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It’s been a long time since an Irishman won a stage at a grand tour. You have to go all the way back to the glory days of the Roche-Kelly golden era, with Stephen Roche taking the last win for Ireland in the 1992 Tour de France. Since then, there have been some close calls, but it’s mainly been a famine as Irish fans have patiently waited for a new crop of Irish riders to come through the ranks.

Columbia-HTC's Edvald Boasson Hagen claimed a fourth successive stage win to stretch his lead in the Tour of Britain standings to 19 seconds with two stages left to race. The 22-year-old won a sprint finish at the end of the 183.7-km sixth stage in England's west country and he will now expect to hold off second-placed Kai Reus over the course of Friday's penultimate stage and the 92.5-km race to the finish in London on Saturday. Boasson Hagen hit the front at 300 meters to go and nobody was able to pass him. Martin Reimer was second and Russell Downing was third.

Pearl Izumi is one of those companies that pushed to have a few 2010 products ready to show in July, for early looks. In Monaco we had a quick look at some clothing and high-end shoes. But now that fall tradeshow season is in full swing, Pearl has the entire line on display, and by the looks of things, Pearl is not resting on past success. Along with consistently innovative clothing, Pearl is charging ahead with shoe development, and has packed their high-end shoes with features that happily trickle down to mid-priced levels affordable by average riders.

The brain behind CamelBak's latest offering — the VeloBak — talks to Singletrack.com about developing the idea of wearable hydration for cyclists.

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How can I route the Ergopower shift cable without kinking it?

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The unification race will pit top Kenda Cup East and Kenda Cup West series riders against one another for ultimate bragging rights with a U.S. Cup Unification Series title.

Where else but in Europe can Europe's "Final Countdown" be blared at high decibels without a hint of corniness? Let Adam Craig explain.

What started off as a snoozer ended up as a fairytale, at least for 22-year-old French rider Anthony Roux. With the chasing peloton breathing down his neck, the second-year pro from FDJeux took a huge dig with 2km to go to drop the remnants of the day’s main five-man break, reel in the attacking Martin Maaskant (Garmin-Slipstream) with 1km to go, flick him and then squirt across the line just a few bike lengths ahead of the hard-charging pack.

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Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen claimed a third successive stage win to move into the overall lead of the Tour of Britain on Wednesday. The 22-year-old won a sprint finish ahead of Italian Filippo Pozzato and Britain's Russell Downing to claim his sixth Tour of Britain stage victory in two seasons. He now leads Dutch rider Kai Reus by nine seconds. In third place is Australia's Chris Sutton, who believes his hopes of winning the Tour may have gone as a result of Garmin-Slipstream teammate Bradley Wiggins' decision to quit the race.

The North American Cyclocross Trophy (NACT) series was created as a way to bring some of the best cyclocross races into the spotlight. After a successful inaugural season in 2008, the series is back with an additional weekend of races. In 2008, the eight-race series was decided at the final venue in Southampton, New York. Ryan Trebon took a close win over Jeremy Powers for the men and Georgia Gould bested Amy Dombroski for the women’s overall title.

Alejandro Valverde, Oscar Freire and Samuel Sanchez will lead Spain's bid to win the men's road race title at the world cycling championships next week in Mendrisio, Switzerland. All-rounder Valverde is the current Tour of Spain leader and has in the past narrowly missed out on winning cycling's coveted rainbow jersey, a feat achieved by Freire a record-equalling three times. Sanchez, who is currently ranked third in the Tour of Spain, is the reigning Olympic road race champion who like Valverde excels on hilly, selective courses.

Jake Keough (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushroom) lead the 2009 USA CRITS Series after four events. The season-long series holds its penultimate event this Thursday night in Dallas, the TX TOUGH criterium. The finals are a week later during the Interbike show in Las Vegas. Keough is also leading the Champion System’s Best Young Rider (U25) Competition, while BMW-Bianchi’s Erica Allar is in the lead on the women’s side. Battley Harley Davidson’s Russ Langley and Colavita Sutter Home’s Cath Cheatley still holds the Storck Most Laps Led jersey.

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During the middle part of the 2009 racing season the Subaru-Gary Fisher team gave Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski, a racer with a preference for hardtails, a new full-suspension bike. To the surprise of many he raced it in some of the biggest events during the second half of this season. JHK rode Fisher’s new Superfly 100 in two world cups, the marathon national championships, which he won, and the last two stops of the Pro XTC series (where he won the overall series).

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Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen of Columbia-HTC won a second consecutive stage in the Tour of Britain Tuesday to move within one second of overall race leader, Kai Reus of Rabobank. "We're close now and so we have to try and win overall," said Columbia team coach Valerio Piva. "Edvald is on form, we've got a strong team here, and so why not? We've done it before." Australia's Chris Sutton also moved within striking distance of the overall lead with his fourth consecutive top three finish in the 148-km circuit stage around the Forest of Bowland.

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The leader of next year's Vuelta a España will wear a red jersey instead of the current gold to mark the 75th anniversary of the event, organizers announced Tuesday. The colour of the leader's jersey has changed several times since the event began, with red being used only once, in 1945, Spanish media said. It was orange for the inaugural event in 1935, a color that was also used in 1936, 1942 and 1977. It was white just once, in 1941, and white with a horizontal red line between 1946 and 1950.

Everyone knew Tuesday’s long, tedious 16th stage at the Vuelta a España was going to end up in a bunch sprint. Despite some of the top sprinters leaving the race early, including Tyler Farrar and Tom Boonen, there was still enough fight left in the bunch to make it interesting in the closing kilometers. Despite efforts by Milram and Liquigas, the result was much of the same, with André Greipel easily winning his third stage victory of the Vuelta and Columbia-HTC’s fourth. [nid:97891]

Many Europeans seem steadfastly committed to the 26-inch hardtail, at least for now. Zack Vestal does a photo roundup of the offerings at Eurobike.

The German bicycle brand Storck continues to turn heads, even without a sponsored ProTour racing team. That doesn’t mean that the company intends to sit back and languish as others grab the spotlight. Company founder Markus Storck has aggressive goals for his brand in the competitive road and triathlon arenas — to cite one example, at the Eurobike trade show two weeks ago, he said that he aims to have 100 bikes raced in the prestigious Hawaii Ironman triathlon within five years.

Basque climber Iban Mayo says he won’t mount a professional comeback despite having served out his two-year racing ban for an EPO positive in 2007. Now 32, the once-feared climber called his controversial doping case a “witch hunt” and told the Bilbao daily El Correo he will not try to return to the professional ranks.

Ever since the father of the quick-release skewer, Tullio Campagnolo, founded it in 1933, Campagnolo SPA has been making highest-quality cutting-edge bicycle products in Vicenza, the leather-working capital of Europe.

The Superfly 100 - a 29er full-suspension rig - incorporates all of the highest technologies found within the Gary Fisher and Trek family.

USA Cycling released its complete roster of 22 elite and U23 athletes that will represent the United States at the 2009 UCI Road World Championships, September 23-27 in Mendriso, Switzerland. Representing the U.S. in both the elite men’s road race and time trial will be Tom Danielson (Garmin-Slipstream). In the time trial, Danielson will be joined by his future Garmin teammate Tom Zirbel (Bissell), the silver medalist from this month’s USA Cycling Professional Time Trial Championships.