COL DU GALIBIER, France (VN) — Thursday’s gigantic stage 18 at the Tour de France was all about survival, whether that was simply to stay in the race and fight a more strategic battle to remain in the race for the yellow jersey.
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PUY SAINT PIERRE, France (VN) - As teams whose top-five GC hopes have faded often do, Garmin-Cervélo is chasing the teams classification at the Tour de France. But with four stage wins, a week in the maillot jaune and an American rookie fighting for the top-10, Garmin’s Tour has been their best ever and Tom Danielson leads the squad in a run at the final podium in the final three days of the race.
After two weeks of watching and waiting, a bike race broke out Thursday as Andy Schleck took the most important stage of his career.
COL DU GALIBIER, France (VN) — Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) collapsed on his handlebars after defending the yellow jersey by 15 seconds in Thursday's epic stage over the Alps.
Cadel Evans talks to reporters after stage 18
Brian Holcombe chats with HTC's Bernhard Eisel
Lazer Helium: Great helmet, lousy buckle
OL DU GALIBIER, France (VN) ─ Moments after crossing the finish line demoralized and exhausted, Alberto Contador admitted the obvious and said his hopes of winning the 2011 Tour de France are over.
PUYS SAINT PIERRE, France (VN) — Cadel Evans was a man on an island high above Briançon Wednesday as he pursued an audacious Andy Schleck to the summit of the Col du Galibier. After the finish Evans and his BMC Racing team management said they rode to win and were critical of the tactics of the other top GC riders.
COL DU GALIBIER, France (VN) — For days, fans, media and the peloton have been openly criticizing and questioning how Leopard-Trek was racing the 2011 Tour de France.
COL du GALIBIER, France (AFP) - British sprint king Mark Cavendish survived being eliminated from the Tour de France after the epic 18th stage to the Col du Galibier Thursday.
Cork remnants, long-low pros, and what do retired pros ride?
Stage
Andy Schleck rode the stage of his life on Thursday, with a dramatic 60km-plus solo breakaway that put the Leopard-Trek rider into position to win the 2011 Tour de France.
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PINEROLO, Italy (VN) — When you look west from Pinerolo, your eyes are drawn to the Alps, whose majestic peaks received a new dusting of snow this week. It was in this sparkling city of the Piedmont (literally “foot of the mountain”) region where the legendary Italian rider Fausto Coppi scored one of his most famous coups: a 192km solo odyssey over five alpine passes to finish almost 12 minutes ahead of second-place Gino Bartali to clinch his overall victory in the 1949 Giro d’Italia.
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The UCI is requiring organizers of the inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge to reshuffle its team lineup to honor a rule prohibiting teams under common ownership from participating in the same event.
Contador's director says he will keep attacking
Andy Schleck says stage 17 finish descent 'not really necessary'
Andrew Hood and Brian Holcombe take apart stage 17
Want to be a better climber? Or maybe a better sprinter?
PINEROLO, Italy (VN) — Jens Voigt strongly defended Leopard-Trek's tactic of riding for both Schleck brothers throughout the Tour de France rather than rally behind one of the brothers as a single leader.
PINEROLO, Italy (VN) — Alberto Contador reached across to Samuel Sánchez to shake his hand as the pair crossed the line Thursday after another daring raid that fell short.
PINEROLO, Italy (VN) - Two-time defending champion Alberto Contador has lit a fire at the front of the Tour de France in the final week ahead of the three biggest days in this year’s race. Contador’s Saxo Bank-Sungard manager Bjarne Riis said the Spaniard is recovered from the knee injury that hampered him in the Pyrénées and that he must attack every rider in the race on the road to the Col du Galibier Thursday.
Brian Holcombe checks in with HTC's Bernhard Eisel
Team Sky's Edvald Boasson Hagen won his second stage of the 2011 Tour de France on Wednesday, improving on his second place of the day before and giving Norway two stage wins in a row and its fourth stage of this Tour.
Stage
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Costa Rica’s Andrey Amador (Movistar) spent Monday in quiet reflection after learning that he is professional cycling’s only rider not rumored to be joining BMC Racing in 2012.
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Check out CyclingTips's author page.
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Check out CyclingTips's author page.
GAP, France (AFP) - Tour de France leader Thomas Voeckler admitted to being put in trouble Tuesday after a surprise attack by reigning champion Alberto Contador threw the yellow jersey race wide open.
Welshman Geraint Thomas, who wore the Tour's best young rider white jersey during much of the race's opening week, has signed a new three-year deal with Team Sky.
GAP, France (VN) — Jonathan Vaughters (Garmin-Cervelo) says he's encouraged by signs that this Tour de France is a cleaner race.
GAP, France (VN) — Alberto Contador (SaxoBank-Sungard) said he wasn't going to ride all the way to Paris without a fight.
Thomas Voeckler's custom yellow Colnago C59
GAP, France (AFP) — Tour de France officials said Tuesday they were "not worried" by snowfall high up in the Alps a day before the peloton tackles three days in the mountains.
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Stage
Garmin Cervelo's world champion Thor Hushovd on Tuesday won his second individual stage of the 2011 Tour de France, a cold, rainy, 162.5km race from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Gap.
GAP, France (VN) - Angelo Zomegnan is out as director of the Giro d'Italia.
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Former American cycling star Lance Armstrong has accused a group of media giants of reporting grand jury information which had allegedly been illegally leaked.
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Christian Vande Velde auditions for VeloNews reporter job
Tom Danielson's excited for the Alps to begin
SAINT-PAUL-TROIS-CHATEAUX, France (VN) — The UCI and the Tour de France parent company (ASO) rolled out a new agreement Monday to get the debut Tour of Beijing off the ground this October.
VIDEO: Tyler Farrar: "I don't know" if Cavendish took pulls
SAINT-PAUL-TROIS-CHATEAUX, France (VN) — Mark Cavendish's fourth stage win Sunday didn't sit well with some of the other top sprinters who couldn't hold back their frustration that perhaps Cavendish made it through Saturday's brutal climbing stage up Plateau de Beille with something more than his own two legs.
USA Pro Cycling Challenge organizers on Monday unveiled the race jerseys for the inaugural event, set for August 22-28.
PARIS (AFP) - Quick Step's Tom Boonen, who dropped out of the Tour de France on the seventh stage after an earlier crash, is to return to the road in the Tour of Poland, his team announced on Monday.
SAINTE CÉCILE LES VIGNES, France (VN) - Four days in the mountains and a Belgian classics rider lie in the way of Mark Cavendish and his green jersey dreams. As the Tour de France heads for its final week in the Alps, Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) is closer now than ever to taking the maillot vert home, but he’ll have to outdo two rivals and 12 categorized climbs to stand on the podium in Paris in green.
A cold hard rain is forecast for Tuesday's stage 16. John Wilcockson takes a look at how such conditions have turned previous Tours upside down.
Excerpted with permission from: The Tour Is Won on the Alpe by Jean-Paul Vespini, translated by David V. Herlihy
SAINT-PAUL-TRES-CHATEAUX, France (VN) ─ As the dust settled for Monday's rest day in the Tour de France, many inside the peloton were looking at Leopard-Trek with a critical eye.
Dan Wuori is one of the funniest Twitter bards in the cycling world (follow him at @dwuori). This month, he will be expanding a bit beyond 140 characters to share periodic journals during the Tour de France. Today's is the 15th.
BMC's Cadel Evans wonders whether the big names are underestimating Thomas Voeckler.
Tyler Farrar finds it frustrating to get nipped by a resurgent Mark Cavendish.
Tejay Van Garderen is still stoked to be racing the Tour and hopes to take home his own stage win.
Andrew Hood and Brian Holcombe break down stage 15.
Jérôme Coppel's Time RXRS UL Team.
if other teams don't want to ride for a sprint, what's the point of bringing a sprinter here?” asks Mark Cavendish. "If I was in a team that didn't want to ride for a sprint, it would be a bit of a knock to my ego. A sprinter is a bit of an egotistical person, you know."