Road

First noticed spec’ed on newer Trek Madone road bikes, the Bontrager XXX Lite Road stem loses a little weight and cuts a sleeker profile than its predecessor. The original Bontrager XXX Lite carbon stem is still available for road and mountain bikes, but this newest model is specified for road use only. A couple of nice touches make it worth consideration as an aftermarket upgrade to any road bike.

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Director of athletics Pat McDonough left his position with USA Cycling on Monday, the national governing body confirmed. Jim Miller, the organization’s endurance program manager, had been appointed interim director of athletics effective immediately. USAC spokesman Andy Lee confirmed on Wednesday that McDonough was no longer with the federation, but would not elaborate on the terms of his departure. “I can verify that is the case, beyond that I’m not going to comment,” Lee said. “It’s company policy not to comment on personnel issues.”

USA Cycling is distributing nearly $360,000 in rebates from license sales to its 34 local associations, the governing body announced on Wednesday. Local associations receive $10 for every primary adult annual road/track/cyclocross license they sell to a member in their respective geographic areas, according to USA Cycling communications director Andy Lee. They also receive $5 per adult annual add-on license sold.

Bend, Oregon, will be the cycling capital of the United States for the next two years — USA Cycling announced Wednesday that it had awarded the town the 2009-10 junior, under-23 and elite road championships. Six weeks ago USA Cycling announced that Bend would host the next two editions of the cyclocross national championships.

Jimmy Casper delivered his new Besson Chaussures team its first victory of the 2009 season after out-kicking the field in the opening stage Wednesday at the Etoile de Bessèges in southern France. Casper — best known for his stage win in the 2006 Tour de France — crossed the line ahead of compatriot Sébastian Chavanel (Française des Jeux) and Belgian Klaas Lodewyck (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) to win the 128.6km stage from Bellegarde to Le Grau-du-Roi in a mass charge to the line.

Top Danish cycling team Saxo Bank has officially ended an internal anti-doping program run by Dr. Ramsus Damsgaard, though he remains with the team. The team previously known as CSC introduced its much-heralded program in the wake of the Operación Puerto drugs scandal, which erupted in Spain in May 2006. But the team said in a newspaper report Wednesday that the introduction of the Union Cycliste Internationale's latest weapon in the fight against doping — the so-called “biological passport” program — had forced management into reconsidering.

Mark Cavendish won his first race of the season by capturing the fourth stage of the Tour of Qatar Wednesday in Madinat Al Shamal. Team Columbia-High Road’s sprint specialist pulled ahead of a small group of riders in the final meters of the 141km stage to secure victory ahead of Germany's Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo TestTeam). Belgian Tom Boonen (Quick Step), who took the race lead from Cervélo’s Roger Hammond after winning Tuesday's stage, had launched the final drive for the line but gave up yards from home.

Brawny Italian sprinter Danilo Napolitano – racing this week at the Tour of Qatar – is hoping a change of team colors will put him back in the heat of the sprints in 2009. After an inconsistent season that saw him miss both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, Napolitano signed with Russian-sponsored Katusha to search out new motivation. With two second-places in the opening three stages at the Qatar race, the new team colors seems to be working so far.

Spanish sprinter Fran Ventoso has finally found a team for the 2009 season, inking a deal to join the Italian team Carmiooro-Astyle. The 26-year-old Ventoso turned pro in 2004 and raced four years with Saunier Duval. He enjoyed a breakout sprint victory in the 2006 Vuelta a España, but struggled last year with Andalucía-CajaSur. He two races early in the season but was overlooked for the team’s selection for the Vuelta.

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With the economy sucking wind like a sprinter on the Angrilu, participating in a pricey sport like bicycle racing must fall far short of the podium for most of us, well behind making the mortgage, the car payment and the utility bill.

The Ridley Noah is one of the latest in series of road frames developed specifically with aerodynamics in mind. As time trial bikes have pushed the aero envelope, many of the technologies discovered for TT use have also found a home on road frames. The added benefits incorporated by Ridley into the $3000 Noah frameset make it possibly one of the fastest road frames available.

Price: $2.50 each Weight: 32 grams Sizes: 1.1 ounce Flavors: Blueberry Pomegranate and Vanilla Orange Web site: www.guenergy.com GU now has a high-octane version of its original energy gel. Roctane is similar to the original GU energy gel but has added nutrients, including amino acids and electrolytes.

Sizes: 25-serving bag Price: $38.25 Web site: www.infinitnutrition.com When it comes to nutrition, size matters. A larger rider is going to require a higher caloric intake than a smaller one. In addition to size, there are other factors that result in our varying metabolic rates (and it always seems like the scrawniest guy at the table can down the biggest plate).

Belgian Tom Boonen (Quick Step) claimed his first stage win of this year's Tour of Qatar Tuesday, in the process taking the leader's jersey from Britain's Roger Hammond. Boonen, of Quick Step, won a bunch sprint at the end of the third stage ahead of Italian Danilo Napolitano and Belgian Jurgen Roelandts.

A Belgian court on Tuesday ruled that one of the country's biggest cycling stars, Tom Boonen, would not face criminal charges relating to a positive test for cocaine. Boonen, a former world champion and winner of a host of prestigious races, including Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, tested positive for the recreational drug in an out-of-competition test in May 2008.

Yuri Trofimov (Bouygues Telecom) is considered to be a top favorite heading into the 39th edition of the Etoile de Bessèges, Europe’s first stage race of the 2009 season. The Russian all-rounder dominated the 2008 edition that heralded his arrival to the pro ranks. He later went on to win a mountain stage at the Dauphiné Libéré. Trofimov looks to be entering the 2009 season with equal motivation and rode to a strong third in Sunday’s GP La Marseillaise.

The rate of loss

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Alberto Contador traveled to the United States on Sunday for Astana’s 10-day training camp in California where he will ride alongside teammate Lance Armstrong. It’s likely the last time the pair will be together until the Tour de France in July because they both have different racing schedules throughout the first half of the 2009 season. After his comeback to competition last month at the Tour Down Under, Armstrong’s schedule includes the Tour of California, the Tour of Flanders, Criterium International and the Giro di Trentino before his debut at the Giro d’Italia in May.

Roger Hammond (Cervélo Test Team) won the second stage of the Tour of Qatar on Monday after bringing home a solo attack late in the 134km race around Al Khor. Hammond, who takes over the race lead from fellow Briton Bradley Wiggins of Garmin-Slipstream, leapt away from a 14-man lead group and finished just one second ahead of a chase headed by Italian Danilo Napolitano (Team Katusha) and including Belgian sprint star Tom Boonen (Quick Step), who finished fourth. Hammond’s teammate Heinrich Haussler took third.

Daniele Bennati will stay with Liquigas through 2010 after the Italian sprinter penned a two-year contract extension with the team. After struggling through an injury-plagued 2008 season that saw him sidelined during the Tour de France, a healthy Bennati should once again be at the forefront in the mass sprints. “My physical problems suffered last year are memories now and I can train now with consistency,” Bennati said in a team release. “I’m still not in my best form, but by March I want to be competitive.”

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Powered by newcomer Bradley Wiggins, Garmin-Slipstream roared to victory in the team time trial to open the Tour of Qatar on Sunday. Wiggins, a winner of two gold medals on the track at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games, takes the leader’s jersey after crossing the line first with his new Garmin-Slipstream teammates. “It’s a big satisfaction because this first stage was a true goal for us in our winter preparation in Girona,” Wiggins said. “Now our week is saved and we can try the sprints without any pressure.”

With eight French riders in the top 10, it was no surprise that a national rider won the French opener to the 2009 European calendar in Sunday’s GP La Marseillaise. Rémi Pauriol gave his Cofidis team bragging rights for the first win of the 2009 season by staying clear of the chasing Bouygues Telecom duo of Thomas Voeckler and Yury Trofimov. Pauriol survived a series of decisive attacks in the opening hour of racing in the 136.8km route around the hills near Marseille.

After a rough year that saw him making headlines for all the wrong reasons, Tom Boonen just wants to hit the news when he wins a bike race. Last year saw Belgium’s prince of the cobblestones fall back to earth after failing an out-of-competition control for cocaine in late May and then being forced out of the Tour de France. Boonen never faced a racing sanction because cocaine is only considered a banned stimulant if detected during competition. Because he still faces possible charges in a Belgian court, Boonen doesn’t want to talk about anything except bike racing.

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Evidently the forge is still hot over at Santa Cruz bicycles. It waited less than a week after the introduction of its new carbon fiber Blur XC to release a brand new gravity-oriented model called the Driver 8, an 8-inch VPP bike with a unique blend of downhill and freeride characteristics. Santa Cruz intends the Driver 8 to be a versatile, all purpose, everyday gravity bike. In a happy surprise for both Santa Cruz and dirt riders everywhere, it’s ready for the public a month early. [nid:87103]

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Belgian Niels Albert may have some reason to thank his Dutch rival Lars Boom for his win in the elite men’s event at the world cyclocross championships in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands, on Sunday. The defending world champion didn’t even come close to affecting the race on his home turf in Holland, but his strong performances at worlds last year and in this year’s World Cup series may have given the usually dominant Belgians reason to set aside personal interests and work together as a team.

Having decided to bid for the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics, Qatar is now hoping to host a stage of the Tour de France some time in the future. Serious talks are underway between Tour de France officials and the Qatar Cycling Federation to bring the toughest cycling race to the streets of the oil and gas rich state, the Gulf Times newspaper reported on Sunday. Transporting hundreds of cyclists with all their gear from Europe may seem a huge logistical problem but officials have a solution for that too: just arrange an Airbus A-380.

There’s an old Dutch saying that notes that when two dogs are fighting for a bone, it’s often the third dog that ends up getting it. Holland’s Marianne Vos may have remembered that old line when she sat firmly in the middle of what appeared to be a battle for the women’s world cyclocross championship between Germany’s Hanka Kupfernagel and American Katie Compton on Sunday in Hoogerheide, in the Netherlands. Because of the bitter cold, the Hoogerheide course remained hard and fast for the women's race, and was likely to remain the way for the following men's event.

U.S. based Pro Continental team BMC is hoping to get wild card status again this year so it can earn invitations to ProTour events. Team director Gavin Chilcott left the team's training camp last week to fly to Swizerland to appear before the UCI License Commission. In a team statement. Chilcott said the team has applied for wild card status, which among other things, requires that the team participate in the UCI's Biological Passport anti-doping program. The team attained wild card status in 2008.

Ask Germany’s Philipp Walsleben which cyclocross races he hasn’t won as an Under-23 this season and takes him a bit to answer. “I think it’s three this season,” he answers with some hesitation, “but that’s as an U23 rider. I still have long way to go as an elite.”

"Current economic realities" have caused Michigan-based health insurance company Priority Health to pull its sponsorship of three major midwestern races, and at least one of the events has canceled its 2009 edition. Tour de Leelanau race director Steven Brown informed the Union Cyclist Internationale (UCI) on Friday that it was canceling the UCI category 1.2 event, which had been scheduled for May 24.

Dutchman Tijmen Eising continued his season-long romp through the junior ranks of international cyclocross, riding away from the field within the first 300 meters of the world championship in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands, on Saturday. Eising, the overall World Cup champion and winner of three of the series’ six races, took early command of the field on Saturday.

The long winter wait is over for fans champing at the bit to see some real European bike racing. The 2009 European calendar officially opens this weekend in France with the 26th GP La Marsellaise featuring 17 teams lining up for a 136.8km circuit on Sunday. The loop course around Marseille in southern France tackles some local climbs, including the Col de la Gineste, hard enough to give the adventurous rider a chance to escape the clutches of the main pack. The finish won’t be at Marseille’s glamorous Vieux-Port due to local roadwork and has been moved out toward the university.

A forecast calling for drizzle and cloud cover couldn’t scare away the 60 or so bike riders who showed up to the Holiday Inn in Temecula to ride with Floyd Landis and the 11 other members of the OUCH-Maxxis professional cycling team. The two-hour spin through nearby Fallbrook came at the beginning of the week long OUCH training camp, and the team organization opened it up to sponsors, media and the public.

On a plane bound for the Persian Gulf, the peloton sat together on our way to start the season. In an odd contrast of environments we traveled from Paris to Qatar, from the damp gray to the arid sun, from rolling roads in green and brown pastures to straight flat motorways in desert sand. Slowly, cycling is planting its roots in other cultures.

The weekend is here and it’s the biggest race in cyclocross: The world championships. If 'cross were included in the Olympics, we’d all have a bigger race to look forward to every four years. While talk of the Olympics is happening, so far it’s only talk. For now, we’ve got the rainbow stripes and it’s the highest honor any 'cross racer can achieve.

Less is more for Alejandro Valverde in 2009, at least that’s what Caisse d’Epargne is banking on as Spain’s best all-rounder takes aim for the Tour de France podium. With the idea of goal of peaking during July, Valverde will race less with the hopes of a big payoff on the Champs-Elysées. “I’ve decided to focus everything on the Tour,” Valverde said during the team’s presentation Thursday in Paris. “I’ll arrive in Monaco with less kilometers in my legs, but with more experience, which counts for something, too.”

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Colors: Black and Pink, Black, Gloss wood, White, Leopard, Caramel Sizes: One size fits most Weight: 29 grams Price: $59.95 Web site: www.tifosioptics.com [nid:87005]

Price: $15.95 Web site: www.velogear.com

The inclusion of a never-used climb dubbed Mont Ventoux’s “little sister” should prove decisive in the eight-day Paris-Nice. Garmin-Slipstream and Columbia-High Road each received invitations Thursday to start the 67th Paris-Nice as officials released details of the eight-day route with a few surprises thrown in for the season’s first major stage race. Just a day after being snubbed for the Giro d’Italia, Fuji-Servetto and Barloworld were both left off a list of 20 teams invited to the Race to the Sun, set for March 8-15.

Filippo Pozzato makes his season debut in his new team colors at Katusha this weekend at the Tour of Qatar a very different rider than he was one year ago. After a sub-par 2008 campaign with just two minor victories and a snub at selection for the Italian national team for the world championships in Varese, a fresh start at the Russian-sponsored Katusha is just what Pozzato says he needs to erase the bad memories.

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Giro’s vision was 20-20 when it signed Alberto Contador to promote its new eyewear line.

The Oregon Pro Cycling Classic will be a little late getting to the start line — the 500-mile, seven-day race is being postponed to 2010 after organizers were unable to secure a title sponsor and the necessary money to run the event this year. The National Racing Calendar event had been scheduled for May 11-17, kicking off with a prologue in Portland and stage finishes in Salem, Corvallis, Timberline Lodge, Hood River and Mt. Hood Meadows before returning to Portland for a concluding circuit race.

Italian national road champion Filippo Simeoni, who famously had a run-in with Lance Armstrong during the 2004 Tour de France, is not among the riders invited to this year’s Giro d’Italia. Simeoni’s Flaminia Bossini team was not on the preliminary list of 20 teams announced Wednesday. Other teams absent from the initial list include Cofidis, Euskaltel, Française des Jeux and Fuji, formerly Saunier Duval.

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I was looking through some blogs last night and came upon Bike Snob NYC . This guy writes a great blog and this post in particular gives some humorous TIPS that I though I would post. Cycling should be an enjoyable endeavor. However, if you find yourself in an amateur road race in the first place you’re the sort of person who seeks suffering rather than avoids it. If you simply must participate in amateur road racing, here are some tips to help ameliorate the adverse effects: Know Your Limits There is a fine line between ambition and delusion. The former is the fuel for success, and the latter is the way to ruin. I believe it was either Sheldon Brown or Ben Franklin who said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This is especially true when it comes to road racing. Basically, if you’ve never won a race before, you’re not suddenly going to start winning them now. So settle down, pick a wheel to follow, and stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, though, too many people fail to realize this, especially in the lower categories, where everybody stupidly sees him-or herself as a potential winner. When everyone’s going for the podium the result is a pile-up. It becomes like some moronic slapstick routine where eight people bend down to pick up the same $100 bill and just end up bashing their heads together as a gentle breeze carries the money down the street. The reason the higher categories generally see fewer crashes is not because

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While a few teams were racing Down Under, the Kelly Benefit Strategies team took advantage of everything a Northern Hemisphere had to offer this weekend, getting in some slope time at Colorado's Winter Park and Mary Jane downhill resort and the nearby Snow Mountain Ranch nordic ski area. VeloNews photographer Casey B. Gibson tagged along to capture some of the action. Casey reported no snowball fights, but noticed a contrast between the team's Canadian stalwarts and its Southern California contingent.

Dear Lennard,
Can I run a new CN-7900 chain with 7800 derailleur, cassette, and FSA crank set (53/38)? It is time to replace my 7800 chain and would like to upgrade to the CN-7900 chain.
Mike

It looks like Tom Boonen (Quick Step) will face stiffer competition in this year’s Tour of Qatar.