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Eight more national champions were crowned Friday on day three of the 2007 USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships as elite and U23 categories of the men's and women's sprint and points race were contested. After qualifying second behind Adam Duvendeck (Momentum) in the 200-meter time trial on Thursday, Michael Blatchford (Cody Racing) captured both the elite and U23 national titles in the men's sprint. Blatchford dispatched silver medalist Ben Barczewski (T-Town Express) in two straight rides in the finals to claim the national title while Duvendeck took two straight

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 Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

He’s certainly off to a good start. World junior time trial champion, Taylor Phinney captured the national elite men's individual pursuit title on Thursday evening, competing in his first-ever event on the track. The 17-year-old Phinney (TIAA-CREF) earned the number-two seed in Thursday morning's qualifying session at USA Cycling’s Elite Track National Championships in Carson, California, with a time of 4:35.550 Phinney’s time set up a head-to-head match against top-seed Brad Huff, who had earlier set a mark of 4:34.976. In the gold medal, Phinney rode to an early advantage in

T-Mobile general manager Bob Stapleton is taking a “wait and see” attitude toward the ongoing power struggle between the UCI and the organizers of the three grand tours. Last week, the UCI announced a restructured 2008 ProTour calendar that excludes the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España and major one-day classics associated with the big three race organizers. Stapleton said the news of a watered-down ProTour calendar caught teams by surprise, but added this likely won’t be the last row in the ongoing battle over the controversial ProTour. “I think this is round one of what’s

Slipstream Sports LLC, the parent company of the Slipstream professionalcycling team, has developed a grant program designed to breathe new lifeinto American youth cycling.The organization today announced "Causing the Slipstream," a developmentprogram to provide financial support to outstanding youth cycling programsacross the country.U.S.-based cycling programs with a junior development program are encouragedto apply for grants through www.slipstreamsports.com.Grant winners will also receive access to private training from Slipstream/Chipotleteam members and renowned Sports Physiologist,

Good genes or the power of argyle? Either way, Taylor Phinney is flyin'

Stapleton isn't expecting a rapid resolution to the ProTour fight.

Slipstream supports juniors

Dear Readers,In Deliveranceof the bird man, a reader wrote in to ask about an incident in which his group ride was buzzed, and in response, the ride leader flipped the offending driver “the bird.” As you may recall, this immediately led to an altercation between the “bird man” and the “enraged and rather large passenger.” In that column, I wrote that “the bird” is not constitutionally protected speech, and may even be a provocation to fight. In response, I received the following letter. Hi Bob,Interesting discussion of the "bird," although lacking in brevity and accuracy. I take issue

Peter Van Den Abeele’s has the title of Mountain Bike Sports Coordinator within the UCI, which is a fancy way of saying he runs the show. A former pro off-road racer himself, the Belgian now patrols the start/finish line of World Cup races, doing everything from handing Gatorade to finishes, adjusting metal barriers and schmoozing potential sponsors. With a cash sponsor in Nissan on board, the UCI World Cup and world championships rose to new heights in 2007. And with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing on the horizon, Van Den Abeele owns an extensive to-do list. Van Den Abeele sat down with

Three cyclocross races in one week! Sure, temperatures for all events hovered around 80 degrees and even though only one race featured beer chugging, bike junkies throwing money at the racers, it still felt a little bit like Christmas time in Belgium. The first race of the last week was Cross Vegas, the soon-to-be annual kick off to the U.S. cyclocross season. This spectacular nighttime event took place last Wednesday following day three of the yearly super bike nerd convention known as Interbike. If you’ve never been to Interbike, all I can say is standing on concrete floors underneath

Oscar Pereiro finally feels comfortable enough to put on the yellow jersey from the disputed 2006 Tour de France. The Spanish rider donned the maillot jaune for a photo shoot with the Spanish daily AS and said it rightfully belongs to him following last month’s ruling against Floyd Landis. “A lot of time has passed but I feel good. And I’m not afraid to put it on,” Pereiro said. “Since I received a fax from the UCI (on Sept. 21) informing the news about the 2006 Tour, I know that putting on the yellow jersey again isn’t a provocation. I have nothing to hide.” In the eyes of the UCI,

Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Them there's fightin' words, boy

Cyclocrossworld.com's Jeremy Powers raiding the Team Maxxis espresso stash.

Bright lights, big city. Boulder Cycle Sport's Colby Pearce makes his way back to Sin City after the race.

Boulder Cycle Sport Sales Manager Rob Ferola trying to put the moves of Cipo.

With his bikes still in Las Vegas, Whitey Debroux does his best rendition of a crazy Belgian super fan.

The chase.

One hour before this photo was taken, Trek's Travis Brown rolled into Boulder, stole a mountain bike from Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski's garage, then came out for a little Las Vegas detox session.

Pereiro in the maillot jaune during the '06 Tour

As reported yesterday on VeloNews.com, Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will ride next year with Astana under the leadership of Johan Bruyneel. The Spanish daily MARCA reported Wednesday that Contador will sign a two-year contract worth 1.5 million euros per season and bring Benjamín Noval and Sergio Paulinho with him. Other riders linked to Bruyneel’s move to Astana include Janez Brajkovic, Levi Leipheimer and Tomas Vaitkus. Leipheimer looks likely to join Bruyneel as the Belgian director is poised to take over the troubled Astana team as general manager as part of a three-year

Dear Monique, Thanks for a great article titled “Feed Your Head.” I have one question though concerning the following statement:Research on caffeine consumption during exercise indicates the 1.5 mg/kg of body weight improves performance.Is that per hour or what time frame? I weigh 87 kg, so is that 130 mg/hr?Thanks,MPCharlotte, NCHi MP,Thanks for your question. While many cyclists and other endurance athletes may consume a moderate caffeine dose about one hour before exercise, consuming some caffeine during exercise, especially in the later part of a long training ride or race is not

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Contador is ready to join Bruyneel at Astana

Thanks 'Vegas — for kicking my butt. I almost made it. After six days in the Sin city I was as close as I could have come to making it out unscathed. I spent two days in Bootleg Canyon, Nevada, where the trails are known for their brutality. Crashing there is like riding a razor blade covered Slip-and-Slide into a wading pool of glass. It’s a good place to practice the 80-percent rule — riding at only 80-percent of your ability to ensure that you’re not the guy — you know, that guy who crashes at an event where you have no reason putting it all on the line. Plenty of the attendees

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Reid Beloni’s “Early trip to the races” made us remember all of those foggy-headed mornings driving to any number of local races near or far. Yeah, yeah, we’re waxing nostalgic and Reid managed to capture the image that started us down that road. Nice work, Reid. Please drop us a note at Rosters@InsideInc.comto work out the details and we’ll send you a copy of our new Coors Classic DVD. Meanwhile, go ahead and take a

Johan Bruyneel is poised to take over the reins at the troubled Astana team and will bring heavy hitters Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador with him for the 2008 season. Sources close to Bruyneel told VeloNews that the Belgian director is finalizing negotiations with the Kazakh government and will assume control of the ProTour team. A formal announcement is expected in the coming weeks. Bruyneel could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Last month, the Belgian sport director confirmed reports that Kazakh officials approached him to take over the squad in the wake of devastating doping

As is usually the case with web reports from Interbike, we managed only to scratch the surface of all of the latest and greatest we saw at the show this year. Here are a few more items for you save your pennies for in the coming year. Be sure to take look at VeloNews issue 20 when it becomes available later this month, too. We’ll have a lot in there as well.

The RAAM Fall FestivalA celebration of the people and inspiration of one of the world’s greatestexperiences!You and your friends are invited to join the RAAM Family for the InauguralRAAM Fall Festival in Boulder, CO, USA – the World Headquarters of RAAM.The fun happens Saturday October 13th, 2007.Schedule of Events10:00 Ride!A group ride of 35-50 miles exploring the foothills of the Rockiesnorth of Boulder. Here’s your chance to catch up with your RAAM friendsand ride with RAAM veterans. Bring your RAAM jersey or buy one from ourstore. We’ll start from the home of the Race Director.4:00 Show

Look’s new 586 breaks the sub-1000 gram mark including an uncut integrated seat mast. The new frame is more than 130-grams lighter the 595, but not quite as stiff. The frame set, including fork, headset and E-Post will cost $3700.

The E-Post seat post system offers three different clamps, which differ in offset. The standard comes with +/- 20mm of adjustment, while there are reversible 32mm and 5mm options (pictured from left to right).

Giro’s Xen mountain bike helmet is a fixture in the trail segment, its design and greater coverage remains unchanged for 2008, but its style continues to evolve. The finish on this helmet is actually a fabric.

We first saw the $225 Ionos helmet in the 2007 Tour de France. It has 15-percent more vent volume than the Atmos thus keeps a rider’s head 15-percent cooler, says Giro.

In the fall, winter and early spring 15-percent cooler isn’t always wanted, so Giro includes a winter liner with every Ionos it sells.

Bell’s $130 Drop full-face helmet meets CPSC and ASTM specific standards for Downhill helmets, which are specific to full-face helmets.

Motor heads got the first look at Bell’s new Bell Star Moto GP inspired street helmet at Interbike. The design and Viper graphics all come out of Bell’s Santa Cruz facility. It will be available this coming spring.

Fi’zi:k re-engineered two saddle’s specifically for off-road use. The Aliante Gamma XM comes with K:ium rails and Technogel padding. The new Gobi XM also has K:ium rails and has been designed to fit like the ever-popular Arione.

Team Slipstream carried out a contest to design the team’s 2008 kits. Pearl Izumi, a company that has been absent from the professional road arena for two years, will manufacture the winning design.

Pearl’s new sub-200 gram Octane SL road shoe (single shoe, size 43.) The shoes rely on an 88-gram uni-directional carbon sole and costs $300.

The Octane jacket is made from a breathable, waterproof four-way stretch material. It comes with a removable hood and drop down tail to keep both your head and bottom dry.

Dakine’s Apex pack $120 has been a hit ever since its release last year. This year it’s material pallet has expanded to include wool.

Ibis showed its Mojo SL, a sub-five-pound frame. It uses a higher modulus carbon as well as carbon headset cups and dropouts to shave weight. Even the main pivot shaft is made from carbon.

The $2500 Mojo SL frame builds into a 21.9-pound bike using Ibis’ WTF ultra light kit. The kit includes an XTR drivetrain, Easton cockpit and NoTubes wheels, all of which is super light, but still very usable.

'Cross bike of the year? Well, Time’s Cross ProTeam frame is definitely on the short list. The $3250 module (frame, fork, integrated seat post, headset and stem) weighs 2125 grams, while the frame alone is 1280 grams. Available in five sizes.

Like the frame, the Mono-bloc fork is made by Time. The fork features fibers that run continually from drop out to steerer. The legs feature Vectran for compliance and the steerer is reinforced with Kevlar to protect it from a stem’s clamping forces.

Time’s Ergo Force handlebar is molded in one-piece, unlike many of its competitors who build handlebars in three pieces. The 230-gram bar comes in three widths, 42, 44, 46, and costs $420.

Pairing Time’s ULTeam RS carbon shoe with an RXS style pedal gives you, as Time claims, one of the industry’s lowest pedal and shoe stack height combinations at 21.4mm. A pair of the RS shoes weighs 580-grams and costs $285.

19. Stan Koziak the founder of NoTubes.com has a new ZTR Race rim that only weighs 283-grams. He’s tested rims weighing as little as 262-grams in MTB World Cups. Koziak has been a long time sponsor of Seven’s Mary McConnelogue and Mike Broderick.

A NoTubes ZTR Race wheelset built with American Classic hubs and DT Swiss Revolution spokes can weigh as little as 1230 grams.

21. Hutchinson’s Marc Gullickson was showing the company’s new tubeless ready ’cross tires. Both Bulldog and Piranha 34c tread patterns feature a tubeless Kevlar bead and 127tpi casing that’s meant to be used with Hutchinson’s Fast’ Air latex sealant

Early trip to the races

Bruyneel's 'retirement' may have been shorter than you thought

Chuck Ibis (aka Scot Nicol) took a full pound out of the Mojo Carbon full suspension bike in making the Mojo SL. The Mojo SL weighs only 4.9 pounds, yet has 5.5 inches of travel. The rubberized polyurethane coating comes in grey, brown or matte clear

A complete Mojo SL, shown here in matte clear, with the Ibis WTF parts package featuring XTR and Stan’s wheels, weighs in at only 21.9 pounds for a no-compromise all-mountain bike; that’s three pounds less than last year.

The Ibis Tranny carbon hardtail weighs 19lbs with Ibis’s WTF parts pick. It can also be set up as a 17.5lb single speed – or 16lbs with a Pace carbon rigid fork and Mavic Speed City wheels and road tires. The 1250-gram Tranny frame sells for $1399.

The key to the single-speed option is the carbon chainstay “box.” The box only weighs 70 grams extra, yet it allows over an inch of horizontal adjustability for chain tensioning, and it adds rigidity.

The bolt holding the chainstay box in position looks elegant, fits neatly behind the bottom bracket, and is easy to access to change chainstay length.

The bolt at the top of the seatstays allows the Tranny rear end to pivot to change chainstay length. Unscrewing this bolt and the chainstay box bolt separates the frame into two halves so that it, too, can fly in a small Ritchey or S&S travel case.

Fizik makes perforated bar tape matching the perforated center stripe on its 225-gram K:ium-rail Arione saddles.

Brooks has a new basket and roll-up rear panniers. The panniers roll down and have a magnetic flap closure. The basket is lightweight tubular aluminum with a leather handle and wooden bottom.

Dario Pegoretti is battling cancer, and this get-well poster for him is centered around a caricature of the Italian framebuilder cooking the crab (representing, of course, his cancer) over a flame on a bike fork. Keep Dario in your thoughts.

Mavic’s answer to Lightweight, ADA and Lew: the Cosmic Carbone Ultimate. Weighing only 1120 grams/pair (520g front; 600g rear), it sells for $3,000/pair and is worth buying Mavic’s MP3 no-questions-asked warranty for.

Prologo has a rail-less saddle and offers cradles to fit various seatposts that will grab the grooved saddle base. The saddle is still suspended at the front and rear, despite having no rail.

Hed’s new Vantage 8 aero bar weighs a mere 490 grams complete with extensions and elbow pads that swing up out of the way when grasping the bar near the stem. The name refers to eight different adjustments.

Hed’s little 3rd brake lever attaches to the shifter. It can come attached to either the left or right bar-end shifter, in either Shimano or Campagnolo.

Hed’s 3rd lever installed onto a rear shifter and into the right extension.

Devin Lenz built an entire chairlift chair including the pad in order to demonstrate how easy the Lenz Sport Ski Bike is to load on the chair.

Former Sweet Parts founder and designer Craig Edwards may have hit a home run with his new superlight (100 grams), easily adjustable and powerful EEBrake.

See the little M5 bolt on the left just in front of the fork? Loosen that with a 4mm hex key, pull the brake lever so the brake clamps onto the rim, and retighten the bolt. Voilá. The brake is centered and stays that way.

Only half of the pad-height adjustment is on the slotted arms, thus avoiding a large drop in leverage with long pad reach. The other half of the adjustment is the eccentric M6 center bolt offset from the big 3/8” center bolt on which the brake pivots

The Mailbag is a regular department on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have read in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to webletters@insideinc.com. Please include your full name, hometown and state or nation. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writers are encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month. The letters published here contain the opinions of the submitting authors and should not be viewed as reflecting the opinions, policies or positions of VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company,

Vervecken, big women's payout highlight Super Cross CupThe Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup October 6-7 in Southampton, New York, will sport a couple of touches American cyclo-crossers don’t see every day — world champion Erwin Vervecken, and a women’s field that’s racing for more money than the rainbow jersey and the rest of the guys. The latest 'cross videofrom VeloNews.com:Excel Sports CrossVegasMen's race and interviewsWomen's race and interviews Vervecken, who last raced in America in 2003, in the Pacific Northwest, acknowledges the growth of U.S. ‘cross since

Erik Zabel looks set to return to T-Mobile next season after announcing on Monday that he will finish his contract with Milram when the season concludes at the end of the month. The 37-year-old was with Telekom, T-Mobile's previous name, from 1993 to 2005, but has spent the last two seasons at Milram. And it has been a difficult year for Zabel, a six-time winner of the Tour de France's green jersey, who admitted last May to taking the banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) during the 1996 Tour. In Munich on Monday, Zabel said he will finish with Milram a year earlier than

Paolo Bettini shot back at critics and rivals alike in an electrifying five-up sprint victory on Sunday, defending his world championship. The 33-year-old Tuscan gestured as if he were firing a machine gun as he crossed the line in Stuttgart after rocketing past the brawny shoulders of Alexandr Kolobnev, relegating the Russian to second and local rider Stefan Schumacher (Germany) to third. “Everyone’s been shooting at me all week, so I decided to try myself,” said Bettini, who became only the fifth rider in world’s history to successfully defend the rainbow jersey. “It wasn’t directed at

It's all over in Stuttgart, save the stein-hoisting, and our man Casey Gibson was there to chronicle the final day of the 2007 UCI world road championships.

Yeah!

The new boss, same as the old boss

Bettini sprints . . .

. . . he knows he's got it . . .