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Will Frischkorn had a front-row seat in Saturday’s Milan-San Remo. The 26-year-old Slipstream-Chipotle rider featured prominently in the day’s main breakaway in a four-man move that pulled clear for more than 230km in the season’s longest one-day race. It was a coming of age of sorts for Frischkorn, who is taking full advantage of Slipstream’s entry into Europe’s biggest races this season. The breakaway gave Slipstream some prime TV time and put Frischkorn in the European spotlight after banging through unglamorous French gutter races for the past few years.

Tour de Palm Springs

Andy takes the first win of the season

Team Type 1's Matt Wilson will be out of competition for a couple of weeks following a training ride crash that left him with a broken wrist. Wilson was training last Wednesday on the Pacific Coast Highway with Toyota-United’s Heath Blackgrove and Hilton Clarke when the crash occurred. “We were coming up to an intersection and I didn’t see the guy in front of me stop and my bike went straight into him,” Wilson said. “It was a stupid nothing crash. I hit the ground at a bad angle and just broke it.”

The world’s premier female road racers will take to the tarmac this Monday, March 24th, for the second round of the 2008 UCI women’s World Cup, held at Italy’s famed Trofeo Alfredo Binda race, just north of Varese. The race marks the first time since 2005 that Italy has hosted a round of the women’s World Cup. The undulating 121km course includes two long and three short loops, and will run on roads just north of the route of this year's UCI world championships. The 2008 edition marks the 36th running of the Trofeo Alfredo Binda event.

The Cat 2 Pack Strings Out At the Visalia Criterium

Downhill racing in Monterey

Former US Olympic cyclist Tammy Thomas will fight perjury charges starting Monday in the first trial to stem from the BALCO steroid scandal that has rocked athletics and baseball. US District Court prosecutors have issued five perjury charges against Thomas for lying in October of 2003 to a federal grand jury looking into the BALCO steroid scandal by saying she did not use performance-enhancing drugs. Thomas, who was indicted in 2006, has pleaded innocent.

It wasn’t a sprint or an attack over the Poggio that won the 99th Milan-San Remo. It was Fabian Cancellara's instinct for big drama in cycling’s biggest days.

The weekly crits in Austin, TX on the first day of spring, 2008

Revising its original plan to reserve its Record Red Ergopower shifters for professionals, Campagnolo announced Thursday that it will offer a limited run of the special heavy-action shifters to the public. The pro Ergo levers incorporate stronger springs for a more tactile action. Campagnolo says that the change was made to appease elite riders who use the crisper action to “feel the shifts at the hardest moments of the race.”

The name on the team jersey is new, as are many of the riders wearing it. But the mission remains the same after nine years under the Jelly Belly banner — to provide a home for developing riders and win some key races along the way.

Medical investigators are looking for cyclists to help with an online survey that will provide researchers with detailed information about cycling health and injuries. Researchers from the Injury Prevention Center at Rhode Island Hospital are launching the survey to expand knowledge about cycling-specific injuries and promote safer and healthier cycling.

Agritubel went one-two in the ninth Classic Loire-Atlantique in France on Friday just a day after learning it was going back to the Tour de France. Mikel Gaztanaga, 27, slipped away in a 20km breakaway that held on until the end to keep the race trophy on the team’s shelf. Agritubel won last year with Nicolas Jalabert. Teammate Jimmy Casper came through second while Frédéric Finot (Differdange-Apiflo Vacances) took third at eight seconds adrift. Agritubel was one of three wild cards invited to the 2008 Tour. It will be the team’s third consecutive Tour appearance.

Dear Readers,

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

Once again I'm filling in for Senior Online Editor Charles Pelkey, who is due back from Africa early next week.

It was a busy week in pro cycling, both on the road and in the public-relations offices of various organizations, where several newsworthy press releases were issued.

Australian rider Allan Davis, who finished second in the Tour Down Under in January, has joined Belgium's Mitsubishi team, which competes on the second-division Continental Pro circuit. Davis, 27, kicked off his professional career in 2003 under Manolo Saiz with the ONCE and then Liberty teams. Last year, the Australian rode with the now-defunct American team Discovery Channel, under whose colors he finished second at Milan-San Remo.

Fourteen junior cyclists were injured, two of them seriously, when a car plowed into their peloton during a training session Friday in Poland, police said. The youths were hit by the oncoming vehicle on a main road near Kalisz in central Poland, the home of their cycling club, KTK, local police told the country's PAP news agency.

The past week has been one Rock Racing’s Michael Ball would likely rather forget. On Tuesday the team owner and Italian star Mario Cipollini announced that they had parted ways, and on Thursday Tour de Georgia organizers Medalist Sports announced that Rock was not among the 15 teams invited to compete this year.

La Classicissimia, La Primavera – whatever you call it, Milan-San Remo is one of cycling’s most electrifying and prestigious races, one of the sport’s treasured “monuments.” Whoever wins San Remo is king of Italy for a day. Twenty-five eight-man teams line up Saturday in front of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan for the 298km run past the picturesque headlands jutting out of the Italian Riviera toward the finish in San Remo.

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