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Jens Voigt is one tough customer and the German all-rounder is determined to return to racing following his harrowing accident at this year’s Tour de France. Recovering nicely from his high-speed fall, the hugely popular Voigt could mark his return to competition at next month’s Tour of Missouri, where his Saxo Bank team is among the starting teams.

Three-time cyclocross world champion Erwin Vervecken of Belgium will race the CrossVegas in Las Vegas next month, race organizers announced Friday. Vervecken won the world title in 2001, 2006 and 2007 and, at 37 won the Roubaix World Cup last winter. He has announced that he will retire at the end of this season. Vervecken's teammate Ben Berden also will race in the September 23 event.

Alberto Contador doesn’t have a home for 2010, but he’s not worried about it, at least not yet. The two-time Tour de France champ says he methodically considering his options as he looks to secure his future following a tension-filled run at Astana this season. “I have various possibilities, and some of them are quite attractive, and I am analyzing them with without a great deal of stress at this point,” Contador told the Spanish wire service EFE. “The offers might be abundant, but firm offers there aren’t so many.”

“Lance in Leadville” has a nice ring to it. The high altitude, 100-mile fire-road-heavy mountain bike race looks like an MTB event made in heaven for the Aspen-dwelling Texan. But seeing the man himself astride a mountain bike is still a touch odd, after his chiseled visage has been photographed for so long on road bikes.

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Other than the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, few countries award a national championship jersey for criterium racing. The UCI does not even recognize it as an event and, therefore, does not recognize the national championship, but at least it kindly looks the other way, because criteriums are the most popular form of racing in these countries. In the U.S., criteriums dominate the racing calendar over road racing, culminating in the middle of August for the past 17 years in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove for the U.S. national criteirum championships.

Former Gerolsteiner rider Bernard Kohl said Friday that scientists working in laboratories accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) were bribed by his former manager, the alleged head of a doping network. Austrian Stefan Matschiner, who managed the careers of several top Austrian athletes including Kohl, is accused of organising an elaborate doping network which helped top athletes in Europe to cheat by using performance-enhancing drugs and methods.

Evelyn Stevens (New York, N.Y.) pulled off her first major European road stage race victory with a win in stage four of La Route de France on Thursday. Riding for the USA Cycling Women’s National Team, Stevens out sprinted fellow American Kim Anderson (Santa Barbara, Calif./Columbia-HTC) to take the stage win and second place in the general classification.

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Depending on how you look at it, Manuel Prado came within one and a half minutes, or 35 minutes, of the win at last year's Leadville Trail 100. By the time Prado (Sho-Air-Specialized) crossed the line in downtown Leadville, race winner Wiens and second-placed Lance Armstrong had finished their post-race interviews and were looking for a ride home. But Prado's third place was a lot closer and a lot more impressive than it seemed.

Trek, Lance Armstrong's bike sponsor, has sent a squad to Saturday's Leadville 100 to drive the pace with the goal of setting a course record.

Lance Armstrong is hoping a strong field will help deliver him to a victory in record time at this Saturday's Leadville Trail 100 in Colorado. The Astana rider told VeloNews Thursday that while he hasn't recruited a team for the race, his sponsor Trek has sent a squad to Leadville, including former pro Travis Brown. Armstrong is looking to them and to other top riders to drive the pace in the first 45 miles or so of the out-and-back course.

Dave Wiens dropped Lance Armstrong in the last ten miles of last year's Leadville 100, and cranked in to the finish in downtown Leadville with Armstrong breathing down his neck. Making it worse was the creepy sensation of a squishy rear tire, which nursed into the finish. When he crossed the line less than two minutes ahead of Armstrong he was almost riding on the rim.

New Anthem X Advanced SL gets lighter while the Trance X Advanced SL goes carbon.

As of Friday evening, The National Weather Service is calling for a 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon Saturday in Leadville, and race organizers and racers are bracing for a possible wet finish to the race, which starts at 6:30 a.m. Earlier int he week the forecast was for a 30 percent chance of rain Saturday, and it rained off and on in Leadville Friday. Organizers are now hoping that many amateur riders can finish before the rain arrives. "I think God doesn't like slow mountain bike riders," said Ken Chlouber, the race director.

Discounts on Syncros products going to IMBA members and volunteers for creating, enhancing and preserving mountain bike trails.

Tom Danielson was back in the winner’s column last weekend with victory in the individual time trial at the five-day Vuelta a Burgos in Spain. It marked Danielson’s first European victory since 2006 and the end of a long comeback from the injuries that nearly derailed his career. The Garmin-Slipstream rider ended up third overall at Burgos, a promising result that indicates the worst is behind Danielson as he turns his attention next to the Vuelta a España, a race in which he’s already twice finished in the top 10.

Reigning Olympic road race champion Samuel Sánchez will wear the No. 1 bib for the upcoming Vuelta a España in the season’s third and final grand tour, August 29- September 20. With none of last year’s top-3 podium finishers back for the 2009 edition, race organizers released a preliminary start list Thursday that includes the Euskaltel-Euskadi leader with el número uno.

Preliminary Start List – Vuelta a España 2009

• 
  EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI (EUS) - ESP
  Race Numbers 1- 09
• SANCHEZ GONZALEZ Samuel (ESP)
• ANTON HERNANDEZ Igor (ESP)
• MARTINEZ DE ESTEBAN Egoi (ESP)
• PEREZ LEZAUN Alan (ESP)
• PEREZ MORENO Ruben (ESP)
• ISASI FLORES Inaki (ESP)
• HERNANDEZ GUTIERREZ Aitor (ESP)
• IRIZAR ARANBURU Markel (ESP)
• TXURRUKA Amets (ESP)
• • Reserve Rider - URTASUN PEREZ Pablo (

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