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It wasn't this way for all of us, but for race leader Jeremiah Bishop, the 65km second stage of the Intermontane Challenge in Kamloops, British Columbia, unfolded in much the same formula as stage 1: a neutral rollout through town, followed by roughly an hour of dusty desert riding, an hour in the forest above town, and a third, final hour weaving through sagebrush on the way to the finish line back in town.

None of last year’s top three are expected to be back, but the 2009 Vuelta a España will see a strong field for the season’s final grand tour. Last year’s winner Alberto Contador – still celebrating his Tour de France victory – has confirmed he will not defend his Vuelta title. Runner-up Levi Leipheimer, recovering from his crash at the Tour, and third-place Carlos Sastre, exhausted after racing four consecutive grand tours, are both steering clear of the Spanish tour. That leaves a huge vacuum that several top names will be jostling to fill.

It wasn't this way for all of us, but for race leader Jeremiah Bishop, the 65km second stage of the Intermontane Challenge in Kamloops, British Columbia, unfolded in much the same formula as stage 1: a neutral rollout through town, followed by roughly an hour of dusty desert riding, an hour in the forest above town, and a third, final hour weaving through sagebrush on the way to the finish line back in town.

Road bikes are nothing new to Gary Fisher. He began racing on the road as a junior decades ago. His original goals were to make it as a professional road cyclist but those plans were derailed when he began his mountain bike business. Fisher thanks his experience as a roadie for his obsession with the perfectly fitting mountain bike. For a complete new road line, Fisher aimed to build bikes that stiffer and lighter plus a few extras that should improve the ride quality.

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The International Cycling Classic, the 17-day race series held in and around Milwaukee and Chicago that is better known as Superweek, concluded on Sunday in Whitefish Bay, just north of Milwaukee. Fly V Australia's Bernard Sulzberger was corned as the overall series champion — a position he defended the entire series since winning the opening race July 10. In fitting fashion, the final race was won by Sulzberger's Fly V Australia teammate, fellow Aussie and last year's series winner Jonathan Cantwell.

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British rider Bradley Wiggins will focus his attention solely on the Tour de France for the next two years in an effort to win cycling's most daunting race. Wiggins equaled the best Tour finish by a Briton with fourth place at this year's event and wants to surpass that feat by 2011.

The 75km first stage of the Intermontane Challenge in Kamloops, BC was defined by heat, and in some cases, confusion about the course. Temperatures ranged near and above 100 degrees Fahrenheit on a course of roughly 50 miles that included exposed desert sage land plus some higher altitude evergreen forest. A mix of established fire roads and double track, plus some well-worn motorbike trails and barely-there game trails lead to occasional directional miscues by riders, but everyone finished safely.

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If the podiums at the recent Mountain Bike Nationals in Granby, Colorado, are any indication, the hardtail 26-incher may soon be going the way of thumbshifters and beartrap pedals. The elite podiums in Granby were dominated by 29ers (both hardtail and full-suspension) and full-suspension 26ers.

Alberto Contador is still celebrating his dominant Tour de France victory, but speculation about where he will race in 2010 will be fueling the rumor mill for weeks to come. While he’s been linked to moves to Garmin-Slipstream or Caisse d’Epargne, what is clear is that he will not join Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel on the new RadioShack team for 2010. “What’s sure, it will be on a different team than Lance,” Contador said. “We’ll see what we can do, whether it’s a new team or find a team that is 100 percent behind me to confront this race to win it again.”

American Tour de France veteran George Hincapie said Tuesday that the collarbone injury he suffered in the 17th stage of this year’s Tour was indeed a fracture. Hincapie told VeloNews that he opted not to have the injury examined by doctors until after the Tour because “I really wanted to finish.” After a doctor’s visit, Hincapie announced the diagnosis on his Twitter page Tuesday morning. “Got some bad news this am,” Hincapie wrote. ”X ray confirmed my collar bone is broken.”

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It seems some people don’t want to believe that the 2009 Tour de France was as pure as spring water. Pierre Bordry, the head of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), is telling the French daily Le Monde that he thinks as many as two new doping products as well as auto-blood transfusions could have been used during the 96th edition. “There’s a likelihood of blood transfusions and two new products that have been used during the Tour, but are not yet on the market,” Bordry told Le Monde in its Tuesday edition.