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A Performance Management Chart from a pro rider showing the months of January-March, ‘07. The blue line is his Fitness (Chronic Training Load), the Pink line tracks Fatigue (Acute Training Load), and the Yellow bar graph is Form (Training Stress).

Happy New Year! 2008 is here and it’s time to capitalize upon your 2007 training files and training log entries. For those of you who didn’t keep a training log in 2007, this is your chance to get started.

Former world road race champion Tom Boonen is reported to be launching an audacious bid for an Olympic medal as part of a new Belgian team-pursuit squad in Beijing this summer. According to La Derniere Heure newspaper, the one-day specialist, one of cycling's best-known faces, will team up with Gert Steegmans, Sebastien Rosseler and Wouter Weylandt in a bid to score what would be a major upset. Australia holds the Olympic team-pursuit title, having won gold in Athens ahead of Great Britain and Spain.

Disgraced German cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz intends to appeal a one-year ban for testing positive for testosterone, the German cycling federation (BDR) said on Friday. Sinkewitz crashed out of the Tour de France in 2007, and days later it was disclosed that he had tested positive for the banned male sex hormone during a test taken in June. In November the BDR's disciplinary commission banned Sinkewitz, formerly of T-Mobile, for the reduced sentence of one year because of his tell-all confession about doping methods.

Disgraced Kazakh cyclist Andrey Kashechkin has pleaded for a team to sign him despite facing a ban over a positive test for blood doping following the Tour de France. Kashechkin was sacked from the drug-tainted Astana team after he tested positive for homologous blood doping at an out-of-competition control in Turkey last August. Although he has contested the validity of that test, Kashechkin is facing a ban from the sport, a fate that seems likely to befall his former teammate, compatriot Alexander Vinokourov, after he too tested positive for blood doping.

After more than a year of waiting for Spanish authorities to complete their work, Italy's anti-doping authority announced this week that it intends to take action against suspected offenders in the Operación Puerto doping scandal. Spanish judicial officials dropped charges against several riders in October of 2006, noting that use of performance-enhancing drugs was not illegal at the time of the alleged infractions. Other riders, including Alejandro Valverde and 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador were cleared after a review of documents in the case.

Dear Readers,
Welcome to the latest edition of The Prologue, the weekly summary of news from the staff and editors at VeloNews.com.

Despite it being the off-season, it's been an interesting week in cycling. Our own Neal Rogers had an unusual set of interviews this week, triggered in part by last week's report on Frankie Andreu's decision to leave his director's position at Rock Racing.

Earlier this week, I wrote a piece about controversial domestic team Rock Racing, discussing the departure of Frankie Andreu, the signings of Oscar Sevilla and the relationship between team owner Michael Ball and suspended 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis.

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My my, hey hey Rock and roll is here to stay It's better to burn out Than to fade away My my, hey hey. — Neil Young, “My My, Hey Hey”

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There’s probably no truth to the rumor that Rock Racing has signed Frank Vandenbroucke, Roger Clemens, Mike Tyson, Britney Spears, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Amy Winehouse, Dr. Evil, Keith Richards, Dick Cheney, Rodan the Flying Monster, the Hound of the Baskervilles, the ghosts of Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer, and all the bad guys from the WWE.

This is wheelie FUN!!!

Henk Lubberding at Tour de Trump Atlantic City TT start

Putting My Son In Harm's Way

So, Brody, do you think I have a chance with that hot babe? Maybe if I stick my chest out a little more?

Few current professional mountain-bike racers can say they raced in the first-ever UCI world mountain-bike championships, held in Durango back in 1990. Carl Decker can. The now-32-year-old Oregonian lined up in the junior ranks that year. Unfortunately, the brake cable on his Bridgestone bike snapped a few minutes before the gun, and Decker had to race on his dad’s bike. In 2007, 17 years later, Decker again hit the world’s, this time as an elite. The cables on his Giant didn’t snap, and Decker finished 69th.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. - Jan. 10, 2007- In an effort to better support retailers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, Interbike announced it will host its first annual Interbike Outdoor Demo East Tuesday, October 21 to Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Roger Williams Park in Providence, R.I.

German sprint ace, Erik Zabel, said Thursday the 2008 season could very well be his last in the professional peloton. Zabel, a record six-time consecutive winner of the Tour de France's green jersey, discussed his future plans as his Milram team unveiled a significantly restructured squad for the upcoming season. The 37-year-old German, who hit the headlines last year when he admitted to having "briefly" used the banned blood booster EPO early in his career while he raced with Deutsche Telekom, said he is already thinking about life away from the bike.

SPEEDWAY, Indiana – Following a promising buildup The North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), the world’s largest trade/consumer show for custom-built bicycles, is on the verge of selling out all 185 exhibitor spaces as it heads to the cycling-friendly city of Portland, Oregon, for the first time in the show's three-year history. The 2008 show will be held in the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, February 8-10.

On the heels of FSA's introduction of its BB30 bottom bracket system, Van Dessel has announced that its new BB30 Rivet frames are in now production, with delivery slated for late March. Built around the BB30 bottom bracket shell, Van Dessel’s Rivet will also feature a 1.5-inch lower headset bearing, in keeping with the recent trend of manufacturers moving to larger diameters at both bottom bracket and head tube.

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