Road

A court in Spain moved Wednesday to block an investigation by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) into doping allegations against Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde, judicial sources said. Valverde has been summoned to appear before the committee, CONI, at Rome's Olympic Stadium on Thursday to face charges related to the Operación Puerto doping scandal which erupted in Spain in 2006. The summons is the result of a blood and urine sample given by the Caisse d'Epargne rider last year during an Italian stage stop in the Tour de France.

Gustav Larsson completed stage 3 of the Tour of California under control and with no major mishaps or issues. He was in charge of protecting his Team Saxo Bank sprinter Juan Jose “JJ” Haedo.

The conversation about the magnitude and importance of the Amgen Tour of California and the Coors Classic has been improperly phrased, says the former director of the latter. It’s not a matter of one being better than the other, but instead a linear and encouraging progression of American bike racing. Standing at the finish line, Aisner was chatting away with old friends and new ones. With an ear-to-ear smile, he was clearly delighted to witness the biggest names in the sport roar across the line.

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Cancellara’s eyewear

Photographer Casey B. Gibson was taking some shots of some Garmin-Slipstream riders in the peloton Tuesday when, as Casey tells it, "Levi bounced into the frame." The Amgen Tour of California race leader was riding behind a cluster of his teammates when he bumped into Lance Armstrong's rear wheel and fell. Leipheimer bounced up, got a new bike and his teammates quickly helped pace him back to the peloton.

Everyone was expecting Columbia-High Road’s Mark Cavendish to ace his first chance of winning a stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California on Tuesday, but a tussle on the final corner kept him from even challenging the eventual stage 3 winner, Thor Hushovd of the new Cervélo TestTeam. Hushovd easily took the windblown 101.4-mile stage from San Jose to Modesto by a couple of bike lengths from three-time world champion Oscar Freire or Rabobank, with Cavendish’s lead-out man Mark Renshaw in third.

The future of Alejandro Valverde’s professional career hangs in the balance as he’s set to appear before Italian authorities on Thursday for his alleged link to the Operación Puerto blood doping scandal. Prosecutors from the Italian Olympic committee (CONI) agreed to an additional 24-hour extension, not the requested 48 hours, and said the rider is expected to appear by Thursday at 5 p.m., according to reports on the Spanish wire services.

New Mexico's Tour of the Gila stage race, scheduled to hold its 23rd annual race this May, is struggling to find enough sponsorship to hold the event, race director Jack Brennan told VeloNews Tuesday. The race organization is about $50,000 shy of reaching its $170,000 annual budget, Brennan said. He is considering down scaling the NRC event or reducing prize lists to continue. "It's a bare bones budget, as it is," Brennan said.

Gert Steegmans continues Katusha’s early season haul with the team’s second straight win at the Ruta del Sol in Tuesday’s 164km romp from the foothills near Granada to Córdoba. The big Belgian blasted ahead of teammate and yesterday’s winner Danilo Napolitano to give the Russian-backed squad its seventh win on the 2009 season. Wim Stroetinga (Milram) came through third while Joost Postuma (Rabobank) finished safely in the main pack to retain the race leader’s jersey.

It has already been reported that the Columbia-High Road team is not using Scott time trial bikes. Photos and print stories back that up and our visit to the High Road compound the day before the prologue of the Amgen Tour of California yielded no indication that Scott Plasma TT bikes have been widely embraced by the squad. Our only look at the team's new time trial rig came by examining a display model at Scott's tent in the expo. It's a beautiful ride, but it may take a little tweaking to dial it in for roadies.

Floyd Landis is not the only man making a comeback with the OUCH-Maxxis team at the Amgen Tour of California. After a year away, former Health Net-Maxxis team director Jeff Corbett is back with the organization he helped create. Corbett founded the 7Up pro team in 1998, managing and racing on its various incarnations, as the team became 7Up-Colorado Cyclist in 2000 and 7Up-Nutra Fig in 2001.

Olympic medalist Sir Chris Hoy has admitted he faces a race against time in order to be fit for the World Championships in Poland in six weeks' time. The 32-year-old Scot said Tuesday he still felt "pretty sore" after crashing out of the keirin at the World Cup in Denmark over the weekend. Hoy won three gold medals at last year's Beijing Olympics in the sprint, keirin and team sprint and he is aiming to defend his three world titles in those events in the Polish town of Pruskow.

Team Saxo Bank's Gustav Larsson recorded some impressive numbers on his SRM power meter on Monday as he worked for his team leaders. Not only was the second stage of the Amgen Tour of California contested over a tough route with two major climbs, but the weather conditions again added that unpredictable element of "man v. nature."

Disc brake squeal

Last year, Sierra Road proved to be a decisive climb in the Amgen Tour of California, placed as it was near the San Jose finish of stage 3. This year, the race hits Sierra Road, but in the opposite direction and at a much earlier point in the third stage of the race. Tuesday's route takes riders from San Jose up the steep Sierra Road climb, across Alameda County to the categorized climb of Patterson Pass, and then down into the flatlands towards Modesto.

Just how much has luck shone upon Rock Racing’s Amgen Tour of California stage 1 winner Francisco Mancebo? Consider this — not only was the Spaniard’s GC lead increased Sunday when race officials decided to shorten the stage length into Santa Rosa, thereby altering the point at which the GC would be determined, but by last year’s standards, Mancebo might not even be participating in the event.

Defending champion Levi Leipheimer (Astana) seized the lead of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California on Monday with a daring attack on the steeps of Bonny Doon just outside the finish in Santa Cruz. Thomas Peterson (Garmin-Slipstream) won stage 2, a 115.9-mile ride from Sausalito to Santa Cruz, with Michael Rogers (Columbia-Highroad) finishing third on the day and slotting into second overall. But the race clearly belonged to Leipheimer, who shot away from his rivals to chase down a disintegrating break and snatch the leader’s jersey from Rock Racing’s Francisco Mancebo.

Jonathan Chodroff (OUCH-Maxxis) and Amanda Miller (Lip Smacker) wrapped up the overall titles in the 17th John Earley Memorial Valley of the Sun stage race on Sunday outside Phoenix. Jose Garcia (Rock Racing) and Shannon Koch (Metro Volkswagen) won the finale, a criterium in the West Valley town of Buckeye that saw both the men's and women's races end in two-up sprints. The 70-minute men’s race was a highly controlled affair that saw few breaks last more than a handful of laps on the 0.8-mile, L-shaped course.

Danilo Napolitano nabbed yet another victory for the upstart Katusha team, this time in the first stage at the Vuelta a Andalucía/Ruta del Sol in Spain. Thanks to a top-notch leadout from teammates Filippo Pozzato and Gert Steegmans, the brawny Italian sprinter easily out-kicked Tom Veelers (Skil-Shimano) to win the 169.2km first stage from La Guardía de Jaén to Humilladero. Jurgen Roelandts (Silence-Lotto) came through third while overnight leader Xavier Tondo (Andalucía-CajaSur) finished out of the top-10 and forfeited the race leader’s jersey.

It’s hard to imagine a more scenic race start than a crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge, which is exactly how stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California kicks off. The 115.9-mile stage from Sausalito down the coast to Santa Cruz is something right out of a tourism book, visiting San Francisco streets, redwood forests and miles and miles of Pacific Ocean coastline.

The International Court of Arbitration upheld a two-year doping ban against deposed Italian time-trial champion Luca Ascani in a ruling issued Monday. The court, however, moved the start date of the suspension back to August 4, 2007, instead of February 27, 2008. The Italian cyclist had appealed against a doping ban, imposed by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) after he tested positive for blood-boosting drug EPO following the time trial at the Italian road cycling championships on June 26, 2007.

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Positioning is everything on days such as Sunday’s wet and cold stage between Davis and Santa Rosa. It was only stage 1, but the day proved to be a costly one for many of the pre-Tour favorites. Gustav Larsson was one of the danger men that just happened to have a flat tire at just the wrong time. George Hincapie had just the same story to tell Sunday.

Twenty-year-old Swedish national champion Emilia Fahlin (Team Columbia - High Road) received the perfect lead-out from veteran teammate, Kim Anderson, as she took the sprint win from a 13-woman break in the Amgen Tour of California’s Women’s Criterium in downtown Santa Rosa on Sunday. This put her two steps higher than she was on the podium at least year’s inaugural race just ahead of second placed Lauren Tamayo (Team Tibco) and Rachel Lloyd (Proman).

Although he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, Saxo Bank’s race leader Fabian Cancellara hoped to honor his Amgen Tour of California yellow jersey Sunday by pushing through his illness.

From the beginning of this Amgen Tour of California, questions have surrounded Rock Racing. Up until a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions was simply, “What will they ride?” The answer arrived with an announcement that Kestrel would provide RT900 frames and forks, and Shimano would provide wheels and components. However, a visit to the team trailer to check out the new bikes invited only more mystery.

Rock Racing's Francisco Mancebo won stage 1 of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, a 107.6-mile stage held in brutal weather that not only affected racers, but the race itself. A long, Hail Mary solo effort earned Mancebo the stage and the leader’s jersey, and put Astana and the rest of the teams on the defensive, with a shattered field coming into the drenched finishing circuits in Santa Rosa. At day’s end, the list of general classification contenders shortened drastically, to those among the 18 riders who finished 67 seconds behind Mancebo.

If the roster for this year’s Tour of California is being hailed as possibly the best ever assembled on North American soil, can the same be said of the menagerie of bikes? Without a doubt, a few hours of wandering the pits before and during the prologue turned up some exotic and attractive machinery. Here are a few highlights from the prologue, the likes of which have probably never been seen before in Sacramento.

Basso's Cannondale Slice

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“Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.” —Inspector Renault, “Casablanca”

Riders weren’t the only ones going full gas the day of the prologue. Mechanics from all teams also put in strong efforts to assemble fleets of TT and road bikes, in the days and even hours leading up to the race’s kick-off. We’re not just talking fine-tuning, either, but in many cases all-out assembly. Steerer tubes were cut, components installed and tires mounted. And the pro wrenches weren’t too shy to use zip ties and electrical tape when the situation called for it.

Police in Sacramento are investigating the theft of four Team Astana bikes, including Lance Armstrong's time trial bike, from behind a team hotel overnight. Sacramento Police Department spokesman Konrad Von Schoech told the Sacramento Bee newspaper the bikes were stolen from an unmarked truck that was parked in an alley behind a hotel overnight. Von Schoech said it wasn't clear whether the thieves were targeting Amstrong. "We don't have any information that would indicate they specially went after his bike," he told the newspaper.

The first road stage of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California will take riders from the cycling crazy college town of Davis west into Santa Rosa, home of two-time race champion Levi Leipheimer. While there are three categorized climbs on this 107.6-mile stage, it still appears to be one for the sprinters. [nid:87869] The two main obstacles for the fast-twitch finishers will be the Howell Mt. Road climb, which tops out at about 1,800 feet and comes at mile 60, and the Petrified Forest Road climb, which is much shorter — only about 600 feet of elevation gain — and comes at mile 82.

In some ways, Saturday’s prologue at the Amgen Tour of California went according to script. Olympic time trial champion Fabian Cancellara crushed all comers, powering around the flat course like a motorbike, just as he did last year.

The opening prologue at the Ruta de Sol was a win for the little guys against the big guns. With such marquee names as Cadel Evans and Thomas Dekker (Silence-Lotto), Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Gilberto Simoni (Diquigiovanni) debuting their respective 2009 campaigns, it was unsung rider Xavier Tondo who came up big in Sunday’s 7.2km opening prologue for his locally sponsored Andalucía-CajaSur team. Tondo was a bundle of nerves when he crossed the line after posting the fastest time of 8 minutes, 31 seconds, knocking Joost Posthuma (Rabobank) out of the hot seat by a half-second.

Colombia's Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez (Diquigiovanni-Androni) won the 14th Tour de Langkawi Sunday, which ended with a criterium in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur. Serpa Perez, of the Diquigiovanni-Androni team, completed the seven-day, 1031.7km stage race with an overall time of 24:22:12. Australian Jai Crawford, representing his country's national team, took second, 27 seconds back. "I've never been an overall winner before this, as I never get to break away, said Serpa. “I'm really happy with the win. This year all my teammates have been a real help."

Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy has pulled out of racing the final day of the World Cup track meet in Copenhagen after a dramatic crash in the final of the men's keirin on Saturday. Hoy was the hero for Britain at last year's Olympics where he won three gold medals in the sprint, keirin and team sprint and in just over a month's time he will aim to defend his three world titles in those events at Pruskow, Poland. But in his first competition since Beijing the Scot was sent flying after making contact with Frenchman Kevin Sireau, who went on to win the race, in the chaotic keirin event.

Fabian Cancellara of Team Saxo Bank continued his winning ways by adding yet another impressive time trial victory today at the Tour of California prologue. His teammate, Gustav Larsson, placed 38th with a time of 4:45.

Racers at Saturday's Landis Cyclery road stage at the Valley of the Sun stage race were greeted with sunshine, a moderate breeze and temperatures in the 60's. The stage, run on a 16-mile loop in the desert near Casa Grande, south of Phoenix, was largely flat with a moderate, big ring climb to the finish line. The men raced 89 miles and the women completed 57.

George Hincapie described the scene at the Amgen Tour of California prologue in Sacramento Saturday, saying only Tour de France crowds could compare. And those crowds were treated to a Tour de France-caliber show, with Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) blazing the downtown 3.9km course with a winning time of 4:32.

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A late-race screw-up that sent the top favorites on the wrong side of a round-about opened the door for unsung Marco Frapporti (CSF) to claim victory in Saturday’s second stage of the Giro della Provincia di Grosseto. Overnight leader Daniele Bennati (Liquiga s) kept the leader’s jersey, but missed out on a chance on a second-straight win when leaders were steered the wrong way coming in for the bunch sprint.

Columbia-Highroad is in the midst of making a bike switch from old sponsor Giant to new sponsor Scott. While the guys are all on Scott road bikes, the time trial bikes present more challenges. "It's all about the little details in the time trial," said team director Rolf Aldag, adding that the riders will stick with their old machines "until we have it perfect" with the new Scott models. Team mechanics were busy Saturday prepping the bike ahead of the afternoon's prologue in Sacramento.

A day after setting a new American record and winning gold in the individual 4 kilometer pursuit, Taylor Phinney set another American record on his way to winning the 1K time trial. Phinney's time of 1:01.641 was a split second faster than the previous U.S. record of 1:01.825, set by Erin Hartwell, in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1995. The world record of 58.875 was set by Arnaud Tournant in La Paz, Bolivia in 2001.

If there is any doubt about Astana’s commitment to Levi Leipheimer as the undisputed leader and odds-on favorite to win the Amgen Tour of California, one look at his new Trek time trial bike will quickly dispel it.

Jonathan Chodroff (OUCH p/b Maxxis) blazed a 28:57 and Ruth Clemence (Simple Green) posted a 33:28 to take their respective leaders jerseys in the first stage of Arizona's Valley of the Sun stage race.

Floyd Landis’ 2009 Amgen Tour of California got off to a bumpy start before it even started. Out on a training ride with his OUCH teammates two days before the race, Landis went down on a slick patch of road. Dressed for the cold, wet weather, Landis wasn’t seriously hurt. His manager Scott Thomson said Landis finished the training ride. “He’s fine. He’s super fit,” Thomson said, adding that the crash was just an ill-timed annoyance.

If you enlarged a pancake to be 3.9km long, it would be much lumpier than the prologue of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California. That's to say — the 2.4-mile course is nearly dead flat with only an oh-so-slight rise coming in the first half mile. The Sacramento skies have delivered steady rain the last two days, as teams have arrived and headed out for training rides.

Robbie Hunter (Barloworld) just missed his second straight stage victory as Belarussian Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJeux) dashed ahead to claim his second win of the week at the Tour Mediteranéen in France. Hutarovich, winner of Wednesday’s opening stage, relegated Friday’s winner to second, with Italian Giuseppe Palombo (Acqua Sapone) coming through third. Overnight leader Luis León Sánchez (Caisse d’Epargne) finished safely tucked in the main pack in the 167km stage from Brignoles to Marseille to retain the overall leader’s jersey.[nid:87768]

After a two-day break Mattia Gavazzi got back to his winning ways, bagging his fourth stage victory in the 14th edition of Le Tour de Langkawi, a 146.8 kilometer Stage Six from Batang Kali to Shah Alam on Saturday. The Italian sprinter registered his team Serramenti Diquigiovanni-Androni Giocatoli's 20th ever stage win at the Malaysian race, after yet another bunch sprint. This time it required a photo-finish to separate between three frontrunners: Ag2r La Mondiale's Aurelian Clerc, Garmin-Slipstream's Chris Sutton and Gavazzi, as the trio crossed the line side-by-side.

Promoters of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California released the final roster for the nine-day race starting Feb. 14. The race will feature 17 teams of eight riders each. Astana (KAZ) 1. Levi Leipheimer (USA) 2. Lance Armstrong (USA) 3. Janez Brajkovic (SLO) 4. Christopher Horner (USA) 5. Steve Morabito (SUI) 6. Yaroslav Popovych (UKR) 7. José Luis Rubiera Vigil (ESP) 8. Gregory Rast (SUI) Saxo Bank (DEN) 11. Fabian Cancellara (SUI) 12. Andy Schleck (LUX) 13. Fränk Schleck (LUX) 14. Gustav Larsson (SWE) 15. Jason McCartney (USA)

Just how much power does it take to ride the Amgen Tour of California? We’ll show you each day, thanks to Team Saxo Bank’s Gustav Larsson. Larsson may not be a widely recognized name yet within American cycling circles, but wait. The Swede finished fifth overall in last year’s Tour of California, and also claimed the silver medal in the Beijing Olympic individual time trial, only 33 seconds behind his Team Saxo Bank teammate Fabian Cancellara. Gustav will be providing his SRM power meter files for each stage of the California tour.[nid:87694]

American Taylor Phinney broke a thirteen year old American record for the 4,000-meter individual pursuit on Friday, on his way to winning a gold medal at the Copenhagen World Cup. Phinney's 4:15.223 effort in the qualifying round broke the previous American record of 4:19.800 set by Mariano Friedick in 1996. Phinney turned a 4:19.119 in the finals to beat Ireland's David O'Loughlin and register his first World Cup victory this season. Phinney's mother Connie Carpenter-Phinney noted that Phinney had never ridden under 4:20 in competition and his last kilo was his fastest, at 1:00:5.

Most American sports wait until the end of the season for The Big One. The Super Bowl, The Final Four, the World Series – all of these come at the conclusion of many months of competition. For American cycling, it doesn’t get any bigger than the Amgen Tour of California, which begins Saturday with the best riders in the world throwing down on the streets of Sacramento.

Italian sprinter Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) took his second win on the 2009 season and for the second time, it came thanks to nasty late-race crash. Just days after winning a stage at the Mallorca Challenge marred by a crash that took down Alejandro Valverde, Bennati comes out on top in t he opening stage of the Giro della Provincia di Grosseto that saw Italian rival Alessandro Petacchi crash out.

South African sprinter Robert Hunter gave his Barloworld team a victory in Friday's fourth stage at the Mediterranean Tour while Spanish rider Luis León Sánchez (Caisse d'Epargne) regained the overall lead. Hunter and Sánchez were part an early move that pulled clear in the opening 20km of the 135km stage between Greasque and Bouc-Bel-Air that tackled the Cat. 1 Col de Portes in the first hour of racing. Five others later bridged out making it a baker's dozen on a the long flats toward the finish. The winning move also included Danny Martin and Danny Pate, both from Garmin-Slipstream.

The Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) has delayed a planned hearing into allegations that blood samples provided by Alejandro Valverde match blood seized as part of Spain’s Operación Puerto the announced Friday. Valverde had been ordered to appear before a CONI panel on Monday, but the hearing has been postponed by 48 hours at the Caisse d'Epargne rider's request. The summons relates to blood and urine samples given by Valverde on July 21 during the 2008 Tour de France, a day the Tour stopped in Italy.

Louis Garneau is introducing a new helmet just in time for the Tour of California. Rock Racing and Team Type 1 will wear the Diamond helmet beginning Sunday, during the first road stage from Davis to Santa Rosa. The helmet promises to be light, comfortable, and of course stylish for these professional teams.[nid:87682]

Colombian climber Jose Serpa (Diquigiovanni-Androni) won the fifth stage of the Tour de Langkawi and moved into the overall lead after a tough ride that ended in Malaysia's hillside gambling resort of Genting Highlands on Friday. The 29-year-old Serpa, second overall in the 2007 Tour de Langkawi, won Friday by launching a blistering attack on the final climb to Genting. "This year I am in good condition, so I have no problem with breakaway and very happy with the win today," said Serpa.

Anyone wondering how defending Amgen Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer is approaching this year’s event had those questions put to rest Thursday at a pre-race press conference, where the Astana rider confidently stated that he has returned to win the race for a third time, backed by the strongest team in the race.

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Kim Kirchen is optimistic that the road to bigger success from his breakout 2008 season goes through California.   The Luxembourg all-rounder will debut his 2009 season at the California tour and he’s hoping the race will put him on the same trajectory that saw him win Flèche Wallonne and enjoy a spell in the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.   “California is a good place to start. I raced there last year,” Kirchen said. “It’s a good race to get ready for the spring classics. I’m not going to be ready to try to win, but we will go with a strong team.”  

Price: $1999 frameset Colors: Natural carbon weave finish with clear coat Sizes: 53, 55, and 58cm Web site: www.aerocatbike.com

California's legislature will hold a floor session Saturday morning at the state Capital in Sacramento, at the same time thousands of spectators are in the city for the Amgen Tour of California prologue, according to an article on the Sacramento Bee Web site.

In advance of the Amgen Tour of California, BH Bikes has created an AG2R-La Mondiale team replica G4. Sporting the same component group and paint job as the bikes ridden by the team, this promises to help push the BH brand toward broader recognition in the U.S. Fittingly, this season marks the 100th anniversary of the Spanish company.

In a back room at the San Diego Wind Tunnel Cervélo co-founder and engineer Phil White sat at his laptop. With a phone held to his ear, he motioned to his laptop: “Which of these three shots do you think would make the best autograph card?” When you go from team sponsor to team owner, no task — down to selecting autograph cards or getting your team cars brand-wrapped in time for the Amgen Tour of California — is too small.

Two days before his debut in the Tour of California, Carlos Sastre is recovering from a bout of flu, his Cervélo team reported Wednesday. The Tour de France champion has been training in the United States ahead of his season debut, but despite the flu bug, Sastre plans to race. “It has been nearly a week since I've ridden as I was hit hard by the flu and I’m still getting over it now”, Sastre said in a team release. “Until now, my preparation was going well, but this setback will prevent me from performing as I would have liked in this American race.”.