Road

The real race for the overall begins Wednesday at the Amgen Tour of California. After a prologue and two stages for the sprinters, stage 3 takes the riders up and over five categorized climbs, including the race’s only hors categorie mountain. After three categorized climbs, the race peaks with the HC Mt. Hamilton, then bombs down 4000 feet before tackling the 2000-foot Cat. 1 Sierra Road climb, which has proven decisive in past editions of the race.

Any race invitation is good news for Team Astana these days. After weeks of reeling from exclusions from such races as the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and some of the major spring classics, the beleaguered team learned Tuesday that organizers of the Circuit de la Sarthe have welcomed the squad to the April race. That news comes as Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel traveled to Kazakhstan this week to huddle with sponsors to gauge support following the devastating news that Tour champ Alberto Contador would not be allowed to defend his title come July.

UCI president Pat McQuaid promised Friday to put the full weight of the organization behind an effort to ensure that defending Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will take part in this year's edition of the world’s biggest bicycle race. The Tour's organizers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), announced on February 13 that Contador's Astana team would be barred from competing in this year's race because of doping scandals over the past two years.

Tom Boonen has now won stages of major races on three continents. The big Belgian blew past High Road’s Mark Cavendish to grab the stage 2 win of the Amgen Tour of California in a drizzly downtown Sacramento. Gerolsteiner’s Heinrich Haussler came second with the recently out-of-retirement Mario Cipollini showing he still can turn the pedals with a third-place performance.

The beleaguered Astana team – already excluded from the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France – received more bad news Tuesday after race organizers said the squad would not be invited at upcoming Italian races Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo. That means Andreas Klöden, one of Astana’s top riders, won’t be able to defend his victory from last year at Tirreno-Adriatico. Both High Road and Slipstream-Chipotle earned bids to the important Italian races organized by RCS Sport, which also operates the Giro as well as other Italian events.

With an available seat, Health Net-Maxxis team director Mike Tamayo offered VeloNews's Neal Rogers a spot in its Tour of California caravan vehicle for Tuesday’s wet stage from Santa Rosa to Sacramento. What follows is his account of a day riding with Tamayo and team mechanic Eva Barabas.

Alessandro Petacchi used all his wile to win a three-up sprint against younger Italian compatriots to win Tuesday’s 174.5km third stage from Otura to Jaén at the Vuelta a Andalucía-Ruta del Sol. The Milram sprinter had just enough in the tank to hold off Italian national champion Giovanni Visconti (Quick Step) and Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval), who came through second and third, respectively.

Stage 2 of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California got underway in a light rain. Here are some scenes from the roadside by VeloNews publisher Andy Pemberton.

From the perspective of executives at Pearl Izumi, the company’s sale to Shimano American Corp., announced Tuesday, was a relief. Other potential buyers — mostly venture capitalists — were eyeing the Colorado-based clothing company like a house flipper eyes a fixer-upper: something to throw a new coat of paint on, then re-sell for a huge profit. Shimano officials, however, look at Pearl like a young family sees a home, with plans to move in for the long haul. At least that’s how Pearl officials see it.

Like most stage races, the overall at the Amgen Tour of California boils down to who can climb and time trial. With only a 2.1-mile prologue and a single Cat. 3 climb ridden thus far, the major players are already moving forward, indicating who has the suds for the 15-mile stage 5 time trial and the big climbs on stage 3.

Riders won’t have it easy in the season’s first major stage race as Paris-Nice sees the return of the towering menace of Mont Ventoux for the first time in 20 years. Race officials unveiled details Tuesday of the 66th “Race to the Sun” with a few twists to a familiar pattern. Unchanged is the general route of the eight-day race, which opens with a short prologue south of Paris on March 9 and brushes up against the northern and eastern edges of the Massif Central and plunges across Provence until its traditional conclusion along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice on March 16.

One more gear?
Dear Lennard,
We have a 27-mile climb just outside of town that I ride up occasionally. My problem is that I tend to spin out on my way back down and find it difficult to keep up with some of my riding partners. A friend of mine told me that I could swap my 10-speed Shimano cassette (12-25) for a SRAM (11-26), which would give me both a better climbing and descending gear. Although I understand 45MPH is plenty fast, is the swap compatible?
Brian Dear Brian,

Rock Racing’s Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero may have been denied a start at the Amgen Tour of California, but the trio — along with teammate and fellow non-starter Kayle Leogrande — have been a common sight along the race route and at the start and finish lines. And race leader Fabian Cancellara isn't too happy about that.

Despite a Spanish appeals court ruling last week to reopen the Operación Puerto case, don’t expect any major revelations to come out of the renewed investigation. A closer review of the court documents found that a panel of three Spanish judges refused to apply a new tough anti-doping law to the alleged blood doping ring and said evidence gathered in police raids dating back to May 2006 will not be handed over to the UCI.

Casey Gibson was in wine country on Presidents' Day, but he didn't have time to raise a glass — he was too busy shooting Stage 1 of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California.

Yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara had both hands up in the air well before any of the sprinters crossed the stage 1 Tour of California finish line — his CSC teammate JJ Haedo had the clear win. After three laps of a crowd-packed Santa Rosa circuit, Haedo hit from his CSC leadout coming up from an underpass. “When you see that last 200 meters you just go as hard as you can, and you don’t look back, otherwise you can lose,” Haedo said. High Road’s Gerald Ciolek finished second on the stage up from Sausalito, with Gerolsteiner’s Heinrich Haussler in third.

Gerolsteiner rider Fabian Wegmann is the one rider in the Amgen Tour of California on the latest prototype version of the Shimano Dura-Ace group. VeloNews spotted it before the start of stage 1 in Sausalito, and got the walkthrough with Gerolsteiner's Michael Rich, a friend and training partner of Wegmann, and the team's directeur sportif in California.

It didn’t take long for Cadel Evans to crank up his 2008 season in winning fashion. In just his second day of competition in a year when all eyes will be on the Silence-Lotto leader, last year’s Tour runner-up uncorked a winning sprint to out-kick the remnants of a breakaway in a hard-fought second stage at the Vuelta a Andalucía-Ruta del Sol in Spain.

Astana’s Levi Leipheimer put in the best prologue ride of the overall favorites at the Amgen Tour of California. However, Fabian Cancellara's leader’s jersey may well go to a sprinter following today’s stage. Eight fast finishers all sit within 15 seconds of the general classification lead, and there are 19 seconds up for grabs in time bonuses. Slipstream-Chipotle’s Tyler Farrar put in a great prologue to finish third. He now sits just 5 seconds outside of the jersey.

Excluded from such races as the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, Team Astana is adjusting its European calendar to make the best of a bad situation. Instead of defending Alberto Contador’s title at Paris-Nice in March, the beleaguered team is bringing an all-star cast to the otherwise-modest Vuelta Ciclista a Murcia (March 4-8) in Spain as part of a major reshuffling of its racing schedule.

Graham Watson was in Palo Alto on Sunday as the 2008 Amgen Tour of California got rolling with the prologue time trial. Here's a sampler of what he saw through the lens.

What more fitting an opening to the Tour of California than the best racers in the world flying down asphalt between rows of palm trees, and who a more fitting winner than current world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara (CSC)? The Swiss rider turned a time of 3:51.211 to handily beat second-place rider Bradley Wiggins (High Road) by four seconds over the 2.1-mile course. “With my beautiful rainbow jersey, to win here in Palo Alto, it is really good,” Cancellara said.

Jennie Reed and the Madison team of Colby Pearce and Bobby Lea turned in a pair of silver-medal performances on Sunday as the Copenhagen Track World Cup concluded in Denmark. That raised the final U.S. medal count to five.

Things were back to normal for Sunday’s finale of the Giro della Provincia di Grosseto following Saturday’s rider protest when the peloton refused to contest in what they called a dangerous finish. There was no strike Sunday as Danilo Napolitano (Lampre) grabbed his second win of the 2008 season, out-sprinting Mattia Gavazzi (Preti Mangimi-Prisma Stufe) with Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas) crossing the line third. Pozzato, winner of the opening stage, claims the overall in the new three-day stage race.

Russian veteran Alexandre Botcharov (Crédit Agricole) secured his first stage-race victory of his career Sunday while French attacker Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) claimed the finale in the 35th Tour Mediterranean. Chavanel — who saw his 2007 season short-circuited when he was among the casualties on the Kemmelberg melee in Ghent-Wevelgem last April, which left him with 65 stitches and a triple-fractured wrist — looks back in good form with a solid win ahead of three fellow escapees.

It’s called the Ruta del Sol – the Race of the Sun – but rain was one of the main protagonists in the opening stage of the Vuelta Ciclista a Andalucía, which saw Tour de France favorite Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) kick start his season. Despite the presence of big-time sprinters such as Alessandro Petacchi (Milram), two relatively unknown riders chugged away from the peloton in the early going of the rainy 123.4km stage from Benahavis to Alora across the hills near Malaga.

Giant unveils prototype TCR

For the first year, the Amgen Tour of California is opening with a dead-flat prologue, a 2.1-mile runway down University Avenue in Palo Alto into Stanford University. World and Olympic individual pursuit champion Bradley Wiggins and world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara are among the favorites. On paper, the sub-five-minute format has Team High Road’s Wiggins written all over it —it’s virtually the same duration as an individual pursuit effort.

Ruslan Ivanov, a man who for two years believed his career was over, has resurrected himself with overall victory at the Tour de Langkawi.

The evening before the prologue of the third annual Amgen Tour of California, mechanics scrambled to assemble the hundreds of bikes that will be raced over the next eight days. VeloNews took a stroll around the parking lot of the race hotel for a perspective on what's happening.

The second stage of the inaugural Tour of the Province of Grosseto on Saturday wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty. First, riders refused to contest the final sprint, calling the finishing straight too narrow and dangerous. So instead of barreling headlong down the sprint, the peloton rode at a snail’s pace across the line in protest, leaving Filippo Pozzato (Liquigas) in the leader’s jersey going into Sunday’s third stage.

The sprinters were back in their element in Saturday’s fourth stage at the Tour Mediterranean with Colombian Leonardo Duque (Cofidis) snagging the victory. Duque is unique that he’s fast in the flats while most of his compatriots do best when the road heads uphill. A day after Alexandre Botcharov (Crédit Agricole) climbed his way into the leader’s jersey atop Mont Faron, Duque out-duked French fast man Jimmy Casper (Agritubel) with Belarussian Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJeux) coming through third in the 152km fourth stage between Saint-Cannat and Marignane.

It may be the smallest team to line up for the Amgen Tour of California, but Rock Racing has managed to be the biggest story on the eve of this country’s largest stage race. Team owner Michael Ball announced late Saturday that the team would start only five of the eight riders on the roster he had submitted.

Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball insisted Saturday that his team will start with all eight of the riders whose names he submitted to race organizers — including Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero — or none at all. “We live as a team, and we’ll die as a team,” Ball said.

He’s done it two years running, but scoring a pair of stage wins will be tougher than ever this year for J.J. Haedo. CSC’s big Argentinean sprinter currently holds the record for career Amgen Tour of California stage wins at four. This year he will have no fewer than three current and former world champion sprinters to deal with in the form of Paolo Bettini (2006-07), Tom Boonen (2005) and Oscar Freire (1999, 2001 and 2004).

At an afternoon event hosted by Phil Liggett in Palo Alto, California, Team High Road presented its entire men’s and women’s 2008 teams. With 29 men and 13 women hailing from 14 different nations, 41 riders in all were presented, in three segments: the women’s team, its under-26 “young guns”, and the team’s elite veterans. The only rider unable to attend was Kate Bates, who was ill. High Road is the only ProTour team to also have a world class women’s component, and with its recent change in designation, it’s now the only U.S.-based ProTour team.

A rider in his ninth year as a pro, a director whose career spans 24 years, and an unified team with the best climber in the race. It was this winning combination that, barring disaster, will grant Moldavian Ruslan Ivanov the best victory of his career Sunday as the Tour de Langkawi concludes in Kuala Lumpur.

The final round of the 2007-08 UCI Track World Cup Classics got underway in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Friday as the U.S. contingent collected a pair of bronze medals on opening night of the three-day competition. Sarah Hammer placed third in the women's 3000-meter individual pursuit while countrywoman Theresa Cliff-Ryan claimed her first career World Cup medal with a third-place effort in the women's 10-kilometer scratch race.

Ben Kneller (Jittery Joe's) and Lana Atchley (Team Rock) won their respective time trials on Friday to kick off the Valley of the Sun Stage Race in Arizona. Kneller won the flat, out-and-back 22km Trek Time Trial in Buckeye in 29 minutes, 27 seconds. He crossed five seconds up on both Sam Johnson (Hagens Berman Cycling Team) and Karl Bordine (Star WVO). Atchley took a more convincing win, finishing in 32:26, 58 seconds ahead of Emily Zell (Proman Racing) and 1:40 up on Catherine Dickson (Tribe Racing).

Team High Road officials say the team will start May’s Giro d’Italia, despite reports earlier this month that the race’s organizers would ban the U.S.-based team. The team will hold a news conference Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, California, to announce its participation in several events organized by RCS Sport, including the Giro d’Italia. A team press release quotes Angelo Zomegnan, the director general of RCS Sport.

Russian Alexandre Botcharov (Credit Agricole) switched places with teammate Thor Hushovd atop the leader board in the 35th Tour Mediterranean after winning alone atop Mont Faron. The towering climb above France’s glittering Cote d’Azur turned the leaderboard upside down as the lean climbers took control of the race away from the dominating sprinters.

Italian Ivan Basso, the sole cyclist to have been sanctioned in the initial stages of the Operación Puerto blood-doping affair, said the inquiry had left him "shattered." Speaking after Thursday's reopening of the Spanish doping inquiry, Basso told El Pais newspaper that the two-year ban he received had left him marooned. "I'm in a sort of hell at the moment: alone, abandoned by everyone and working on in silence," the 30-year-old said. "I made an error, I must pay for that and come back with my head held high."

Holding a precariously small lead in the overall standings at the Tour de Langkawi for the last six days, Matthieu Sprick finally lost his hold on the maillot jaune Friday in Kuantan. Trying his hardest without result, Drapac-Porsche's young sprinter Mitchell Docker knew time was fast running out to lead the Tour de Langkawi, however briefly that now might be, and that the seventh leg could well be his last chance before Saturday’s queen stage to Fraser Hill.

It’s been the biggest race in North America for the past two years, and the third edition of the 650-mile Amgen Tour of California, held over a north-to-south route from February 17-24, will be no exception. This year’s Tour of California field includes two-time and reigning world champion Paolo Bettini and his Quick Step teammate Tom Boonen, two-time and reigning world time trial champion Fabian Cancellara (CSC), three-time world champion Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and U.S. national champion and defending Tour of California winner Levi Leipheimer in Astana’s U.S. racing debut.

With AEG’s announcement of the start list for this year’s Amgen Tour of California comes the revelation that Rock Racing, the revamped California-based team that hired several controversial riders in the off-season, will start the race with only five riders. All 16 other participating teams have fielded the maximum of eight riders.

2008 Amgen Tour of California start list

Pro Tour Teams

Astana (Lux)
Levi Leipheimer (USA)
Janez Brajkovic (Slo)
Vladimir Gusev (Rus)
Christopher Horner (USA)
Serguei Ivanov (Rus)
Aaron Kemps (Aus)
Andrey Mizurov (Kz)
José Luis Rubiera (Sp)
 
Bouygues Telecom (F)
Thomas Voeckler (F)
Dimitri Champion (F)
Perrig Quemeneur (F)
Vincent Jerome (F)

Daily footage of the Amgen Tour of California will kick off Versus’ 2008 cycling coverage, which will again include many of the sport’s biggest events as well as live daily coverage of this year’s Tour de France.

The Operación Puerto blood-doping affair, which erupted in May 2006, will be reopened, Madrid prosecutors said on Thursday. Last year the case ground to a halt when a Spanish judge ordered it closed. Prosecutors asked an appeals court to review that decision, and a ruling is expected on Friday. The prosecutors' announcement, however, is a strong indication that the court will reopen the case.

Belgians dominated the roads of Mallorca on a day when home country Spanish riders were still trying to make sense of ASO’s decision to exclude Astana and defending champ Alberto Contador from the Tour de France. Tom Boonen’s leadout man Gert Steegmans (QuickStep) bolted out of the pack with a well-timed late surge to cap a wild and wooly fifth and final stage in the Mallorca Challenge. Filippe Gilbert (FDJeux) held off a challenge from an anger-fueled Toni Colom (Astana) to claim the unofficial overall prize.