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The juxtaposition of the Festina drugs trial going on in Lille and the announcement Thursday in Paris of next year’s Tour de France route was not lost on race director Jean-Marie Leblanc. In a 5000-word speech, Leblanc made one reference to the trial that is dredging up the Festina team’s exclusion from the 1998 Tour because of its systematic drug use. Leblanc said, "After being brought down by dubious hands — as the Lille trial is showing right now — cycling … has suffered so much and worked so hard to correct things over the past two years, that it will end up with its head held high.

The 84th Giro d’Italia route was announced on November 11, and according to Marco Pantani, the 3572km race between Pescara on the eastern coast and Milan promises to be a “wide-open race.” Indeed, many of the stages of the May 19-June 10 race could favor a climber such as Pantani. The race includes 21 stages, an 8km prologue in Pescara, one rolling 55km time trial in stage 15, a foray into Slovenia, and one rest day before the San Remo-San Remo 17th stage. There are 22 major climbs spread out over 10 of the stages, with the highest being the Colle Fauniera at 2511 meters (8161 feet). Three

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Take 11

Written by Josh at Zipp:Here is an excerpt from a PM I sent to somebody a few weeks ago on this identical topic. I hope this helps clarify things somewhat... The outer aluminum hoop in our clincher rims weighs only 200 grams, and therefore will get much hotter than a standard aluminum rim. Since the temperature of something is relative to the energy input/mass, a 200 gram rim will get twice as hot as a 400 gram rim for the same energy input. What happens is that if your descending a mountain at 70 degrees and you brake for 2 minutes and your standard aluminum rims heat to 220 degrees (an