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One man competing at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour after a long spell off the radar is Garmin-Slipstream’s Trent Lowe, who has been absent from the pro peloton for nearly the entire 2009 season.

Belgian cyclist Frank Vandenbroucke has died at the age of 34, a source close to the racer told the French news service Agence France Presse. According to Belgian media, Vandenbroucke was found dead in his hotel room in Senegal, where he was on holiday. A preliminary diagnosis suggests Vandenbroucke suffered from a pulmonary embolism. "Sadly this has only partly come as a surprise, for we knew he was not doing too well," said his uncle, former racer Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke. "He was up and down, both in terms of his health and his morale. He left for Senegal on Sunday."

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Katie Compton (Planet Bike-Stevens) made it three for three on Sunday in the final round of the Cincinnati UCI3 Cyclocross Festival, while Jeremy Powers (Cyclocrossworld.com-Cannondale) used a tight corner just before the finishing straight to get the better of Ryan Trebon (Kona). The women’s race followed the script that had been written over the previous two rounds. Sue Butler (Monavie-Cannondale) got the hole shot, while Compton, who did not reconnoiter the course beforehand, was content to do her inspection during the race before riding off to another dominating win.

Proving that age is just a number, 40-year-old Estonian Jann Kirsipuu of the Malaysian team LeTua took the opening stage of Australia's Jayco Herald Sun Tour Monday in Ballarat. A four-time Tour de France stage winner, Kirsipuu out-sprinted Garmin-Slipstream’s Chris Sutton to take the stage win and the first leader’s jersey of the tour. Pre-race predictions proved correct, as strong crosswinds split the peloton just 30km into the 149km stage, with 41 riders making the selection.

Chad Gerlach’s high-profile comeback to pro cycling after five years of abusing drugs and living on the streets took a reverse this summer as he once again appeared to spiral down into addiction and panhandling. But more recently, with a new baby and assistance from family and friends, he’s off the street and back on the roads, in addiction treatment and hoping to resume his career.

David Clinger knows the sport of cycling from the highest of the highs to the lowest depths it brings. He knows those valleys and peaks depend as much on personal choices as they do on talent. It's why, when asked if he'd heard about Chad Gerlach's relapse into addiction, Clinger showed as much disappointment as sympathy.

Let the record show that upon crossing the finish line first Sunday in Rhode Island, Tim Johnson's first question was not about how his beloved Red Sox had fared in a playoff game that afternoon. Instead he asked how his Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com teammate Jeremy Powers had fared at the races in Ohio. Johnson made the Red Sox query next.

Sven Nys (Landbouwkredit-Colnago) came from behind to win the opening round of the Superprestige cyclocross series on Sunday in Ruddervoorde, Belgium. World champion Niels Albert (BKCP Powerplus) took the lead from the gun, leaving Nys, Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Projob) and Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea) in his wake. But with six laps to go Nys had fought his way up to Albert, and in short order he put the hammer down, quickly building a gap that the world champion could not close.

Belgian Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) on Sunday won Paris-Tours for the second straight year. Gilbert beat compatriot Tom Boonen and Slovenia's Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil) in a three-man dash for the line in the 230km semi-classic. Italian Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) finished fourth with Spaniard Oscar Freire fifth, some 20 seconds off the leading trio. For Gilbert the win brought a measure of revenge after Boonen pipped him to the Belgian championship in June.

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Suspended Austrian racer Bernhard Kohl has accused the doctor of his former Gerolsteiner team of overseeing an organized doping program at the 2008 Tour de France. In an interview published in the Austrian newspaper Kurier, Kohl charged said that physician Mark Schmidt was closely involved in doping riders. The 27-year-old former chimney sweep has admitted doping during the race, in which he had apparently won the king of the mountains jersey and finished third in the overall standings. Kohl’s results have since been negated.

It was a pair of Australian sprinters battling for opening honors at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour Sunday in the former gold-mining town of Ballarat, with Fly V Australia’s Jonathan Cantwell edging out Garmin-Slipstream’s Chris Sutton in a bike throw to the line. Cantwell got the better of Sutton after the Garmin rider opened his sprint 200 meters from the line out of a group of 18 riders that separated from the peloton halfway through the 60-minute “preface” criterium, which does not count towards the overall classification.

The Cincinnati UCI3 Festival moved north Saturday to the pocket-sized Sunset Park in Middletown, Ohio, for the Java Johnny’s – Lionhearts International; and Jeremy Powers and Katie Compton once again delivered an old-fashioned whuppin.'

Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) and Katerina Nash (Luna Chix) dominated the first day of the inaugural Providence Festival of Cyclocross in Rhode Island on Saturday. The race was held under dry, fast conditions at Roger Williams Park, a sprawling in-town venue strewn with duck ponds, a carousel, a zoo and a Parthenon-like stage that made a perfect podium. The park, which hosted the national cyclocross championships in 2005 and 2006, also was home to the Interbike trade-only bike demo days Thursday and Friday and a public bike expo this weekend.

The time trial is said to be the race of truth: a rider alone, without aid of drafting, sets off in a race against the clock.

Robert Gesink made up for some of his Vuelta a España disappointment by winning the 100th edition of Italy’s Giro dell'Emilia on Saturday. The Rabobank rider beat Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) and Swede Thomas Lovkvist (Columbia-HTC) in a sprint finish after 198.2km and five ascents of the San Luca climb. Australia's new world champion Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) finished fourth at 20 seconds, and 10 seconds ahead of Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov (Astana). It was Geesink's first win since a crash forced him out of Vuelta contention last month.

Only Saturday’s 72-mile (118 km) stage at the Vuelta a Chihuahua stands in the way of Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) delivering a victory. “I’m feeling relaxed, with no pressure,” Sevilla said. “I have very talented teammates around me who know what to do to make sure I maintain my lead through to the end.”

Jeremy Powers (Cannondale-cyclocrossworld.com) and Katie Compton (Planet Bike) were victorious by wide margins in Friday’s Cyclo Stampede, the opener of this year’s Cincinnati UCI3 Cyclocross Festival. But the race was truly dominated by the team of Mother Nature and Gravity. Mother Nature delivered plenty of pre-race rain, while gravity took advantage of riders as they rode, or rather, tried to ride, the multiple off-camber straights and turns on the course. Even Compton was victimized by the muddy slopes, falling twice and running off course in the first lap.

The 58th Jayco Herald Sun Tour, Australia’s second-largest stage race behind the Tour Down Under, takes place in Victoria from October 11-17, beginning in Ballarat on Sunday and ending in Melbourne six days later. Confirmed teams include American squads Garmin-Slipstream, led by Bradley Wiggins, Bissell, led by Ben Jacques-Maynes, Jelly Belly, led by Brad Huff, and Rock Racing, led by Ivan Dominguez.

Organizers said Friday that they are still finalizing the route of the fifth edition of the Amissa Bongo Tropical, slated for January 19 to 24 in the west central African country of Gabon. "We expect to finalize the route by the end of the month,” the organizers said in a statement. “We are considering routes through the Haut-Ogooué, Moyen-Ogooué and Woleu-Ntem and a finish in (the capital of) Libreville."

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Caisse d’Epargne’s Daniel Moreno won the fourth stage at Mexico’s Vuelta a Chihuahua Thursday, as Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) increased his lead in the overall standings with a third-place finish on the day. Sevilla finished 19 seconds behind Moreno in the 192km stage from Guachochi to Parral. Michael Rasmussen (Tecos Trek), who held the overall lead earlier in the race, was second, two seconds behind Moreno.

Niels Albert is on a roll. The world cyclocross champion, a rider who became the discipline’s new prince last season, started his season with four victories in the lead-up to the first World Cup in Treviso, Italy, which he went on to win. Until now, Sven Nys has been regarded as the king of ’cross, but he’s had a very different start to his season. After a top-15 placing at the 2009 mountain bike world championships, his cyclocross season had a rocky start.

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Philippe Gilbert (Silence-Lotto) won Italy's Coppa Sabatini Thursday, outsprinting ISD's Giovanni Visconti and Leonardo Bertagnoli (Diquigiovani) after joining a large and successful 24-man break earlier in the 199km race. Gilbert's teammate, recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans, was part of the break and remained aggressive throughout. Evans made a late surge on the final two-kilometer climb on the lastlap, setting a strong tempo for Gilbert and leaving the group strung out in single-file.

Vuelta a España points competition winner André Greipel added another win to an impressive 2009 record as he outsprinted the field at Paris-Bourges on Thursday. Greipel, powered ahead of a 91-rider field, beating JJ Haedo (Saxo Bank) and Cofidis’ Alexandre Usov to the line. The win is Greipel’s 20th of the season. Greipel was quick to credit his team for countering late attacks as other teams attempted to deny the German a shot at a field sprint.

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I am Barry's cracked and bleeding sinuses, pouring sticky sweet goo down into his nasal cavity. I am draining my wrath out on to his upper lip as he gasps for breath in the dry desert night. I am vengeful and full of hate. The evil stench of a million vacant souls trickles in past mucus and hair and fills me up to the brim, reinforcing my quest to punish in every way I can.

A day after Italian Gabriele Bosisio learned that he had failed a dope test, his countryman Francesco De Bonis has also been flagged as an EPO user. De Bonis, who rides with the Diquigiovanni team, tested positive for the new-generation EPO, known as a Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (CERA), during the first stage of the Giro d’Italia on May 7, according to the Italian press. The news comes a day after it was announced that LPR's Bosisio was caught out by a suprise out-of-competition test conducted by the UCI on September 2 at Rogeno.

The head of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) said Wednesday that his organization won't work with the UCI again until it takes steps to correct testing and procedural “failures” he observed during this year’s Tour de France. In press conference in Paris, AFLD director Pierre Bordry said he was bothered by the absence of positive test results from this year’s Tour, particularly in light of what he characterized as serious lapses in protocol by anti-doping testers from the UCI.

What can I do if I need to replace my tapered-steerer fork?

Are SRAM shift levers durable?

Should I be concerned about the durability of my Shimano 105 shifter?

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The Bissell team will have seven returning riders for 2010, including the Jacques-Maynes brothers, Frank Pipp, Paul Mach, Cody O’Reilly, Pete Latham and Jeremy Vennell. And the team will pick up three new riders: Kyle Wamsley, Daniel Holloway and David Williams. The most notable absence from the team next year will be Tom Zirbel, who will race for Garmin-Slipstream in 2010. The team is expected to announce more riders later.

Italian cyclist Gabriele Bosisio (LPR Brakes) has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for EPO, the UCI announced Tuesday. The 29-year-old was found positive in an out-of-competition test conducted by the UCI on September 2 at Rogeno, Italy. Bosisio’s LPR teammate, Danilo Di Luca, had apparently finished second in the Giro d’Italia in May, but was later suspended for failing two doping tests during the race. A UCI statement said Bosisio has been provisionally suspended, pending the outcome of a follow-up test.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced Tuesday that Houston-based Category 1 racer Mitch Comardo (Bike Barn) has been suspended for two years after testing positive for several prohibited substances.

When race director Christian Prudhomme unveils details of the 2010 Tour de France in Paris on October 14, his presentation will most likely emphasize the 100th anniversary of the first crossing of the Pyrénées with a course that culminates on the Col du Tourmalet just three days before the finish in Paris.

How can I keep water out of my aero frame?

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Editor’s note: The Clothes Line is an occasional column about clothing, shoes, helmets, and other accessories we’ve encountered. Clothing is possibly the most personal of all gear choices: two riders can try the same jersey and come back with completely different opinions. This is not meant as an extensive review (as in, worn until threadbare), but we simply hope to ride these products for as long as possible and report back on the basic fit and features. We hope you find it helpful.

It wasn’t a race. There was no prize money or podium ceremony. But crossing the finish line first Saturday at Levi Leipheimer’s inaugural King’s Ridge Gran Fondo, presented by Road ID, was a victory of sorts for Scott Nydam. On a sunny, if breezy, October day in Santa Rosa, California, the Team BMC rider who lives in the area was the first to finish the 103-mile Gran Fondo, one of three distances covered by more than 3,500 participants.

The 2009 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships concluded on Sunday at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, and Mitch Clinton was there, clicking away. His gallery can be found below.

Chris Horner has signed with Team RadioShack for the next two seasons, according to an Oregon newspaper. Horner told The Oregonian that he had talked with other teams, “but wanted to stay here” — that being alongside Astana teammates Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.

A record field of nearly 1,400 racers and their cowbell-clanging families, friends and fans spilled onto the fields of Alpenrose Dairy in southwest Portland Sunday to ring in the start of the 2009 River City Bicycles Cross Crusade series. Home of the Alpenrose Velodrome, the dairy-turned-corporate-headquarters also features a Wild West town, a go-kart race track and a world-class baseball field that plays host to the Little League Softball World Series every summer. And just about all of it played a part in the race Sunday.

The UCI has rejected charges that its doping testers showed preferential treatment to the Astana team at this year's Tour de France. The governing body's response was in reaction to published reports that the team of Tour de France winner Alberto Contador and third placed Lance Armstrong were given an easy ride during dope tests at the 2009 event.

Why do my feet slip inside my cycling shoes?

The sun shone on Massachusetts' Cape Ann on Sunday, as local boy Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) and Canadian Natasha Elliott (Louis Garneau) won on the second day of the Great Brewers Gloucester Grand Prix of Cyclocross, in much different conditions than the first day.

Katie Compton (Planet Bike) and Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus) won their respective races on Sunday as the 2009-10 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup opened in Treviso, Italy. Compton hit the line 28 seconds ahead of Daphny Van Den Brand with Christel Ferrier-Bruneau (Vision 1 Racing) third at 34 seconds. World champion Albert, meanwhile, crushed the competition, finishing 42 seconds ahead of Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea) with Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb Pro Job) third at 52 seconds back. The second round of the World Cup will be October 18 in Pizen, Czech Republic.

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Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) won the four-stage Circuit Franco-Belge on Sunday. The final stage win went to Juan José Haedo (Saxo Bank), who out-kicked Yauheni Hutarovich (Française des Jeux and Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam) in a bunch dash to the line after 147.1km of racing from Mons to Tournai. Farrar punctured in the final 5km, but chased back on to finish 53rd on the day, in the same time as the stage winner, to take the overall by eight seconds over runner-up Tom Boonen (Quick Step) and 14 on Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam).

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Sitting in the middle of the peloton, riding along at a steady tempo as a team controls the pace on the front, I hear our director in the radio: “There is a dangerous descent coming up in four kilometers. Move to the front to stay out of trouble. There is gravel on the corners and many switchbacks. Get to the front.”

Jonathan Page (Planet Bike) scored a rare win on this side of the Atlantic on Saturday, riding away from all challengers on a muddy course in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Quick Step's Tom Boonen won the third stage of the Franco-Belge stage race on Saturday in a sprint finish ahead of England's Roger Hammond (Cervélo TestTeam) and American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream). Farrar continues to hold the overall race lead after winning the first two stages in the race which finishes Sunday at Tournai.

Reigning Vuelta a España champion Alejandro Valverde has brought his season to a premature end admitting he needs rest before beginning to plan his race objectives for next season. Valverde was originally slated to compete in the Paris-Bourges race on Thursday and the Paris Tours one-day classic next weekend, but after discussions with his Caisse d'Epargne team he has decided to hang up his bike. "I need to rest both mentally and physically before thinking towards next season and resuming training," said Valverde, who will compete in a few criterium races in the coming weeks.

We could start this year’s first cross’ diary by talking about racing, but for the moment we’re gonna talk about flyin’.

The owners of the Austrian laboratory Humanplasma, already at the center of a huge doping scandal, admitted tax evasion on Friday but denied any role in doping athletes. Officials for the lab admitted not declaring 300,000 Euros earned from taking blood tests from athletes but continued to deny accusations of being involved in doping. "We have informed the authorities for several months," said lab spokeswoman Michaela Eisler. "The blood tests were simply stocked on lab premises. There were no transfusions."

Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) made it two in a row Friday at the Circuit Franco-Belge. Just a day after winning the opening stage of the four-day race across the French-Belgian border, Farrar kicked his way to his 10th win on the 2009 season. Farrar won ahead of Alexandre Usov (Cofidis) in the 225.7km second stage from Maubeuge, France to Poperinge, Belgium, with French rider Jimmy Casper (Chausson-Sojasun) coming across the line third.

Rio de Janeiro will become the first South American city to host the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee voted to award the 2016 Games to the former Brazilian capital on Friday. The city of Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics came to an early end after the city was eliminated in the first round of voting during the IOC's site selection meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Emboldened by his bronze medal at last weekend’s world championship, Spanish rider Joaquím Rodríguez now wants to win the Giro di Lombardia. Called “Purito” within the peloton, the pint-sized puncheur still has a full racing calendar, with scheduled starts at Paris-Bourges, Paris-Tours, Giro del Piemonte, Giro di Lombardia and the Japan Cup. That heavy end-of-season schedule means there’s no time for celebrating a well-deserved worlds medal that helped save the honor for the heavily-favored Spanish team.

Thor Hushovd wants to make it loud and clear: he’s intending on racing the 2010 Tour de France and defending his green jersey. There were some conflicting reports that the Norwegian winner of the 2009 sprinter’s jersey might skip the Tour, but the Cervélo TestTeam rider confirmed that next July will be much like this year.

An expected 3,500 cyclists will take to the streets of Santa Rosa, California, at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning for the start of the inaugural King Ridge Gran Fondo, a mass-participation ride promoted by local cycling star Levi Leipheimer.

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Lance Armstrong said he still hasn’t decided whether he’ll race at the Tour of California or the Giro d’Italia next season as he prepares for the 2010 Tour de France. That’s according to an interview in the newest issue of Vélo magazine in France. Armstrong provided the first glimpse of what his racing schedule will look like with his new RadioShack team. Like he did in his comeback season last year, he will debut at the Tour Down Under in January in Australia.

he 2009 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships opened in the velodrome at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, on Wednesday as Cody O’Reilly (Bissell) and Cari Higgins (Proman) were awarded the first-ever elite omnium national titles. In all, three national champions were crowned on the first day of competition inside the country’s only 250-meter indoor velodrome.

Lennard Zinn has been spending time in the shop (as always) and had a chance to try out a new hacksaw specifically designed for cutting carbon fiber tubes (like fork steerer tubes, handlebars, and seatposts). He and test editor Matt Pacocha reviewed several additional tools in our November issue, which is on sale now. Also in that issue, we have a rundown of 12 must-have tools for your shop or garage. Effetto Mariposa CarboCut hacksaw Retail price: $65

Recently crowned world champion Cadel Evans promises to honor the rainbow jersey with aggressive racing for the remainder of the 2009 season. The 32-year-old Aussie isn’t wasting any time, and will make his debut in the famed rainbow jersey on October 8 in the Coppa Sabatini in Italy. “I will try to honor the rainbow jersey even if my legs are understandably a little tired after a grueling season,” Evans said during a press conference Thursday at the Silence-Lotto team headquarters.

Tyler Farrar is back in the winner’s circle, sprinting to victory Thursday in the opening stage of the Circuit Franco-Belge. Farrar out-kicked Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) to claim victory in the 213.6km stage from Templeuve, France, to Mouscron, Belgium. Tom Boonen (Quick Step) came across third in the mass gallop and Saxo Bank's JJ Haedo rounded out the top four. The win also puts the leader’s jersey on Farrar’s back after the opening stage of the four-day Franco-Belge race.

Alexander Kolobnev is quickly earning a reputation as a rider who delivers in major international competition. With his second world championship silver medal in three years, and a fourth-place that could turn into bronze from last summer’s Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the consistent Russia knows how to pack a punch come crunch time. “They call me the sniper,” Kolobnev told VeloNews. “You have one shot, then you have to wait 364 days until the next chance.”

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British sprint specialist Mark Cavendish has pulled out of Paris-Tours, the road sprint classic on October 11, his Columbia team announced on Wednesday. Cavendish, who won six stages at this year's Tour de France, had already withdrawn from the world championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland with a lung infection. The Isle of Mann rider recently pulled out of September's Tour of Missouri after two stage wins with the same problem.

The B-sample requested by former Silence-Lotto rider Thomas Dekker has confirmed his positive drugs test for the banned blood-booster EPO, the Dutch ANP news agency reported on Wednesday. The wire service said that Dekker has accepted the findings and is awaiting his sanction. The sample was originally taken on December 24, 2007, but new procedures introduced since then allowed for further tests which revealed a positive reading for EPO and the rider was ruled out of this year's Tour de France three days before the start in July.

A glance down the world championship results sheet reconfirms the notion that the best way to assure a shot at the rainbow jersey is to race the Vuelta a España … and to finish it. The entire top 10 of the elite men’s road race Sunday in Mendrisio competed in the Vuelta. Most of them rode all the way to Madrid, and the three that didn’t finish the Vuelta shared a total of five stage victories.

Alberto Contador spent time this week speaking with Spanish school children about a new book by author Jordi Sierra i Fabra, a collection of stories about the cyclist's early years and the challenges he's faced in his career. The two-time Tour de France champion presented the book aimed at children, “Querer es Poder,” (Where there’s a will, there’s a way) to a group of students Monday, but one story he’d like to conclude is where he will race in 2010. Contador said everything remains undecided about his home for the upcoming season.

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