seems poised for a breakthrough season. Contador revealed he’ll be a factor this season, winning Friday’s “queen stage” in the Volta a la Comunidad Valenciana ahead of Valverde. Only a crash earlier in the week kept him from taking the overall. A pro since 2003, Contador nearly died in the Vuelta a Asturias in 2004 when he

A day after losing Het Volk, Tom Boonen took revenge in Sunday’s Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne. The Quick Step-Innergetic captain took an emotional sprint victory to earn a valuable confidence-booster in the opening weekend of Belgian racing. Gert Steegmans gave him a perfect leadout and Boonen dramatically finished off the job to finish ahead of Marcel Sieberg (Milram). “Winning in Belgium always gives me a special buzz,” Boonen said. “I wasn’t sure how things would go today after yesterday’s falls as I was still suffering with a bit of a backache at the beginning of the race. My teammates were

Past Winners – Het Volk2006 - Philippe Gilbert (B) 2005 - Nick Nuyens (B) 2004 - cancelled (snow) 2003 - Johan Museeuw (B) 2002 - Peter Van Petegem (B) 2001 - Michele Bartoli (I) 2000 - Johan Museeuw (B) 1999 - Frank Vandenbroucke (B) 1998 - Peter Van Petegem (B) 1997 - Peter Van Petegem (B) 1996 - Tom Steels (B) 1995 - Franco Ballerini (I) 1994 - Wilfried Nelissen (B) 1993 - Wilfried Nelissen (B) 1992 - Johan Capiot (B) 1991 - Andreas Kappes (G) 1990 - Johan Capiot (B) 1989 - Etienne De Wilde (B) 1988 - Ronny Van Holen (B) 1987 - Teun van Vliet (Nl) 1986 - cancelled

World number one and defending World Cup champion Nicole Cooke from Wales won the opening round of the 2007 World Cup road series in Geelong, Australia, Saturday. Her performance comes two days after becoming the first non-Australian to win the lead-up three-day Geelong Tour, outsprinting Oenone Wood and fellow Australian Nikki Egyed to win Saturday's 120-kilometer race. Cooke and her Raleigh team have been training here for a month, giving her plenty of time to prepare for the first round race. "The way it all panned out, holding off the bunch, beating such a fantastic sprinter like

Italian Filippo Pozzato proved he’s the strongman of the early season after taking an impressive victory Saturday in the Belgian season opener at Het Volk ahead of Spanish headbanger Juan Antonio Flecha (Rabobank) and pre-race favorite Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic). A winner last week at the Tour du Haut-Var, the Liquigas captain delivered on his promise to be a protagonist in the 62nd Het Volk thanks to a brilliant finale that combined strength with savvy. “This victory was sensational because it came in front of some big names – Flecha, Boonen, Nuyens, O’Grady – who will be favorites

Surprise was the word of the day in the final stage of the five-day Volta a la Comunidad Valenciana, which wrapped up Saturday in sunny Spain. Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) expressed his delight in winning his first stage race of the 2007 campaign when he came to Valencia without any intention of doing so while Daniele Bennati (Lampre-Fondital) bowled over everyone with yet another sprint victory over Alessandro Petacchi (Milram) in the final charge into Valencia. “I am very happy that I was able to achieve it with the help of the team. The truth is at the start I never imagined I

Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) floored it in the finale to win the Merco Credit Union Cycling Classic’s Downtown Grand Prix on Saturday in Merced, California. Dominguez outkicked Ricardo Escuela (Successful Living.com) and Daniel Schmatz (BMC) at the end of the 50-lap criterium, run on an 0.8-mile circuit in downtown Merced. Brooke Miller (Team TIBCO) won the 40-lap women’s race ahead of Elis Bradshaw (Metromint Cycling) and Suzanne de Goede (T-Mobile). Sunday brings the Foothills Road Race, run on a rolling, 24-mile circuit. Elite men will cover 120 miles, elite women 72. Merco Credit

Alberto Contador gave Discovery Channel its first win of the season on European roads after taking an impressive victory in Friday’s 162km stage of the Volta a Comunidad Valenciana. The Spanish prodigy outclassed the likes of Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) in the seven-climb “queen stage” that ended with the short but steep Cat. 1 summit at Alt del Campello. Valverde finished 13 seconds back to sneak into the leader’s jersey thanks to time bonuses and could walk away with the overall title with just one sprinter’s stage left. Tadej Valjavec

ProTour cycling teams, caught up in a dispute that has led to a major schism in the sport, are hoping to hold a "last chance" meeting Monday in a bid to pacify the warring parties. The primacy of the Union Cycliste Internationale and the ProTour are being challenged by the three grand tour organizers, which control nearly half of the series’ 27-race calendar. ASO, RCS and Unipublic respectively own the Tours of France, Italy and Spain as well as a number of other races on the ProTour calendar. Nonetheless, they have virtually broken away from the ProTour after deciding not to invite

There were plenty of power meters being used at this year’s Tour of California, largely because it offered a unique early season opportunity for riders to test themselves against some of the world’s best. Indeed, four teams made racing with a power meter a very high priority at the eight-day California race, because this would be the best field the world would see prior to Paris-Nice. What better opportunity to start collecting crucial numbers? The professional teams Predictor-Lotto (Belgium), T-Mobile (Germany) and Slipstream (USA) as well as the U.S. National Team each stressed the

The ongoing conflict between cycling's international governing body and major race organizers has prompted six national federations to call for the urgent creation of a working group ahead of key major races. With the symbolic start to the season at Paris-Nice on March 11, riders and teams have been caught in the middle of a tit-for-tat feud which has escalated to potentially dangerous levels. The Union Cycliste Internationale and three top organizers have been battling since the creation of the ProTour, cycling’s top-tier racing schedule. The companies, which organize the Tour de

Two out of three ain’t bad, at least as far as Daniele Bennati is concerned. The Lampre sprinter took down Alessandro Petacchi in Thursday’s third stage of the Valencia tour in Spain, and this time there wasn’t a flat tire for Petacchi to hang the loss on. “I am happy to beat him again because it’s never easy to beat Petacchi,” said Bennati, who bolted a bike length ahead of the Milram captain in the 151.8km third stage into Vila Real. Bennati also recaptured the overall leader’s jersey with time bonuses. Bennati beat Petacchi in Tuesday’s opener, but only after Petacchi was forced to

Two major UCI-sanctioned events slated for April, the inaugural U.S. Open Cycling Championships and the fifth edition of the Tour de Georgia, are struggling to land title sponsors as their respective race dates approach. And while neither has been canceled, both face financial shortfalls that could make running them cost-prohibitive. The inaugural U.S. Open Cycling Championships is scheduled to run from Williamsburg to Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday, April 7. NBC Sports has slated a national broadcast for 2 to 4:30 p.m. EST. With both men’s and women’s pro fields invited, the event is

Alessandro Petacchi gingerly stepped off the sign-in podium ahead of Wednesday’s second stage at the Volta a Comunidad Valenciana. Even though he says his left knee is close to 100 percent after his disastrous crash in last May’s Giro d’Italia, the Gentleman Sprinter isn’t taking any chances. “My leg isn’t yet 100 percent, but it’s getting better and better,” said Petacchi, who won a long sprint ahead of Spain’s Vicente Reynes. “At [Tour of] Qatar, I couldn’t make the sprints against [Tom] Boonen because my knee hurt, but my condition improved in Algarve and now I am feeling even better

Oscar Sevilla was all smiles at the start of Wednesday’s second stage at the Tour of Valencia in what’s his first race back in action after being kicked out ahead of the Tour de France last July. Sevilla, now 30, was among nine riders not allowed to start the 2006 Tour after his named appeared on the infamous Operación Puerto list. Like all riders implicated in the scandal, Sevilla never received any official bans or sanctions, but that didn’t stop his T-Mobile team from letting him go last year. Sevilla has since penned a deal to join Spanish continental team Relax-GAM for the 2007 season

Questions, and suggestions, about stuck seatposts, especially carbon posts

Belgian cycling legend Eddie Merckx has paid tribute to embattled German star Jan Ullrich, who announced his retirement from cycling. Ullrich's decision to quit came after he was implicated in an alleged blood-doping network being run by a Spanish doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, and sacked by his T-Mobile team during last year's Tour de France race. The team said at the time that damaging evidence from Spanish investigators in Madrid prompted the decision to drop its star rider. Announcing his decision Monday, Ullrich, 33, the 1997 Tour de France winner and five-time runner-up, said he

The season is now fully underway and I now have my first race under my belt: the Tour of California. The race was a triumph for American cycling with massive crowds attending each stage, a world class peloton (likely the best competing at any race in the world at the moment) and a hard fought battle that lasted right up until the penultimate stage. For us, the cyclists, it was a quality event that was well organized, with good hotels, short transfers, and ideal weather. The racing was tough enough for us to gain fitness and progress while not depleting ourselves too much this early in the

Any sprint victory with Alessandro Petacchi among protagonists is one worth celebrating, especially when it comes in the run-up to the season’s most important race for Italian sprinters. Daniele Bennati (Lampre) snatched a morale-boosting victory ahead of next month’s Milan-San Remo after he surprised a leg-heavy Petacchi, who was forced to chase back from a puncture with nine kilometers to go in the 162.7km Valenciana opener in Alzira. “I knew the only chance to beat Petacchi was to anticipate his sprint and I did that today just at the right moment,” said Bennati, who held off Petacchi by

Follow this link for full Coverage of the 2007 Amgen Tour of California

The early season Spanish racing calendar continues this week with the five-stage Volta a la Comunidad Valenciana. With riders anxious to put some racing miles in their legs ahead of the approaching spring classics, the race is enjoying a fine field with top sprinters and classics-hunters looking to hone their form. Among preliminary start lists are such heavyweights as Alexandre Vinokourov, making his season debut in Astana colors. The Vuelta a España champion will likely keep a low profile as Vino is betting everything on being prepared for the Tour de France. Caisse d’Epargne will have a

Overall 1. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, 24:57:24 2. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, at 0:21 3. Jason McCartney (USA), Discovery Channel, at 0:54 4. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, at 1:06 5. Stuart O'Grady (Aus), CSC, at 1:16 6. Christian Vandevelde (USA), CSC, at 1:24 7. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, at 1:32 8. Ben Day (Aus), Navigators Insurance, at 1:38 9. Franco Pellizotti (I), Liquigas-Bianchi, at 1:41 10. Ryder Hesjedal (Can), Health Net Maxxis, at 1:57

Eusebio Unzué has had a front-row seat to some of the most exciting exploits in cycling. The affable and passionate sport director for Spain’s Navarra region helped guide Pedro Delgado and then Miguel Indurain into the record books during what were the golden years of Spanish cycling in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. As sport director at Caisse d’Epargne-Illes Balears, Unzué is already well into his third decade behind the wheel in Spain’s most consistent and successful team. Unzué, who celebrates his 52nd birthday on Monday, has been the right-hand man to team manager José Miguel Echávvari

Pozzato snags Haut VarItalian Filippo Pozzato snagged an impressive victory Sunday in the 39th Tour du Haut-Var as a warm-up toward defending his Milan-San Remo crown next month. The Liquigas captain edged Simon Gerrans (Ag2r) and Spanish rider Ricardo Serrano (Tinkoff) to win the 200km race in the hilly country around Draguignan that also kick-started the season-long French Cup series. Pozzato, the heavy pre-race favorite, covered an early move that included 22 riders in the open half of the race. Leonardo Giordani was the day’s main protagonist after slipping away in a solo move for some

Shoreline Drive in Long Beach may not be the Champs-Élysées, but just as the Tour de France traditionally ends with a sprinters’ showdown, so the 2007 Amgen Tour of California climaxed Sunday afternoon with a spectacular mass charge to the line. And just as a surprising winner often takes the Tour’s final stage, so Cuban Ivan Dominguez shocked the heavy hitters of the UCI ProTour and give the stage 7 victory to his domestic American team, Toyota-United.

That's a wrap, as they say in Hollywood (hey, it's Oscar night; so sue us). Here's Casey Gibson's final envelope from the Amgen Tour of California.

Professional teams caught up in a mounting feud between cycling's world ruling body and major race organizers have announced they will not boycott the first major race of the season next week. The UCI ruled last week that teams aiming to take part in the Paris-Nice stage race would be doing so against the rules of the ProTour, which the UCI introduced more than two years ago. Paris-Nice organizer Amaury Sports Organization (ASO), which also runs the Tour de France, recently declared that it would remove the event from the ProTour calendar and conduct it under the auspices of the French

It was one for the books today — CSC's Stuart O'Grady nearly pulled off a race-changing break, Discovery's George Hincapie was one of the main engines in the successful pursuit, despite a broken arm, and record crowds saw it all happen. So did Casey Gibson, and he was taking pictures. Here they are.

[nid:37650]When people look back at the developing history of the Amgen Tour of California they will say that the race came of age on stage 6 of the 2007 edition. Even though Saturday’s 105.4-mile stage from Santa Barbara ended in a mass sprint in sunny Santa Clarita, won by Team CSC’s J.J. Haedo from T-Mobile’s Greg Henderson and Quick Step’s world champion Paolo Bettini, this was no parade.

Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins returned to the track with a winning individual-pursuit ride on Friday during the final round of the 2006-07 UCI Track World Cup series in Manchester, Great Britain. In his first individual pursuit since winning gold in Athens in 2004, the 26-year-old beat Russia's Alexander Serov in a time of 4 minutes, 17.864 seconds while Australia's Brad McGee was almost five seconds slower. "To do that in a first competitive race - I'm really pleased," said Wiggins. "Because you can go as hard as you like in training but you never know until you get on the

Some people think time trials are boring. Not us. We like to see the 22nd-century aero' technology, parched tongues dragging on the front tire, and those first hints of a fatigue wobble that tell you, "Mmm, hmm, stick a fork in him." Casey Gibson must like them, too, 'cause he sent back a ton of shots from today's Amgen Tour of California ITT in and around Solvang. Then again, we do pay him. . . .

[nid:37630]Seconds after Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer hurtled across the finish line in Solvang to win Friday’s time-trial stage of the Amgen Tour of California, he repeatedly punched the air and let out a guttural scream of excitement. The thousands of fans lining the finishing straight roared their approval for his stunning performance, realizing that it virtually wraps up his overall victory in the eight-day race.

The UCI fired back at rebel race organizers Friday and officially banned ProTour and second-tier continental teams from starting next month’s Paris-Nice race in France. The stern ruling threatens to throw the cycling into turmoil at the start of the 2007 season and marks a definitive split between cycling’s governing body and Amaury Sports Organization, the powerful media conglomerate that also owns such events as the Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix. In a tersely written statement issued Friday afternoon, cycling’s governing body said “teams holding a UCI ProTour license and UCI

Petacchi takes win in AlgarveAlessandro Petacchi scored another confidence-boosting win ahead of Milan-San Remo after charging to victory in the third stage of the Tour of the Algarve while Bernard Eisel (T-Mobile) snagged second and moved into the overall lead. Petacchi held off Eisel, the winner of Thursday’s stage, to claim victory for the second time this year and makes up for a relegation earlier this week for dangerous sprinting. Eisel came through second to take the time bonuses to move into the leader’s jersey while Roman Vaitkus (Discovery Channel) was third. "Today was finally

[nid:37614]Just as sunshine followed rain on Thursday’s beautiful ride along the Big Sur coast at the Amgen Tour of California, so the stage 4 victory in San Luis Obispo by world champ Paolo Bettini of Italy was just a trailer for Friday’s time-trial showdown. Going into the rolling 14.5-mile TT in Solvang, Discovery Channel’s Levi Leipheimer still has a three-second margin over his main challenger, Jens Voigt of CSC, but a half-dozen others remain in contention, including three-time world TT champion Michael Rogers of T-Mobile, who’s 19 seconds back.

The Tour of California is starting to become interesting as there are still several riders with a good shot at winning the overall classification after Wednesday’s hard and fast stage into San Jose. It seems every team wants to make the race hard on race leader, Levi Leipheimer’s team, Discovery Channel, and today they had to control the race on the front for most of the stage—and it was certainly not an easy stage to control as it was hilly and windy, and the peloton that sat in their draft feisty. Since the start, we, T-Mobile, have been fighting hard for a stage win. We narrowly missed

Freire takes Ruta by a second over CioniSpaniard Oscar Freire (Rabobank) won the final stage and the overall at the Ruta del Sol on Thursday, taking the victory from Dario Cioni (Predictor-Lotto) by a single second. The 170.9km stage from Ecija to Antequera was marked by an early break by Netherlander Piet Rooijakkers (Skil-Shimano) and Spaniard Benat Albizuri (Euskaltel-Euskadi), who built a lead of six minutes before being retrieved as the peloton entered Antequera. There, Freire finished two seconds up on a small group containing Cioni, who had led the race since Sunday. Ruta del

Cycling rolls into the 2007 season a house divided. At almost every level of the sport, cycling is facing ruptures of unprecedented proportions. Operación Puerto, the Floyd Landis scandal, the ProTour battle and waning interest among media and fans have left cycling battled and bruised. Rather than circle the wagons and close ranks, cycling’s power brokers are engaged in a incendiary civil war. Divisions run deep and wide: the UCI vs. the grand tours; teams vs. teams; and rider vs. rider over the war on doping. Among the major fractures are: Chinks in the façade of solidarity among

It wasn't exactly the kind of day a photographer enjoys — torrential rain is not kind to camera gear, especially when you're hitching a ride on a moto — but our man Casey Gibson persevered, and the results can be seen below.

Cyclists in many parts of the country are ready to leave behind long rideson the trainer and eagerly await warmer weather and putting in some qualityroad miles. As you continue to train and prepare for the 2007 season, don’tignore a small, but essential component of your training diet. Adequateiron intake and optimal iron stores are essential to putting in full effortson the bike. Low iron stores can impair athletic performance, and correctingiron deficiency that has led to full blown anemia, can take several monthsto correct, potentially bringing an unwelcome halt to your training andracing

Boonen turns it up in RutaTom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic) is back in the winner’s column after coming out of a self-imposed hibernation since the Tour of Qatar in January. The Belgian out-kicked Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) to win Wednesday’s 179.2km fourth stage from Cabra to Córdoba at the Ruta del Sol in Spain to claim his sixth victory barely a month into the 2007 season. Boonen raced discreetly last week at the Mallorca Challenge without contesting the sprints and kept his head low during the opening three stages of the five-day Ruta while he battled through a stomach

Wednesday's stage from Stockton to San José turned into a real bike race when a 17-man break scampered off the front of the main field early in the race. With race leader Levi Leipheimer under pressure, the Discovery Channel team put the hammer down and delivered the yellow jersey to the base of Sierra Road in time to reel in the escapees.Our guy Casey Gibson was there to document the action.

[nid:37587]Things didn’t start well for Team CSC at this year’s Amgen Tour of California. Largely due to shifting wind conditions, the squad’s time-trial specialists, including Dave Zabriskie and Fabian Cancellara, who went one-two at the 2006 world time trial championships, were shut out of the top three spots in the opening prologue in San Francisco.

Ignatiev wins againMikhail Ignatiev is quickly proving he can bump shoulders with the big boys. The 21-year-old Russian won for the second time in a week with a victory Tuesday in the 44th Trofeo Laigueglia in Italy. The Tinkoff Credit Systems rider – who won the third stage last week at the Tour Méditerranéen – put down a surprise attack with about 7km to go after the peloton split going over the 690m Passo Balestrino in the 188km hilly march. The 2004 Olympic points champion had enough in the tank to hold off some chasing Italians to snag the win. Coming through second at four seconds

Argentinean ace J.J. Haedo blasted to the front of another all-ProTour sprint finish Tuesday to win the second stage of the Amgen Tour of California. After yesterday’s chaotic finish, Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) was happy to have remained intact and safely inside an upright peloton after three circuits of downtown Sacramento concluded the 116-mile stage from his hometown of Santa Rosa.

The domestic Priority Health team enjoyed a great first day in its first Tour of California, with Ben Jacques-Maynes taking third in the prologue and Brian Sheedy winning the race’s first King of the Mountains jersey. "This whole team is really coming together well," said Jacques-Maynes before Sunday’s prologue. "I think we’re really going to show ourselves. People may not have heard of us before now; we’ve been an upstart team. But people are really going to know us by the end of this tour." Racing the Tour of California last year under Sierra Nevada’s banner, Jacques-Maynes muscled his

Freire wins in RutaOscar Freire drove home the bunch Monday to win the second stage of the Ruta del Sol, a 156.6km stage from Vegas del Genil to Cazorla in southern Spain. The three-time world champion held off Francisco José Ventoso (Saunier Duval-Prodir) in the mass sprint to snag his second win of the 2007 season. The Rabobank sprinter, who just missed victory in Sunday’s opener after Dario Cioni (Predictor-Lotto) held off a long breakaway, clawed within one second of Cioni’s lead thanks to time bonuses. The race continues Tuesday with the third stage. Hamilton satisfied, eyes Georgia

A last-ditch meeting Monday between the UCI and ASO made little headway toward solving the disagreements threatening to push the ProTour league into chaos. The UCI issued a terse statement Monday evening saying it would be reviewing its options on how to deal with the upstart race organizers after being snubbed yet again by officials from ASO, the organizers of such events as the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and Paris-Nice. "ASO has staked its position, with contempt of the function and legitimacy of the UCI as an international federation, and plans to substitute it with a destabilizing

Narrow, nervous and windy — that was the report from Stage 1 of the 2007 Amgen Tour of California, which saw more than one rider hit the deck between Sausalito and Santa Rosa. But Casey Gibson's shots remind us that it's not all pain and suffering out there. Take a peek.

For the second year in a row, American Levi Leipheimer took the podium of the Amgen Tour of California as the race leader in his hometown of Santa Rosa. This year, however, it wasn’t under circumstances the Discovery Channel rider would have chosen. Australian sprinter Graeme Brown (Rabobank) won Monday's Stage 1 after Leipheimer went down in a 50-rider pile-up with two 3-mile laps of a downtown finishing circuit remaining in the 156.4km stage.

The 2006 season was not a good one to be a cycling doctor, but the string of doping scandals that traumatized cycling last year could have a positive effect on the sport. In the wake of the departure of franchise rider Jan Ullrich, T-Mobile has instituted a groundbreaking monitoring program it says will guarantee that its riders are not cheating. And in the process, they hope to help rebuild the credibility of the sport in the eyes of fans and media. Dr. Lothar Heinrich has been a T-Mobile doctor since 1995. But he nearly quit cycling following the revelations that came out of the Operación

The world’s top cycling team in 2006, Team CSC, spent the first two weeks of February at a training camp in Gilroy, California. Team director Bjarne Riis didn’t pick the self-proclaimed "Garlic Capital of the World" for its plethora of pungent produce, but for its farm roads swooping into and around the Santa Cruz Mountains, which provide an ideal training ground. Plus Gilroy sits a short spin away from roads that will be the battleground for the first half of the Amgen Tour of California, which begins today in San Francisco. CSC has lofty goals in California, as demonstrated by the depth of

A thousand cyclists marched through the Spanish city of Vigo on Sunday to demand that Oscar Pereiro be declared the winner of the 2006 Tour de France. "It's great to see the people support me," said the Caisse d'Epargne rider, who finished second to Floyd Landis in last year’s Tour. The American subsequently tested positive for a skewed testosterone-epitestosterone level and faces arbitration before the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Sunday’s protest was dubbed the "yellow march" in reference to the color of the winner's jersey in the Tour. Organizers say they will now send a

It was a short race, but a dramatic one, with a former trash-truck driver holding off some of the best riders in the world — until defending prologue winner Levi Leipheimer clocked in and went to work. Casey Gibson was there to capture it all; here's what he sent home.

After a several months of training we are now ready, and eager to race. The last few weeks the eight-man T-Mobile Tour of California squad has been in Buellton, California training and fine-tuning for the coming season. Storm after storm blew through Boulder every weekend during the last months of 2006 and the first months of 2007 and after spending a few good weeks in the sun in Mallorca, I wasn’t too keen to train outdoors in the snow or indoors on the trainer, so I made the decision to head to the California for some sun and time in the saddle. Prior to our team camp I rode alone in

Defying an increasing wind that saw the likes of world time-trial champion Fabian Cancellara (CSC) fall out of contention, Levi Leipheimer stormed to the Amgen Tour of California prologue win on Sunday atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. The last rider to leave the starting house, Leipheimer flew down the flat one-mile stretch of The Embarcadero along the water before turning onto the steep Telegraph Hill climb towards Coit Tower with pitches as steep as 22 percent.

Never before has there been such a plethora of leading time trialists on display in an American stage race as fans will see this Sunday and next Friday at the Amgen Tour of California. Three of the top four from last year’s world TT championships will be competing — gold and silver medalists Fabian Cancellara and Dave Zabriskie of CSC, and their former teammate Brian Vandborg, now with Discovery Channel — along with the top two from the Tour de France prologue, Thor Hushovd of Crédit Agricole and George Hincapie of Discovery. Joining them are such powerful riders against the clock as CSC’s

The Amgen Tour of California is just rolling into its second year as a domestic event, but its organizers hope it can become the fourth grand tour of worldwide bicycle racing. "Our finish line is to host a grand tour," said Shawn Hunter, president of AEG Sports, during a kickoff press conference at the Argonaut Hotel at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. "People laughed when we said that over a year ago. They said, ‘Let’s see you pull off one year of the race first.’ Well, we did, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve. We want to grow this into a fourth grand tour. We want to

Ace shooter Casey Gibson was clicking away on Saturday as the second Amgen Tour of California prepared to get under way. Here's a sampler of what he saw.

Luis León Sánchez (Illes Balears-Caisse d’Epargne) hopes his victory in the Mallorca Challenge will help put behind him some painful chapters that were threatening to overwhelm his promising career. The 23-year-old claimed the unofficial overall title Thursday at the five-day Mallorca series (riders are allowed to pick and choose which stages they start) and he said the win takes some weight off his shoulders. “I was motivated to achieve a victory as soon as possible to send it to my brother,” Sánchez told EFE, referring to his older brother who died in a quad accident last year. “I’ve done

Tyler Hamilton will likely race the 2007 Giro d’Italia after Tinkoff Credit Systems was among 22 teams named Friday to start the corsa rosa in May. Hamilton, who returned to racing last week following a two-year racing ban, said returning to the Giro was one of his top goals for the 2007 season. Hamilton won a stage and finished second overall in the 2002 Giro. Giro organizers RCS Sport released its official start list Friday with some controversy. Left out was new ProTour team Unibet.com, which has been facing the scorn of Giro and Tour de France officials as part of the ever-widening

Buyer’s Guide CorrectionBrain fade set in on the finishing sprint for the VeloNews Buyer’sGuide. The North American Handmade Bicycle Show, March 2 – 4, takes placein San Jose, California, not San Diego as the Buyer’s Guide states. Forcomplete information, visit the Show’s site: www.handmadebicycleshow.com 

With the hours counting down to the start of the Amgen Tour of California, race officials have one small request: Please leave your cans of paint at home. Medalist Sports technical director Chuck Hodge, one of the men responsible for designing stage routes, also has the responsibility of applying for race permits to city and county officials. Whether it’s at the Tour of California or Tour de Georgia, Hodge said one of the biggest obstacles in the permit-application process comes down to community anger over roads covered with the painted names of riders. "I know every cycling fan thinks

Perhaps more than anyone, Spanish rider Oscar Pereiro laments the slow wheels of justice when it comes to resolving the Floyd Landis doping case at the 2006 Tour de France. Pereiro, as runner-up in last year’s Tour, has the most to gain if Landis loses in his bid to prove his innocence against doping charges. And Pereiro maintains he has lost the most of any of the other protagonists in the unfortunate scenario if Landis becomes the first rider of the modern era to have his Tour crown stripped away. “I couldn’t and my team couldn’t maximize the benefits of a Tour victory because of this