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Shär's bike towers over the other team bikes.

Wassmann estimated that the Red non-drive arm drops 30-grams from the stock configuration of the power meter.

If you look through the frame to the non-drive crank arm you’ll notice it’s not the standard non-drive arm that accompanying SRAM’s power meter, it’s actually a Red crankarm.

Leipheimer’s bike weighs just 7.1 kilos, with a SRAM SRM Pro and Bontrager Aeolus 5.0 wheels. With his Race XXX Lite climbing wheels the bike is at the UCI weight limit.

Leipheimer’s Red rear derailleur was missing as well. If you look closely you’ll notice that the Force derailleur is fitted with Red’s ceramic pulleys. SRAM’s team liaison, Alex Wassmann said that a ‘compatibility issue’ has come to the company’s attention. SRAM product managers aren’t 100-percent sure what the problem stems from and instead of jeopardizing the athletes chances, they made the decision to switch everyone to Force. Team Type 1 and Bissell have also switched.

According to the mechanics a year is the ideal time for proper tire aging, but the team is using an abbreviated period for the new Bonty tires at five to six months to more quickly comply with its sponsorship obligations.

Later in the year Astana will switch from Hutchinson to Bontrager tires. The Bontrager tires are currently resting in storage as part of the team’s tire aging process. The mechanics believe that tires that are not properly aged are more susceptible to flats because the rubber is stickier and not fully cured after manufacture. The team is racing Tour of Georgia on Hutchinson tires, all of which have been aging since 2005.

Trek’s tapered down tube terminates at a proprietary 90mm wide bottom bracket shell.

Astana uses a simple piece of twisted aluminum to hold the race number.

Trek’s new Madone has an integrated cap-style mast that doesn’t require cutting for fit.

Astana has a custom anodized version of Cane Creek’s new 110 IS headset. Trek’s fork utilizes a tapered steerer with a 1.125-inch top and 1.5 inch lower bearing. Leipheimer’s Race X Lite alloy stem measures 11cm.

Astana’s Levi Leipheimer is looking to continue his domination of the biggest American races and is the favorite in Georgia. He is riding the Madone 6.5, a step down from the top of the line. The frame is painted to commemorate his national championship title.

All of the team bikes were missing Red rear derailleurs. Instead the bikes were equipped with SRAM’s Force rear mechs. The Force derailleurs were, however, equipped with Red pulleys. The team mechanics would not say why the change was made before the race.

Astana’s bikes were all lined up before Stage 2 at the 2008 Tour of Georgia start in Savannah. The team had some interesting equipment specs at this year’s race.

The Italian Olympic Committee’s appeal of a decision to exonerate Alessandro Petacchi of a doping charge is weighing on the sprint king’s mind. Petacchi continues to ride while the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) considers the case, and won two stages at the Tour of Turkey recently. But he says the doping case is getting to him. Petacchi returned a “non-negative” test for elevated levels of salbutamol last season. It's a drug used by asthma sufferers and Petacchi has clearance to take it.

A tender hand didn’t slow CSC’s J.J. Haedo in the sprint finale of the second stage of the Tour de Georgia. Haedo took a convincing win in Augusta ahead of High Road’s Greg Henderson, stage 1 winner Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) and Tyler Farrar (Slipstream-Chipotle). Just a week out of a cast, Haedo is riding Georgia with his left hand heavily taped. Tuesday’s flat to rolling stage from Statesboro concluded after two, 5-mile laps of Augusta that ventured across the Savannah River into South Carolina.

A view out the back of the Bissell team car as Greg henderson, Dominique Rollin and BMC's Darren Lill draft through the caravan at mile 26 after race leader Ivan Dominguez called a group natural break.

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the world of competitive cycling by your friends at VeloNews.com.

The spring racing season continued to gain momentum this past week, with Sunday's Holland's Amstel Gold Race kicking off the Ardennes Classics in Europe and the Tour de Georgia here in the U.S.

Look no further than the results sheet from Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race to see who’ll be bucking for the win in Wednesday’s mid-week classic at 72nd Flèche Wallonne. With the menacing wall at the Mur de Huy waiting at the end of the 10-climb, 199.5km course, the punchy climbers who shined on the Cauberg will be looking to hit the repeat button.

People constantly ask me, “What do you see as the next big innovation coming with road bikes?” Their eyes tend to glaze over if I reply with any of the incremental improvements that every bike show or exhibition, like last week’s Sea Otter, is rife with. A new oversized bottom bracket standard will only briefly hold their interest. No, they want the goods, the “Next Big Thing.” It looks like the third coming of electronic shifting may be here soon, so mentioning that will no longer placate them. But what else is coming around the bend?

Kenda showed a 650B (also known as 27.5-inch) John Tomac Nevegal at the Taipei Cycle show last month. The company showed the new tire diameter in a 2.35-inch width and said a 2.1-inch width will be available soon. The diameter splits the difference between traditional 26-inch mountain bike sizes and the fast growing 29-inch hoops, said Kenda's Jim Wannamaker. "From a design standpoint, this new wheel size makes sense. It allows a bigger wheel to be

Health Net-Maxxis rider Phil Zajicek was unable to return to racing that the Tour de Georgia this week because the UCI has yet to approve his use of the medications he takes to treat Crohn's disease. The medications that Zajicek is taking to help control his Crohn’s are approved for use outside of competition, according to his team. However, they require an exception from the UCI for in-competition use. His roster spot for the Tour de Georgia will be taken by veteran Kirk O’Bee.

Only five months remain until the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and both the United States and Canada are in the process of choosing their respective four-person (two men, two women) teams. Both countries base their Olympic selection on results from the 2008 European World Cups and the 2008 UCI world championships in Val di Sole, Italy. That means the fight for Beijing has begun for North America’s Olympic hopefuls, and Sunday’s World Cup opener in Houffalize, Belgium was round one. So who were the winners? Marie-Hélén Prémont

Since 2005 the U.S. Women's Cycling Development Program has been working hard to support the growth and success of women's competitive cycling in the United States. Their goal is to provide all levels of support, leadership, establishing partnerships and collaboration to strengthen the professionalism and competition amongst the entire women’s field. Recently the USWCDP decided to begin a partnership with JETCycling and its founder Jet Tanner in order to begin this growth process at the junior level of racing to the experienced level of Professional Cycling.

Trek-Volkswagen rider Jeff Schalk and Monique “Pua” Sawicki (Mata-Ellsworth) rode to victory at Tennessee’s Cohutta 100 on Sunday, the first race of the 2008 National Ultra Endurance mountain-bike series. Schalk outlasted Dan Vallencourt to win by 2:24, and Sawicki dominated the women’s field, crossing the line with a 56-minute advantage on Cheryl Sorenson. Her winning time of 7:44:00 set a new course record for women by nearly 50 minutes. Approximately 200 riders tackled the full 100-mile distance, which spun around Copperhill, Tennessee.

Pedro's biodegradable Green Fizz cleans the bikes and creates no oil slick on the pond behind.

Colorful base maps on the Garmin Edge 705’s big screen and share-ability between units offer easy route finding.

Calfee's tandem is torsionally stiff and smooth riding. Bamboo frames now account for 25 percent of Calfee’s total production, and 33 percent of the company’s road frame production.

The Reba 29 with Maxle Lite 20mm through axle QR offers more travel, less weight, and more stiffness.

Top-loading pads make pad change easy in the Elixir R. The G3 rotor saves 10g, and the entire brake is 20g lighter than a Juicy 7.

The tapered bore and integrated reservoir surrounding the piston (which is white, surrounded by a black O-ring, just behind the spring) are visible in this clear model of the Elixir master cylinder. The inside of the black, bell-shaped rubber bladder visible behind the piston is open to the air to equalize pressure inside the reservoir.

The Elixir R has an elegant shape, nice lever feel and movable pivot location.

Rather than sitting on their hands after a couple of years of furious product development, SRAM engineers have been hard at work coming up with more new stuff for road, mountain and triathlon bikes.

Avid Elixir

A fast start to the 2008 Tour de Georgia saw Ivan Dominguez take the first stage sprint into Savannah. Casey Gibson was there to catch the riders en route.

One of the most interesting moments of the Tour de Georgia’s opening stage developed midway through the race, when two former overall winners, Chris Horner and Tom Danielson, jumped into a 13-man breakaway following the second intermediate sprint. Also in the breakaway were CSC’s Bobby Julich and Rock Racing’s Victor Hugo Peña. And while Horner is clearly in Georgia to ride for Astana team leader Levi Leipheimer, Danielson, who has been nursing a herniated L5 vertebra tracing back to the opening stage of the 2007 Vuelta España, entered the race as an unknown factor.