Road

Mirco Lorenzetto (Lampre) continues on good form, out-kicking Grega Bole (Amica Chips) to win the Giro del Friuli Wednesday in Pordenone, Italy. It was the third win of the season for Lorenzetto, who took two stages last week at the Giro di Sardegna. Taking third in the 188km race in northeastern Italy was Manuel Belletti (Diquigiovanni) with Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) fourth out of a lead pack of about 30 riders.

Italian Gilberto Simoni (Serramenti PVC Disquigiovanni) attacked on the last climb to win stage 3 of the Vuelta Mexico on Tuesday and take over the yellow jersey.

Fabian Cancellara’s classics campaign is in doubt following a shoulder injury that forced him out of today’s start of the five-day Vuelta a Murcia. The Olympic time trial champion recently crashed at his home in Switzerland during a training ride, injuring his right shoulder blade and throwing a wrench into his racing and training schedule ahead of the spring classics.

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With so many exhibitors combining to bring unlimited creativity to NAHBS this year, the stories and photos are far from exhausted. Among the myriad of bicycle configurations on display in Indianapolis, those with only a single cog and chainring represented a majority. Many were track bikes, urban fixed gear bikes, commuters, town bikes, and even a cyclocross bike or two.

Jackson Rodriguez (Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni) won Monday's second stage of the Vuelta Mexico, a 205km route from De Huajuapan to León-Puebla. Canadian Andrew Pinfold (OUCH-Maxxis) finished second while young American Peter Stetina of a composite U25 American team leads the Most Aggressive category of the eight-stage event.

Sid Taberlay (Sho Air-Specialized) and Krista Park (NoTubes-Magura) claimed victory at the Bonelli Park cross-country race in San Dimas, California on March 1. The race was the opening round of the inaugural US Cup, a 13-race series of mountain bike races across the United States. The race was also the first event of the Kenda Cup West, the seven-race West Coast half of the US Cup. The race opened with motorcycle rider Jason Britton, star of Speed Television’s show “Super Bikes,” riding a wheelie at the head of the men’s field through the neutral start on his stunt motorcycle.

Sitting on a plane headed back to Spain after a weekend of racing and a day spent pre-riding Paris-Roubaix sectors, I’m pretty sure that classics season is now officially open. The blister on my hand, right where the ring finger creases as I type, is a good reminder. Yep, pave is in no way easy on the body. My fingers, and the slight ache that run through them as they roam the keyboard would be reminder number 2. Moving on to other contact points with the bike; well, yeah, I’ll be reminded tomorrow.

Dutch rider Steven de Jongh will miss the upcoming spring classics due to a painful muscle tear that will require surgery.   The Quick Step veteran was unable to defend his title at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne last weekend because he thought he was suffering from tendonitis dating back to a nasty crash at the Tour of Qatar in January.   Further tests Tuesday, however, revealed that he has a torn bicep femoris muscle, the team reported.   De Jongh is scheduled for surgery on Friday at the Herentals Clinic in Belgium. He will be sidelined for at least six weeks.  

Chris Hoy, Britain's four-time Olympic track-cycling gold medalist, announced on Tuesday he was withdrawing from this month's World Championships in Poland because of injury. Hoy, who has suffered complications following a hip injury sustained when falling off his bike in the keirin final of the Copenhagen leg of the World Cup in February, said: "I'm hugely disappointed that I'm not going to be riding in the Worlds."

Change is just what Robbie McEwen needed. His move to Katusha for a two-year deal with the start-up Russian squad has put the fire back into the veteran Australian sprinter. Not that it’s ever gone away, but McEwen didn’t have his best season in 2008, coming off just five wins and getting blanked in the grand tours. McEwen will see more support in the sprints with Katusha and he already has two wins under his belt before the end of February.

Team Saxo Bank is expecting big things in this year’s Paris-Nice and brings a stacked squad that includes candidates for stage wins as well as a shot at the GC for the season’s first major stage race. Headlining the team’s GC hopes will be Fränk Schleck, winner of a stage at the Tour of California last month, while Olympic silver medalist Gustav Larsson has a chance to win the opening time trial for the “Race to the Sun,” set for March 8-15.

Dear Lennard,
You may want to do a little better research when answering these questions next time because both of your CO2 answers were completely wrong.

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With a grassroots movement that continues to flourish, a handful of pro races to show off and national championships in two disciplines being fought out on its turf, the Pacific Northwest looks to be a hotbed of cycling again in 2009. The local peloton will shift into high gear March 1 when the nearly 30-year-old Banana Belt Series hits the roads around Henry Hagg Lake, about a half hour west of Portland. Banana Belt promoter Jeff Mitchem says he expects anywhere from 350-500 participants for each of the three series races, depending on the weather.

Price: $80 Weight: 117 grams Sizes: EBB Shells 68 x 55mm Colors: Red, blue, silver, black Web site: www.ninerbikes.com Do you rely on an eccentric bottom bracket (EBB) for proper chain tension on your single speed, internally geared hub, or tandem? If so the new Niner Bio-Centric EBB may come as a relief to your current creaking and ovalized EBB shell woes.

More than 1,700 people attended Sunday's final day of the fifth annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show in Indianapolis, bringing the weekend’s total to almost 6,500. Exhibitors commented on Saturday’s huge crowds, and many shared the feeling that this was the best NAHBS ever. Awards for the best bikes on display were announced near the close of the show.

Lance Armstrong’s road map back to the Tour de France continues to take shape. Astana team officials confirmed to VeloNews that Armstrong is scheduled to race Milan-San Remo (March 21), Vuelta a Castilla y León (March 23-27) the Giro di Trentino (April 22-25), the Giro d’Italia (May 9-31) and the Tour de France (July 4-26).

Editor's note: Tom LeCarner, VeloNews' copy editor, is an avid cyclist who has been unable to ride and train for most of 2008 because of knee pain. He is being treated at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, using Specialized Body Geometry equipment and services at Specialized's expense and reporting on his progress in regular columns.

A series of cycling events in eastern Kentucky this summer will culminate in a UCI-sanctioned stage race for juniors. The UCI 2.1 Elite Junior Tour of the Red River Gorge kicks off on Tuesday, July 13th with a prologue in Irvine, followed later in the day with the Irvine-Winchester-Mt. Sterling-Stanton road race.

Oscar Freire (Rabobank) has pulled out of Milan-San Remo, citing injuries sustained when he fell during the Amgen Tour of California, his team announced on Monday. The 33-year-old Spaniard, who broke two ribs in the stage-4 crash, has also withdrawn from the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, which precedes the spring classic.

After an exciting opening weekend of the classics season – with Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen taking a pair of victories in Belgium – the hammerheads have plenty on their plates this week. The top draw for the first week of March is Monte Paschi Eroica in Italy, already considered a major event despite only its third year on the calendar. Spanish stage racing continues in the sunny south with the Vuelta a Murcia, where Denis Menchov (Rabobank) is the top name joining mostly Spanish riders in the five-day race.

The 2009 Giro d’Italia promises to be a star-studded affair, with defending Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre expecting to be one of the favorites duking it out for the maglia rosa. The Cervélo captain has some unfinished business of sorts with the Giro. Boasting podium spots in both the Tour (1st in 2008, 3rd in 2006) and Vuelta (2nd in 2005, 07 and 3rd in 2008), the Spanish climber only lacks a top three in the corsa rosa to join an elite club of grand tour podium finishers.

Among all the builders and the wide selections of material, color, construction and size at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, one common theme that I’ve noticed is a distinct respect for all-purpose, utilitarian bikes. Perhaps it’s a reaction to fuel prices during the summer, or simply an expression of the small builders’ ethic, but at least 70 percent of the builders on display are showing some variant of an urban town bike, a cargo bike or an all-purpose touring road bike.

Juan Pablo Magallanes of Mexico’s national squad won the opening stage of the Vuelta Mexico-TelMex, outsprinting his fellow breakaway companion, Francesco Rivera (Amica Chips Knauf). The two left the field early in the day, building up to a lead of 4:15 before being reeled back over the final lap of a nine-kilometer circuit in Lunes del Cerro, in the province of Oaxaca.

In Switzerland, French rider Rémi Pauriol (Cofidis) took his second win on the season ahead of veteran Davide Rebellin (Diquigiovanni) after the pair peeled away in the 178km GP Lugano. The 26-year-old Frenchman won the GP d’Ouverture Marseillaise to open the French calendar on Feb. 1 and takes a victory a month later on the opening weekend of the Swiss calendar. Last year, Rebellin finished second in the GP Lugano to Rinaldo Nocentini, but took revenge on his Italian rival by beating him for the overall at Paris-Nice two weeks later.

Greg Henderson scored a sprint victory in Sunday’s Clásica Almería in the Spanish one-day race controlled perfectly by the Columbia-Highroad team. Henderson out-kicked Graeme Brown (Rabobank) for his first win on the season while Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) came through third out of a reduced, 35-strong front group.

Quick Step's Tom Boonen claimed his first big spring classics win of the season at the Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne semi-classic on Sunday. A former world champion, Boonen finished ahead of Columbia-High Road's sprinter Bernhard Eisel of Austria and Britain's Jeremy Hunt (Cervélo TestTeam ), who was third in a bunch sprint for the line. At Sunday's race, held over 194km, the 194-strong field stopped to pay tribute to Belgian racer Frederiek Nolf, 21, who died in his sleep at the Tour of Qatar on February 5.

One striking juxtaposition (among several) that I’ve noticed at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show this year is the use of cutting-edge modern materials and design mixed with old world craftsmanship and utilitarianism. Hand built carbon fiber bikes are dressed in fenders and racks. A hand welded single-speed town bike is built with an integrated seat mast and carbon fiber fork. No matter what the blend of exotic materials, wheels and components, the most common saddle on bikes in the show is a classic leather Brooks.

The sun is just breaking through an overcast sky on Wednesday morning in San Antonio as the Kelly Benefit/ Strategies pro team prepares for another long day on the bike. While many of the KBS racers escaped sub-freezing temperatures to spend two weeks training in the Texas Hill Country, few expected the day’s estimated high of 85-degrees. “Sunscreen, don’t forget the sunscreen,” the team’s soigneur implores.

The Astana Cycling team announced Saturday that Levi Leipheimer suffered an undisplaced fracture of the sacrum in a crash during the third stage of the Amgen Tour of California. As a result of the diagnosis, Leipheimer will not compete in next month’s edition of Paris-Nice (March 6-15) and will delay his return to cycling until March 23, when he competes in the five-day Vuelta a Castilla y León.

It was hard to believe that Alessandro Petacchi hadn’t won a stage all week during the return after a 12-year absence of the Giro di Sardegna in Italy. Was the Italian sprinter losing his touch? A day after losing his chain in the final sprint, Petacchi got his victory in the fifth and final stage to quiet the critics. The veteran Italian was able to beat back compatriot Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) to take the face-saving win. Bennati, meanwhile, winner of yesterday’s stage, sprinted to second and claimed the overall title.

Norwegian Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam) lived up to his promise to focus more on the classics this season by taking an important victory in Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad that officially opened the Belgian racing calendar. Formerly known as Het Volk, the semi-classic delivered a nail-biter to kick start the classics season as Hushovd steered clear of two late crashes to steer to victory ahead of Kevin Ista (Agritubel) with Juan Antonio Flecha (Rabobank) coming through third.

I came away from my first five hours at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show with more than 350 photos. OK, so only 15 percent of them are usable, but even so, the volume of eye-catching hardware on display is second to none. Most of the products on display are bicycles from small builders that show unique details, exquisite handwork, and timeless paint schemes. Yet even a multi-million dollar company like SRAM has a clever product to offer this market, which is oriented more toward singlespeeds, retro-styled road bikes and urban fixies.

With more than 100 exhibitors and a seemingly endless array of handcrafted bicycles and parts, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show feels like an oasis of optimism amid the current business climate.

Price: $230 Colors: Six colors Sizes: Small to Large Weight: 230 to 270 grams Web site: www.trialtir-usa.com LAS introduces their new top shelf helmet, the Victory. Designed with safety as the most important attribute, the Victory also excels in ventilation, fit, and style.

Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) sprinted to victory Friday at the Giro di Sardegna and overtakes the leader jersey at the end of the 147km fourth stage. Bennati darted ahead of Mirco Lorenzetto (Milram) as the pack came in for the mass sprint into Cagliari on the southern tip of the Mediterranean’s second-largest island. Overnight leader Oscar Gatto (ICS) finished out of the bonuses and slipped to second at six seconds back. Bennati is confident he can hang on for Saturday’s finale and secure the overall victory if it all comes down a sprint as expected.

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Portugal's reigning national champion Joao Cabreira was handed a two-year doping ban on Friday by the Portuguese Cycling Federation. Cabreira, a 26-year-old who won the Tour of the Algarve in 2006, was found guilty of "using a masking substance", according to the federation, prior to providing a recent sample to doping controllers.

The night before the North American Handmade Bicycle Show begins, bikes are unpacked, booths are built, and one of the newest trade shows in the country begins to take shape. Held last year in Portland, Oregon, the annual NAHBS comes to Indianapolis, Indiana, for 2009.

Dominique Rollin is expected to start Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (ex-Het Volk) this weekend in Belgium, culminating a long road that’s taken him from Canada to the most important races in Europe. The 25-year-old Canadian will be a key member of Cervélo’s spring classics squad and he’s relishing the opportunity to race the events that he dreamed about as a boy back in Montreal. Rollin should know some of the circuits well. He raced three years as an amateur at VC Roubaix and lived at the storied velodrome where Paris-Roubaix finishes each year.

The world economic crisis continues to hammer races across Europe. The latest to face difficulty covering its costs in the tough financial climate is the Volta a Catalunya, the weeklong ProTour race held each May in Spain. The race is asking Catalunya’s regional government to help cover half of the race’s 1.2 million euro budget, according to a report by the Spanish wire service EFE.

Price: $1000 Colors: Burnt Orange Sizes: 26 inch Weight: 1865 grams both wheels Web site: www.crankbrothers.com New from the Crankbrothers production line: the all-mountain Iodine wheelset.

Salt Lake City’s Deseret News has reported that police got a break in the case of David Zabriskie’s burglarized home late Tuesday. The paper reported that Salt Lake City’s Joint Criminal Apprehension Team along with the police department’s Lake Metro Gang Unit recovered one of the vehicles stolen from the house of Salt Lake resident David Zabriskie.

New Italian team ISD ended Mirco Lorenzetto’s two-day stranglehold on the Giro di Sardegna, with Oscar Gatto sprinting to victory in Thursday’s 181km third stage from Oristano to Tortoli. The hilly stage featured more than 3,000 meters of climbing, but the top teams reeled a two-man break, but not before 22 riders slipped away near the end. Giovanni Visconti led things out for his teammate Gatto to keep a lid on world champion Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), who finished second but is in good position to win the overall with two stages left.

With two victories and a second place overall at the Tour of Qatar, Heinrich Haussler is starting off his 2009 season on a winning note. Haussler – who turned 25 on Wednesday – is obviously feeling right at home at the new Cervélo TestTeam. Nickamed the “Racing Kangaroo,” Haussler’s father is German and his mother Australian. He was raised Down Under, but moved to Germany as a junior once he decided to give it a shot to race his bike professionally.

Suffering, speed and sore legs. Game on. The fans were fervent, the racing intense, and the media abundant. From Australia to Qatar to California the races were closely followed and cycling seems to be more popular than ever. For a month Mark Cavendish and I have traveled together: from hotel to hotel, from plane to plane, and from the Middle Eastern arid wind to the California rain. Our suitcases quickly became our homes on the road. We finished stages not knowing where we were ? the town was just another name and the finish line crossed another stage completed.

The much-rumored British road team is about to become a reality. The British sports channel Sky Sports will invest 30 million pounds over four years to back a British-based elite men’s pro team with the goal of winning the Tour de France by 2013. The British cycling federation, which announced the news on its web site yesterday, will manage and direct the team when it hits the road starting next season.

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One of the lingering tech questions from the Amgen Tour of California has finally been answered, at least partially. As early as the prologue, a reader wrote to inquire about Jelly Belly’s time trial bikes, which are GT-branded but not shown on the GT Bicycles Web site. The GT-sponsored team also used these frames (with a different paint scheme) last season. We finally tracked down Michael De Leon, PR and advocacy manager for the Cannondale Sports Group, to get some of the story.

Mirco Lorenzetto used to lead out Alessandro Petacchi; now he’s beating him. The Lampre sprinter dashed to his second consecutive victory in the Giro di Sardegna on Wednesday, winning stage 2 and taking the overall lead in the five-day Italian stage race. A day after beating Petacchi in Tuesday’s opener, Lorenzetto out-kicked Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) to win the 164km stage from Porto Torres to Santu Lussurgiu.

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Price: $195 to $225 Weight: 160 grams at 225mm Sizes: 27.2mm by 225 to 400mm Colors: Red, orange, blue, green, pewter, pink and black Web site: www.kenteriksen.com The Sweetpost is a new boutique seatpost from Eriksen Cycles. Based in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and established in 2006, Eriksen Cycles is a small producer of titanium bicycle frames and seatposts. [nid:88617]

A handful of Dutch reporters made the trip down to Portugal last week for the Volta ao Algarve, a small race that typically doesn’t attract much attention from the international press. This year was different because Theo Bos – the five-time world champion on the track – made his debut on the road with the Rabobank continental team. A victory in a small criterium on Feb. 15 made front-page news in the Dutch papers, but Bos had a tougher time in the hilly Algarve course against a tougher field. He abandoned in the fourth stage that featured a second-category summit finish.

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The women of ValueAct Capital are on a mission. Of course, winning races is primary. “My goal is to be one of the top three teams,” team director Lisa Hunt said at their February 10-18 training camp in Healdsburg, California. “We were top five last year. I’m confident we can be one of the top three this year.” Now in their fourth year, though, their mission has expanded. “We’re really out there to promote women’s cycling,” said Sharon Allpress, a racer on the team since 2007. “Not just to promote it, but to help it grow.”

Editor's Note: Writer/photographer Mark Johnson, who reported on his day a Garmin-Slipstream team car during stage 4 of the Tour of California, spent Sunday on Palomar Mountain in San Diego County, waiting for the final stage to come up the road.

While the Web-based cycling community was all a-Twitter over the recent theft and return of Lance Armstrong's time trial bike, another cyclist has suffered a bigger loss of personal property, but did not discover it until he returned from the recent Amgen Tour of California. Salt Lake City Police have issued an appeal for the public's help in recovering items stolen in a burglary at the home of Garmin-Slipstream’s David Zabriskie. According to police, the break-in occurred while Zabriskie was in California for the recent Amgen Tour.

Mirco Lorenzetto dashed to victory in a bunch sprint in the opening stage of the Giro di Sardegna in Italy on Tuesday. Lampre went one-two to fend off arch-rival Alessandro Petacchi (LPR) as Lorenzetto finished just ahead of teammate Enrico Gasparotto. Reigning world champion Alessandro Ballan gave a perfect lead-out to Lorenzetto to set up the victory in the 184km stage starting and finishing in Olbia. Pre-race favorite Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) came through sixth.