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Sam Gowdi at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon DH

Scott Johnson at the St. Patties Day Feast at Bootleg Canyon Super D

Sue Takes on Death Valley - 2008

Mario Cipollini’s relationship with the American team Rock Racing has ended, and the Italian is quashing rumors that he might jump into this weekend’s Milan-San Remo for a different team. “Unfortunately I've had to end my relationship with the American Rock Racing team that started a few months ago,” the former world champion said Tuesday. European papers had speculated that Cipollini would join the Tinkoff Credit Systems team for Milan-San Remo, but he said he was only interested in joining a team if he could be involved with its management and development.

Cycling teams from seven nations have been selected 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, which is part of the year-long celebration marking the 250th anniversary of the naming of Pittsburgh. At least thirteen more six-man squads will be named by the end of March as organizers continue to review applications received from over fifty professional and elite amateur cycling squads from the U.S. and abroad.

The 2008 Redlands Classic Organizing Committee announces Scott Moninger as recipient of its coveted “Legend” award. The award was created in 2007 to honor a past RBC athlete “who has embodied enduring class, sportsmanship, and character throughout their careers, both on and off the bike. This individual represents all the best attributes of a professional cyclist and contributes to the sport in a positive way” according to RBC marketing director Scott Welsh.

The International Cycling Union says it will open discipline hearings on the French cycling federation and its president for their role in the UCI's spat with Paris-Nice organizer Amaury Sport Organization. And in a press release issued Tuesday, the UCI says it will meet with teams and rider representatives on March 25th to discuss "measures appropriate to the situation."

Consequences of Paris-Nice: UCI declaration In order to let the riders to concentrate on their race, the International Cycling Union (UCI) opted to refrain from making any declarations during the Paris-Nice event.

Dear Lennard, Question for you re: forks for long head tubes. I'm 6'4" and have a Seven Axiom with a roughly 30cm head tube and a Seven rebadged Reynolds carbon fork on it. It is a bit flexy when braking while cornering and I'd like to improve that. What options are out there and how do they rate vs. each other? I know Alpha Q makes one with a steerer long enough (as seen on your bike) as does Storck, but want to understand if they are better than the Reynolds vis a vis flex/rigidity. Ted Dear Ted,

CSC's Fabian Cancellara held on to win the 43rd edition of the Tirreno-Adriatico following Tuesday's seventh and final stage. Italian Francesco Chicchi of Liquigas won the 176km run around San Benedetto del Tronto. But the 26-year-old Swiss, the current double world time-trial champion, kept hold of the leader's blue jersey and set himself up as one of the hot favorites for Saturday's Milan-San Remo.

Inside Communications, Inc (ICI), the parent company of VeloNews, Inside Triathlon, VeloPress, VeloGear, VeloSwap and their eponymous Web sites, celebrated its 21st anniversary last Monday. There won’t be a 22nd.

Up the San Juan Trail - watch out for those bushes

Pink Bicycle by the Rhone River, Geneva, Switzerland

Bobby Julich (CSC) says cycling’s peloton gets the message when it comes to the doping issue. The 36-year-old veteran believes that the majority of riders support clean racing and realize the credibility gap facing the sport as it enters a decisive season. That’s not to say everyone is happy with new demands made by anti-doping agencies.

Team High Road's Linus Gerdemann will be unable to train for one to two months, his team says, after breaking his leg in two places in a crash at Tirreno-Adriatico Sunday. The 25-year-old says he hopes to back in time for this summer's Tour de France. "I will do my very best to be back on the bike as soon as possible and I will fight to become part of the 2008 Tour de France," Gerdemann said. Following the crash Gerdemann was flown to a Hamburg hosipital, where he was treated by a team physician.

Former professional rider, team director and television commentator Frankie Andreu is directing the ZteaM under-25 racing team at June's Tour of Pennsylvania, a U25 event. ZteaM is a national cycling club supporting the growth of masters, elite, and youth cycling through club riding and racing. The group is funded by national and regional sponsors, and its own members.

When a professional bike race rolls into town, it’s not that unusual for teams to visit local schools to talk to children about cycling and encourage them to attend the upcoming races and/or compete in the kids’ race. It’s a bit more unusual, though, for them to offer free helmets to 50 children.

Flanders is hell. Flanders is beautiful. The terrain and environment are terrible for cycling: the wind howls, the roads are bumpy, cracked or cobbled, the air is damp when it isn’t raining and rarely does the sun shine. But the roads are packed with cyclists. There is a race nearly everyday somewhere in Flanders that crisscrosses the bleak open muddy farm fields. The Flandriens know, feel, and live the sport.

Dede Barry’s 2002 win in Montreal stood as America’s sole women’s road World Cup victory before Katheryn Curi-Mattis out-sprinted breakaway companion Emma Rickards to take Australia’s 2008 Geelong World Cup last month. The two attacked with 75km remaining in the 120km race, then held off a hard-charging Team High Road — looking to set up sprinter Ina Teutenburg. The finished a minute ahead of the pack in the Feb. 24 race.

Rabobank's Oscar Freire won a sprint finish to the sixth and penultimate stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy on Monday. Freire took the 196km stage from Civitanova Marche and Castelfidaro ahead of two Italians — Filippo Pozzato and Danilo Di Luca. Fabian Cancellara of CSC retained the overall lead ahead of Tuesday's final stage.

There's been a split at the company launched two years ago to provide cycling teams with independent anti-doping programs. The fissure leaves one of the founders working with Rock Racing and the other with Slipstream-Chipotle, BMC and High Road. Paul Scott and Paul Strauss, both from the Los Angeles area, launched the Agency for Cycling Ethics in 2006. Slipstream-Chipotle, Team High Road and BMC each contracted with ACE to provide athlete monitoring programs the teams hope will prevent scandals and protect their sponsors' (and the sport's) interest in presenting a doping-free image.

NEWS FLASH: I put Centaur Ergopower levers on my SRAM Red-equipped bike and have been riding it happily ever since with nary a hiccup in the shifting. I have a SRAM 10-speed chain, SRAM Red chainrings, SRAM Red front derailleur, SRAM Red rear derailleur, and SRAM Red 10-speed cogset mated with the Centaur 10-speed Ergopower levers. This means that Campagnolo and SRAM 10-speed road shifters, including their bar-end models, pull almost exactly the same amount of cable with each click.

So … ?

Kristin Armstrong Excels In Exeter

In a hard, fast race full of attacks but few breaks, world-class German sprinter Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Team High Road) triumphed in the final stretch of the Visalia Criterium on Sunday, pulling around Brooke Miller (Team Tibco), who took second just in front of teammate and lead-out, Lauren Franges. Rounding out the top five were Canadian Anne Samplonius (Cheerwine) and Meredith Miller (Aaron’s).

Marathon cross-country specialists Thomas Dietsch (Gewiss-Bianchi) and Pia Sundstedt (Rocky Mountain) grabbed wins at the 90km UCI marathon World Cup opener in Manavgat, Turkey on Sunday. American Monique “Pua” Sawicki (Ellsworth-Topeak) finished in seventh place in the women’s race.

Women's winner Pia Sundstedt at the ruins of Suleuka

Former Olympic champion Miguel Martinez returned to racing and was leading the race until he flatted 20km from the finish.

Starting and finishing in Nice, the riders battled the local cat 1 climbs in the final stage of the 2008 Paris-Nice.

John Murphy relied on some savvy team work by his Health Net - Maxxis team to preserve his lead in the Tour de Taiwan Sunday. Murphy and his teammates successfully defended the lead against challenges from last year's winner Team Type 1's Shawn Milne, who started the stage 9 seconds behind Murphy on the GC.

A rash of new anti-doping controls and cycling’s tightening noose around would-be cheaters is ruffling some feathers in the peloton. Riders staged a protest before the start of Sunday’s final stage at Paris-Nice for what they characterized as unfair treatment of Kevin Van Impe, a Belgian rider who was forced to give urine samples for a surprise control Saturday as he was preparing the funeral of his infant son.

Health Net-Maxxis' John Murphy held onto the overall lead and the points competition lead following Saturday's penultimate stage of the Tour de Taiwan. The stage was a 58km criterium held outside the Taipei International Bicycle Show, a major industry event. Murphy held off a challenge from last year’s winner, Shawn Milne of Team Type 1. Milne won the event last years for the Health Net team and entered Saturday's stage seven seconds behind Murphy.

Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara (Team CSC) took the overall lead at Tirreno-Adriatico after winning Sunday’s fifth stage, a 26km time trial from Macerata to Recanati. The two-time world time-trial champion finished in 33 minutes and 41 seconds, with American David Zabriskie (Slipstream-Chipotle) second at at 0:22 and Thomas L?okvist (Team High Road) third at 0:53.

Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) survived a flurry of attacks to win the 66th edition of Paris-Nice on Sunday after Luis-León Sanchez (Caisse d’Epargne) took the slimmest of victories in the final stage around Nice. Rebellin, who saw the leader's jersey slip away to Alberto Contador in the finale last year, was delighted to have held onto it this time around.

Tour de France organizer Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) said Sunday it would announce next week which teams it has selected for this year's race. ASO made the announcement after holding "constructive" talks with teams ahead of the final stage of Paris-Nice, which it also organises.