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Dear Lennard,I have an ’04 Specialized S-Works E5 frame. I’ve noticed after a ridein the rain when I tip the bike up some pretty murky water runs out thechain stays near the rear wheel. Last night I was changing my bottom bracket(the new Dura-Ace 10-speed, if that matters) and it made a nice little pondon my garage floor. Since water and probably some nasty road salt, gritand grime are getting into my frame, do I need to strip it down on occasionand flush it out with some clean water?MattDear Matt,Yes, that is a very good idea. Also, a drain hole in the bottom bracketshell is a good idea – or

Team CSC blew through the Tour of Qatar peloton in Wednesday’s thirdstage like a tornado, doing a ditty much like the team pulled off in lastyear’s Paris-Nice and delivered Danish veteran Lars Michaelsen an over-duestage victory.Team CSC put six of its eight riders into the day’s decisive move of17 riders in the blustery 194km stage across the otherwise flat Qatar,leaving pre-stage leader Tom Boonen (Quick Step) gasping for air.In the end, five Team CSC riders were in the top seven (Fred Rodriguezfought bravely to finish sixth), with Michaelsen taking the flowers androokie Matti Breschel in

Casero, after winning the 2001 Vuelta.

Deja Vu all over again

Michael Barry and Tom Danielson discuss plans before the stage

Discoverys Michael Creed shows off a few of his battle wounds from the big pile-up

Discovery mechanic Geoff Brown makes a few on-the-road adjustments

Discovery DS Lorenzo Lapage hands off bottles to Patrick McCarty

Plan of attack: CSC made its move at the right moment

American Fred Rodriguez finished sixth on the day, at 1:22

The winds forced the field into echelons for the second day

Unique hazards at the Tour of Qatar

A new leader

Nicki Sorensen (CSC) got the 2005 season off to a strong start, taking the win at the GP d’Ouverture La Marseillaise in France to mark the season’s first race of the European calendar. Sorensen finished ahead of Team CSC teammate Vladimir Gusev and Daniele Masolino to take the win marred by some confusion on course. There was a group clear that featured Philippe Gilbert, among others, who took a wrong turn and steered off course. Sorensen was part of a second group and pushed through to take the victory in the first race of the 2005 season in Europe. Action continues Wednesday with the

It’s not supposed to be this easy, but following the bunch sprint that concluded the fifth stage of the 2005 Tour de Langkawi, you got the feeling Graeme Brown and the Ceremica-Panaria crew could win these things with one foot unclipped. After Brown and teammate Ruben Bongiorno grabbed victories in stages 1 and 2, Brown earned another win on Tuesday in Kuala Terengganu. That gave the Aussie an all-time best six Langkawi stage wins.

The Court of Arbitration of Sport ordered the UCI to place the Swiss-based Phonak squad back on to the roster of teams contesting the 2005 ProTour. Partly upholding an appeal by Phonak, the CAS said it had "set aside" the decision by the Union Cycliste Internationale last November to exclude the team from this year's ProTour after three of its riders failed doping tests in 2004. The panel of three legal experts granted the team a license for a reduced period of two years instead of the usual four. The team could not be excluded now, the court ruled, because at least two of the riders,

Tom Boonen made it two in a row at the Tour of Qatar on Tuesday, out-sprinting Fabrizio Guidi (CSC) and Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) to claim his second straight win on the 2005 season. The 24-year-old Quick Step star was part of a 21-man breakaway that tore away from the main bunch at 90km into the 167.5km course from the Camel Track to the Qatar Olympic Committee headquarters. Six Quick Step riders were in the decisive 21-man group, including Kevin Hulsmans, Servais Knaven, Nick Nuyens, Guido Trenti and Wilfried Cretskens and Boonen. The group held a 40-second gap on the main bunch

Canadian researchers working in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency announced Tuesday that they have discovered a new “designer” steroid developed along the lines of THG, the drug at the center of the BALCO case in the U.S. Acting upon an anonymous tip e-mailed to WADA officials this past summer, scientists said they have reproduced a drug that appears to have been designed to avoid detection in standard drug tests. WADA science director Olivier Rabin and Christiane Ayotte, director of Montreal's anti-doping lab, told reporters in a conference call on Tuesday that the agency

Are the Panaria boys the only ones trying for the line?

Another reminder that this is not the Tour de France

Ed Beamon handing out water and sage advice from the team car

Cesare Grejales after another hot day on the road.

Phonak manager John Lelangue and Nicolas Jalabert, at the Tour of Qatar, now know what they will be doing in July.

Boonen makes it look easy

Rodriguez is in Qatar for early season prep work...

... and McEwen is there, perhaps recovering from a string of wins Down Under.

Cipollini missed the key break and finished out of the money on Tuesday.

Thomas Voekler and friends

Its January and Qatar is warm...

...although a touch on the windy side

The Clubhouse is an occasional service of VeloNews.com that lists cycling clubs and racing teams looking for new members. If your outfit needs some new blood, send a brief description of what you expect from/provide to your members along with contact information to rosters@insideinc.com. Submissions will be edited for length and content.MassachusettsThe Northeast Bicycle Club (NEBC) is looking for additional racers of all ages and in all categories for both men and women. We are particularly on the lookout for junior cyclists and have a dedicated junior coaching program. NEBC is one of the

Boonen outkicks Cipo' in QatarQuick Step's Tom Boonen won the first stage of the Tour of Qatar onMonday, finishing ahead of Mario Cipollini and RobertHunter, the winner of last Saturday's Doha International GP.Monday's stage, the first of five in the ASO-organized event, covered 143km from Al Khor Corniche to the Doha Hyatt Plaza. Boonen holds the leader's jersey with a four-second advantage over Cipollini."This was one of my best ever final sprints. I am extremely happy with my form and winning straightaway after the problems I had this winter certainly boosts my morale,"

The outcome of Monday’s stage 4 time trial at Malaysia’s Tour de Langkawi came as a surprise to almost no one. A naturally strong time-trialist, Aussie Nathan O’Neill has always ridden well at this early-season race in Southeast Asia, and Monday was no exception. The Navigators pro blasted his way around the flat seaside circuit, posting a day’s best 24:42 on the 20.3km course in Bachok.

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.DeCanio should try smarter tacticsEditor:Matt DeCanio can speak out all he wants but he should likely not, as one letter writer put it, “bite the hand that feeds us.” Most everyone agrees that we want doping out of the sport, but there is a time, place and approach to voice what is going

Perez in happier times

True-to-form: O’Neill was expected to do well and he did.

Cox held his own and remains a favorite for the overall

Barry is happy with his form, especially after training on frozen gravel.

Prime viewing from the Motorworks

Beppu is still Asian despite the jersey, right?

In light of his recent domination of the sport, Sven Nijs might have expected he’d have an easier time of things in Sunday’s UCI World Cyclo-cross Championships in St. Wendel, Germany; but if the 28-year-old’s winning ride wasn’t easy, it was certainly thrilling. Nijs led home yet another Belgian sweep of the elite men’s podium after a last-lap attack freed him of countrymen Erwin Vervecken and Sven Vantourenhout, good enough for Nijs’ first elite title after a series of past frustrations. Many figured Nijs would ride off the front early, as he had in many recent wins, but after a fast

It probably won’t be the big break that launches him onto a ProTour team roster. And it is not likely the signal that the dawn of Asian cycling dominance is upon us. But make no mistake about it, the fact that Japan’s Koji Fukushima finally made one of his suicide breaks stick, winning the third stage of the 2005 Tour de Langkawi on Sunday, had plenty of significance.

Hanka Kupfernagel takes her third world title

Kupfernagel battles Frances Maryline Salvetat on the run-up

Melchers rode a strong race to take third

Former world champion Leboucher took fourth

Top American, Ann Knapp finishes seventh

Sabine Spitz makes it One-Two for Germany

Kupfernagel in a familiar jersey

Cyclo-cross is a big draw in Germany

Kupfernagel on her own

Knapp

Nijs Wins

Vervecken leads

Belgian, Belgian and Belgian... but why does Nijs get a Cycle Ball jersey?

Vanthourenhout and Mourey

Jonathan Page finishes 14th...

... and Ryan Trebon two seconds back in 15th.

Fukushima takes a page from the Jacky Durand playbook: Attack, attack, attack... and some day it pans out.

Fukushima only has 172 km to go

Panaria gives chase

ONeill struggles on the climb. The slope, coupled with heat, humidity and that fur coat made for a hard time.

Welcome to Malaysia

Stage 4

Page had to fight traffic

Nijs has had a spectacular season

Vervecken and Vanthourenhout round-out the top-three

Nijs and Kupfernagel tops at world cyclo-cross championships

A day after his Ceramica-Panaria teammate Graeme Brown grabbed the opening stage of the 2005 Tour de Langkawi, Argentine Ruben Bongiorno fired back with a win of his own on Saturday. And just as they did the day before, the pair of teammates went wheel to wheel all the way to the line, with Brown settling for runner-up status this time around.

There were plenty of pre-race favorites going into Saturday afternoon's under-23 race at the 2005 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in St. Wendel, Germany. And Czech Zdenek Stybar was neither at nor near the top of that list. But after soloing away from a select lead group with four laps to go, the 19-year-old from a small town near the German border showed he belonged on that list of chosen riders. Stybar wasn't even the best-known racer on the Czech squad coming into the championships. While Stybar had won his country's elite championship this year, against international

Moreau hoping for more at Credit AgricoleAfter an up-and-down career, French veteran Christophe Moreau is hoping to be on the upswing again in 2005. Fourth overall in the 2000 Tour de France, he’ll lead Credit Agricole once again in the Tour, where he hopes to nudge closer to the final podium. “I know that I can do a lot better than these last years. 2000 remains my reference year. I was not on the podium, but fourth of the Tour, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Moreau said in an interview on the team’s web page. “Since then I have not always been very lucky, but I know that sooner or later I

The junior podium

Malacarne on the march