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Italian police carried out hotel raids in the Dolomite town of Covara Wednesday evening, target four teams competing in the Giro d’Italia. The teams targeted after the finish to the 16th stage were all Italian Panaria, Mercatone Uno, Mapei and SAECO, a police source reported. Each of those teams has had at least one rider already excluded from the race for doping. At the Mapei team hotel police seized the medical files belonging to Stefano Garzelli, the 2000 winner who was thrown out of this year's race after testing positive for a masking agent after the Giro's second stage. SAECO's

Jan Ullrich is itching to get back into the saddle after undergoing surgery on his troublesome knee in Hamburg Wednesday. The Telekom rider said after the 45-minute operation that he intends to be competitive again this season. "As soon as I'm able I'll take up training for the coming races," he told reporters Ullrich, the 1997 Tour de France hero and a four time runner-up, announced he would be missing this year's edition earlier this month because of his recurring knee problem. On hearing the news of his enforced absence from this year's Tour de France the three-time Tour champion Lance

It sounds silly to start out a journal entry with "today was hard" becauseevery day of grand tour is difficult. But today was hard, and Isuffered.A few weeks ago, I previewed the stages here in the Dolomites and Iknew right away that this was where the race would be won or lost. Therewere moments during today's stage when I was in so much pain I wanted tosit up. But when I looked around and saw my teammate gutting it out withme on the Passo de Fedaia I knew what I had to do - and that was to presson.The final kilometers of the Fedaia were tough. Guys were attacking andthe pace was pretty

Today's profile

Fat-Tire Flyer: Evans is the new man in charge

Perez attacked the slopes of the Fedaia and went on to take the stage.

Another Giro Police raid

Up, up, up and up some more...

Just when things seemed to be getting back to normal after the expulsionsof Stefano Garzelli and Gilberto Simoni, Francesco Casagrande pulls a Mike Tyson and gets kicked out of the race. No, he didn’t bite anybody’s ear off, but he’s out of the Giro afterallegedly running Colombian John Freddy Garcia (Colombia-Selle Italia)into the fences and sending him to the hospital with 20 stitches to thechin. Casagrande started the day wearing the green best-climber’s jersey infourth-place at 1:07 back. His “aggressive riding,” as the UCI called it, ended his Giro early. The incident happened early

Jonas Carney (Prime Alliance) overtook a commanding Navigators leadout train to edge Vassili Davidenko (Navigators) and Graeme Miller (Mercury) and take a record fourth win in the Tour of Somerville in Somerville, New Jersey. Carney also won Somerville in 1992, 1998, and 2000. The women's Mildred Kugler Memorial Open also saw a repeat winner, as 1999 winner Laura Van Gilder (Trek Plus) nipped 2000 champion Tina Mayolo-Pic (Diet Rite) by a wheel's width at the line. Tania Duff-Miller (Freddie Fu) put in a personal best Somerville performance to finish a close third. Now in its 59th running,

LIVE UPDATES 1:15 p.m. Good morning to our U.S. readers. Today's stage, Terme Euganee - Conegliano, is a flat 156 appetizer for bigger things to come in the Dolomites Wednesday and Thursday. This is probably Jens Heppner's last chance to extend his hold on the maglia rosa as the big climbs rise up tomorrow and the Giro breaks wide open. Today, we might even see another strong pperformance by ol' Mario himself. Stay tuned. Race time is 1:20.Giro gets downright weird: Casagrande sent packing 1:45 p.m. The race is underway. It is cloudy, and around 70 degrees today. There is little wind

What can I do about a ticking noise?

Casagrande makes his case to the press

Number 38 was not the big story of the day

It was supposed to be an uneventful day

On Monday’s final rest day, the dust settled following Sunday’s individual time trial. The Giro went from the Euro-Giro to the Giro-Giro and now is verging toward the Gringo-Giro. American Tyler Hamilton (CSC-Tiscali) and Mapei’s Cadel Evans (OK, he’s not a gringo, but he speaks English) sent shockwaves through the Italian peloton with their impressive performances at the 30km Numana course. The pair stands 2-3 in the overall GC and look to have legitimate shots at the podium and even final victory. The main question mark for Hamilton is his ability to stay with the best climbers in the

Saturn’s Judith Arndt completed Saturn’s dominant run at the Tour de L’Aude on Sunday, taking the overall title, while teammate Petra Rossner won the final stage in Limoux, France. Arndt finished the 10-day race 1:16 ahead of Russia’s Valentina Polkhanova (Itera) and 1:24 over Lithuania’s Edita Pucinskaite (Figurella). On Sunday, the five-woman Saturn team set things up perfectly for Rossner, chasing down late breakaway Pia Sunstedt (Figurella) and then leading out Rossner for the sprint win over Angela Brodtka (Redbull). The win was the sixth in 10 stages for Saturn. The Saturn run began

My day started out really well on Sunday with a phone call from my wife. I'm a diehard fan of all the Boston sports teams so a typical conversationof ours usually entails her rattling off the latest standings of the hometown teams. Yesterday she read me a headline from boston.com - which is the online version of the Boston Globe newspaper. It was short and sweet. It read, "Refuse to Quit." The story was about the Boston Celtics triumphing over the New Jersey Nets in Game 3 of the NBA playoffs. They had come from behind and rallied with the biggest fourth quarter comeback in playoff history.

That podium moment

She may not be the world champion, but right now there’s little doubt who the best female cross country rider in the world is. For the fifth time in her last six tries, Spain’s Marga Fullana took victory in a World Cup, this time beating Great Britain’s Caroline Alexander by 40 seconds to take round two of the 2002 series in Houfallize, Belgium on Sunday. Fullana (Orbea) turned her four laps around the 7.7km course in 1:46:20. After Alexander (Great Britain National) came Annabella Stropparo (Be One) in third at :48, then Alison Dunlap (Luna) at 1:21 and Barbara Blatter (Specialized) at

Tyler Hamilton had the biggest day of his professional cycling careerSunday and catapulted into contention for overall victory in the 85th Girod’Italia. Hamilton won Sunday’s 14th stage, a beautiful, but difficult, 30-kmindividual time trial along Italy’s rugged Adriatic Coast, and bouncedfrom 11th to third place overall. On the same day Hamilton’s longtime mentor Lance Armstrong won the overalltitle in the Midi Libre in France, Hamilton burst out of the Texan’s shadowforever and won the first American stage victory at the Giro since 1988. “To win today was incredible. It was my biggest

Lance Armstrong held off late attacks by his closest rivals to became the first American to win the Midi Libre, a traditional Tour de France warm-up, on Sunday. Armstrong finished fourth in Sunday’s 172-kilometer mountainous stage in the C´vennes, which was won by the second-year pro Laurent Paumier, of the Division 2 St. Quentin-Oktos team. Armstrong credited his U.S. Postal service team for defending his small overall lead on a stage that saw attacks by many of his most immediate challengers. A dangerous break started by Frenchmen Christophe Moreau of Crédit Agricole and David Monciutié of

It wasn’t the finish the cycling mad Belgian fans were hoping for, but with two riders in the top three it wasn’t a bad day either. The man spoiling the party at World Cup cross country No. 2 in Houffalize was Christoph Sauser, who bested home-country heroes Roel Paulissen and Filip Meirhaeghe in the 38.5km race on Sunday. After spending four laps dueling with a powerful lead group that also included the likes of Roland Green and Bart Brentjens, Sauser (Volvo-Cannondale) and Paulissen (Lanabau-Rainer-Wurz.com) broke away together, building a gap that hovered around 15 seconds. From there

Fullana heading to victory.

The opening climb.

Alexander couldn't quite catch Fullana.

Blatter makes her way up Houffalize's toughest climb.

Hamilton smokes 'em

Sauser wins his dream race.

The first climb of the day.

Paulissen leads the way early.

The Belgian fans were out in force.

One of the 205 riders who took on Houffalize.

Still in the jersey: Heppner holds a 48-second lead over a surprising Evans

The clouds parted over the Giro d’Italia in more ways than one Saturday. After two days of rain and cold, it was sunny and warm at the startwith rowdy crowds, just the way the Giro should be. And, more importantlyfor the worn-down Giro, there were no doping scandals. Life almost seemedto return to normal on the Giro. Saturday’s difficult 186-km climbing stage through Italy’s spectacularAppennini Mountains with views to the Adriatic Sea helped capture everyone’sattention. With the Giro’s decisive final week looming, none of the favorites could afford to be caught watching the scenery. With

Gilberto Simoni, who earlier this week learned that he had failed a drugs test for cocaine, has been quizzed by drugs squad officers here on Saturday. Simoni, 30, who was forced out of the Tour of Italy where he was defending the title he won last season and who won Thursday's 11th stage, tested positive for the drug after a surprise test on April 24. His team claimed Wednesday that the dentist had injected him with Carbocaine - which can produce a positive test for the better-known recreational drug. The dentist, Bruno Grosselli, has confirmed to police the explanation put forward by the

Two thirds of the way from Liège to Bastogne, just off the E25 highway in southeastern Belgium, mountain bike racing’s own classic is set go on Sunday in Houffalize. It’s stop No. 2 of the five-race cross country World Cup circuit, with the women kicking off racing at 10:30 a.m., followed by the men in the afternoon at 1:30. This is the fourth year in a row and 12th time in 13 years that mountain biking’s premier circuit has come to this picturesque village tucked into the lush green of the Ardennes. Saturday saw the amateurs tackle the 7.7 kilometer course that’s become slicker and slicker

VeloNews.com welcomes your letters. If you run across something in thepages of VeloNews magazine or see something on VeloNews.com thatcauses you to want to write us, dropus a line. Please include your full name and home town. By submitting mail to this address, you are consenting to the publication of your letter. Say it ain’t so, Brooke I am a former team member on the team Brooke manages. All I can sayis, I am horribly disappointed. (see Blackweldersuspended) Last year while competing with Brooke in the Women's Challenge, I commentedto friends and family about what an amazing

We knew today was going to be a difficult day and it didn't disappoint.I was able to preview the stage in March, and realized then that thesecond to last climb was tougher in reality than it looked on paper. Ourteam strategy for the day hinged mostly on this knowledge. We deliberatelysent a group of riders to the front to work the pace pretty hard when wereached this climb.We hoped the effort would wear out some of the competition a littlebit. Our mission was to send them into tomorrow's stage feeling a littlemore fatigued than they may have hoped they would. Considering our goal,the team

Lance Armstrong (USPS) has moved into the overall lead at the Midi Libre after finishing third in Saturday’s fourth stage, five seconds behind the day’s winner Laurent Brochard (Jean Delatour) and Andrei Kivilev (Cofidis).On the strength of today’s performance, coupled with a second-place finish in yesterday’s time trial. Armstrong took over the lead from ONCE’s Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano.Armstrong said he had been disappointed by his second place in Friday’s TT and was hoping to do well enough to take the overall lead on Saturday."I spent all last night thinking about why I failed in the time

Find Roland's rainbows.

Meirhaeghe is one of the fan favorites.

Deep ruts could make things tricky on Sunday.

Martinez is still big in mountain biking.

Dunlap would probably take issue with this display.

The long and lonely road: Lotz on his own

At the end of a long day in the saddle.

How many punches can the Giro d’Italia take? The race lost its second superstar in four days, suffered through agrowing chorus of detractors who want the race canceled and faces the prospectof overall victory by Francesco Casagrande or Dario Frigo – both riderswho’ve served doping suspensions in the past. Gilberto Simoni was the latest victim of doping’s tightening noose. The defending Giro champion was kicked out of the race by his Saeco team Friday morning following pressure from Giro organizers and other teams. Mercatone Uno’s Roberto Sgambelluri, who failed a doping test for Nespon the

1:15 p.m. Good morning to our U.S. audience. Obviously it has been a busy morning at the Giro d'Italia today, with bicycle racing again taking a back seat to events of a more pharmacological nature. As you can see from the headlines, Saeco's Gilberto Simoni -- winner of yesterday's stage -- has pulled out of the Giro as a result of the cocaine positive registered in an out-of-competition test on April 24. We'll try to keep tabs on that story as well as keep you up-to-date on today's stage -- a 200km race between Campobasso to Chieti -- though, to be honest, this seems less and less like a

VeloNews.com welcomes your letters. If you run across something in thepages of VeloNews magazine or see something on VeloNews.com thatcauses you to want to write us, dropus a line. Please include your full name and home town. By submitting mail to this address, you are consenting to the publication of your letter. Test results aside, thank you, Brooke Dear VeloNews, This is in response to Brooke Blackwelder's email (see "Blackwelderresponds to USADA suspension"). I was sorry to hear about her positive test -- I wish there were morepressure on the supplement industry to fully disclose

Press Release Before the start of the 12th stage to Campobasso this morning, the Saeco-Longoni sport team has told rider Gilberto Simoni their decision to retire him from the 85th Giro d'Italia. With sadness and deep sorrow, the team came to this decision after considering the difficulty of the situation and atmosphere created, especially after the rider was interviewed by the investigators sent by the public prosecutor of Trento to shed light on the presumed case of doping in which Gilberto Simoni has found himself in. The strong suspicion and the doubt that this serious situation

Champagne don’t make me lazyCocaine don’t drive me crazyAin’t nobody’s business but my own. -- Taj Mahal Cycling seems to have taken a speed-wobble into an endless “TwilightZone” loop, a hallucinogenic Mobius comic strip written by William Burroughs,drawn by M.C. Escher and colored by Owsley that we have to keep ridingover and over, like some Spinning® class in Hell. Trying to write about the sport these days feels like bobbing for silverfish in a septic tank on "The Ricki Lake Show" while a defrocked Catholic priestbelays you with his arms locked around your waist. The bad news

Race leader Ina Teutenberg (Saturn) finally cracked on Friday’s eighth stage of the 18th Tour de l'Aude Cycliste Féminin in France, but teammate Judith Arndt was there to pick up the pieces, and now holds an overall lead of slightly more than a minute over Valentina Polkhanova (Itera) and Edita Pucinskaite (Figurella Dream Team) with just two days of racing remaining. Teutenberg put Saturn in orbit early in the 10-stage race, winning the opening stage May 17 to take the leader’s yellow jersey, then adding another victory in stage 4. In between, Polkhanova’s Itera squad claimed the

In his first serious test since finishing fourth at last month's Amstel Gold Race, the United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team's Lance Armstrong finished second in today's third stage of the Grand Prix du Midi-Libre stage race - a 19 kilometer time trial - in Rodez, France. Armstrong's performance moved him from 31st to second place overall with two stages remaining. Armstrong turned in a time of 23 minutes and 59 seconds in the difficult course, six seconds back of stage winner and new race leader Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano of ONCE. Following Armstrong, Galdeano's ONCE teammates

He went, but not willingly.

Things DO go better with coke... like watching the Tour de France on TV.

Yes, there was a bike race today and Denis Lunghi won

Feedback on treating leg-length discrepancies.

Can anyone else use Campy shifters with Shimano cassettes?

Does increased fork rake or rider position affect high-speed shimmy?

Why can't I get my drivetrain to shift well?

What can I do about a mis-aligned front derailleur mount?

What's an alternative to Rohloff chains on Campy drivetrains?

Would a newer Dura-Ace bottom bracket stop creaking noises?

How do I know if my XTR bottom bracket is serviceable?

A smiling Gilberto Simoni denied Thursday’s stage-win at CampitelloMatese had anything to do with revenge. According to the defending Giro d’Italia champion, his accelerations weren't related to the scandal surrounding his now-costly dentist visit back in April. “No, today wasn’t revenge,” said Simoni, who dominated Thursday’s 140-km11th stage. “I felt bad yesterday because of stupid negligence. It shouldnot have happened. It was very difficult yesterday. I feel sorry for the team and for the sponsor. When I am on the bike, I am thinking only about pedaling. In the night, I am human and I

Police on Thursday hauled off all six Mapei riders competing in the Tour of Belgium to be tested for banned products in Knokke-Heist, Belgium, after a suspect ampule was discovered in one of the riders bags on Wednesday. The detentions come hard on the heels of another drug scandal for Mapei after Stefano Garzelli was thrown out of the Giro d’Italia on Tuesday after testing positive for the banned diuretic Probenecid. The swoop took place as the riders crossed the finishing line of the first stage of the Belgian. The six riders are Italian Eddy Ratti, who discovered the suspect product in

This is the full text of a press release issued by team Saeco-Longoni Sportin the morning of May 23, 2002PRESS RELEASEConcerning the rider Gilberto Simoni and the breaking news he was involvedyesterday, after doping controls in Giro del Trentino, Saeco Longoni SportCycling Team guesses to point out his own position.1)      The team have the maximum confidencein its rider and respects his professionality, but every team's behaviouror official decision will be mainly finalized to guarantee its own corporate image and its management habits2)      Saeco Longoni Sport team, evendoesn't think much

1:00 p.m. Good morning to the U.S. It is 1:00 in Italy and we are about 10 minutes from the start of today's stage. It's another short one -- just 140km -- but the finish is going to be tough. At 125km, the day's Intergiro will toy with the sprinters, but then the road almost immediately begins to rise. The steep 13.57-km, 885-meter (2920-foot) climb to Campitello Matese, a small ski resort at 1430 meters (4917 feet) deep in the mountains of south central Italy, will test the mettle of the better climbers in the group and may take a big bite out of Jens Heppner's hold on the leader's

I’m sorry readers. This journal entry may be a little short tonight, as I am finding it difficult to find the energy and morale to write... but here's what I've got. In general, today was disappointing. If you are reading this you are probably interested in an explanation for my ride today, so here goes. There are no excuses, but here's a little insight into what I was contending with today. I took some anti-inflammatories before the start this morning to try an ease some pain I have been experiencing in my ribcage. If you followed the Tour de France last summer, then you know my history

Simoni towed Casagrande in the closing kilometers and then beat him at the line.

Those last kilometers...

Steve Zampieri and Renzo Mazzolini

Perez

Still in control: Heppner did better than many would have expected.

Why does my rear derailleur pinch my chain on the largest cogs?

Joe Friel is author of the successful "Training Bible" series ofbooks, a regular columnist for VeloNews and Inside Triathlonand the founder of www.ultrafit.com.Friel also offers answers to a selection of questions in this weekly column here on VeloNews.com. Readers can send questions to Friel in care of VeloNews.comat WebLetters@7Dogs.com. (Besure to include "Friel" in the subject line.)Q: My question concerns training for triathlons and bicycle roadracing.  Is there a way to effectively train for both and be successful. Will I have to sacrifice one sport for the other.  I have noticedthat

Italian cycling suffered a second major blow Wednesday when it was revealed defending Giro d'Italia champion Gilberto Simoni had failed a drug test for cocaine earlier this season. Speaking to reporters before the start of the 10th stage of the Giro Wednesday, Simoni claimed Wednesday he had tested positive for cocaine because of a visit to the dentist. The 30-year-old will be allowed to continue to compete in the Giro after the UCI ruled that the test did not affect his performances in the race. Simoni tested positive on April 24 during the Tour of Trentino. Simoni, who is eighth in the

It was a day the Giro d’Italia race organizers were happy to get over with. Doping controversies threatened to overwhelm the race with the mostimportant racing still to go. Unfortunately for the already haggard race officials, there's likely more to come. The winner of the 2000 Giro d'Italia, Stefano Garzelli (Mapei), didn't start Wednesday's stage 10 after the test of a second urine sample, taken last week in Belgium, came back positive, while 2001 Giro winner Gilberto Simoni stayed in the race but had his own battlesto fight against a positive test for cocaine back in April. Cynical