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On the eve of the U.S. National championships RockShox has quietly put a new cross-country fork into the hands of its top sponsored athletes. Reports put at least four riders onto the new fork for the upcoming Mount Snow, Vermont event. The championship race will not be the first competitive event the fork has seen, it is currently being raced in the European Transalp race by Karl Platt. Gary Fisher-Subaru’s Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski has had one of the new forks for roughly a week. He was shipped the fork to ride during the week leading up to the national championship race, and had it mounted

Weather: Highs in 80s, partly cloudy, brisk cross-headwinds Stage winner: Colombia's Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) took the biggest win in both his career and the history of his team by breaking clear of the peloton 10km from the top of the Col du Télégraphe. The 24-year-old from Ramiriqui, Colombia, then rode through the remnants of the day’s breakaway to finish 38 seconds ahead of Alejandro Valverde and Cadel Evans. Race leader: Rabobank’s Michael Rasmussen defended his yellow jersey by sticking with the race’s top GC contenders.

After the recent withdrawalsof three high-profile Australians, cycling fans from down under found somethingto cheer about Tuesday in the form of Predictor-Lotto’s Cadel Evans. Theslim Aussie rode aggressively on the race’s first two hors categorieclimbs in stage 9 to finish third on the stage and move into fourthoverall.

Mountain bike racer, Barry Wicks was the first to sign on with Giro for eyewear. But in the week prior to the Tour de France, Giro signed Discovery Channel’s Alberto Contador and Caisse d’Epargne’s Nicolas Portal. At the prologue in London the ink was still wet on both contracts. Nonetheless, Giro produced a special pair of green glasses to go along with Contador’s Discovery Channel team’s newfound eco’ conscience.

The Tour de France offered up another beautiful in the Alps and our man Casey Gibson was there to record it.

On Tuesday, the first real day in the high mountains at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, the expected assault on Discovery Channel saw overnight leader Allan Davis knocked off the top spot on the overall classification, and replaced by Selle Italia's mountain man Gabriele Massaglia. A late offensive on the 3880-meter-high Laji mountain by Selle Italia and Relax-Gam, the team of race favorite Francisco Mancebo, almost saw the blond-haired Aussie rejoin the front group on the 50km-long descent. Though unfortunately for Davis, just as his group began to close in on the front 17, he wiped out on

Keith Norris (AEG-Toshiba-JetNetwork) won the U23 stars-and-stripes jersey in a field-sprint of 174 riders on Sunday, July 15, at the USA Cycling National Festival in Champion, Pennsylvania. It was a close call for Norris, who jumped out front early to position himself for the final sprint, proving his strength and holding the lead without a lead-out. Cody O’Reill (Kodak Gallery-Sierra Nevada) and Jacob Keough (CL Noonan-Coast to Coast) finished second and third, respectively. “The whole race was much faster than I anticipated,” Norris said. “My plan was to be in the top three coming out of

Stage 10 - Tallard to Marseille (229.5km)

Stage 10 - Tallard to Marseille (229.5km)

Soler takes the stage for Barloworld

Rasmussen crosses with Leipheimer on his wheel

Rabobank setting tempo

T-Mobile's evil luck continued as a stray dog wandered onto the route . . .

. . . and took down Marcus Burghardt

The normally stoic Vino' weeps after conceding more time on Tuesday

Valverde leads

The break

Astarloza cracked the break

Contador has a go

Contador and Popovych

Contador and Evans

Going up: The 9085-foot, hors categorie Col de l'Iseran

Rasmussen knows who the boss is at Rabobank now — it's him

Soler attacked 'like a crazy man'

RockShox’s new BlackBox cross-country fork.

A side view revealing the Power Bulge.

The damper assembly.

The upper air chamber.

The lower air chamber.

The brake cutout on the lower left leg.

A rebound adjuster on the lower right leg.

The three-piece crown.

The under side of the crown.

Evans was the only rider to bridge to Contador.

Nicolas Portal with the Havik.

Portal had a crowd waiting for him at his team bus.

Alberto Contador with his green glasses.

A closer look at the Havik

Sponsored athletes will have a special branded model.

Bruyneel was happy before the stage. We're bet he's even happier now.

A busy start village

The start village at the Tour offers a variety of entertainment

Stage 9 - A Casey Gibson Gallery

Meanwhile, the fans gather on the climbs...

Some - those on catered tours - get to watch the Tour on TV and then from the side of the road

Some fans make a long trip to show their colors.

Stage winner Juan Soler Hernandez looks quite composed.

Leipheimer and Evans were in good company.

Hincapie on the Galibier

Gibson offers many thanks to Volkswagon, for making posi-traction to allow him to park like this on the Galibier.

It takes work to look good on the podium

French TV has to set up a studio in the most obscure places, every day.

Ludewig gets the stage . . .

. . . Massaglia gets the lead

Despite a barrage of attacks designed to ruffle their feathers, Discovery Channel has again emerged on top at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, as race leader Allan Davis claimed his second stage triumph with a last-minute lunge to the line in Xihaizhen. After 152 kilometers in the saddle, the plucky Australian learned his lesson from yesterday, this time going head-to-head with Stage 2 winner André Schulze and matching each other meter by meter - with only a perfect throw of the bike deciding the outcome. "It was close, but I knew I had it," said Davis. "I've got really good legs - a lot better

Moreau animated the chase on stage 8.

Moreau hopes to keep attacking through the mountains.

Davis confirms why is race leader at this point

Sparkling vintage for the stage winner...

.. and the race leader's bottle.

Rasmussen’s ride

Another view, the team trains on 32-spoke alloy tubular wheels.

Rasmussen’s one-piece PRO Stealth Evo handlebar and stem combination

There’s not even a place for a second waterbottle cage.

Rasmussen’s wheels are kept separate from the rest of the team.

The majority of the team uses the new prototype carbon wheels from Shimano we’ve seen under many other teams at the Tour.

Many of the bikes had Kool-Stop brake pads.

Leipheimer hopes the 10-second penalty won't make a difference in Paris.

Vande Velde and Zabriskie meet the press

No charity... just sage advice

Leipheimer expects a lot from the Pyrénées.

Leipheimer meets the press.

On the lead-up to the 2007 Tour de France, Michael Rasmussen proclaimed that a third straight polka-dot jersey was not his No. 1 ambition. The Danish climbing specialist was targeting a place on the final podium in Paris. Sunday Rasmussen took a big step to making that dream come true, winning the brutal stage 8 run between Le Grand Bornand to Tignes, and taking over the race lead in the process.

COURSE: Following a rest day at Tignes, the favorites will prepare for what should be one of the Tour’s major climbing days. This stage features the Tour’s highest mountain pass, the Col de l’Iseran (9085 feet) right from the start, which is followed by 70km of downhill and flats before the very long ascent via the Col du Télégraphe to the rugged Col du Galibier (8678 feet). After 35km of descending from the Galibier, the 2km climb to the finish in Briançon averages almost 7 percent. HISTORY: No less than 32 Tour stages have finished in Briançon, the most recent in 2005 and 2000. Two years

With another mountain-top finish on the schedule, Saturday’s fifth stage at the Cascade Classic held the promise of shaking up the overall standings in the men’s race. But while Jeff Louder (Health Net-Maxxis) won the day, Phil Zajicek (Navigators Insurance) retained his GC lead by coming across on his wheel for second in the stage, followed closely by Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United), Scott Moninger (BMC)and Ben Jacques-Maynes (Priority Health-Bissell).

Opening up the throttle 200 meters from the line in Bird Island, Weisenhof's Andri Schulze chose to sprint long and hard towards the finish of the second stage of the Tour of Qinghai Lake, and his result surprised everyone but himself. Immediately gapping the peloton right behind him, the German's bold move and strong legs combined in perfect unison to deliver the 32-year-old his second season victory and his second at Qinghai Lake, out-sprinting race leader Allan Davis (Discovery Channel) and Selle Italia's Alberto Loddo. "The team worked the last 10 kilometers for me, and in

Stage 8 results1. Michael Rasmussen (Dk), Rabobank, 4:49:402. Iban Mayo (Sp), Saunier Duval-Prodir, at 02:473. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d’Epargne, at 03:124. Christophe Moreau (F), Ag2r Prevoyance, at 03:135. Frank Schleck (Lux), CSC, at 03:136. Cadel Evans (Aus), Predictor-Lotto, at 03:137. Andrey Kashechkin (Kz), Astana, at 03:138. Alberto Contador (Sp), Discovery Channel, at 03:319. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank, at 03:3510. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, at 03:3511. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Euskaltel-Euskadi, at 03:59 12. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Discovery Channel, at 03:59 13. Cobo Acebo

Australian cycling fans may be drowning their sorrows in a cold Foster’s Monday after learning that not one but three of their nation’s top riders were out of the Tour after Sunday’s critical climbing stage. First to leave the race was CSC’s Paris-Roubaix champion Stuart O’Grady, who was taken to the hospital after a crash on the fast and tricky descent of the Cormet de Roselend. According to hospital officials O'Grady suffered fractures to five ribs. “For the moment he is in the hospital and is getting a scan,” said CSC team director Kim Andersen. “It is difficult to say more than

Discovery Channel played its joker card Sunday and sent Spanish phenomenon Alberto Contador on the attack. The 25-year-old Paris-Nice champion took flight and easily marked accelerations by Christophe Moreau and Iban Mayo up the Cat. 1 Tignes finale, but saw a puncture with about 4km to go take the wind out of his sails. “I tried to get back but I lost my rhythm. I was going well and it’s unfortunate to have this bad luck,” said Contador, who finished eighth at 3:31 back. “Things were going OK and you have to remember there’s a lot of racing ahead of us, but when you lose time like this

What a difference a day makes. Less than 24 hours after celebrating Linus Gerdemann’s Tour de France stage win and capture of the yellow jersey, T-Mobile found itself down three riders, including team captain Michael Rogers, who crashed and dislocated his shoulder while riding as the virtual yellow jersey on a stage-8 descent. Mark Cavendish’s abandonment had been planned for today to prevent exhausting the young sprinter in his first Tour. The likely abandonment of Patrik Sinkewitz, however, was anything but foreseen. After the Tour’s first summit finish atop the Cat. 1 climb in the