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Ivan Basso’s emphatic victory in this weekend’s Criterium International left no doubt that the Italian is right on target for more important goals later in the season. With the win, Basso joins a growing list of contenders fighting for bragging rights with impressive early season victories. For Basso, his real challenges come in May’s Giro d’Italia and July’s Tour de France, but his win at Criterium International gives clear notice to his rivals that he’ll be ready. “I know that I’m in good shape and it’s very important for my preparation before the Giro and the Tour de France,” Basso said.

Our latest reader-submitted Photo Gallery is now up for your viewing pleasure. Of course, a new gallery also means the naming of the winner of ourlast contest. Take the time to wander through that gallery and see if you agree or disagree with our choice of winner. We felt especially good about “Passing the torch,” a photo Mike Jacoubowsky took at the 2003 Tour de France. Nice work. Congratulations Mike! Drop us a note at Rosters@InsideInc.com to work out the details and we’ll send you a copy of Graham Watson's "Landscapes of Cycling."Go ahead and take a look at our latest

We received the following letter this morning. - EditorWe are deeply saddened to inform you of the tragic passing of Bill Corliss, Director of Development for Specialty Electronics, for Bell Specialty. Bill was riding his bike with 7 other cyclists on Saturday morning near his home in Park City, Utah. A sudden stop by other cyclists led to a collision and ultimately Bill was fatally hit by oncoming traffic. Greg Shapleigh describes Bill this way: “He was a passionate and dedicated cyclist, and raced at a National level. Like many of us, cycling was the thread that connected all the

At the Redlands Bicycle Classic road race Sunday, Amber Neben (SC Velo), Health Net-Maxxis and Toyota-United demonstrated three of the myriad ways to win. In the 100km women’s race, Neben launched a solo attack on the second of nine technical laps and never looked back. In the 148km men’s competition, Health Net-Maxxis used its full team to successfully defend Nathan O’Neill overall lead. And Toyota-United’s Juan Jose Haedo — well, he just sprinted like hell. Scroll down for a gallery of Casey Gibson photos The road race began on Saturday’s criterium course, then climbed up out of

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. Rogers is an entertaining storytellerEditor:Kudos to Neal Rogers and his latest "Neighborhood" piece. That he has earned the trust and respect of professional riders is apparent, as is his innate ability to tell a story, share an experience, and entertain the cycling reader/websurfer.

Cycling's world governing body has reinstated the doctor who admitted supplyingdocuments to a journalist who used them in anarticle to accuse Lance Armstrong of doping.Doctor Mario Zorzoli, who works as a manager at the medical serviceof the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), was reinstated in his postMonday. Zorzoli had been provisionally suspended at the end of Februaryafter admitting he had unwittingly given the results of doping controlsto a journalist from the French sports daily L'Equipe.The journalist used them to illustrate a damning article in August 2005which alleged that

Basso finished second in Sunday's time trial, good enough to seal the deal after winning the morning's road stage.

Passing the Torch

Neben's bold move pays off

Haedo got a second chance and made the most of it

Armstrong and Neben make nice early on

Neben goes it alone

Armstrong found herself outgunned

O'Neill, in contrast, was well protected

The Health Net-Maxxis chain gang

TIAA-CREF on the chase

Toyota working it for Haedo

The final jerseys

Tour de France hopeful Floyd Landis has ruled out competing in the Giro d'Italia as part of his preparation to bid for the yellow jersey in July. Recent Paris-Nice winner Landis, who finished ninth overall on the Tour de France last year, had planned to compete in the three-week Giro (May 6-28) to fine tune his form. Phonak team manager John Lelangue said Sunday there had been a change of plans for July's big race. "Floyd has had a great start to the season so it's better that he has a more relaxed approach to the Tour," said Lelangue, who affirmed however that Phonak would not

Ivan Basso (CSC) grabbed his first victories of the 2006 season with an impressive display in this weekend’s Criterium International, winning Sunday’s morning road race and sewing up the overall title with a strong afternoon time trial. Only Alberto Martinez (Agritubel) could best Basso in the 8.3km time trial to conclude the three-stage, two-day test under cloudy skies in northern France. For Basso, one of the favorites for July’s Tour de France, the victory is a positive shot of morale going into larger goals coming this season. “I know that I’m in good shape and it’s very important for

Basso's showing good form.

Basso made things tough on Dekker in the morning

World road champion Tom Boonen (Quick Step-Innergetic) outsprinted breakaway companion Alessandro Ballan (Lampre-Fondital) to win his third consecutive E3 Prijs Vlaanderen Saturday in Harelbeke , Belgium. Boonen, 25, claimed his 11th victory of the season a little over a week before he will bid to claim his second consecutive Tour of Flanders crown. He thus becomes just the third rider, after Belgian great Rik Van Looy and Dutch great Jan Raas, to win the Harelbeke race three times in a row. Since his stock went sky high last season, Boonen has often been unstoppable when it comes to

Dutch veteran Erik Dekker rekindled his acquaintance with victory by winning the first of the three stages that make up the Critérium International Saturday in Charleville-Mezieres. The Rabobank stalwart, who has struggled for form of late due to injury, outsprinted Italy's Tour de France hopeful Ivan Basso (CSC) and Ukrainian Andriy Grivko (Milram) — both of whom had been earlier breakaway companions — after Spaniard Igor Astarloa (Barloworld) lost control and crashed on the slippery conditions home straight. Astarloa was credited with the same time as the lead group. Basso, the

Health Net-Maxxis successfully defended Nathan O’Neill’s lead in the Redlands Bicycle Classic criterium Saturday, taking the stage and the sprinter’s jersey in the process. With four competitors less than 30 seconds behind O’Neill after Friday’s time trial — and 44 seconds of bonuses up for grabs — Health Net-Maxxis had one objective in the 90-minute competition: defend. And defend the team did, riding as a compact eight-man unit at or near the front for nearly the entire race, taking most of the inter-race time bonuses and handily reeling in all attacks. And once the defensive objective

Dekker returns to form in France

Voigt in an early break

Voigt and CSC kept busy in the miserable conditions

Schleck and Sastre in an escape

Landis looks like he'd prefer to be elsewhere

The bunch rolls along

The Basso-Astarloa group

Zaballa and Gutierrez

Dekker and Sastre

Dekker on the podium

Menzies en route to winning two sprints and the crit

Did I really get it? Say, where is everybody?

Armstrong assumes the women's lead

Pic wasn't at all excited about winning the crit

Health Net working it . . .

. . . in defense of O'Neill's lead

Haedo lookin' good before laying it down

Jelly Belly on the front

The men roll through the start-finish

Sayers and Baldwin

Van Gilder leads

They worship this race here in Redlands

Alexandre Vinokourov’s road to the Tour de France won’t be going through Georgia this year. Vinokourov’s Liberty Seguros team isn’t making the trek next month for the Tour de Georgia, and Vinokourov – who won the final stage and the overall at the Vuelta a Castilla y León - will instead defend his title at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. “This year I am preparing everything for the Tour and we are planning to have no pressure before that,” Vinokourov told VeloNews in an interview this week. “I think I can return to the Tour podium.” The battling Kazakh – third overall in the 2003 Tour and fifth last

Australia's women are poised to take over where their all-conquering men left off when the two road racing events are run through Melbourne's picturesque Botanic Gardens on Sunday. But the men's competition remains open with South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and the British riders all in with a chance of usurping the host nation. Even the Isle of Man could spring a surprise. The Australian men crushed their rivals at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester when European-based professionals Stuart O'Grady, Cadel Evans and Baden Cooke allowed their opponents to take the lead

Belgian police raided the homes of a dozen professional racers Thursday, turning up such banned doping products as EPO, clenbuterol, nandrolone and a mix of human growth hormones and insulin. Police refused to release the names of the riders whose homes were searched, but the Belgian daily Gazet van Antwerpen printed the names of pros from such teams as Unibet.com, Rabobank, Fidea, Skil-Shimano and Palmans. Officials from Unibet.com later confirmed that team rider Geert Omloop, the Belgian national champion in 2003, was among those who received an unscheduled visit from Belgian

Editor’s note: We don’t hear from editor at large Patrick O’Grady as often as we once did, and we had become accustomed to not seeing black Crown Vics full of gray suits and black sunglasses in our rear-view mirror. So imagine our surprise at receiving a "diary" of sorts purporting to be the work of our peripatetic foaming rantist. It appeared to have been scrawled in No. 3B pencil on the sort of coarse paper one finds in rest-area toilets, and thus we can only hope that the copious stains involve mishaps with a coffee cup. A transcription follows. February 5 — On the road to Arizona via

Despite having a good excuse for a bad ride, Health Net-Maxxis’s Nathan O’Neill put in the day’s best performance in the opening 5km time trial of the Redlands Bicycle Classic. Fresh off a plane from Australia, where he won the Commonwealth Games time trial, O’Neill smoked the opening section of the 680-vertical-foot course and kept a big gear going over the steeper final part for the winning time of 9:17.82. It may have been California, but it wasn’t exactly a day at the beach — not after that long flight from Oz, right after winning a 40km time trial. "I got off the bike 10 meters after

Vinokourov wants to be on the podium in Paris

Our intrepid foaming rantist, about to go batty, bids his bride adieu before flapping off alone on a sorely needed road trip

The ultra-swank Mad Dog Media spring training camp headquarters

When Windshield Trim Attacks: O'Grady's favorite bike dodges a bullet

Not even jet lag after a flight from Australia could slow O'Neill

Neben wasn't feeling 100 percent, either, but still found a way to win

Men's runner-up Baldwin

Women's runner-up Armstrong

Two-time Redlands winner Moninger, who took third

Defending women's champ Thorburn, third on the day

Dear Readers,Last week (see Doored v. Nailed), we had a letter from D.D., who askedWhat legal issues arise when a cyclist swerves to avoid a car door opening and is hit from behind by a car? It has not happened(to me) yet, but oh so many close calls!This week, we're going to take a second look at this issue- be sure to scroll down for reader comments and advise on avoiding this common bane of cyclists. The Door ZoneAs you may recall, in Doored v. Nailed I cited the website for the Door Zone Project, which contains a summary of news accounts of dooring accidents. Shortly afterwards, I

Canada's Marie-Helene Premont dodged a kangaroo then bounded away with her country's first cycling gold medal in the cross-country mountain-bike event at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday. Meanwhile, English riders grabbed the gold and silver medals as Liam Killeen emerged the winner in a three-way tussle for victory in the men's race. Premont, the pre-race favorite and a silver medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, led for all but the first few hundred meters to finish 1:27 clear of New Zealander Rosara Joseph and 2:55 in front of fellow Canadian Kiara

USPRO national road champion Chris Wherry and Christine Thorburn, winners of the 2005 Redlands Bicycle Classic, will take the start Friday as the 22nd edition of the California NRC race gets under way. Last year, both riders won the opening 1200-vertical-foot, 5km Mt. Rubidoux time trial and barely held onto their leads through the four-stage event. This year, the race consists of the 680-vertical-feet, 5km Centennial Bank time trial, a circuit road race and a criterium in downtown Redlands. Having won last year’s event for Health Net-Maxxis by just seven seconds over Trent Lowe (Jittery

It’s been a while since I’ve typed my way into the Neighborhood, and in that time I’ve seen a few things. Since I last penned a column I’ve been to Tennessee on family business, California for the Amgen tour and Wyoming to visit my mom. During these travels I’ve made a few observations and picked up a few snippets of wisdom. For example, did you know that in Tennessee, barbecued baloney is found on steakhouse menus? That a convenience-store chain in Middle America is called "Kum & Go"? It even uses cycling imagery in its advertisements. And how many out there know that a classic Mercedes can

No one really expected Alexandre Vinokourov (Liberty Seguros) to forfeit his leader’s jersey in Thursday’s challenging climbing stage in the Vuelta a Castilla y León. While Marco Fertonani was chasing the second straight stage win for Illes Balears, 29 seconds ahead of Manuel Beltrán (Discovery Channel), Vinokourov shot away from the lead group of favorites to actually extend his lead with just one stage to go. "I felt good and I made my work relaxed. I was on the wheel all day and I attacked in the final kilometer," Vinokourov said. "I feel that I am good looking ahead to the Tour. Today

USA Cycling has hired Doug Martin as director of BMX programs, the governing body announced Thursday. With BMX set to debut as a medal sport at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, USA Cycling created the new position " to help clarify and communicate processes and guidelines by which BMX athletes and teams qualify for competitions," USAC announced on its web site. ”The addition of BMX to the Olympic Games is an incredible opportunity for both the sport of BMX racing and American cycling in general," said Steve Johnson, director of athletics. “In addition to an intimate knowledge of the BMX

Wherry

Thorburn

Kum & Go: Barbecued baloney to go, please

Stewart: The envelope, please

Wherry's bug-free and Redlands-bound

Treefarm is on the mend

A look ahead at a look back

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. The joy of teamworkDear Editor:When people ask in dismay why we follow a sport where many riders ridefor the glory of one leader, we now have two answers: the photos of Zabeland Petacchi finishing the last stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico, and Pozzatoand Boonen finishing the Milan-San

What a difference a year makes for the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon. In 2005, not one ProTour team lined up in May because of commitments to the Vuelta a Cataluyna and Giro d’Italia. With Setmana Catalana postponed this year, Castilla y Leon was bumped up into its slot in April and now the race is enjoying its best action ever. Witness Wednesday’s exciting 181km march south across Spain’s rolling meseta from Zamora to Salamanca. Wind, attacks, breakaways and tricky finish made for a top-flight day at the races. Spanish veteran Chente García Acosta (Illes Balears) attacked with 800m to go in

Boonen celebrated, too.