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Team CSC’s Fabian Cancellara hadn’t raced since winning Paris-Roubaix more than a month ago, but nothing could stop the adrenalin and killer instincts from kicking in when the big Swiss rider clipped into the pedals ahead of Monday’s opening 12.5km time trial to open the 86th Volta a Cataluyna. Once he got his big motor warmed up, the 6-foot-3, 180-pounder just let it rip. "I never dreamed of winning today until I rode the course this morning and I thought to myself, ‘Why not risk it and try to win?’" Cancellara said. "My next big goal isn’t until the Tour, but this was an opportunity I

A fast and furious finish

Cancellara takes a risk and it pays off

After warming up on the course, Cancellara thought, 'Why not risk it and win?'

The Phonak rig

Vaitkus had two good reasons to win

An easy day for Basso

The traditional doomed early break

Quick Step chasing ... in vain, as things worked out

Stop for a little wine? Nah . . .

If there is such a thing as a psychological advantage in bike racing, Ivan Basso now has it. The Team CSC leader also now owns the maglia rosa of race leader and no less than a 1:34 edge on his chief rivals in the 2006 Giro d’Italia. All this came courtesy of a stunning display of climbing force at the close of the 171km stage 8 run from Civitanova Marche to the 1289-meter summit finish at Maielletta-Passo Lanciano. Following a sharp attack from fellow Giro favorite Damiano Cunego 4km from the finish, Basso latched onto the Lampre-Fondital rider’s wheel, and then mercilessly dropped the 2004

On Saturday morning before the tough stage 7 run from Cesana to Saltara, VeloNews got an opportunity to look inside the Team CSC truck. Besides the expected slew of bikes and bike parts, the big rig also has a small kitchen, washer and dryer, and even a built in pressure-washing system. A big thanks to our guide, CSC mechanic Nicholas Legan, who was busy using nail polish to cover up a small paint chip in of the team bike’s forks when we showed up for our tour in at the team’s hotel in the stage 6 finishing town of Forli.

Spectators lining the start/finish line of today’s 2006 collegiate road national championships at Perry Lake, Kansas, saw four very different race finishes, with Brent Bookwalter (Lees-McRae), Sarah Uhl (Penn State), Mark Hardman (Virginia) and Mara Abbott (Whitman College) emerging as winners. The day kicked off promptly at 8 a.m., with the women’s Division I and Division II fields taking to the road at Perry Lake, a boating and fishing destination about 15 miles west of Lawrence. Both women’s divisions circled the rolling 28-mile loop twice, with the 75-woman Division I race hitting the

Gunn-Rita Dahle (Multivan-Merida) once again made it a race for second place in the Madrid women’s cross-country race, but the all-powerful Norwegian is finally finding some challengers nipping at her heels. Dahle dropped a revived Marga Fullana (Spiuk-Illes Balears) on the first of five laps and then held off a late charge by nemesis Marie-Helene Premont (Rocky Mountain) to win for the second time this World Cup season. "This course is so fast you can never let up even for a moment or they’ll get you back," Dahle said after winning in 1:39:11. "I thought maybe I went out too hard and I was

After a double day of competition on Saturday at the Joe Martin Stage Race, Gord Fraser (Health Net-Maxxis) retained his overall lead in the men’s race and Erinne Willock (Webcor-Platinum) moved into the top spot in the women’s general classification. Fraser won the field sprint of a 92-mile road race in the morning, then finished ninth in the 2.5-mile uphill time trial – 19 seconds behind teammate Scott Moninger – to stay in the lead. Meanwhile, Tina Pic (Colavita-Cooking Light) took the women’s 69-mile road race, but Willock won the afternoon’s time trial to move into first overall, 20

Timing is everything, especially on a fast, high-speed course in Madrid’s Casa de Campo, where passing lanes are as rare as they are on a Spanish mountain highway. Reigning world champion Julian Absalon (Bianchi) took some choice words of advice from his coach in the closing half-kilometer and sneaked past arch-rival Christoph Sauser (Specialized) to secure victory Sunday in the second round of the men’s World Cup mountain bike series. "I tried to drop him on the final hard climb, but he was too strong and I thought it would be a sprint, but my coach told me to get past him in the last flat

The Executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency, meeting in Montreal this week, has delayed a decision on whether to include the use of so-called "altitude tents" on its banned practices list until at least September of this year. The tents, and other equipment designed to mimic high-altitude hypoxic conditions, have been used by some athletes to artificially elevate their red blood cell counts. The committee issued the following statement in connection with a proposed review of the agency's position on the use of such equipment:Artificially-Induced Hypoxic ConditionsThe

Collegiate athletes mobbed the streets of downtown Lawrence, Kansas, on Sunday for the third and final race of the 2006 USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships. The finale, a criterium run on a one-mile course, saw Division I and II men’s fields race 65 minutes plus three laps and the women’s fields race 55 minutes plus three laps. The D-II men hit the streets first. The race held extra importance, as the team omnium was nearly tied after Friday’s team time trial and Saturday’s road race. Defending champions Whitman College trailed Lees-McRae College by a mere seven points. Both

Arkansas has been good to Gord Fraser (Health Net-Maxxis). In the final event of the Joe Martin Stage Race, a technical downtown criterium, Fraser won his third sprint finish and maintained his overall title. In the women’s race Erinne Willock finished fourth, 10 seconds down on race winner Kori Seehafer, to maintain first in general classification. Entering the final stage with the top two riders on general classification, Fraser and Scott Moninger, the Health Net-Maxxis racers had one thing on their mind – playing defense. On a criterium course in downtown Fayetteville featuring eight

Basso wins and takes over the jersey.

The truck is a big part of the CSC arsenal

Our tour guide, Nicholas Legan.

As expected, lots and lots of bikes...

... bottles...

... and a ton of spare parts

The power supply

The kitchen, when someone needs a quick snack...

... or laundry service.

An army marches on its stomach... and a bike team rolls on theirs.

The trainers come in handy on TT days.

Carol Hutton, winner Mara Abbott and Anna Milkowski after the women's D-II event

Brent Bookwalter out-sprints Todd Yezefski for the win

Think Fraser knows he has another win in the bag?

Well, he did ... and he kept his overall lead after the time trial, too

The chase is on

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Moninger races up the GC into second

An aggressive women's field

Willock rips the time trial and seizes the lead

Dahle's not getting older, she's getting faster

McConneloug rides to a strong 16th

Catch and release: Basso caught Cunego and, after a short pause, rode into the leader's jersey

Savoldelli: I suddenly understood that I was not super.

To Milan?

Fraser takes his third stage and the overall

Willock follows the wheels and collects the win

Absalon shows 'em how

JHK led the way for the Americans

Saturday’s 236km stage from Cesana to Saltara certainly won’t decide the overall winner of the 2006 Giro d’Italia, but it may have revealed some cracks in at least one of the pre-race favorites. While Belgian Rik Verbrugghe was off the front gunning his way to a hard-fought solo stage win, Italian Danilo Di Luca was noticeably absent from a fast-closing group that included the rest of the Giro’s big GC guns — Paolo Savoldelli, Gilberto Simoni and Damiano Cunego. At the finish Di Luca (Liquigas) managed to limit his losses to second-place finisher Savoldelli (Discovery Channel) to 20

After a six-week hiatus, the cross-country mountain bike World Cup starts up again this weekend in Madrid. The long gap from the season-opener in Curaçao, in the Caribbean, means that everyone is starting from scratch, as far as knowing who is on form. Extremely large fields and a very hard, fast course also mean that a good start (and start position) will be crucial to doing well. The Madrid circuit, held in the Casa de Campo park just outside of the city central core, is well known for being extremely fast and dusty. Some of the descents are packed so hard that there are black skid marks

It takes a lot of things to make a ProTour team tick, and one of those is food — lots of it. During a grand tour like the Giro d’Italia riders must consume massive amounts of calories just to keep the legs churning. But if just one of those meals is bad, things can go wrong in a hurry. That’s why many teams — including CSC — employ a full-time chef who accompanies them on the road. On Friday night VeloNews sat down with Dane Søren Kristiansen, head chef for the squadre of Ivan Basso, Bobby Julich and the rest of Bjarne Riis’ boys. After part of the team – including Ivan Basso - fell ill at

VeloNews correspondent Jason Sumner is in Italy covering the Giro d'Italia for both the web and print versions of VeloNews. Part of his duties include a visit to the start before the stage begins and he invariably sends us photos for our Live Update pages. Just in case you missed them there, here is today's sampling:

Exhausted, but happy: Verbrugghe holds off a charging peloton.

New Shimano XTR levers

The trick paint job on Premont's bike extended to the fork. Note the new lightweight XTR discs

Savoldelli may have been the day's big winner

Sergei Honchar quietly accepts his second maglia rosa of this Giro.

Riding into shape: Riding the Giro appears to be good Tour prep' for the Kaiser

Nicer than Belgium at this time of year, eh?

A day at the office for the Disco' boys

Osa, Cunego and Basso rode smart

Aaron Olson

Axel Merckx fuels up

Big crowds on weekends

Problems with the caravan

Waiting for the start

Damiano Cunego

Entertainment in the start village

Danilo di Luca

Hoffman the espresso schlepper