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World road champion Cadel Evans said Thursday he is considering returning to Australia in January to race the Tour Down Under for the first time since 2005. The Australian two-time Tour de France runner-up said he was considering changing his strategy for 2010 and riding in the Adelaide tour was "highly possible". Evans, who won the elite men's road race at the world championships in Switzerland this month, said he was mapping next year's campaign with Silence-Lotto team chiefs and would confirm his plans early next month.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has announced the release of the 2010 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods (List) which will take effect on January 1, 2010. The List, updated and published annually by WADA, is central to the harmonized, global anti-doping effort and includes input and consultation from anti-doping and scientific experts around the world.

The managers of the Tour de France arrived in Ajaccio, the capital city of Corsica Wednesday to kick off three days of meetings to explore the possibility of starting the race on the autonomous French Island in 2013. "This is the first step of a process to see if the Tour de France can be successfully held on Corsica,” said Tour director, Christian Prudhomme. During a press conference at the Corsican Assembly, Prudhomme said the meetings mark the first of "several trips” that will be necessary to rate the island’s ability to host the 2013 Grand Départ.

Stan Koziatek's garage invention has earned one of the best compliments possible: "Stan's" is now the generic term for tire sealant, in the same way the brand name "Xerox" means "copy" and "Kleenex" means "facial tissue." He's at it again for 2010.

As the 2009 UCI calendar draws to a close, the 2010 spring classics are a faint flicker of pain and glory far off on the horizon. If all goes to plan for team manager Gavin Chilcott between now and then, the U.S.-based BMC Racing Team will line up at the start of the monuments with a good chance of taking one of the world’s biggest one-day titles.

Just as word leaked out beforehand about the route of the 2010 Tour de France, so several sources in Italy have published reports on the likely stages for the 2010 Giro d’Italia — which will be formally unveiled this Saturday in Milan. Race organizer RCS and its daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport have announced only the first three stages, which will all start in the Dutch city of Amsterdam next May 8, 9 and 10; but rival papers Tuttosport, La Stampa and La Repubblica have all carried stories on the likely route.

Dear readers, As the last few weeks have shown, perhaps the biggest problem we cyclists encounter is finding a place to just ride. Ever since my “Whose bike path is it anyway?” column two weeks ago, our Mailbag has been filled with letters from readers weighing in on issues of trail access, path etiquette and even horse manure.

Twenty-year-old J.D. Swanguen will serve a three-month suspension for testing positive for pot at doping control at mountain bike National Championships.

Saxo Bank’s Marcus Ljungqvist has announced plans to retire from competition and has accepted a director’s position at the new British-sponsored Sky team. The 35-year-old Ljungqvist said he had weighed several offers to continue riding, including one from the new RadioShack team, but decided it was time to hang up his cleats. "I am truly honored to have received offers in the twilight of my career," said Ljungqvist, "but all things come to an end and after serious reflection, I decided to look for a new challenge."

Katie Compton (Planet Bike) has become the first American to lead the UCI's international cyclocross points rankings. Compton, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, owes her lead to her win at the Treviso, Italy, world cup last month, combined with a string of wins at U.S. UCI races. She has won all seven UCI races she has started this season.[nid:99492] Compton is training in Colorado and will resume racing at the NACT weekend in Colorado next weekend.

Beginning at 9:15 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, cyclocross racers from across New York State and New England will converge on the Columbia Pavilion in Spa State Park for the first-annual Saratoga Spa ‘Cross. Cyclocross is a style of bicycle racing that evolved in northern Europe, as a way to keep bicycle racers competing through the fall and into winter, by moving them off of roads and onto muddy paths and open fields. The sport is now a popular way for many bicycle racers to end a season of road or mountain bike racing.

With most dividing issues there usually ends up being some sort of compromise solution, so here is mine for race radios.

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The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced Tuesday that downhill racer J.D. Swanguen has accepted a three-month suspension from competition after testing positive for a metabolite of marijuana at this year’s national championships. A urine sample provided by the 20-year-old Swanguen at the USA Cycling national mountain bike championships on July 19 of this year tested positive for Carboxy THC, a metabolite of cannabis.

Nick Wieghall (California Giant Berry Farms) ensured there would be no repeat men's winners yet this year, while Kristi Berg (Redline Bicycles) made it three for three at the sand-heavy course third stop of the Seattle Cyclocross Series.

Two cyclists were looking for a fight before an incident that led to assault charges being filed against a California driver, the driver's attorney suggested in court Monday. The attorney for Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson also suggested that one of the cyclists may have simply fallen on his own accord. Thompson is on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and other violations in connection with a July 4, 2008, confrontation in a Los Angeles area canyon and an earlier incident involving a cyclist on the same road.

Spanish team Fuji-Servetto will ride on in the 2010 season thanks to a new title sponsor coming on board under its new name, Footon-Servetto. The team announced Tuesday the arrival of new title sponsor, Footon, a Swiss-based company specializing in foot insoles and other health care products. The news comes as the team’s future looked bleak.

16-year-old gravity phenom Neko Mulally is ready for his first year on World Cup circuit and the mountain bike Worlds at Mont Ste Anne.

Former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich on Tuesday brushed off the latest doping allegations against him and repeated his position that he will speak only when he is ready. On Monday, German magazine Der Spiegel cited a police investigation report which states Ullrich went to Madrid 24 times between 2003 and 2006 to see doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, the Madrid gynecologist at the center of the Spanish probe Operación Puerto.

Despite its ProTour status for 2010 being still up in the air, Astana continues to bolster its squad for the upcoming season. Italian workhorse Paolo Tiralongo revealed he’s signed a two-year deal to join the Kazakh-backed team while Aussie sprinter Allan Davis confirmed he’s seriously considering an offer to join Astana despite having one more year on his contract with Quick Step. Meanwhile news media in Kazakhstan reports that two time Giro winner Gilberto Simoni may, too, be poised to sign with the team.

Navigation systems manufacturer Garmin Ltd. has announced plans to extend its sponsorship of the Garmin-Slipstream team, adding three years to a deal that was set to expire at the end of 2010. Citing the team’s performance and its commitment to “ethical sporting and developing the next generation of cycling champions,” the company said its sponsorship for the past 18 months has exceeded expectations.

There were a number of special bikes that I saw at Interbike that I have still not had much opportunity to write about. So I’ll use this week’s column to do so.

With the introduction of two new helmets for 2010, Rudy Project is taking a stab at the top of the helmet hierarchy, and hoping riders will take notice. “In essence, we’re calling 2010 the ‘year of the helmet,’” said Paul Craig, Rudy Project's North America CEO. “It’s the culmination of two to three years of research, development, and testing which has allowed us to leapfrog, in our eyes, other helmet technology.”

As a trail runner for over 30 years and sometime mountain biker I can assure you that trail runners never forget about horseback riders

The 2009 mountain bike campaign was in question earlier this year for Luna racer Katerina Nash, but dominating Downieville and posting podium finishes are just a part of her season so far.

It is not unusual during a full season of racing to hear about a pro cyclist or two breaking a clavicle or other bone in a multi-rider pile-up. But is there something inherent to cycling that increases your risk for developing a break when you hit the pavement hard? A growing body of research indicates that being fit through cycling training alone does not guarantee optimal bone density. Cycling only may be bad for your bones.

Team Rubicon-ORBEA, presently known as Land Rover-ORBEA; Benefiting the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a first year UCI-continental team, is in search of a title sponsor. Rubicon’s two-year partnership with Land Rover will end December 31st, 2009. In order to continue with the team goals for 2010, the team needs to come up with a title sponsor by November 5th.

After one cyclist slammed into the rear of his car and vaulted over it into oncoming traffic, and another crashed through his rear window, Dr. Christopher Thomas Thompson called 911 and told the operator, “They’ll tell you they are seriously injured, but they’re not.”

Kona’s Ryan Trebon and Barry Wicks went one-two at Sunday’s cold and windy Wissahickon Cross in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, while Luna’s Georgia Gould won by a large margin. The women started off the UCI double-header, and despite the storm that turned the previous day’s Granogue course into a quagmire, the circuit at Wissahickon remained solid, though somewhat cooler than normal.