All Content

Dear Bob,I always enjoy reading your column. Lately though, I haven’t seen your column, which has been kind of disappointing for me. Where have you been? Are you still writing your column? I hope so.Anyway, last weekend, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing you speak at the Seattle Bike Expo. During your talk, you mentioned something about traffic citations while riding your bike counting against your driver’s license. Can you explain more about this? I find it hard to believe that I could lose my driver’s license for something I do while riding my bike.D.R.Seattle, WashingtonDear

It’s obvious Yaroslav Popovych enjoys life. The Ukraine attacker usually has a smile on his face and is quick with a joke, except when he’s on his bike. Then he’s everyone else’s worst nightmare. Popovych dropped the ax with 30km to go on the last of four rated climbs in Friday’s intense 178km fifth stage from Sorgues to Manosque to motor away from a breakaway that included Dave Zabriskie (CSC) and sent a panic jolt through the peloton.

Italian Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval) won Friday’s third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, a 213km leg between Marsciano and Macerata. Russian Alexander Areekev (Acqua e Sapone), winner of stage 2, retains the overall lead. Meanwhile, Italian Ivan Basso (Discovery Channel) crashed and injured his left wrist, according to Gazzetta dello Sport. He finished the stage, but subsequently was taken to hospital for X-rays. No fracture was found, according to press reports, but there was some question as to whether Basso would start Saturday's fourth stage. World and Olympic champion Paolo Bettini

Legally Speaking - with Bob Mionske: Points is Points

Popo' hangs on to win by 14 seconds over the raging pursuit

Grabsch leads the break

Rebellin had to fight to keep the jersey

Gerolsteiner on the job

Zabriskie takes a pull

Horner and Predictor-Lotto lend a hand to the chase

Popo' was the leader on the road at one point

For the second time in two weeks, Alberto Contador delivered a big win in the 2007 season ahead of some pretty heady company. Last month at the Tour of Valencia, he beat Spanish sensation Alejandro Valverde at the key climbing stage up Alto de Campello. Contador hit the repeat button Thursday in the explosive 169.5km fourth stage at Paris-Nice. The new Discovery Channel recruit dropped the likes of L’Alpe d’Huez winner Frank Schleck and Tour de France candidate Cadel Evans on the short but steep summit finish to La Croix-Neuve to take an impressive win.

Alexander Areekev (Acqua e Sapone) won the second stage of Tirreno-Adriatico on Thursday to take the overall lead of the weeklong stage race. The 24-year-old Russian took the 202km leg from Civitavecchia to Marciano ahead of Italy's Daniele Contrini (Tinkoff Credit Systems). German Sven Krauss (Gerolsteiner) was third. Areekev now leads Contrini by 32 seconds with Krauss third, a further three seconds back. Spanish rider Ivan Gutierrez (Caisse d’Epargne), who crashed during the bunch sprint, was taken to hospital with chest injuries. Gutierrez will be under observation for 48 hours;

The former directeur sportif of the old Belgian Lotto team is one of 19 connected with the now disbanded outfit due in court later this month on charges ranging from fraud to doping. Jean-Luc Vandenbroucke and his wife, Lotto's secretary in 1997, could face fraud charges in connection with “irregularities” in accounts detailing the distribution of sponsorship monies from the Belgian national lottery, a judicial source revealed on Thursday. Frederique Barbich, spokesman for the local magistrate's court, confirmed that several may be facing criminal charges in the case. "The 19

VeloGear teamed up with VeloNews magazine illustrator David Brintonto create LesHéros du Vélo, a large-format wall calendar of Brinton'sillustrations for 2007. The illustrations are Brinton's personal tributeto the legends of cycling and feature twelve great riders of the twentiethcentury, including The Cannibal, the Badger, and the Eagle of Toledo. Thecalendar is now on sale for just $9.95 at VeloGear.com. In December, VeloGear asked cyclists to submit photos as part of a contestto promote the 2007 Les Héros du Vélo calendar. The contestbrought in more

A weary Contador exults in victory

The break

The man to beat?

Thierry Marichal is being investigated for using and selling Pot Belge the volatile mixture of heroin and amphetamines.

Beautiful scenery, but a tough day in the saddle

Boonen loads up for the day's work

Danielson, meanwhile, was sweating on behalf of Contador and Leipheimer

And Pellizotti? He was watching that jersey slip off his shoulders

Moinard and Casar shelled Muravyev going over the Cote de Chabrits

Then it was Valjavec, Contador and Rebellin fighting it out for the win

Contador gets it

Megan and Gu

The artist currently known as Brintoni

Our latest reader-submitted PhotoGallery is now ready for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of our most recent contest. Like this week, we received a wealth of images from the Tour of California, among them a great shot of George Hincapie riding at the front of the peloton as the race works its way up Balcom Canyon. C. Starr Hathaway’s “Wristy Business” captures the heroic effort put in by one the hardest-working men in the peloton, as Hincapie rides nearly 100 miles with a broken wrist. Congratulations, C. Starr. Please drop us a note

You can’t blame Tom Boonen if he shot his arms up in triumph thinking that he had won a hard-fought, rising sprint into Maurs at the end of the lumpy 215.5km third stage at Paris-Nice. When he heard over his course radio that Russian rouleur Alexandr Kolobnev -- the lone holdout from the day’s four-man breakaway -- was dangling 20 seconds off the front with 7km to go, he assumed like everyone else his Quick Step henchmen would finish off the job to set up the mass gallop.

Many pros traveled to warmer environs early this in 2007 for early seasonteam training camps and plenty of quality miles on the open road. You mayalso have your own travel plans sometime over the next few weeks, in orderto train and get a jumpstart on your own race preparation. Chances arethat this cycling vacation includes plenty of restaurant eating, includingthe fast food, diners, and a variety of ethnic cuisines. Like the proswho have plenty of roadside eating experience, you too can make good foodchoices and prevent greasy platter predicaments that would normally thwartyour body

Australian Robbie McEwen held off two of his biggest rivals to win the first stage of Tirreno-Adriatico Wednesday in Civitavecchia, Italy. Predictor-Lotto’s 34-year-old sprint specialist, winner of 11 stages in the Tour de France, pulled clear of Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) on the last curve with one of his trademark bursts of speed to win the 160km race in 4 hours, 38 minutes and 24 seconds. Freire, a former three-time world champion, crossed second with the Norwegian Hushovd third. McEwen said he called on his experience of two years ago to help him win the

The ongoing Spanish doping investigation, Operación Puerto, entered a new phase on Wednesday when a Madrid magistrate's court lodged an appeal against the case's dismissal. The inquiry, which came to light in May 2006 when police raids discovered an alleged blood-doping network run by the Madrid-based Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, considered to be the mastermind behind the network, was thrown out due to a lack of evidence. The probe uncovered an alleged doping network said to involve 58 cyclists out of some 200 athletes being treated by the doctor. Nonetheless, on Monday presiding

North American pro road racers and team staff, as well as racing fansaround the country, can breath a collective sigh of relief as officialsfrom both the Tourde Georgia and the U.S. Open Cycling Championships have confirmed that their respective events are all systems go. As reportedtwo weeks ago both events, the second and third on the USA CyclingPro Tour calendar, were without title sponsorship and facing large financialhurdles with their respective start dates quickly approaching. And whileneither race organizer has announced a high-dollar title sponsor, bothsay they are confident their

Hincapie-Wristy Business in Balcom Canyon

Kolobnev guts it out for the stage win

Baldato leads the four escapees

The Dordogne River

A long line through the meadows

Liquigas in pursuit

Kolobnev in full flight

Pellizotti gets to keep yellow for another day

And Kolobnev gets to celebrate a narrow, narrow triumph

It's gonna happen, after all.

I spent a couple of days last week in Las Vegas, with Paul Lew, ridingand inspecting his new superlight Pro VT-1 wheels. The pair I rode weighedless than – get this - 850 grams for the set. That’s not a claimed weight, either. I pulled the tires off after theride, checked the scale by using my standard calibration unit (otherwiseknown as a good old American quarter) and then measured the front at 350.5grams and the rear at 501.1. Keep in mind that includes what I’d guessto be about 10-15 grams of rim cement on the wheels. Now here comes the hard part. The wheels cost $5000 a pair with

[nid:37751]The 177km second stage of the eight-day Paris-Nice started with a lot of high hopes. David Millar was talking a wire-to-wire yellow jersey run. Thomas Voekler almost held off the peloton to steal a dramatic breakaway win. Everyone else was looking at Daniele Bennati and Tom Boonen. No one was looking at Franco Pellizotti.

Italian cyclist Danilo Di Luca has been ruled out of the Tirreno-Adriatico one-week stage race, his Liquigas team announced Tuesday. The 31-year-old rider, a former winner of the ProTour series, has been ruled out after he and teammate Leonardo Bertagnolli came down with flu. Their places will go to Francesco Failli and Finn Kjell Carlstrom. The team will be captained by Filippo Pozzato, the recent winner of the Het Volk semi-classic last week. Di Luca signaled his early season form by winning the Milan-Turin one-day semi-classic earlier this month. His best season was in 2005 when he won

A 501.1-gram rear wheel

It is very tough to cut boron fiber – and don't get any of the splinters in your fingers.

Zinn feels really comfortable in a hotel that welcomes bikes in the lobby

Zinn and Paul Lew take the Pro VT-1s out for a test ride.

Pellizotti takes stage, lead at Paris-Nice

Pellizotti takes the stage and the lead

Fischer takes his turn at the front of the break

Fischer and Voeckler soldier on

Saunier Duval chases

Lampre lends a hand

Millar sees that yellow jersey slip off his shoulders . . .

. . . and onto those of Pellizotti, who took the podium alongside Raymond Poulidor

[nid:37738]It was expected to be a showdown between Daniele Bennati and Tom Boonen in the first stage of Paris-Nice, but it was French sprinter Jean-Patrick Nazon who surprised everyone with a long charge to the line in Buzançais on Monday. Nazon, who’s been all but invisible since winning a pair of Tour de France stages in 2003-04, burst down the left side of the peloton after sniffing out a hole with 200 meters to go.

So here I am in Dalton, Georgia, the town where I was born and raised. Asyou probably know by now, my life was thrown into turmoil last April whenIcrashed in the opening stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe. It’s been a tough, tough year, but I count my blessings every singleday. After I began to emerge from the coma, I eventually learned that Ihad been within minutes of dying last year. I was lucky to be in one ofthe world’s greatest hospitals, with one of the world’s best neurosurgeons,who was not only on staff, but in the building when it counted. You can’tget much luckier than that.As I

Puerto inquiry tossed outA Spanish doping investigation that implicated 58 top cyclists two days prior to the Tour de France last year has been dismissed from court, Spanish judicial sources said Monday. The case, which came to light in May 2006 when police raids discovered an alleged blood-doping network run by a Madrid-based doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes, was thrown out due to a lack of evidence and the fact that there was no Spanish anti-doping law when the inquiry came to light. Residing magistrate Antonio Serrano ruled that five people at the center of the affair, including Fuentes, were

At a very unexpected moment at mid-stage today in West Flanders I realized that bicycle racers can occasionally resemble ancient gladiators. When and why did this pop into my head? When: 130km into a windy, crazy-dangerous race at 500 watts bouncing over Belgian pavé. Why: I looked down at an unidentifiable rider, unconscious, his face awash in a mix of mud and blood, yet all I cared about was shoving people out of my way and getting back on my chariot and around this “obstacle.” A minute later I was at absolute maximum sustained effort and would stay that way for a few more moments,

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you havea comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen incycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write toWebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name andhome town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Writersare encouraged to limit their submissions to one letter per month.The letters published here contain the opinions of the submittingauthors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, policies or positionsof VeloNews.com, VeloNews magazine or our parent company, InsideCommunications,

Nazon wins at Paris-Nice, Millar stays in yellow

Raisin at the Tour of California

Nazon celebrates

As does Millar

A lovely day for a ride

The break

Saunier Duval on patrol

Lampre lends a hand

Tilting at windmills

Danielson and Leipheimer motoring along

Tom Boonen starts Sunday’s Paris-Nice as a man on a mission. The Belgian sprinter is building his form for his annual assault on the spring classics, where he has ruled with an iron fist the past two seasons. A back-to-back winner of the Tour of Flanders and the rare Flanders-Roubaix double in 2005, Boonen entered the 2007 season with new motivation and maturity. After an emotional and demanding 2006 season that saw him shine as the world champion, Boonen said he’s more than happy not to have to carry the burden of the rainbow jersey. That’s not to say Boonen is any less ambitious this

[nid:37731]Last year, David Millar underwent wind-tunnel testing for the first time and settled into a new, sleeker aerodynamic position that on paper should have made him faster. Instead, the Scot found he actually lost power — so this season he chucked the scientific posture and replaced it with his tried-and-true position, honed over years of trial and error.

Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne) won the Tour of Murcia on Sunday after finishing safely in the bunch during the final stage, a 151km leg from Ceuti to Murcia. Danilo Napolitano (Lampre-Fondital) won the finale, outsprinting Graeme Brown (Rabobank) and José Joaquin Rojas (Caisse d’Epargne). Valverde crossed 52nd to take the overall, 35 seconds ahead of runner-up Angel Vicioso (Relax-Gam). Manuel Lloret (Fuerteventura-Canari) was third at 52 seconds. Valverde, who also won Murcia in 2004, had practically secured overall victory with a triumphant show of force in Saturday's

The United States Mountain Bike Team swept the elite women's podium and collected a total of eight medals - two of them gold - at the Continental Mountain Bike Championships in Nequen, Argentina, on Sunday. In a major step towards securing the maximum number of start positions at the 2008 Olympic Games for the U.S., Georgia Gould (Ketchum, Idaho/Luna) led the elite women's contingent with a win in the 24-kilometer race ahead of silver medalist Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass./Kenda-Seven) and bronze medalist Willow Koerber (Horseshoe, N.C./Subaru-Gary Fisher). Heather Irmiger

Henk Vogels (Toyota-United) took his first win in three years on Sunday at the Tower District Criterium, the final stage of Bentley's Central Valley Classic. Multi-time national criterium champion Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) celebrated her second win in three days when she flew across the line to take the women's crit. Alejandro Acton (Colavita-Sutter Home) and Ricardo Escuela (SuccessfulLiving.com) powered to the second and third spots behind an ebullient Vogels, while Suzanne de Goede (T-Mobile) and Kori Seehafer (Team Lipton) secured the second and third spots behind Pic. Ben

Boonen had a hectic but successful year as world champ