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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.Photo contest recalls love of cyclingEditor:After reading countless letters about this doping scandal and that, my feelings for cycling have become twisted. Seeing all the beautiful photographs sent in as part of your contest reminded me why I love cycling. It’s not about Lance, Tyler,

WASHINGTON -- Athletes in the four major US professional leagues would be subject to the same two-year bans for a first positive drug test now handed out to Olympic athletes, under legislation proposed Tuesday that would put the sports' steroid policies under the White House drug czar. Arizona Sen. John McCain joined fellow Republican Tom Davis of Virginia, the House Government Reform Committee chairman, and ranking Democrat Henry Waxman of California in introducing the Clean Sports Act of 2005. It's the second recent bill that would establish minimum, standardized steroids policies

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve received several e-mails from people asking whether I’m alive. So it’s clear, I am way overdue with a report. The last month or so has been rough, both physically and mentally. Three-quarters of the way through April, while racing here in Bern, Switzerland, in a 1.9.1 UCI race, I had a bit of misfortune. On the last lap, while trying to move up through a corner, I found myself staring at a median and a pole, straight ahead. I tried to move to the right to avoid it, but the field had spread out too much in the turn and there was nowhere to go. A second after

MONTEREY - Sea Otter Classic LLC announces the departure of its chief operations officer/chief marketing officer Rick Sutton. Sutton spent 13 years with Sea Otter Classic LLC and leaves to become the vice president of retail sales at Specialized. Rick Sutton said about his shift: "As I change my focus from helping cycling events grow to helping Specialized dealers grow, the Specialized president, Mike Sinyard, has provided me the time to smoothly transfer my knowledge and responsibilities, ensuring that Sea Otter and Cougar Mountain will continue to prosper. And I am confident that the

Le Mevel celebrates his win

Zabel the cover boy

Savoldelli rides safely in the bunch

Schleck, Bonnaire and Le Mevel ride in the lead group

The favorites spent a relatively quiet day, crossing more than 22 minutes behind Le Mevel

The top-three will battle it out in the coming days

Talabardon leads the big group that got away at 100km

Discovery had an easy day of it.

Gymnastics and bike racing don't mix

Collegiate racing does its best to ensure that a wide number of racers have shots at coming home a winner. With eight individual races, four team time trials, an individual omnium title and a team omnium title at stake, the collegiate national road championships –held this year in Lawrence, Kansas (the cultural capital of the state, I’m told) – provided chance after chance for racers to stand atop a podium. Still, at the race banquet, I watched as the same individuals were called up to claim their respected team and individual titles. Now cycling, by its nature, is a sport that offers its

Julich, Rodriguez, Ventoso among 200 to compete in 2005 Wachovia SeriesNorristown, PA - May 24, 2005 - Threshold Sports LLC on Tuesdayreleased the official roster for the 2005 Wachovia Cycling Series professionalmen’s races.The 2005 event boasts the largest field in the race’s 21 year historywith 200 competitors, and 23 teams. American riders will look to Sunday’smain event for the opportunity to win the 2005 Wachovia USPRO Championship.Riders earn the right to don the jersey by finishing as the highest placedAmerican in the grueling 156-mile race.Riders to watch throughout the three race

The Tour Baby! News UpdateFor Immediate ReleaseULTIMATE JERSEY RAFFLE -  2003 USPS TdF TEAM SIGNED JERSEY TOBENEFIT THE LAFOjai CA (May 16, 2005) – Scott Coady, the creator of The TourBaby! the hilarious and inspiring tale of his adventures following theentire Tour de France, has an incredible on-line event to benefit the LanceArmstrong Foundation; a donation-based raffle for a 2003 USPS Team jerseywith the entire TdF team’s signatures including Lance Armstrong!  Only 300 tickets will be sold and Scott reports selling 70 in the firsttwo days they were on offer.   All the details are at:

Can this Giro d’Italia get any more exciting? Just hold on to your Gucci sunglasses, because it will. With five days remaining and five riders bunched within two minutes of leader Paolo Savoldelli, the 88th Giro promises to be nail-biting right to the end. “With the stages we have left, it truly is still an open race,” said two-time champion Gilberto Simoni after a morning spin on the Giro’s final rest day Tuesday. “The mountain stages are very difficult and I’m sure the time trial will be important, but I think the final mountain stage will be the kicker. It’s going to be a great show for

It's good to sit down and count your blessings every now and then. Well, starting with yesterday, the real blessing came in the form of the first 50km of the stage being bagged. That decision definitely had a good impact on moral, especially after what happened on Sunday. On Monday morning, we woke up to pouring rain and, at 7000 feet, the prospect of riding downhill for 40k, after an 11-kilometer climb, was just depressing. We were preparing for the worst, but God bless the peloton's Italian Mafia. The Italians just made it clear: “Hell no, we won't go!” It would have been

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

Mara Abbott

Brooke Miller

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

A Fred's-Eye View: The 1st ever FEVCCA's

Coming up on Thursday

Coming up on Saturday

Fassa Bortolo’s Alessandro Petacchi took his third win in the weather-shortened 15th stage as the Giro d’Italia trudged into its final week. Poor weather prompted officials to move the start to the bottom of day’s big climb, making it a relatively easy, if soggy day in the saddle for the 159 remaining riders. After a long breakaway by Roy Sentjens (Rabobank), Fassa’s silver train was back on track and catapulted Petacchi to an easy win ahead of the sprinter-depleted field. Erik Zabel (T-Mobile) came through second while Olympic champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) took third. “Today the

In its first two weeks, the Giro d’Italia covered 2500km between Reggio Calabria and Livigno, a journey that’s only 1600km if one does a straight shot in the car. On Sunday, as the riders entered Livigno after having completed back-to-back, six-and-a-half-hour stages through the Dolomites, they passed a sign on the road that read, "Only 1000km to go.” En route to Livigno, the passed over several difficult climbs, including the infamous Passo Stelvio, where each of the 48 switchbacks are numbered. It was on the Stelvio that the peloton blew to pieces. At the finish line, each rider looked

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.Savoldelli the stoicEditor:Have you ever seen an athlete as stoic as Paolo Savoldelli? This guy seems to lack any kind of emotion. He seems so cold-blooded (in agood way). Lance Armstrong describes George Hincapie as "fingers in the nose" because his demeanor never changes whether

Reports have recently surfaced that Tyler Farrar (Health Net-Maxxis) has signed with Cofidis for the 2006 season, but the subject of those reports says that it’s news to him. “Actually that is all a big misunderstanding,” Farrar told VeloNews. “It all came out of a mix up in the translation from a French Web site. The reality is that [a Cofidis team representative] had said he had offered me a spot for 2006, and everyone took that to mean that I had signed for 2006. I have not signed with Cofidis.” Farrar, the current U.S. U23 national time trial and criterium champion, recently finished

Petacchi snags win No. 3

A short but soggy day in the saddle

Savoldelli got wet like everybody else . . .

. . . but the Discovery Channel leader clung to the lead going into Tuesday's rest day

The mighty 2758m Passo dello Stelvio in Sunday’s three-climb 14th epic stage lived up to its billing and took its toll on the160 ragged riders remaining in the 88th Giro d’Italia. The monstrous climb eliminated Paolo Savoldelli’s most dangerous rival – Team CSC’s Ivan Basso -- but the Discovery Channel falcon quickly found himself having to fend off new ones. Savoldelli kept his hold on the maglia rosa in the grueling 210km march across the Dolomites, but the margin was trimmed to less than a half-minute after the ever-resilient Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas-Bianchi) followed an electrifying

Discovery Channel brass is hoping Yaroslav Popovych will be able to carry the torch for the team once Lance Armstrong rides off into the sunset following this summer’s Tour de France. The 25-year-old Ukrainian set the cycling world on notice this week in Spain, winning the seven-day Volta a Cataluyna ahead of a ProTour field that included 1997 Tour champion Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile). “I can't say now I was surprised I won, because I've worked hard in all the time I've been away from racing,” Popovych said after finishing safely in the main bunch in Sunday’s finale. Norwegian

Let’s just call today’s entry “How I spent my 29th birthday.” Well, I spent my 29th birthday on my bike… for eight hours…if you count the ride in the neutral zone, the race and the little uphill slog I had to make to the hotel above the finish line. Pretty stupid, huh? To say that today was a long day would be something of an understatement. I’m sure you can imagine that it was a hard day, mentally and physically. Sure it was tough physically, but the mental part was really tough with Ivan suffering as he did. After yesterday, we knew there problems, but he’d only lost a little bit of

Torrington, CT, May 22—Defending champion Mark McCormack, (Colavita-Sutter home), took both the final stage and the overall victory in the 137-mile Litchfield Hills stage of the Tour of Connecticut. With 14 miles remaining, it looked like the Navigators team had the win sewn up for race leader Vasili Davidenko, as the team was setting tempo on the finishing circuit. It was at this point, McCormack realized, “I had nothing to lose.” McCormack and Todd Wells (Capital Velo) attacked and rode away from both the field and the entire Navigators team. With the gap at over a minute, the time

Parra does it again

Basso had another appalling day in the saddle

Di Luca, meanwhile, showed his strength once again

Savoldelli cramped, but hung onto his lead

Parra solos away to his second stage win

The Stelvio takes no prisoners

McCartney clocking in for the day's shift

Discovery takes the front

Atienza, Parra and Osa

Cunego and Laverde

Parra gets his second stage

Hey, Barry, this is just like Boulder!

Vande Velde had lots of company on his birthday ride on Sunday

Baldwin and Davidenko chasing McCormack, but they are down to three chasers with about 3 laps to go.

McCormack fights back to take Tour of Connecticut

Bryan Smith had a long breakaway, and the field suffered in the rain until the last 50 k.

A cheeky Tim Duggan rides to the front of the peloton and waves at them to come along

A canopy of trees made the day beautiful, but didn't keep out the rain.

With one lap to go, only Grishkin and Davidenko are left in the chase, and the gap is getting bigger.

Tim Johnson leads the peloton up one of the beautiful climbs in the rain.

Wow, McCormack snatched the stage and GC from Navigators on a cold, miserable day in CT.

Well, well, well, this Giro d’Italia just keeps getting more interesting by the day. In Saturday’s 218km grind-fest high in the spectacular Dolomites, Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli snatched the leader’s jersey away from CSC’s Ivan Basso with a powerful attack on the day’s final climb and proved yet again he’s a top candidate for the overall victory. Savoldelli followed a move by two-time Giro champion Gilberto Simoni (Lampre-Caffita) midway up the day’s fifth and final climb on the Cat. 1 Pontives. A struggling Basso, weakened by a stomach bug, couldn’t answer as “Il Falco” surged

French rider Anthony Charteau (Bouygues Telecom) won the battle in Saturday’s 198km sixth stage but Yaroslav Popovych (Discovery Channel) edged closer to winning the war of the Volta a Cataluyna. Charteau was part of a 10-man breakaway that dominated the late going of the 198km hilly run from Llivia to Pallejá. The fifth-year veteran shot clear with just over a kilometer to go to surprise the leaders, including such names as Santiago Botero (Phonak), Christophe Moreau (Crédit Agricole) and Paco Lara (T-Mobile). No one reacted immediately and Charteau threw everything into the attack to win

Two days, two dramatically different courses - same result. Vassili Davidenko (Navigators Insurance) took the second stage of the Tour of Connecticut almost as easily as he took the first. The “almost” is because on Saturday, he had to climb nearly 8000 feet in 60 miles to win. Still, while he conceded that his form “is good,” Davidenko added that the victory “was about my team.” After a flurry of early attacks, the race found its rhythm - steady-hard at the front, attrition at the back. TIAA-CREF’s Timmy Duggan took off on his own on the third of 15 laps and stayed away for eight.

The Dolomites have taken their toll on the peloton. The legs are aching and the energy is waning. There were 40 riders popped off the back on the first climb of stage 13 and it was not even a categorized climb. The riders were trudging up this steep ascent in their 39x25s and they had five categorized climbs and more than 200km ahead of them. I always know from the sound of my husband’s voice when the fatigue has set in during a grand tour. There is little if any response when I ask Michael questions and the conversation generally becomes fairly dull - I can talk at him, but his energy

Savoldelli goes it alone

Savoldelli leads Simoni

Savoldelli in pink

Basso struggled in the finale