Road

Andreas Klöden (Astana) won the stage 3 individual time trial and seized the overall lead of the Tour de Romandie on Friday. The 18.8km course included a dozen flat kilometers, a 266-meter climb with a pitch of 12 percent, and a rapid descent to the Place de la Planta with a twisting, turning final 500 meters that almost proved the Astana man’s undoing — Klöden clipped a barrier in the finale, but kept it upright to win the stage in 25 minutes and 32 seconds.

Last year’s runner-up Andy Schleck and Spanish climber Carlos Sastre will both skip this month’s Giro d’Italia in favor of a run at the Tour de France podium. The two Team CSC stars have opted to put everything on the Tour and will leave the Giro to other riders on the squad. While Schleck, 22, had already decided in favor of the Tour even before his dramatic run through Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday, Sastre ended speculation over the weekend that he might start the Giro.

Tyler Wren (Colavita-Sutter Home) won Thursday's second stage of the Tour of the Gila with a final kilometer solo attack, while overall leader Gregorio Ladino Vega's Team Tecos-Trek put on another powerful show, setting a blistering pace over 80 miles of wind and hills. The Tecos effort kept a small breakaway within two minutes of the pack for most of the stage. It also forced a number of abandons throughout the day.

Karsten Kroon (Team CSC) won the 48th Rund um den Henninger Turm for the second time on Thursday. The 32-year-old Dutchman took the 179km race by outsprinting a nine-rider lead group that included Italian Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and Columbian Mauricio Ardila (Rabobank). "I had a strong spring, unfortunately without success," said Kroon, who first won here in 2004. "But today I felt very good. Andy Schleck has worked great for me."

Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) sprang from a mad dash to the line to win stage 2 of the Tour de Romandie on Thursday. The Aussie speedster free-lanced his way to the front in a chaotic bunch sprint and shot off Milram rider Björn Schröder’s wheel to claim his first victory of 2008 ahead of Daniele Bennati (Lampre) and Matti Breschel (CSC). Michael Albasini (Liquigas) retained the overall lead.

Ryder Hesjedal is making the most of his new opportunity to race against the best in Europe. Following the collapse of the Phonak team in 2006, Hesjedal raced on the North American circuit last season before signing with Slipstream-Chipotle to return to Europe this year. The Canadian ex-mountain biker has quietly been posting some of Slipstream-Chipotle’s best results this spring, capped by a top-10 at Tirreno-Adriatico.

Sampson Sports has put together some of its existing and new products to create a time trial bike package that it says will allow riders to affordably assemble a sub-16-pound aero bike. The package includes Sampson's new Stratics time trial bars with Sampson's stem, brake levers, brakes, cranks, bottom bracket, pedals, saddle, and front and rear derailleur. The package includes Shimano Dura-Ace shifters and cassette. Sampson Sports' Eric Sampson said combining the package with a 1700-gram frame and 2100-gram wheels will produce a 15.5-pound bike.

The International Court of Arbitration for Sport on Wednesday upheld the three-month suspension of 2007 Giro d’Italia winner Danilo Di Luca for his relationship with the doctor at the center of the “Oil for Drugs” scandal. The arbitrator assigned to the case rejected Di Luca’s appeal of the suspension ? served at the end of last year ? noting that there was ample evidence to support allegations that he had worked with Dr. Carlo Santuccione in 2004.

Team Tecos-Trek continued its domination of Southwestern road cycling Wednesday by taking two of the top three spots on the first stage of the Tour of the Gila, a 94.1-mile stage that ended with a brutal climb to Mogollon, New Mexico. Colombian Gregorio Ladino Vega won the stage after gliding away from a select group at the base of the climb. He quickly gapped the group, which included Toyota-United's Chris Baldwin and Heath Blackgrove and built up a gap of about a half minute by the top of the 2,100-foot climb. Baldwin finished sixth.

The French government on Wednesday moved to toughen anti-doping legislation ahead of this summer's Tour de France. Members of Parliament adopted a new law which penalizes the possession and trafficking of doping products in sport with prison sentences and fines. Under the new measures offenders will receive up of five years in jail and a 75,000-euro fine, when it relates to drug trafficking, explained French Minister for Sport Bernard Laporte.

Michael Albasini (Liquigas) seized the lead of the Tour de Romandie on Wednesday as Maxim Iglinsky (Astana) won stage 1, a 182km grind from Morges to Saignelégier. The Liquigas man, third in Tuesday's prologue and second today ahead of Markus Zberg (Gerolsteiner), proved fastest of an elite group that chased down a late breakaway by Alexandre Botcharov (Crédit Agricole), Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Jussi Veikkanen (Française des Jeux) on the descent from the category-1 climb to Saulcy.

Riding a bike is fun. That’s why we all start riding, right? For most people that’s still why we ride, even when it becomes your job. Sometimes though when you’re mid-season and starting to wear down a bit it’s easy to forget how much straight up fun can be had on a bike.

Ritchey is all about white for the new season. The California company showed a new "Wet White" WCS alloy road handlebar at Sea Otter. It's already in use by the brand’s star domestic road team, Health Net–Maxxis and by the Tibco women's team. The company also is making a matching Wet White WCS 4-Axis alloy stem.

The second round of the 2008 Speed Week Series arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina on Tuesday the 29th of April for the Beaufort Memorial Cycling Classic, with Toyota-United’s Hilton Clark and Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) taking top honors. Set in the heart of what’s known as South Carolina’s “low country,” hundreds of top elite and professional cyclists raced around the “Queen of the Carolina Sea Islands,” and the state’s second oldest city.

In last week’s column, I mentioned suspension as a likely Next Big Thing in road bikes. I also promised another prediction this week. This one I think is coming, but it’s going to take awhile.

Team High Road will not be among the 20 teams racing the 2008 Vuelta a España. Organizers unveiled their list of invitees for the third grand tour of the season on Tuesday. “We had initially intended to support the Vuelta," said said team owner Bob Stapleton. "However, in the absence of a firm commitment from the race organizer, Team High Road has withdrawn its application and will support the Tour of Britain, the Tour of Ireland and the Tour of Missouri – which compliment the marketing objectives of High Road."

Neither Nathan O’Neill nor Mara Abbott will be on hand to defend their crowns on Wednesday when the 2008 Ben D. Altamirano Tour of the Gila kicks off in Silver City, New Mexico. But there will be plenty of horsepower in the elite men’s and women’s fields as the race gets under way with the Silver City-Mogollon Road Race. Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United), runner-up here last year and second at the 2008 Redlands Bicycle Classic, will be in Silver City with an eight-man team that includes Justin England, Chris Wherry and Henk Vogels.

Mark Cavendish continued High Road's winning streak by claiming the kickoff to the Tour de Romandie on Tuesday. The Brit won the 1.9km prologue in 2:07:60 ahead of Daniele Bennati (Liquigas), who was given the same time. Michael Albasini (Liquigas) rounded out the podium at one second back.

Caisse d'Epargne's Alejandro Valverde gave his future Tour de France rivals an early reminder of his explosive climbing talents by winning his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic Sunday.

The Italian cycling team Liquigas has been kicked out of the Frankfurt Grand Prix semi-classic for failing to add its signature to a protocol on doping. "Our anti-doping program calls for team bosses to sign a statement of honor but Liquigas has made it known to us that it won't be signing this declaration," explained race organizer Bernd Moos-Achenbach on Monday. "And so we've therefore taken the consequences. "Some teams haven't yet taken on board the fact that cycling is in a serious situation," he added.

Marco Pinotti of Team High Road raced last week’s Flèche Wallonne classic in Belgium for the fourth time in his career, however this is the first time he has finished the race.

Final Overall 1. Kanstantsin Siutsou (Blr), Team High Road, 22.44'44" 2. Trent Lowe* (Aus), Slipstream-Chipotle, 0:04 3. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Astana, 0:14 4. Antonio Colom (Sp), Astana, 1:02 5. Inigo Cuesta (Sp), CSC, 1:11 6. Oscar Sevilla (Sp), Rock Racing, 1:25 7. Christian Vande Velde (USA), Slipstream-Chipotle, 1:32 8. Moises Aldape (MEX), TT1, 1:37 9. Rory Sutherland (Aus), Health Net Maxxis, 2:08 10. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, 2:31 11. Rubiera Vigil José Luis (Sp), Astana, 2:39 12. Scott Nydam (USA), BMC, 2:49 13. George Hincapie (USA), Team High Road, 3:19

Coach Frank Overton has been keeping VeloNews.com readers up to speed on Health Net-Maxxis rider Frank Pipp's wattage output for the entire Tour de Georgia. On Sunday, Pipp finished off a successful week by riding stage 7 at 324 normalized watts or 86 percent of his threshold power for 2 hours and 19 minutes. "Considering how tired he was, 86 percent sometimes feels like 150 percent after over 900 kilometers racing," Overton said.

In probably the most dominant team showing since the revival of La Vuelta de Bisbee, Team Tecos from Mexico swept the top four spots in the final stage to push Colombian Gregorio Vega to a wire-to-wire victory. Vega donned the yellow jersey following Friday’s prologue and wore it all weekend, beating teammates Fausto Muñoz, Carlos Guinez and Francisco Navarro, who finished second through fourth in the overall.

Basically any time a week of racing bikes somewhere kicks ass, we’re going to do a Ten Reasons piece. There’s just so much to tell on these perfect weeks that there would be pages and pages for you, the unfortunate reader, to wade through. We’ll just condense things a bit here … Ten Reasons why World Cup #2 in Offenburg was the bollocks:

This year’s Sea Otter was better than ever with regards to new product roll-outs. There was too much to see during the short four days I was in Monterey, but we caught the vast majority in the hottest new stuff category. I’ll cover the rest of the best in this final photo gallery, but look for a few more stories from the Otter that go deeper than these galleries have. You should expect a rundown of Shimano’s new Saint group online tis week, while reports on Tomac, Yeti and FSA will pop up in future pages of VeloNews and VeloNews.com.

Cadel Evans' plans to go one better than his runner-up place at last year's Tour de France remain intact after what has proved to be an ultimately confidence-boosting week of bike racing. Yet on Sunday the 30-year-old Australian was left wondering about his form at the prestigious Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic, where at least one of his yellow jersey rivals put his climbing potential on full display.

Italian Davide Rebellin conceded defeat to the "faster legs" of Spanish rival Alejandro Valverde after their thrilling battle for one of the most prestigious crowns in one-day cycling Sunday. A runner-up to Italian Danilo Di Luca last year and winner in 2006, Valverde left Rebellin struggling to match his pace when he capped the tough, 12-climb 261km epic with a winning sprint a few hundred meters from the finish line. Rebellin's victory here in 2004 rounded off a superb week in which he won the Amstel Gold Race and the Fleche Wallonne classics.

The final stage didn't bring any major changes to the standings, but it was still certainly fun to watch. Here are some photos of the 2008 Tour de Georgia finale from Casey Gibson.

The 2008 Tour de Georgia couldn’t have ended better for Team High Road on Sunday, as Kiwi sprinter Greg Henderson won the final stage and Belarusian Kanstantin Sivtsov secured his overall race lead by four seconds ahead of Slipstream-Chipotle’s Trent Lowe.

Graham Watson shares some images from the 2008 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which saw Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) take a second victory ahead of Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and Frank Schleck (CSC).

A new climb with 20km to go lived up to expectations, breaking Liège-Bastogne-Liège wide open, but Alejandro Valverde relied on tactical savvy and his fiery finish-line punch to win La Doyenne for the second time in three years Sunday. After working into the decisive four-man move, Spain’s “Green Bullet” collaborated with Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) to fend off searing attacks from the Schleck brothers on the Saint-Nicolas climb with 5.5km to go only to relegate the Italian to bridesmaid status with his winning sprint.

Gregorio Vega (Team Tecos) won his second consecutive stage of La Vuelta de Bisbee on Saturday morning, then finished eighth in the afternoon’s time trial to hold a 21-second lead going into Sunday’s final stage, the Tombstone Road Race. In women’s racing, Marisa Russell (Procon-FNBA) won the Sulphur Springs Road Race and Kelly McDonald (Touchstone Climbing) the Warren Time Trial; McDonald took the yellow jersey from Chloe Forsman (Luna).

Despite a recently diagnosed injury that has kept him in near-constant pain, Rock Racing’s Rahsaan Bahati roared across the line at the Athens Twilight Criterium to capture his first major victory of the 2008 season. In a race that featured a relentless pace throughout in front of thousands in downtown Athens, Georgia, Bahati was able to beat a charging field to the line with enough time to lift his arms to the sky in tribute to a fallen friend.

Casey Gibson shares his images from an epic day that saw Kanstantin Sivtsov take a big win in front of the race favorites.

“In professional cycling, success is all about picking battles you can win," said Frank Overton, who coaches Health Net-Maxxis rider Frank Pipp, who is competing in the Tour de Georgia this week. On Saturday's stage 6, which ended with the brutal Brasstown Bald climb, the numbers don't lie, Overton said. "The men who can make greater than 6.3 watts/kg choose to come to the front of the race on the winner-take-all Brasstown Bald. They knew they could climb that fast and therefore they conserved their precious energy in four previous stages for one climb.

First of all, it's pronounced “Sweets-off.” If you can't get the last name, you can go with “Koste,” which is short for Kanstantin. But whatever you call him, Kanstantin Sivtsov left his stamp on American racing Saturday with a commanding win atop Brasstop Bald. The stage win, which also moved him into the leader's jersey by four seconds over Slipstream-Chipotle's Trent Lowe, has put him on the map for many cycling fans.

Former two-time winner Paolo Bettini has played down his chances of a third victory in the prestigious one-day classic Liege-Bastogne-Liege this Sunday. The reigning world and Olympic champion will saddle up as the Quick Step team's biggest hope of winning the 261km race but the Italian could be forgiven if he winces with pain on several of the 12 punishing climbs. Bettini is still recovering from arm and rib injuries sustained in a heavy crash at the Tour of the Basque country earlier this month, a setback which he says could have left him off a lot worse.

The addition of a punishing climb at the end of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic is willing on-form Australian Cadel Evans to grab what would be his biggest one-day victory to date. The world's oldest one-day race is held over 261 km on Sunday, with 12 climbs of varying length and difficulty set to test the climbers, but also the 'punchers' who can keep pace with the specialists on the steep ramps during the one-day races.

Kanstantin Sivtsov (High Road) attacked Levi Leipheimer (Astana) and race leader Trent Lowe (Slipstream-Chipotle) in the final 500 meters to win the sixth stage of the Tour de Georgia and move into the overall lead on Saturday. Sivtsov, the under-23 world champion in 2005, started the day six seconds down on Lowe in eighth place, but well off most people’s radars.

At the Tour de Georgia, mechanics spent the night before Saturday’s decisive Brasstown Bald stage switching cassettes on wheels. In place of 10-speed units with a 21, 23 or 25 as the lowest gear, riders’ rear wheels for today have 26, 27 and even 28 teeth. Unfortunately for most riders, adding that metaphoric “extra gear” isn’t quite so easy — either you have it or you don’t to make it up Brasstown near the front. [nid:75387]

A new climb with about 20 kilometers to go in Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège should pump fresh excitement into one of the oldest races in cycling. The steep climb at La Roche aux Faucons ("Falcon's Rock") is giving hope to riders such as Damiano Cunego, Frank Schleck and Cadel Evans that the hardest of the Ardennes classics will be even more explosive. “I think this climb will make the final more selective and even harder,” said Cunego, winner at Amstel Gold Race. “This is a true climb that I think will change everything. I see a small group pulling away and staying away.”

If Friday’s prologue time trial is any indicator of what the weekend has in store, La Vuelta de Bisbee will come down to Team Tecos vs. the rest of the field. Tecos riders posted seven of the top 10 times in the 2.8-mile hill climb, which began on Main Street in Old Bisbee and ascended through Tombstone Canyon to the top of the Mule Pass Tunnel. The Guadalajara-based team brought nine riders to the 30th installment of the three-day race.

Frank Overton, who is Health Net-Maxxis rider Frank Pipp's coach, says he has a simple recipe if you want to duplicate the 4,520 kJ's that Pipp put out in Friday's 133-mile stage 5 of the Tour de Georgia.

Acqua e Sapone's Stefano Garzelli won his second stage of the Trentino stage race in Italy on Friday, a mountainous 178.6km stage from Lavarone to Pejo Fonti. Liquigas' Vincenzo Nibali took the overall win in the four-day stage race; Garzelli finished second overall. Nibali took the overall lead after winning Thursday's stage from Torri del Benaco to Folgaria.

Where exactly does La Vuelta de Bisbee fit into cycling history? Well, in 1976, when the southern Arizona stage race was first run, Eddy Merckx had just won Milan-San Remo for a record seventh time, Greg LeMond finished second behind Clark Natwick in the junior race at the Tour of Nevada City, and mountain-bike racing debuted with the inaugural Repack Downhill in Marin County, California, won by Bob Burrowes. And the first edition of Velo-news was still two years away.

How much did Health Net-Maxxis rider Frank Pipp pitch in in Thursday's stage 4 team time trial? How about 396 normalized watts and 362 average watts for 20:17? That's the report from Pipp's coach, Frank Overton. "Not bad for the fourth stage, when you’ve been off the front for 40 percent of the entire race," Overton said.

After days of racing, hours of hard labor, crashes, strategizing and dozens of employed strategies, attacks and counterattacks, the overall competition at the Tour de Georgia comes down to a simple question: who has the best power-to-weight ratio? The few favorites still in contention for the overall title will answer this physical test on the slopes of Brasstown Bald Mountain, where stage 6 concludes Saturday.

After sitting behind a ProTour engine over 133 hilly miles, Bissell’s Richard England timed his sprint right to take stage 5 of the 2008 Tour de Georgia on Friday. Slipstream-Chipotle’s Trent Lowe finished in the select front group of 22 riders to take the yellow jersey from High Road’s Greg Henderson, who had a hard day and came off the group on the second KOM climb.

Jittery Joe's team boss Micah Rice has been filming throughout the Tour de Georgia and posting the footage online daily. "I've got every single sprint finish, but I've also got things like the pre-race team meeting where in six minutes of footage you can watch the entire team talking about the plan for the day," Rice said. "We have an interview with Cody (Stevenson) after his crash, road rash and all. And we have interviews with various people as the day moves on. We have a ton of stuff up there."

Slipstream rider expected to make a full recovery with no neurological damage

Chances that Alejandro Valverde will repeat his 2006 victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège all depend on what the rain gods decide to do on Sunday. If the peloton is drenched with rain and cold, he might finish even worse than 21st as he did in Flèche Wallonne. But if benevolent skies return, like he saw with a best-ever third at Amstel Gold Race last weekend under a warm Dutch sun, he’ll be in with a shot.

Kona Bicycle has a new line of gloves with models for mountain biker, freeriders, roadies and kids. The men’s Chevron glove ($25) is intended for cross-country. It features a Chamude palm for increased durability, silicone grip finger tips for better braking control and a terry snot wipe thumb. The women’s XC glove offers an air-mesh palm with Chamude overlays for added durability and circulation, 4mm gel palm pad and gripped finger tips.

Jason Sumner and Neal Henderson touch on finding time for it all and staying competitive

Casey Gibson was at the stage 4 team time trial as Slipstream/Chipotle narrowly edged out Astana and High Road to take the day's top prize. Here's some shots of the action at the raceway.

Stage 4's team time trial featured a short, hilly, twisty course. Although race officials banned the use of time trial bikes, disc wheels and aero helmets, equipment choice was still a factor. The teams used their standard road bikes, though many used the deepest-section wheels in their inventory. Race winner Slipstream-Chipotle pushed the limits the furthest, using deep section Zipp wheels and even trying to sneak aero helmet covers past the commissaires.

Former Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso, suspended for his involvement in the Operacion Puerto scandal, has signed a two-year contract for 2009 and 2010 with Liquigas, the Italian team announced on Thursday. The 30-year-old Italian's two-year suspension is scheduled to end on October 24. While Basso was origianlly banned on June 15 of last year, he had already spent 243 days under suspension. That figure, however, does not include time he spent as a member of the Discovery team.

Starting the day one man down after Timmy Duggan’s frightful crash on Wednesday, an inspired Slipstream-Chipotle won the Tour de Georgia’s stage 4 team time trial Thursday at the Road Atlanta automotive raceway. Slipstream rode four laps of Road Atlanta’s rolling 2.5-mile racetrack in 19:36, 3.41 seconds faster than Astana, at an average speed of 29.14 miles per hour.

Cadel Evans almost won Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday and will line up as one of the favorites for Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but July is what’s on his mind these days. Second at Flèche, the Silence-Lotto captain said a strong performance in the Ardennes classics is just an appetizer for what he hopes are better things to come in the Tour de France.

Health-Net-Maxxis rider has been front and center for this Tour de Georgia, grabbing the KOM lead on stage 1 and figuring in a long four-man breakaway on Wednesday's stage 3. Pipp's coach Frank Overton has been sharing Pipp's wattage readings and providing VeloNews readers with some analysis after every stage. He's tickled pink that Pipp has been playing such a central role in the race.

Fairwheel Bikes makes colored hoods for recent Campagnolo and Shimano's Dura-Ace, Ultegra and 105 shift/brake levers. Hoods for SRAM levers will be available later this year. The company says the hoods are exact replacements and are available in six colors. Suggested retail is $25.

German rider Jorg Jaksche, whose one-year doping suspension ends on June 30, will give himself till July to find a new team, he told Eurosport Germany on Wednesday. The 31-year-old, who has previously ridden for Telekom (1998-2000), ONCE (2001-03), CSC (2004) and Liberty Seguros (2005-06), owned up on his own initiative to have been involved in the blood-doping network of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes though he has never failed a test.

Casey Gibson was back at work during Stage 3 of the 2008 Tour de Georgia. Here's the action from his point of view.

Highroad’s Greg Henderson went pretty quick to win Wednesday’s stage 3 sprint — 81.3 kph to be exact; that’s more than 50 mph. We were able to take a look at the maximum values on Hendy’s SRM after the stage. Assuming he was putting out his hardest effort of the race in the final sprint it took 1250 watts to win.

J.J. Haedo isn’t the only rider toughing it out at this year’s Tour of Georgia. Team Type 1’s Matt Wilson, too, has a broken wrist and is racing in a soft cast. While pain isn’t too much of a problem, the cast on his right hand and wrist doesn’t allow him enough freedom of movement to easily operate his right Double Tap shifter.

After two slight misfires, High Road’s heavy artillery got its coordinates dialed Wednesday, firing Greg Henderson into the yellow jersey with an explosive win on stage 3 of the Tour de Georgia. Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez, winner of stage 1, lost the leader’s jersey when he came off the group in the hilly closing circuits of Gainesville.

Stefano Garzelli (Acqua e Sapone) won stage 2 of the Giro del Trentino on Wednesday. The Italian took the 178km leg from Torbole to Torri del Benaco ahead of compatriots Mauro Finetto (CSF) and Riccardo Chiarini (LPR). Jure Colcer (LPR) took the leader’s jersey from Volodymyr Zagorodny (NGC Medical-OTC Industrial), the winner of Tuesday’s opening time trial, a 9.7km race against the clock from Arco to Riva del Garda.

Dutch phenom Marianne Vos outgunned her challengers on the painfully steep slopes of the Mur de Huy to take a repeat win at the Flèche Wallonne women’s World Cup. Vos scaled the brutal kilometer-long pitch the fastest, dropping Marta Bastionelli (Italian National), Judith Arndt (High Road) and three-time winner Nicole Cooke (Great Britain) near the summit to take the fourth World Cup round of 2008. The victory was reminiscent of her 2007 victory, which saw Vos ride a tiring Cooke up the 25 percent pitch, then sprint to victory in the closing meters.

Sea Otter is over, but this year’s expo was bigger than ever and the overflow of what we saw there can and will go on for the rest of the week. In this edition we’ll look at brakes from Magura, Ridley frames, Rotor cranks and accessories from Lezyne.

SRAM trickles down its technologies rather quickly. It was two years ago that the company launched its road line at the Sea Otter Classic. That initial introduction included both the Force and Rival groups. Early last fall at the Eurobike tradeshow, SRAM unveiled Red. And now SRAM introduced improved Force and Rival groups, by incorporating the most pertinent shifting technologies of the Red group; namely Zero Loss and its adjustable reach levers.

It was a mur too far for Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) as Kim Kirchen (High Road) sprang past the attacking Australian on the final ramps of the knee-busting steeps up the Mur de Huy on Wednesday to win a wet and wild Flèche Wallonne.

Cycling dynasties are built around one or two leaders and a team of domestiques who are willing to pedal to the death for their leader. Faema, Molteni, Flandria, La Vie Claire, Systeme U, Banesto, ONCE, U.S. Postal all became dynasties, not only because had leaders who could win the biggest events but also because those teams included a core of riders who were strong enough to perform but sacrificed their own chances for the leader and, above all, for the team.

Joy Industrial's Novatec hubs may become a popular item among wheelbuilders, because they allow relatively easy swaps between four different front hub/fork drop out standards. Riders with multiple wheels and forks in their garages also might find these hubs convenient. The 4in1 front hubs can interchange — without tools — to fit standard quick releases, or 9mm, 15mm or 20mm thru axles.

Eyebrows, and a few voices, were raised at the conclusion of stage 2 of the Tour de Georgia Tuesday when race officials announced that they had awarded the day’s most aggressive rider prize to G.E.-Marco Polo’s Rhys Pollock rather than Toyota-United’s Justin England.