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Max Van Heeswijk surged to victory in Friday’s seventh stage at the Vuelta a España in his biggest victory of what’s been a bittersweet year for the veteran Dutch sprinter. Van Heeswijk returned to the winner’s circle last month at the Benelux Tour after what was a season beset with personal problems and frustrations. Those are clearly a thing of the past as “Mad Max” charged to his first Vuelta stage win since 1997 in Friday’s chaotic sprint finish. “I knew I was strong today because I flatted but I was able to chase back on quite easily,” said Van Heeswijk, who outlasted Erik Zabel

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.Dynamic duo for cyclist(s) of the yearEditor:My vote for cyclist of the year: A tie between two of the coolest, cleanest bike racers on the planet: The Pate and E Rock Saunders. Job well done for watering the grass roots of cycling all across the country. When I was young, I wasn't

With Roberto Heras showing such dominance one week into the Vuelta a España, one wonders why he falls so flat in the Tour de France. For the past two Tours, Heras has failed to deliver after making his high-profile departure from U.S. Postal Service at the end of the 2003 season. In the 2004 Tour, Heras abandoned in the Alps. This year he made it to Paris, but he was never a factor in the race. “I am feeling that my body feels 100 percent for this Vuelta,” Heras said. “And during the Tour, it just wasn’t like that, even though this year was better than last year.” The headlines Friday

There’s a name on the international cross-country circuit that race fans will to want to familiarize themselves with. Only 19 years old, Swiss rider Nino Schurter spent 2005 as the reigning world junior world XC champion and was unquestionably the strongest man in the world under-23 cross-country championship Friday in Livingo, Italy. Unfortunately, the best man didn’t win in Livingo. Schurter took off from the start of the 3.5-lap, 43km contest, opening a gap of two minutes and riding comfortably in control of the race. But after losing tire pressure - first in his front tire, and then

Tyler Farrar (U.S. National) won the second stage of the Tour de l’Avenir in France on Friday, vaulting into fourth place overall. The 21-year-old Farrar outkicked Borut Bozic (Perutnina) and Hans Dekkers (Rabobank) in a mass-sprint finale to the 107.5-mile stage from Argentré-du-Plessis to Sainte-Scolasse-sur-Sarthe. Denmark’s Lars Bak (Team CSC) retained the yellow jersey ahead of Ukraine’s Denys Kostuyk (Jartazi Granville) and Spain’s Jesus Del Nero (Orbea). The day’s action kicked off early with a five-man break that went clear just 6km into the race. At 115km, with the gap up to more

I spent the first week of the race hoping for cool weather. Then, today we received a small dose, and I decided that the heat isn't that bad. It rained for 15 minutes and I almost froze. Thoughts of, "Be careful what you wish for," instantly popped into my head. It did dry up and then the brutal headwind appeared. I almost felt bad for the Liberty team, as they slogged their way into the wind, as Jakob and I stayed at the back with our pulses around 50 … well, not really. The tension rose towards the end and everyone completely lost their minds and went as if the Vuelta would be won

Vuelta Stage 7The countryside today’s stage passed through had long somewhat-shallow grade hills with wide-open and windy terrain, much like the foothills of Colorado. Michael said that the stage started at a quick pace and the field immediately splintered. The riders had to climb out of Teruel, which is situated in a valley. They raced over a four Category 3 climbs in the first 100km of the 200km stage, which some of the guys in the bunch said felt like more like Cat. 2’s, with some of the guys telling Michael that they felt like the Vuelta race organization was gypping them with the

BMC's Pro Machine sits naked for all to see

The BMC Team Machine

BMC made sure that this bottom bracket is among the peloton's stiffest

Swiss precision goes off-road

Catlike - long a favorite of Euskaltel - is coming to the U.S.

Catlike looks more jet-like from the back side

The Hutchinson Barracuda

Hutchinson kept the rubber side down for Mr. Armstrong

The Ghisallo hits new lows: A titanium frame at (gulp!) 770 grams

The 6/4 Vortex gets new and stiffer shapes

Look's 496 TT bike

Look's HSD stem: More carbon in more places

Pearl Izumi's carbon shoe...

... shows it's got a titanium soul... er... sole.

Triple whammy: Dura-Ace offers a little extra for the steep ones

The D.A. triple drivetrain

The Shimano crew is checking out ...

... Sram's entry into the road market...

The U.S. maker will offer a complete road group

Starting in 2007, Sram hits the road

Sram's new road brake

Stronglight incorporates a titanium BB in its carbon crank

Time's RXR TT: Michael Rogers' secret weapon unveiled.

Heras grabbed some bonus seconds to extend his overall lead

Trofimov takes the win

The Cricket jumps

Farrar wins his second career stage at Tour de l'Avenir

The win puts Farrar in the green jersey and fourth overall

The Cuesta escape

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

Heras and Beloki: The first, bedeviled by lackluster Tours; the latter, happy to be feeling like a bike racer again

Verbrugghe and the gang at work

Schurter saw the victory vanish along with the air in his tires

Teammate Flückiger took the runner-up spot

Schultz was content with his 17th-place finish

Stage 8: Tarragona/Rambla Nova – Lloret de Mar, 189Km

Cyclists can still race the Tour de France on the illegal drug EPO without testing positive, a top Australian doping scientist has revealed. Dr. Mike Ashenden, project manager of the international consortium Science and Industry Against Blood Doping, told The Saturday Daily Telegraph that an unreleased study shows how riders can still get away with EPO use four years after testing was introduced for the endurance-boosting protein hormone. "There have been persistent rumours over the past years that athletes have learned to manipulate their EPO injections to escape the urine test," Ashenden

A small pump of the right fist was all the emotion Roberto Heras was willing to display after crossing the finish line despite taking control of the Vuelta a España in Thursday’s sixth stage. There was nary a smile or celebration to reveal the damage the three-time defending champion delivered in just nine kilometers of Spanish asphalt. For Heras, it’s all business. “This Vuelta is just starting,” Heras said with a shrug. “It’s too early to say it’s all over after one mountain stage.” Heras’s haul included the stage win, the leader’s, mountain and combined jerseys, and Liberty got the team

Only 18 years old, Czech rider Tereza Hurikova has already begun to amass quite an impressive collection of UCI rainbow jerseys. The winner of the world junior time-trial championship in Verona last September, Hurikova added another rainbow jersey to her wardrobe Thursday by winning the world junior women’s cross-country championship in style, leading the race from beginning to end. Considering that Hurikova also led the junior XC race at world’s last year in Les Gets, France, before puncturing on the final descent, it’s clear the cycling world is looking at a rider with a very bright

Floyd Landis rode to the feed zone about halfway through Thursday’s 217km sixth stage and climbed off his bike. He stepped into one of Phonak’s team cars and drove back to the team hotel. For Landis, his 2005 Vuelta ended after less than a week. The Californian was one of the pre-race favorites, but he wasn’t feeling as well as he had hoped after putting everything into the Tour de France. “It wasn’t going well today for Floyd. He got dropped early in the race,” said Phonak sport director Juan Fernández. “Overall he wasn’t feeling like he wanted to. He thought he had recovered from the

Vuelta Stage 6As we head west towards the Mediterranean, the temperatures have droppedbut the wind and the speed at which we are racing has increased drastically.Both yesterday and today we started racing flat out as soon as the startersflag was dropped and never relented until the finish line was crossed.Yesterday's average speed was an impressive 47.5kph- I was in the breakawayfor the majority of the stage and noticed we were rarely dipping under50kph and were often up around 60. The amazing thing is we were going slightlyuphill for most of the stage.This morning I woke up feeling

Heras in a familiar color

Hurikova gets an off-road rainbow to shine alongside her time-trial title

Forsman bettered her previous best to finish ninth

Gehbauer shot away from the gun

Cares found the course shockingly steep

Heras knows it's just the beginning

Menchov missed out by 13 seconds

Danielson slipped into a chase group and limited his losses

Going up: The start in Cuenca

Piil continued his aggressive racing . . .

. . . even going it alone until the bunch gobbled him up

But then Heras got busy

Vuelta Notebook: Landis done; Casero happy; Mayo ponders future; what's next

Winning the points jersey in the Tour de France would make the season for most sprinters. But for Thor Hushovd, the stocky Norwegian who snagged the green jersey this year without winning a stage, taking a victory in Wednesday’s 176km fifth stage at the Vuelta a España is the highlight he’ll cherish most. “This is the biggest win of the year for me,” said Hushovd, who made it over a punchy climb 12km from the finish to drive home the sprint. “I won the green jersey at the Tour this year, but to win a stage in the Vuelta is very big for me.” Hushovd came off the fifth wheel and roared to a

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.Tuna Canyon: Cycling or psych-ling?Editor:Scheduling a race on road bikes down Tuna Canyon/Las Flores Canyon can only mean that insurance rates for promoters must have really dropped. Whereas its sister road on the north side of the coastal range (Stunt Road) does indeed have stretches

Italian national team coach Franco Ballerini can leave the Vuelta a España confident that Alessandro Petacchi is on track for the Madrid world championships. Somewhat surprisingly, Ballerini was still holding out judgment on the Italian sprinter. Back-to-back victories Monday and Tuesday went a long way toward shoring up his confidence in the Fassa Bortolo sprinter. “These victories give us confidence in Petacchi that we can build a team entirely around him. Because if he’s not where he needs to be, we might bring a team with two leaders,” he said. “Petacchi still needs to prove he’s

The half-dozen favorites for Sunday’s elite men’s world cross-country championship had best take notice: Spain’s Jose Antonio Hermida has come to Italy to take home the rainbow jersey. Indeed, the Spaniard earned rainbow jerseys of a sort for himself and his three relay teammates on Wednesday in Livigno, erasing a gap of nearly four four minutes as the team’s anchor man to cross the line alone, 19 seconds ahead of the home team’s elite woman, Joahnnes Schweiggl. France finished third, 30 seconds back. A world-championship staple since 1999, the team relay consists of four racers from the

He doesn’t have a huge client base or a high-tech, on-line coaching Web site, but you can’t argue with the success cycling coach Rick Crawford has achieved. The Durango, Colorado resident started out working with the likes of Lance Armstrong and Chann McRae in the 1980s, and today boasts a clientele that includes mountain-bike standout Shonny Vanlandingham, reigning USPRO champ Chris Wherry and 2005 Tour de Georgia winner Tom Danielson, who is currently riding the Vuelta a España, hoping to make it to the finish of his first grand tour. Recently VeloNews sat down with Crawford to find out

So if you go faster, is it cooler? We experimented with that idea today as we averaged almost 30mph over the course of the stage today. And the answer is, it just gets you to the finish line faster. It was still in the upper 90s today but, after the last few days, that now feels cool. I even saw some clouds today, but I still lost five pounds during the race. Michael Barry, our guy Jacob Piil and a few friends set off around the 60k mark today and I really thought that they were going to pull it off. If they had managed to stay away, it would have put Michael in the jersey with Jacob

Today, our little Discovery team supporter, Liam, got a chance to coo for daddy, as Michael went away in the early break and was virtual leader on the road for quite a while. Although, his luck ran out when the sprinters' teams decided to chase and the break of 8 riders was caught at the base of the final climb with 15 km to the finish. For Discovery, the plan was to have Benoit Joachim, Stijn Devolder and Michael cover the early breakaways and to help Max Van Heeswijk in the final sprint. The pace was high from the start and all guys commented that it felt like the Vuelta of years

Hushovd overpowers a swift bunch

Barry, shown leading Wednesday's break, hopes for a world's berth

McGee is enjoying his tenure as race leader

Heras and Sastres punched it on the climb

McGee stayed out of trouble and in the lead

Finot and Piepoli in a spot of bother

Leblacher and Piil on the move

Ardila at the head of affairs in the finale

Française des Jeux working for McGee

Crawford (left) has worked with Danielson dating back to his college days.

Crawford was very optimistic about Danielson's chances as the Vuelta neared the end of the first week.