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Levi Leipheimer was at home in California when he woke up a week ago with a surprise message. Instead of racing the Volta a Catalunya and the Dauphiné Libéré as planned, he was going to the Giro d’Italia. Leipheimer’s Giro debut in Saturday’s team time trial might have come as a surprise, but the American promises to make the most of the unexpected opportunity. Along with Astana teammates Andreas Klöden and Alberto Contador, the team starts with three options for the podium.

The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team has donated $5,000 cash to Fausto Munoz Esparza, the rider who was paralyzed in a high-speed crash in last Sunday’s final stage of the Tour of Gila in New Mexico. The team said the donation consists of the Toyota-United teams riders’ prize money earned at the Tour of Gila, plus staff donations. In addition, Toyota-United will auction off a team jersey signed by all 14 riders. The jersey auction will begin Monday on Bay.

Brasstown Bald in the Spring

4 hours into the ride....

Yesterday, it was 80 degrees Farenheit

Pavel crossing Woody Gap all alone

A slippery corner at Race The Ridge

In Palermo, Italy Rabobank is trying a new approach this year for its quiet but steady Russian GC threat, Denis Menchov. After watching him win two of the past three editions of the Vuelta a España after racing the Tour de France, the team figures three hard weeks of racing is just what Menchov needs ahead of July’s Tour.

In Palermo, Italy Alberto Contador was sipping a beer on the beach in Spain last week when he received a phone call from Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. The news caught the defending Tour de France champion by surprise: Pack your bags, you’re heading to the Giro d’Italia. “I was sitting at a chiringuito on the beach with my girlfriend, now here I am at the Giro!” Contador told VeloNews on Friday. “I wasn’t expecting to be at this Giro, so we’ll see how it goes.”

Paul Mason had just arrived in Austin, Texas, from his home in Auckland, New Zealand. He owns a “race-bred cyclewear” company called Solo, and he was delivering a first batch of retro racing jerseys to his first retail outlet in the United States. “It couldn’t be better,” Mason told VeloNews Friday afternoon, “than to have my clothing in a shop run by a seven-time Tour de France winner.”

The USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships started Friday with the team time trial in northern Colorado. Photographer Casey Gibson was there. With traditional powerhouses shining in Division I and some impressive underdog performances in the Division II race, the University of California-Davis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the lead in the overall team standings.

Greetings. There’s been a lot going on these last two weeks, so I’m going to skip the snappy lead and get to it. Let’s start with some race talk. I managed to get myself to the East Coast at the end of April for the sixth running of the Tour de Georgia. As you all know by now, it was a pretty exciting race, marked by the unexpected emergence of Belarusian Kanstantsin Sivtsov.

Health Net - Maxxis' Rory Sutherland won his second prologue of the 2008 National Racing Calendar on Thursday, setting a course record at the Joe Martin Stage Race's opening Devil's Den Time Trial. The Australian storming through uphill 2 1/2-mile race in 8:14, ten seconds ahead of Anthony Colby (Colavita-Sutter Home). Sutherland also won the prologue at the Redlands Bicycle Classic earlier this spring.

Frenchman Pierrick Fedrigo, riding for the Bouygues Telecom team, claimed victory in the fourth stage of the Four Days of Dunkirk race on Friday. Fedrigo beat home Australian Allan Davis and Spaniard Jose Joaquin Gil Rojas in a sprint finish. Frenchman Stephane Auge, of Cofidis, retained the race leader's jersey after the 193km stage between Wasquehal and Calais.

With a world champion, winners of all three of last year’s grand tours and a top-notch field of sprinters, does the Giro d’Italia boast the best lineup of the season? If you ask the riders ahead of Saturday’s start of the 91st Giro, they seem to agree. “Without any shadow of a doubt, this year’s Giro has the best field of any race,” said defending champion Danilo Di Luca (LPR). “We have a deep field in the Giro this year. Whoever wins this Giro can be proud of what they achieve.”

Argentinian Ariel Maximiliano Richeze, who rides for CSF, tested positive for doping last month and has been withdrawn from the Giro d'Italia, his team announced Friday. Richeze tested positive for an anabolic steroid during his victory in the fourth stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe on April 11 in the French city of Le Mans. He went on to win the seventh stage of the Tour of Turkey on April 20. His withdrawal on the eve of the Giro means CSF will join the peloton with just eight riders.

The principal climbs in the 2008 edition of the Giro d'Italia: Stage 7: Vasto - Pescocostanzo, 180 km Rionero Sannitico: 10 km climb at 6.3 average gradient climb to Pescocostanzo: 2.8 km at 6 Stage 11: Urbania - Cesena, 199 km Monte Carpegna: 6 km at 9.9 Stage 14: Verona - Alpe di Pampeago, 195 km Passo Manghen: 23.4 km at 7.1 climb to summit finish at Alpe di Pampeago: 7.7 km at 9.6 Stage 15: Arabbo - Passo Fedaia, 153 km Passo Pordoi: 9.2 km at 6.9 Passo di San Pellegrino: 11.8 km at 6.4 Passo Giau: 15.7 km at 7.9

Climbers who can keep their time trial losses to a minimum will be among the top contenders for the pink jersey in the Giro d'Italia which clicks into gear Saturday. The 91st edition of the Giro begins with a team time trial, and includes three other, individual, races against the clock as it snakes its way up from Sicily towards the crucial mountains stages in the Dolomites. With five mountain-top finishes in total, including one uphill time trial, the race's top prize is more than likely to be claimed by a master climber.

Saturday June 10 marks the official weekend opening of the New England Velodrome & Cycling Park. After four years in the making, riders finally have the chance to train and race on the weekends. Sunday the 11th will feature our first ever Family Ride Time when everyone is allowed to ride their own bikes (with brakes and gears) on the track. Ride leisurely our 1/5 of a mile track with family and friends. It is a fun and safe way to experience riding on the track.

An Australian Olympic cyclist was thrown dazed to the ground when a motorist collided with his elite training pack, scattering dozens of riders over a busy Sydney road and sparking a police call Friday for witnesses. The alleged road rage incident left 20 riders with minor injuries, including Beijing hopeful Ben Kersten. Kersten, whose bike was mangled, was left lying dazed on the road after the driver collided with the 50 cyclists, including former Olympians, on a weekly dawn ride.

We've got a brand new batch of reader submitted photos to offset your productivity. It's nice to see so many of our readers out there on the racing scene. Keep up the great work! If you've got photos you want to share, send 'em our way!

Editor’s note: Watch for John Wilcockson’s Friday morning column on a regular basis, taking you inside the world of cycling. This week he introduces one of the young, unsung heroes of the European peloton. Matt Lloyd loves racing in Italy. So when he lines up Saturday with his Silence-Lotto team at the Giro d’Italia he’ll feel right at home.

Paolo Bettini sees his best chance to end his winless streak that dates back to last year’s world championships in Sunday’s second stage of the Giro d'Italia, a race into Agrigento that traces the course from the 1994 worlds. The final 13.2km of the 207km stage from Cerfalù to Agrigento covers the circuit used for the 1994 worlds and the reigning two-time world champ can’t think of a better place to notch his first win of the year.

Retail:$199 (saddle and bar tape) Weight:199 grams Web site:www.fizik.it Fi'zi:k is releasing a new saddle model, the Arione CX, in six team replica colors, sold with matching fi'zi:k microtex handlebar tape. The Arione CX has a new foam formulation to reduce the weight by 30 grams. The foam is higher density and requires less bulk, reducing weight and producing a lower and sleeker saddle than the Arione.

U of Vermont leads in to the DH

Amy Cycling The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge

Masters Race, Charleston, SC

Fear The Stash

team astana leads the race past hearst castle in the tour de california - february 21, 2008

Casey Gibson at work on Brasstown Bald

2008 Cat's Hill Criterium, Pro-1-2

Bob,
I just got done reading your April 24th column on the Arizona Shootout Bike Ride . Let me say right off, that the Pima County Sheriff's deputy's actions were completely wrong. It's just dangerous, reckless, and plain dumb to drive a car directly at a group of approaching cyclists. But I guess that I'm in the minority of avid cyclists who feel that most of the problems experienced by cyclists are caused by cyclists.

GENR8, an evidence-based performance nutrition company, announced the certification of all versions of its first performance nutrition product, Vitargo®S2™, as being free of banned substances. The certifying organization orchestrating the analyses on each of the Vitargo S2 products, Banned Substances Control Group (http://www.bscg.org/GENR8.php), uses a laboratory certified by CAP (The College of American Pathologists) and CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments), and is a World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) experienced laboratory.

While attending this year's Sea Otter Marketplace Expo in Monterey, California, Trips for Kids (TFK) made a profit selling surplus merchandise from the Re-Cyclery Bike Thrift Shop and met up with the bicycle industry to raise awareness of TFK programs. "Because Sea Otter attracts a lot of racers, families and out-of-town visitors, it's a wonderful opportunity to shine the spotlight on our local programs and our national expansion," said Marilyn Price, founder and director of Trips for Kids. "I talked to several attendees who are interested in starting a TFK chapter!"

What can I do about a noisy Mavic freehub?

More than 60 colleges and universities are sending teams to the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships in Fort Collins, Colorado this weekend. The three-day event is being hosted by Colorado State University, this year's Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference DI champions.

The world’s best men and women professional cyclists are preparing to wage a three-race battle on the streets of southeastern Pennsylvania next month in the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling. Don’t want to miss any of the action? Then you need to be a VIP for an up-close and personal vantage point of the sport’s international elite.

In Palermo, Italy Perhaps it’s only appropriate that during the 20th anniversary year of Andy Hampsten’s historic 1988 Giro d’Italia victory that another American rider could recapture the maglia rosa. While it’s too early to say if one of six U.S. riders from three teams starting the 91st Giro can survive the grueling Dolomites with a shot for final victory, there’s a very real possibility that one of them could grab pink jersey in Saturday’s team time trial.

Trophy Bikes in Philadelphia has long been a proponent of folder bikes--but they also like high performance bicycles. So when the chance came to show that folding bikes can deliver high performance, they took it.

Starting at 1 p.m. on June 3rd, 25 of the world’s premier professional cycling teams will wage a 12-lap, 85-mile battle on the winding roads of Pennsylvania’s third largest city. At stake in this Allentown showdown is victory in the Lehigh Valley Classic, opening leg of the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling.

Retail price: $4499 (frame only) Number produced: 50 Web site: www.lookcycle.com Look is producing a limited number of Look 586 Mondrian frames this year. [nid:75937]The paint jobs are in the style of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, and of course will remind old timers of the La Vie Claire team kit worn by Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond in the 1980s. That team used Look pedals from its inception and began using Look frames in 1987.

Belgian Kenny De Haes of the Topsport team claimed victory in the third stage of the Four Days of Dunkirk race Thursday after upsetting Norwegian sprint ace Thor Hushovd at the line. Frenchman Stephane Auge of Cofidis retained the race leader's jersey after the 193km stage from Le Cateau-Cambresis to Saint-Quentin, France. Cofidis and the Skil team of the race's best climber Clement Lhotellerie, were forced to work throughout most of Thursday's stage to protect their respective jerseys.

Twenty-two-year-old Brandon Draugelis (SoBe/Cannondale) gave Tinker Juarez (MonaVie/Cannondale) a day long challenge at the 2008 Dirt Sweat & Gears in Tennessee May 4. [nid:75961] The third stop on the USAC National Ultra-Endurance Calendar was a grueling 12 hour, 11 lap battle that started with "peanut butter" mud from the previous night's rain. Juarez, more than 24 years Draugelis' senior, took the top spot on the podium by six minutes.

Seven-time Tour de France winner and anti-cancer advocate Lance Armstrong said Thursday he has discussed banning smoking in public places across the United States with the three White House contenders. "I've asked all the presidential candidates whether America should be smoke-free," he told a Senate committee hearing on how to tackle cancer. "The consensus is that it's better left to the cities and states," he said, agreeing that state- or community-level bans were "the way to go." "Second-hand smoking is something I'm very passionate about," he told the committee.

Mauricio Soler is hoping the warm Italian sun will return so he can live up to expectations to try to heat up the 91st Giro d’Italia. Until things warm up in Italy’s northern mountains, the Colombian climber is discounting his chances at this year’s Giro. Last year’s best climber at the Tour de France hates cold weather and was stricken with a mild case of bronchitis training in the snowbound Italian Dolomites last week.

spring racing 2008