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German Robert Forster (Gerolsteiner) sprinted to victory in Tuesday's first stage of the Circuit de la Sarthe, a 193km leg between Mouilleron-le-Captif and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille. Forster outkicked Italian Alberto Loddo (Selle Italia) and France's Anthony Ravard (Bouygues Telecom) to take the stage and the lead on general classification. The finale was marred by a dramatic crash on the finishing straight that took down several riders, including Americans Tyler Farrar (Cofidis) and Saul Raisin (Crédit Agricole), along with Ceramica Panaria-Navigare teammates Brett Lancaster of

Euskaltel-Euskadi is more than a professional team for the cycling-crazed Basques. The team’s distinctive orange jerseys are part of the cultural landscape of the hilly region of northern Spain and the Tour of the Basque Country is their home race. Samuel Sanchez gave local fans something to cheer about in the Vuelta al País Vasco, ending the team’s early season winless streak with a daring attack with 7km to go in Tuesday’s 155km second stage to give the team its first win of the 2006 season and snatch the leader’s jersey. "The only thing we haven’t done this year was win," Sanchez said.

Gerard Bisceglia's four-year tenure as chief executive officer of USA Cycling came to an abrupt end on Tuesday. Bisceglia said USA Cycling board president Jim Ochowicz dismissed him, but did not give him a reason. "I have no idea [why]," Bisceglia said. "No cause given." Ochowicz could not be reached by telephone. But later Tuesday, USA Cycling posted an announcement on its website that said Bisceglia had resigned and quoted Ochowicz as saying that he was responsible "for moving USA Cycling in a positive direction over the past four years." The announcement said the USA Cycling board of

Renowned sprinter Robbie McEwen (Aus) of Davitamon-Lotto, Floyd Landis (USA) of Phonak Hearing Systems, and defending champion Tom Danielson (USA) of Discovery Channel headline the field of professional cyclists competing at the 2006 Ford Tour de Georgia. Event organizers Medalist Sports announced today the eight-man rosters for each of the 15 teams, including six ProTour teams, two U.S.-based Professional Continental teams and seven Continental teams from the America Tour . "The Ford Tour de Georgia continues to attract the best professional cyclists in the world. This year race fans will

Our Tech Report on frame stiffness in VeloNews issue 5, "Flexing Their Muscles," contained two errors, one of measurement and one of protocol. We incorrectly reported the weight of the Specialized S-Works Tarmac 56cm frame. The correct weight of this frame is 989 grams, or 2.180 pounds. The suitability of the 1999 Trek OCLV frame we used for comparison purposes was called into question at the conclusion of the test. Our intention in including the Trek was to use it as a well-accepted benchmark for carbon frame performance, prior to the recent push to develop ProTour frames that weigh less

The Sea Otter Classic, the world's largest bicycling festival, welcomes an international field of pro gravity racers to compete in downhill, dual slalom and mountain cross. This multi-sport, four-day "Celebration of Cycling" begins on April 6 at Laguna Seca Recreation Area in Monterey, California. The festival draws the top Olympic, pro and amateur athletes from over 30 countries for intense competition in front of audiences of 50,000+. Sea Otter's MTB Gravity OmniumPro downhill finals: Sunday, April 9, 10 a.m.The downhill (DH) course at the Sea Otter Classic is emerging from the

VeloNews Photo Gallery: A new winner, a new gallery and a special new contest

PRESS RELEASE: VeloNews extends Sea Otter Photo Contest

PRESS RELEASE: VeloNews extends Sea Otter Photo Contest

PRESS RELEASE: VeloNews extends Sea Otter Photo Contest

Forster triumphs in a crash-scarred finale

Bisceglia says he was sacked; USA Cycling says he resigned

Suspended Vuelta a España champion Roberto Heras has had an initial attempt to file civil proceedings against a two-year doping ban rejected, his lawyer Jose Maria Buxeda told AFP on Monday. The Spaniard won his fourth Vuelta last September but was later stripped of his record-breaking title after testing positive for blood-booster EPO following the penultimate stage time-trial. Buxeda said a court had rejected a bid to start civil proceedings, arguing it was "premature,” since the government-backed Spanish Committee for Sports Discipline had till the end of May to make a decision on his

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.Jens is the manEditor:To preface, I am a huge Jens Voigt fan. His positive attitudeabout his career and his life inspire me. As well as his determinationon the bike, and his humility in "knowing his role" while helping teammateswin races, even when he isn't winning them himself. For

For the 2006 season the Trek Volkswagen Racing Team will have a stable of three bikes to choose from for all their racing endeavors. Below is a breakdown of the bikes has seen at the team’s training camp in Solvang, California. Please note that due to personal preference with some components, each bike will differ slightly between the team riders. The Trek VW team bikes are expertly tuned and set up by team mechanic Zack Vestal and assistant mechanic Dave Meadows. Jeremiah Bishop’s Elite 9.9New for 2006, each rider on the Trek VW team will have an Elite 9.9 at their disposal for short track

Last week, we gave you the word regarding Shimano’s redesign of XTR; today, you get the pictures. And if you’re traveling to the Sea Otter Classic this week, you’ll be able to see the revamped components first-hand adorning the bikes ridden by Adam Craig, Walker Ferguson, Marie-Hélène Prémont, Bart Brentjens and Roel Paulissen. The new Dual Release triggers look extremely adjustable, and the WH-M975 wheelset is sure to be a competitor in the high-end-wheel game. The biggest surprise may be the new Dual Control disc lever, which appears to have a radial master cylinder like the one used by

Alejandro Valverde has been uncharacteristically quiet so far this season, winning just one stage at the Vuelta a Murcia back in March. Instead, the usually prolific Illes Balears rider has been diligently preparing for the Ardennes classics and the Tour de France, his two major goals for the first half of the 2006 season. Monday’s opening stage of the Vuelta al País Vasco presented a nice testing ground for both challenges. With a bumpy 130km four-climb stage to open hostilities in the six-day race across northern Spain’s Basque Country, including the Cat. 1 Alto de Jaizkibel – an old

How many people can find the silver lining in having cancer? Not many people are as impressive as 8-year-old Joshua Alfaro. When asked about his battle with leukemia, which is a blood cancer, Joshua is very matter-of-fact and composed. "There are some good parts and some scary parts, but in the end it all balances out," says Joshua. With jaw-dropping confidence, he even points out his "favorite parts of having cancer." He adds that if he hadn't had cancer he wouldn't have ever met so many nice people (like his favorite nurse), he wouldn't have learned to make bracelets at Camp

Bait the hook well: this fish will bite. — William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing If you didn't see Tom Boonen stomping the pommes frites out of cycling's finest during the Tour of Flanders on TV Sunday, it may be because ESPN2 was busy in Manning, South Carolina, watching Preston Clark crush the Bassmasters four-day catch record during the Santee Cooper Showdown. Clark landed 115 pounds, 15 ounces of fish during the event, eclipsing Dean Rojas's piddling mark of 108 pounds, 12 ounces, set in 2001 on Florida's Lake Tohopekaliga. And ESPN2 was there to bring us all the

Heras

Monday's Mailbag: Photos and a tragic loss

Bishop's rig

Haywood's Top Fuel

Posner's Fuel Ex 9.5

The Dual Control lever

The XTR pedal

The rear derailleur

The newest player in the high-end-wheel game

Valverde nips Freire in a photo finish

The Bassmasters version of a podium wave

Proving once again that he thrives under pressure, Belgian superstar Tom Boonen shouldered the hopes of Belgium’s cycling fans and delivered a win for the home team. With the world champion’s rainbow stripes wrapped around his chest, and a real live rainbow arching in the sky overhead, Boonen beat the odds on Sunday to become the first man to win the Tour of Flanders two times in a row since Eric Leman did it in 1972 and ’73.

Boonen repeats

Melchers-Van Poppel celebrates

Auger and Marichal in the escape

Bettini and Hincapie up front

Klier on the Grammont

Marichal leads

Marichal and Schmidt

Pozzato and Quick Step

Bruges

Ichtegem

Boonen attacks

The world champ and Hoste

Boonen comes around Hoste for the win

Hincapie crosses third

The podium

Boonen takes over the ProTour lead

A year ago, Danilo Di Luca stormed through the month of April, winning the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Fleche Wallone and Amstel Gold Race that laid the foundation for his overall ProTour title. As the Liquigas rider lines up for Saturday’s GP Miguel Indurain in Spain, Di Luca says his priorities have changed. Don’t expect to see him winning many races until May, when he’ll target the overall crown at the Giro d’Italia. “I’ve changed my preparation this season, so I don’t expect much at Pais Vasco because I am there more for training for the Giro,” Di Luca told VeloNews. “I might try to go for a

Despite claims to the contrary, it’s pretty rare these days that a magazine or website will get an exclusive look at a new product. “Sneak previews,” and “spy photos,” tend to be just so much manipulation handed out to us hacks by some cagey character in the PR department, whose giving out the same “exclusive” shots to some other hack, with another magazine’s logo on his pile vest. So we were especially pleased to have an honest-to-gawd exclusive look at the latest creation from an old friend. VeloNews technical writer Lennard Zinn and wheel guru Steve Hed go back quite a few years and it

It didn’t take nearly as long as some expected for Belgium’s rabid cycling fans to find a new hero to cheer in the wake of Johan Museeuw’s exit from the sport. Here in northern Belgium, known until recently as Lion of Flanders country, one need only witness the support banners and newsstand racks to see the new face of Belgian cycling. Gracing the cover of L’Equipe magazine, which comes with the Saturday edition of the French sports daily, is Tom Boonen, a cycling star with enough wattage to make people forget about the doping controversies that have surrounded Museeuw’s retirement. On the

On the Caribbean island of Curacao the cross-country World Cup started the 2006 season today, with Gunn-Rita Dahle (Multivan Merida) continuing her winning ways in the women's field, and Bart Brentjens (Giant) taking a popular win in the men's race, both in front of a swimsuit-clad crowd on the beach. Both Dahle and Brentjens don the leader's jerseys for the World Cup series. Top North American performers were Canadians Marie-Helene Premont (Rocky Mountain-Business Objects) in 4th for the women, and Seamus McGrath (Canadian National) 9th in the men. Mary McConneloug (Seven

This year is about a lot more than just ProTour points

Product review - A new idea from Steve Hed

Boonen's had plenty of practice doing the winner's pose this season.

Dahle remains the one to beat in the cross-country world

Brentjens

Absalon conceded that Brentjens was the stronger man.

McConneloug finishes fifth

Tom Boonen can rest easy this weekend knowing that his Quick Step-Innergetic teammates will be backing him 100 percent as he enters Sunday’s Tour of Flanders as the heavy favorite. The defending Flanders champion – who didn’t race the final stage at Three Days of De Panne on Thursday to avoid a crash – will count on support from teammates Paolo Bettini and Filippo Pozzato to protect him in the hectic Flanders finale. “I’m in better condition this year as opposed to the same time last year,” Boonen said in a team release. “Last year I fell during the De Panne, injuring my hand. This year

Most of the rabid cycling fans lining the Halsesteenweg at Meerbeke, Belgium, this coming Sunday afternoon, will be hoping for a repeat of the 2005 Tour of Flanders result: a win for favorite son Tom Boonen. Those fans know that Quick Step-Innergetic’s Boonen’s not a shoo-in because the 258km course that faces the likely 200 starters is full of potential pitfalls: diabolical pavé stretches like the Paddestraat, steep hills like the 400-meter, 12.5-percent Paterberg, and countless off-camber blind turns that guide the riders through a maze of narrow back roads through the lush green

The 2006 World Cup mountain-bike race season gets underway this weekend on the Caribbean island of Curaçao. Located just off the coast of Venezuela, Curaçao is known primarily for tourism (it is a regular cruise ship stop), oil (a large refinery dominates the main town of Willemstad) and, for this weekend, mountain biking. The World Cup circus has descended on the island, with 114 men and 52 women scheduled to enter the cross-country race Saturday. All of the world’s top riders have made the trip, led by world champions Gunn-Rita Dahle (Multivan-Merida) and Julien Absalon (Bianchi), and

Flanders in 2005: Will the cycling gods grant a repeat?

Defending World Cup champion Christoph Sauser has moved to Specialized

One of the more interesting local restaurants

Tom Boonen is the new leading light of cycling. The strapping world champion seems to be the sparkle in everyone’s eye, from salty old cycling fans to Belgian beauties who swoon at the very sight of him in his rainbow jersey. At 24, Boonen has replaced the retired Lance Armstrong as the top draw among fans, at least if crowds outside team buses at spring races are any fair barometer of riders’ magnetism. Boonen-mania seems to be in full flight and there’s no sign of it abating anytime soon. Dubbed a Merckx for a new century, Boonen is poised to defend his double Flanders-Roubaix titles

Belgium's Leif Hoste (Discovery Channel) won the Three Days of De Panne Thursday after claiming victory in the fourth and final stage. Hoste dominated the final leg of the race, an 11km individual time trial, finishing ahead of teammates George Hincapie and Stijn Devolver, who crossed 14 and 18 seconds slower, respectively. Austria's Bernhard Eisel (Française des Jeux) took second overall at 30 seconds back with Luis Leo Sanchez Gil (Liberty Seguros) third at 1:05. —Agence France Presse Stage1. Leif Hoste (B), Discovery Channel, 14:17:992. George Hincapie (USA), Discovery Channel,

The rainbow curse is something that doesn’t exist, says Boonen. Who can argue with that?

Hoste en route to winning the stage and the overall

Bernhard Eisel (FDJeux) made a ferocious sprint Wednesday to win the 227km second stage at the Three Days of De Panne and grabbed the overall lead for the effort. Eisel – who finished second in Tuesday’s opener -- came around Baden Cooke (Unibet.com) and out-kicked Danilo Napolitano (Lampre) to score the emphatic victory and nudged into the leader’s jersey thanks to time bonuses. A three-man break dominated most of the day’s action with Discovery Channel glued at the front of the peloton to protect the jersey for overnight leader Leif Hoste. Lampre, Quick Step and Davitamon-Lotto surged to

T-Mobile’s Tour de France hopeful Jan Ullrich has had to delay the start to his 2006 season as a knee problem has forced him to withdraw from the circuit de la Sarthe in France on April 4. T-Mobile team doctor Andreas Schmid confirmed Wednesday that Ullrich had irritated an old injury to his right knee sustained in early March and was not fit to race at Sarthe. "I was really looking forward to competitive racing," said a disappointed Ullrich. "From now on I will pay more attention to ensure the irritation is fully healed, then I can progressively increase the training load,” he said. "When

There is a chance Petacchi will switch roles with Zabel at Flanders

Team photo

Eisel takes the win and the lead

Dear readers, Back at Christmas, I threw in a letter from a reader claiming that rotating weight makes almost no difference on a wheel – that it takes negligible energy to bring it up to speed, and that the only thing that really matters when climbing is the overall weight of the bike, not how it’s distributed. Since then, I have gottena lot of mail about this, and a trip to France last week piqued my interest in this subject again. Perhaps some of you remember when I did a test in VeloNews seven years ago (in the 6/28/99 issue) of wheel inertia by building a rotational pendulumin my garage.

Leif Hoste (Discovery Channel) shot to victory in Tuesday’s opener at the Three Days of De Panne with a late burst to win a three-up sprint after a 50km breakaway held off the peloton. Hoste sprang with just about 75 meters to go to come around the hard-charging Austrian Berhnard Deisel (FDJeux) and Gert Steegmans (Davitamon-Lotto) to win the 194km stage from Middelkerke to Zottegem under sunny skies that saw many riders in short sleeves. "It was nice to win today after all the second and third places," Hoste told Belgian journalists. "It was very windy today and I’m not yet thinking about

Shimano has taken a back seat to the competition’s barrage of buzz this winter. Eerily quiet until recently, declining to release any 2007 product information, Shimano began testing its new E-Dura-Ace group right as the ProTour season kicked into full swing. Now, less than two weeks away from the Sea Otter Classic, which traditionally opens the domestic mountain-bike season, Shimano has announced preliminary details of its redesigned ’07 XTR group. Though images of the complete group are unavailable (scroll down for photos of other new Shimano goodies), a trained eye can spot bits and pieces

Hoste proves fastest in a three-up sprint

The 105 pedal

The compact crank

LX