News

Jacques-Maynes won the DI men's race.

With Team Coast slapped with its second racing ban in two months, 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich could soon be heading to a new team. The UCI banned Coast from racing Thursday until the team can provide money up front for team expenses through the end of the season. The team was en route to the Peace Race when the news broke Thursday evening and didn’t start Friday’s first stage. For Ullrich, who has returned from knee surgery and a doping ban, the news could mean he’ll be looking for a few team in time to start the Tour in July. “If the situation remains what it is, we will have

Hannos was No. 1 among the DI women.

“Mutation. It is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.” - Professor Charles Xavier’s opening monologue, from “X-Men” Mutants are among us. One week after going out with a few of the boys from our editorial department to catch “X2: X-Men United” on opening night, that’s the conclusion I’ve reached. In case you’re out of the loop on superhero lore, the X-Men were, like

One of several pile-ups.

Former USA Cycling chief executive officer Lisa Voight has been hired as the first CEO of the International World Games Association, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The IWGA, an International Olympic Committee-recognized organization formed in 1981, oversees a quadrennial competition for more than 30 non-Olympic sports, such as billiards, orienteering, bowling, handball and rugby. “I’m honored to have been named as the first CEO of the IWGA and I am very much looking forward to this opportunity," Voight said. Voight, who left USA Cycling’s top job last year, is a member of the U.S.

Editor:Yes, mountain bike racing has changed. The early 1990's were cool, no doubt, with big fields and the big show at nationals. But the big events now are the epics – 100-milers and 24-hour races. Heck, anyone who has gone to a 24-hour race in the last year could not say that the sport is dying - tons of people just off the couch, giving it a try because it sounds fun. Think about that – fun. These events cater to general participants. Tinker gets the same treatment as Joe Tennis Shoes with his skater helmet. Grass roots is alive and well. Riders in southern California will have

So, I watched Liège-Bastogne-Liège on OLN last night. I’ve got to admit, I really thought Lance was going to take it. He was just looking so strong when he was out there with Sanchez and Shefer. But when CSC caught the break, and then Tyler attacked - wow!, what a shocker. And who would have thought he’d be able to hang on for a solo win? That’s the great thing about live TV - the action, the drama, the suspense. I know, I’m living in a dream world here. Let’s face it. A week-and-a-half delay sucks. By the time the coverage aired, we had known all the details of the action for 10 days. And

Gonzalez wants to do in the Giro what he did at the Vuelta

It's Giro time: Aitor versus the Italians

Dear Bob;When I go out riding, I usually take my driver’s license with me so I can use it for identification in an emergency. A friend warned me that I shouldn’t do that, because if the police wrote me a ticket and I had my license on me, the state would assess moving violation points. Can they do that?Thanks in advance,Anonymous Dear Anonymous;I have had my share of experience in this area with both police in patrol cars and police on bikes. When I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in the '80s we wanted to know if the bicycle police cruising around campus with mirrored sun

How about if people quit whining about cycling on TV and just goride their bikes? Isn't that what the sport's all about? Why waste a beautifulday sitting on the couch watching someone else do what you could be outsidedoing yourself? If it's nice hit the road, if it's not hit the trail, or vice versa.There's a whole world out there to be enjoyed and a bicycle is a greatway to do it. You know, cycling doesn't need people making $2 million ayear to validate it. Whether anyone ever gets paid to ride a bikeagain or not, there will still be more people on bikes on a

The UCI on Thursday suspended Team Coast for the second time this season from racing in what's another setback for the troubled German team. The UCI issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying that riders had not been paid during April and that it was once again suspending the team from competition. "Unfortunately, this reveals the structural problems of the team remain very serious, despite all the steps taken by the UCI to protect the interest of the racers," the UCI said a statement. "Team Coast is not authorized, as of this day, to take part in any race on the international

“I’m not a great champion like Binda,' says Cipo'

No word from the silver city on the hill

Ullrich must be regretting that CSC decision

A break that worked

Editor:As an avid cyclist, and an avid sports fan, I am dismayed at the mediacoverage that is given to cycling in general, not just mountain biking. Tyler Hamilton won a huge race not too long ago, and this accomplishmentgot not one second of coverage here in Southern California. And I listento sports talk radio all day long at work. Granted, Lance Armstrong getshis play after he wins the Tour de France, but during last year’s Tour,the 20-second blurb that came across the radio waves was pessimistic abouthis chances of winning until he actually had the maillot jaune on his shoulders.This

A little late-night Super 8 wrenching before the race

Titec's CM carbon bars

A sticky situation...

Botero at last year's Vuelta

As the under-18 women line up for the start, one proves you can still have fun while readying to kick some butt.

Redwood High

Rand Miller at the start

Michael Roye

The final podium at Romandie

It all came together in the TT

I can sum up the last week in Belgium with one word: wind. Windier than average, which is to say "lots of wind." Luckily, the wind has been blowing from the south, which means that the temperature has been relatively mild. Some Belgians will tell you that the reason for so much wind (irrespective of global circulation models and regional weather patterns) is that France sucks, and Holland blows. Perhaps it is for this explanation that actual weather forecasting seems even more voodoo here than in the good ol' USA. Weather on the 8's, forget about it. Doppler radar, no way. Hey man, we

Editor:I think Patrick O'Grady has done a fine job of expressing what manyof us have been thinking recently about the sponsorship of bike racing(See “Dog breath:Hard times”) But I think his basic premise can be challenged withtwo words: bull riding. Based on my own random sampling, I'd estimate that OLN devotes roughly16 hours a day to televising professional bull riding. I couldn't findany good data on the number of people involved in recreational bull riding,but I asked around the office, and only one person claims to have triedit, and I'm pretty sure he's lying. My conclusion is that

This will be covered in seating

Target: Hamilton

Crossing with hand power

Two of the most common questions we get at Hamilton 2003 are “why aren’t your tickets on sale?” and “when will they be?” The answer is, they are now and we still have more than six months to go. Now, let me explain why it took longer than you might expect and where the best places are to see the race. Like most other busy downtown cores, Hamilton, Canada’s eighth largestcity with a population of over 500,000 people, doesn’t normally have grandstands for more than 10,000 lining its Main Street. What it does have is big, bustling city hall, a very beautiful and well-attend performing arts

Despite a winter of training and seemingly miraculous recovery from a broken shoulder, Gerolsteiner’s Davide Rebellin will miss the Giro d’Italia it was reported in Berlin on Sunday. According to German sports news agency SID the 31-year-old suffered a reaction to a shoulder injury when he won the Frankfurt Grand Prix last Thursday and has decided not to contest the Giro, which starts on May 10 and runs till June 1. "I trained all last winter with the Giro as my objective," admitted a frustrated Rebellin. "However competing in it now would be too risky. I felt the pain when I was riding

"It's the toughest sponsorship climate I've ever seen. Right now it's justa dry lakebed."Rick Sutton of GaleForcein a chat with Jason Sumner of VeloNews About 8 million people age 7 and older tried mountain biking off-road at least once in 2002, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. More than 82 million tried walking. And we’re surprised that the NORBA National Championship Series has sponsorship troubles? Puh-leeeze. With all due respect to the pros who may be racing for fun like the rest of us this season, if I were the marketing wizard for Chevy Trucks, I would have my

They're working on developing a downhill event, too.

All of the excitement of Mountain-cross, without the insurance hassles

A strong TT made all the difference.

Perez was in yellow... for the day

Laurent Dufaux took second overall

After a while, Jeanson had no one to chase except the masters racers who had started well ahead of her

The alliance up front

Neutral support. When you get a flat, your first job is to find your wheel

Working man's hero

Alexandre Moos (Phonak) dogs Tyler Hamilton (CSC)

Francisco Perez Sanchez (Milaneza-MSS) finally finds the finish line

The 21st century isn't all it's cracked up to be. The mighty Inside Communications Server Farm spent most of Saturday immobilized by a power outage after a peon whose Starbucks card had been rejected tripped over an extension cord en route to the coffee urn at a nearby 7-Eleven. The fan quit spinning, the hamster got all sweaty, the wheel stopped turning, and before you could say, "Al Gore invented the what?", cycling journalism as we know it ground to a halt. We promise it will never happen again. Until the next time. Stay tuned from reports from the 1989 Tour de France, where we understand

Francisco Perez Sanchez (Milaneza-MSS) salutes the crowd as he dons the leader’s jersey with just one stage remaining

Cycling's world track championships, scheduled to take place in China this summer, have been canceled because of fears over SARS, the Union Cycliste Internationale confirmed today. "The UCI wishes to express appreciation to the organizers of Shenzhen, as well as to the Chinese National Cycling Federation," the UCI said in a press release. "The UCI also wishes to confirm that track world championships will most certainly take place in China before the 2008 Olympic Games of Beijing, probably in 2007." This year's track world's was due to be held July 30-August 3 in Shenzen, the southern

Feel like I finally earned my stripes last week. Not because I finally got to cover a U.S. stage race the magnitude of the Tour de Georgia (the Coors Classic and Tour DuPont were a little before my time). No, I’m talkin’ about finally eating at a Waffle House. Having spent the first 22 years of my life in California, I had a valid excuse for a while, but after my extensive American travels - and living within 20 miles of a Waffle House here in Colorado - that excuse was wearing pretty thin. So, it was with great delight that on the third day of the Tour de Georgia, my roommates and I made

The wearing of a hard-shell helmet in elite men's races is to be made compulsory, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) said on Friday. The move, which takes effect in time for the start of the Giro d'Italia in May, comes after the death of Kazakh rider Andrei Kivilev from head injuries at Paris-Nice in March. "The International Cycling Union (UCI) announces that as from 5 May 2003 it will be mandatory to wear a hard-shell helmet in Elite Men's events for classes 4 and above," the UCI said in a statement. "This decision was taken in agreement with all parties represented in the

Tyler Hamilton (CSC) leads the charge.

Francisco Perez Sanchez (Milaneza) fights toward the line.

Laurent Dufaux takes the win and the lead.

Dufaux wins stage, seizes Romandie lead

No, Geneviève Jeanson has not taken to racing cars.

Gord Fraser had the legs today.

For most people, the 2003 World Cycling Championships being held up and down the Niagara Escarpment in Hamilton, Ontario will begin October 6. For me, they began February 7 in Montreal when I loaded a few necessities in a U-Haul trailer and my big dog in my old truck and drove up the 401, the Trans-Canada Highway, as hundreds of thousands of other Quebec Anglophones have done, to join the Hamilton 2003, the Organizing Committee (OC) for the Worlds as the Competition Coordinator. What will follow in this space for the next few months will be a blog-typecolumn (web log) of how one goes about

Yuriy Krivtsov takes stage 2 at Romandie.

I think for the rest of my life, April 27th, 2003, is going to stay with me as something special. Achieving victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège is something my team and I will always look back on with amazement and pride. It sounds kind of trite to say it like this, but it's true - everything came together perfectly for us on Sunday. The entire CSC team rode incredibly well together. There wasn't one guy on our squad who didn't play a role. All in all, it was a fantastic day, top to bottom. Heading out, I was a little concerned about the weather. It rained hard on Saturday and the forecast for

Rona in charge

Editor:I knew that it was only a matter of time before some uninformed dolt would write in to discuss Lance Armstrong’s superiority over Eddy Merckx in response to Eddy's critique of Lance. In response to Justin Maines’s inept letter (see “Of Cowboys and Cannibals”) - duuuude, put down the bong, turn off the Limp Bizkit, pull out your nose ring and listen up. Here are the stats. Eddy's wins: Five Tour victories (including a record 35 stage wins and 96 days in yellow), five Giros, one Vuelta, three world championships, the hour record, three Paris-Nices, one Tour of Switzerland, seven

Organizers of the 2003 Capital Cup have been forced to cancel the Washington, D.C. Pro/Am event due to an eleventh-hour withdrawal of an unspecified sponsor. Given the short notice, the likelihood of finding a replacement is unlikely, and Arlington Sports, Inc., the promoting organization, is unwilling to take on the financial risk of finding another sponsor at this late date. “It’s too late now,” explained race director Rob Laybourn. “We’re hoping that we can bring the race back next year.” Laybourn added that Arlington Sports will now focus its efforts on continuing to develop the sister

Sayers

MTB News and Notes: Alternative racing

Ang Sheldrake

The course map

MTB News and Notes: Alternative racing

MTB News and Notes: Alternative racing

Gunn-Rita Dahle

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

The 'nerve center'

The camera sees all

On the Côte de la Redoute