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It is the week before the US National Championship of Cyclocross and I am having trouble figuring out a good topic for my biweekly VeloNews.com journal. I wish this was because I am so focused and preoccupied with the impending championship event, but in reality my mind wanders as I think of the upcoming off season that directly follows the race.

USA Cycling announced today the creation of a new professional cross country mountain bike series designed to recognize the top off-road racers in America. The USA Cycling Pro Mountain Bike Cross Country Tour presented by Sho-Air (ProXCT) will consist of seven UCI-sanctioned events throughout the United States, providing world-class athletes with a consistent stage on which to ply their trade.

Australian cycling ace Cadel Evans is set to take on seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong in the Giro d'Italia next year, race organizers announced Wednesday. The 31-year-old — runner-up in the past two Tours de France — will also face Italian stars Ivan Basso, Damiano Cunego and Danilo Di Luca in what will see the race in its 100th year since its creation. Evans wore the overall leader's pink jersey for a day during the 2002 edition and eventually finished 14th overall.

IVÁN DOMÍNGUEZ SIGNS WITH FUJI - SERVETTO

Cuban sprinter Ivan Dominguez has won just about every major one-day race in the U.S. since he defected from the Cuban national team at the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York City. Now the "Cuban Missile" is headed to the Fuji-Servetto ProTour team for the 2009 season, and he'll get his first chance to race in Europe at age 32. And, in an interview with VeloNews Wednesday, Dominguez said he didn't want to hear from any doubters about his chances at success. "For those people, I say, just keep it to yourselves and let me try," he said.

Dear readers,
This week’s question was originally submitted to our legal beagle Bob Mionske. He sent it on to The Explainer who, unfortunately, has been writing about doping questions longer than he would like to admit.
The Explainer

The French team which won this year's overall team classification at the Tour Down Under in Australia, Francaise des Jeux, will be returning in 2009 to defend its crown, organizers said Wednesday. "We will expect a competitive team performance in 2009 by Francaise des Jeux," race director Mike Turtur said. The team includes Jeremy Roy, who finished second overall in the 2008 Giro d'Italia Sprint Classification, and who Turtur said would be striving to secure sprint jersey points at the Tour Down Under.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

Defending Elite Men's champion Tim Johnson (Middleton, Mass.) and Women's Elite champion Katie Compton (Colorado Springs, Colo.) are among the nation's best athletes ready to line up at this week's USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships in Kansas City, Kan. Nearly 1,800 entries have been received for the 38 races between Thursday and Sunday at Kansas City's Tiffany Springs Park. The complete event schedule and more information are available here or at http://www.kccrossnationals.com.  

The Tour of Missouri, which enters its third year in 2009, on Tuesday formally announced its dates as September 7th to 13th, next year. The race organizers also announced that the race will be a UCI Category 2 Hors Category event next year. Missouri and the Amgen Tour of California are now the only Cat. 2HC events in the U.S. “The success of the first two years is really astounding,” said Missouri’s Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, in a statement. Kinder also serves as chairman of Tour of Missouri, Inc., the event’s rights holder.

Following last weekend's UCI races in Virginia, Rhode Island and Oregon, Ryan Trebon (Kona) and Georgia Gould (Luna) continue to lead the USA Cycling national cyclocross standings. The final races of the national calendar are this weekend: the national championships in Kansas City. Men's Top 5 Standings: | (Complete men's standings) 1. Ryan Trebon ( Kona, Bend, Ore.) 500 2. Jeremy Powers (Cyclocrossworld.com-Cannondale, Hadley, Mass.) 479 3. Tim Johnson (Cyclocrossworld.com-Cannondale, Middleton, Mass.) 431

French teams, Francaise des Jeux and Cofidis, have announced their rider rosters for the 2009 Tour Down Under. Tour Down Under Race Director, Mike Turtur, says he is pleased the 2008 TourDown Under overall Teams Classification winner Francaise des Jeux is returning to defend their crown. “We will expect a competitive team performance in 2009 by Francaise des Jeux,” said Turtur. ‘With Jeremy Roy finishing second overall in the 2008 Giro d’Italia Sprint Classification, he will be striving to secure SA Lotteries Sprint jersey points at the Tour Down Under.”

Well, the manuscript of the third edition of Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance is due today, and I’ve been burning the midnight and daybreak oil for some time now, especially the last week, to get it done. Still not certain I’ll make it. But somehow, despite not riding or answering the phone these days, I got sucked into answering this question in some serious detail while writing Chapter 8 on cranksets. Back to the book now. Lennard

Red crank in a Madone?

Cervélo TestTeam is pleased to announce that Quarq Technology has become a sponsor of the team. Quarq will supply the men and women's Cervélo TestTeams with bicycle data systems, including Quarq's new CinQo power sensor. The Quarq CinQo is a crankset based power measurement system and has raised the bar in ease of use, durability and weight.

German cyclist Erik Zabel said Tuesday the return of seven-times winner Lance Armstrong to the 2009 Tour de France could provide the tarnished sport with a much-needed boost. Zabel, 38, who captured the Tour de France's green jersey for the points winner six times between 1996-2001, will retire after Berlin's Six-Days cycling in the German capital at the end of January. But the sprint king says Lance Armstrong's planned return to the Tour de France next summer will help boost the sport's image after a string of failed drugs tests in recent years.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

2009 USA Cycling Professional Tour

Team Rock Racing's 2009 roster, released last month, is an impressive list, containing former ProTour riders Baden Cooke, Francisco Mancebo, and José Enrique Gutiérrez, as well as top domestic talents Ivan Dominquez, Glen Chadwick, Chris Baldwin and Caleb Manion.

Colors: Gloss metallic black with scotch-bright panels Sizes: 50, 53, 56, and 59cm Price: $2,399.99 Web site: www.ironhorsebikes.com New from Iron Horse the Double Cross cyclocross bike is built around an aluminum frame. The Double Cross features Hutchinson Bulldog tubeless-ready tires and a SRAM Rival group.

American Olympian Georgia Gould (Luna) has her eyes on the 2009 UCI world cyclocross championships, held January 31-February 1 in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands. The 28-year-old Gould, who finished eighth in cross-country mountain biking at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, announced her intentions to race cyclocross’ biggest race on her Web site.

Belgian cycling star Tom Boonen risks facing criminal charges over his positive test for cocaine, according to public prosecutors in Turnhout on Monday. Boonen, a former world champion and winner of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, tested positive for the recreational drug in an out-of-competition test in May.

Team Columbia and Team Garmin-Chipotle are hiring the Anti-Doping Sciences Institute, run by well-known anti-doping researcher Don Catlin, to provide independent testing program for the teams next season, the teams announced Monday. ADSI also will be testing Lance Armstrong next year. The ADSI program takes over from ACE, a company that had been doing testing for Columbia, Garmin-Chipotle and Team BMC before shutting down last month. Columbia's owner Bob Stapleton said Catlin's program complements the UCI's biological passport program.

Sub-freezing temperatures greeted the participants who braved the elements to contest the final Zipp Ohio Valley Cyclocross Tour event at Brookside Park in Indianapolis.  Although the ground was snow covered in spots, icy in others with air temperatures hovering around 20°F, the racing action was anything but frigid. 

Team Kenda is entering its year as a women’s road team with a cast of returning riders and a few new young rides. Jakie Kurth, two-time junior national champion, returns in her final year of junior eligibility. Espoir riders will include Denise Ramsden, the 2007 and 2008 Canadian junior road race champion, Ashley James, who is currently racing for Lindsey Wilson College, and climbing specialist Ally Stacher, from the Lees-McRae collegiate program.

Weight: 200g/pair Suggested retail: $599.99/pair Web site: www.zerogravitybike.com The Vanderkitten Elite Women’s Team will be using a limited edition version of the Zero G brakes, which also will be available to the public next month. Ciamillo Components’ Zero G brakes are made in the U.S and feature a patented Power Cam that provides a mechanical advantage with modulated stopping power.

Momentum Sports Group, owner and operator of Health Net Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis, is proud to announce that OUCH Sports Medical Center will take over as the team’s title sponsor starting in 2009. The team, which won an unprecedented fifth consecutive NRC Team Championship in 2008, will now be known as The OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis. The sponsorship presents a unique and timely opportunity for OUCH Sports Medical Center, a leading provider of sports-related medical services in Southern

Kazakh cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov, who was kicked out of the 2007 Tour de France for doping, was dropped from a Dutchmountain bike event on Friday in what would have been his comeback race. The 35-year-old was to take part in the Beach Challenge in the Dutch town of Scheveningen, but he was withdrawan from the list of entrants, the ANP news agency reported. The organizers, who had originally accepted the Kazakh rider into the race, did not give a reason for their change of mind.