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In the penultimate stage of this year's Absa Cape Epic, some new faces competed for the men's stage win, while the overall standings were largely unchanged for the men and women's events. In a surprise stage finish, the Full-Dynamix Rsm team — Sweden's Fredrik Kessiakoff and Italy's Massimo Debertolis — took top honors for the first time during this year’s event. Hot on their heels was the USN/adidas team, Brandon Stewart and Max Knox, who arrived seven seconds later.

Under a dreary Southern California sky that made for nearly ideal time trial conditions, Mara Abbott (Team High Road) surprised few by winning the Redlands Cycling Classic prologue — The Sun Time Trial — by a resounding 25 seconds over second placed national team member Katharine Carroll (Aaron’s). Abbott’s teammate, Kim Anderson, rounded out the podium less than 1 second behind Carroll.

Photographer Casey Gibson captured the action at the Redlands Bicycle Classic prologue, a fast uphill 5km held under hot and sunny conditions in California on Thursday. Gibson will be following the traditional domestic season opener in its entirety for VeloNews.

Patrice Clerc, the president of the company which owns the Tour de France, has rejected claims by world cycling's ruling body that his ultimate aim is to set up a parallel world cycling federation. Clerc, president of ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation), said Friday in Le Monde that recent claims by International Cycling Union (UCI) chief Pat McQuaid were wide of the mark. McQuaid said last week that he suspected ASO, with whom the UCI has been feuding intensely in recent months, of setting up a parallel cycling federation.

Cyclocross racer Jonathan Page will race for the Wisconsin-based Planet Bike team next season, after earlier negotiating an end to his two-year contract with his European team Sunweb/Projob. Page, who won a silver medal at the cyclocross world championships in 2007, will continue to try to improve on that placing. He also will participate in several U.S. races, including a new UCI event in Wisconsin that will bear his name.

American cross-country mountain bike racer Adam Craig has his sights set on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. That means for the next few months he will be battling it out on the World Cup and National Mountain Bike Series with his fellow Americans for a slot on the U.S. team. In between races, Craig skis, kayaks and is the rally car co-driver for his Giant teammate Carl Decker. VeloNews.com is along for the ride. —Editor

Oakland, CA – The NorCal High School Mountain Bike League held its third race of the season on March 30th at Grant’s Ranch Park in Santa Clara. It was a day that couldn’t decide if it was warm or cold as a steady breeze brought clouds across the venue valley. The six-mile course started riders with a long, tough climb right off the get-go that was followed by a rip-roaring descent that took riders into some mini-rollers before they had to dig in deep in the grassy start/finish area.

HIGH ROAD AIMING TO DEFEND PROTOUR LEAD IN FLANDERS This Sunday sees High Road’s Men and Women’s Teams taking part in their respective versions of the Tour of Flanders. For the men’s team, as team manager Rolf Aldag says one key aim will be to defend Andrei Greipel’s ProTour lead. “He hadn’t planned to do Flanders, but once he’d got the ProTour lead we changed his race program. He’s going quite well, with a third place in the Nokere Koerse [on March 19] but punctured in Harelbeke at exactly the wrong time!”

1980: Michel Pollentier 1981: Hennie Kuiper 1982: René Martens 1983: Jan Raas 1984: Johan Lammerts 1985: Eric Vanderaerden 1986: Adri van der Poel 1987: Claude Criquielion 1988: Eddy Planckaert 1989: Edwig van Hooydonck 1990: Moreno Argentin 1991: Edwig van Hooydonck 1992: Jacky Durand 1993: Johan Museeuw 1994: Gianni Bugno 1995: Johan Museeuw 1996: Michele Bartoli 1997: Rolf Sørensen 1998: Johan Museeuw 1999: Peter Van Petegem 2000: Andrei Tchmil 2001: Gianluca Bortolami 2002: Andrea Tafi 2003: Peter Van Petegem

Slipstream-Chipotle heads into this weekend’s Tour of Flanders and next week’s Paris-Roubaix motivated to rise to the challenge in its debut in cycling’s most punishing one-day races. If the team’s ride at Milan-San Remo last month is any indication, when Will Frischkorn worked into the day’s main breakaway and Julian Dean finished in the top 25, the team should be right in the mix for its first run over the cobblestones of the northern classics.

Leif Hoste’s dream of winning the Tour of Flanders is turning into a nightmare. Three times second in the past four years, Hoste has come as close as a Belgian rider can get to heaven without riding through the pearly gates.

Catch me if you can - you too Daddy!

Former Coors Light great Michael Engleman has a chat with some of his riders from the US Women's Cycling Development program.

Anne Samplonius is still out there racing, with dripping sweat showing the effort.

Dominique Rollin was the surprise of the prologue, hauling his sprinters body up the hill to 3rd place.

Hincapie™ Sportswear, Inc., a leading manufacturer and marketer of distinctive clothing for the performance cyclist, has been chosen as the official cycling apparel supplier for the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T (Tour) for the third consecutive year. Hincapie will provide premium, Tour-custom cycling apparel for stage winners, race leaders and souvenir sales. Designs for the 2008 award jerseys were provided for a fourth consecutive year by Bigelow Advertising, based in Atlanta, Ga.

Free listing site for the bicycling enthusiasts ready to better serve versus “warehouse type” online providers.

Handmade bicycle exhibit opens TODAY at PDX More than three million airline passengers are expected to see the showcase of frames designed and built in Oregon

Eleven Elite Cycling Teams from around the United States have been selected from over fifty applications to compete in the American Eagle Outfitters Tour of Pennsylvania Presented by Highmark Healthy High 5®, a U-25 cycling stage race taking place from June 24 thru June 29, 2008. The lucky eleven will face the seven international squads from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands and South Africa that were named on March 18.

Hamilton, behind Jeremiah Wiscovich, oversees the chase at stage 2 at San Dimas last weekend.

Thousands Are “Legal to Ride” at the start of the 2008 Cycling Season in Colorado May 30 to June 1 in Castle Rock REGISTRATION is now more than half full; May 14 is mail-in deadline; May 28 is regular deadline Where can you find an 8-mile family course, 32, 50, 65, 100-mile road rides, a 25-mile off-road course and a 24-hour ride during a weekend? The annual pilgrimage to Castle Rock, Colo.,marks the first major cycling festival of the season for participants from near and far.

Continuing the excitement generated last year throughout the national cycling community, Carrera de San Rafael announces important changes to its 2008 event. Project Sport, LLC, one of the largest sports marketing companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, has acquired this premier cycling event that will return to the streets of downtown San Rafael on its new date of Saturday, August 9, 2008.

The Redlands Classic, which begins Thursday April 3 in Southern California, marks the opening of the USA Cycling NRC series. By this time of the year, the NRC competition is usually well under way. But with the MERCO races in Merced and the Central Valley Classic in Fresno not having NRC status this year, the race for the NRC crown is off to a late start.

After my posting about Cristina’s accident, I was flooded with emails from friends encouraging me to keep riding. It was really great to get all the support from home and to know that you were all still tuning in, despite my unofficial ranking. You will all be happy to know I’m still competing in my own personal race here at the Cape Epic. Today was stage 6 and the last of the really long stages. The last two will both be less than 100km.

Two-time Tour of Flanders winner Tom Boonen wants to make it a hat trick this weekend on home roads. A winner in 2005 and 2006, Boonen couldn’t meet expectations last year and finished 12th as Alessandro Ballan (Lampre) pipped Leif Hoste (Silence-Lotto) for a career-defining victory. This year, Boonen has taken a quieter route to the northern classics and he’s hoping it will pay off with a strong ride Sunday.

For the first time since winning the prologue, the MTN Energade team of Kevin Evans and David George won Thursday's 130km Absa Cape Epic stage in a sprint with two other teams. The previous day's stage winners, the Bulls team of Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm, were second, followed one second later by the Cannondale Vredestein team, Roel Paulissen and Jakob Fuglsang, who aggressively defended their overall lead. On stage 5 Paulissen had to ride the final 18km on a bare rim and the team finished in fifth position, losing about half of its overall lead.

Dutch flier Joost Posthuma (Rabobank) pulled the double in Thursday’s time trial finale at the Three Days of De Panne to claim the stage and the overall crown in one hard effort. Posthuma had just enough in the tank to erase a 27-second gap to overnight leader Enrico Gasparotto (Barloworld) to vault from eighth to the top spot on the podium.

Riders Get Chance to Earn A Spot on The Nature Valley Cycling Team and Compete in The 2008 Nature Valley Grand Prix

The International Council of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has named Italian Mino Auletta to be its president. Auletta has been interim president since the death of Judge Ke?ba Mbaye last January. Mbaye was the president and founder of the organization. Outspoken Canadian Dick Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency had been lobbying for the position.

Professional endurance competitor Rebecca Rusch has tackled her fair share of adventure races and 24-Hour mountain bike races throughout the years. Now, the Idahoan is in South Africa, at the Absa Cape Epic, a nine-day endurance mountain bike stage race across the country’s scenic Western Cape. Following an accident that resulted in a broken collarbone, teammate Cristina Begy withdrew from the race, but Rusch decided to continue, albeit unofficially, on her own. — Editor

David George and Kevin Evans of MTN 1 sprint to victory during stage 6 of the 2008 Absa Cape Epic Mountain Bike stage race from Bredasdorp to Hermanus in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Eugene A. Sloane, the author of the 1970s Bike Boom bestseller The Complete Book of Bicycling, died in Illinois this weekend. He was 91 and died for complications from pneumonia, according to the Chicago Tribune. Sloane published his first cycling book in 1970. It was followed by Sloane's Handy Pocket Guide to Bicycle Repair and Sloane's Complete Book of All-Terrain Bicycles. Sloane's sons told the Times that their father had many interests that, variously, bordered on obsessions, including sailing, motorcycling and photography. Services will be private.