Not much to report today. Liberty Seguros’ Angel Vicioso took his third stage of this year’s Euskal Bizikleta, but was narrowly denied his fourth by Euskatel’s David Herrero. The race lead, though, still belongs to Comunidad Valencia’s Eladio Jimenez, who should be able to hold on to his 1′15″ advantage through tomorrow’s stage to take the overall.

Stateside, cyclingnews spoke to a bunch of the Euros in town for this weekend’s USPRO Championships. Among them was Lampre’s Dario Pieri, who finished 2nd in Roubaix in 2003 (on a Cannondale!). Pieri, one of the few pro cyclists who I can accurately say is fatter than I am, commented:

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Hasn’t Phillipe Gaumont caused enough trouble? The French vet’s cycling career ended in disgrace last spring, when he was arrested in connection with a drug trafficking ring. The incedent led to a month-long suspsension/investigation of the Cofidis team (in which nothing was found) that kept riders like Stuart O’Grady out of the Spring Classics, and might even be the reason 2003 World Champ Igor Astarloa is currently not riding for a ProTour team. Now, Gaumont has published a book about his experiences entitled, with typical Francophone flare, Prisonnier de Dopage. The book alleges that just about anyone who had ever ridden a bike within a 2 meter radius of Gaumont was on dope, and further claims that some riders used Pot Belge and other common performance enhancers to simply get high. Taking a cue from Lance Amrstrong, a few former teammates have decided to sue Gaumont. As Jo Planckaert, one of the riders named in Prisonnier, puts it:

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With exactly one month to go until Lance Armstrong’s last Tour de France (an professional race) ever, there seems to be no stopping the build-up of story lines. First on the docket is a new Danish documentary film that followed Team CSC through the 2004 Tour. As reported on ProCycling.com, the 100-minute film contains scene in which CSC’s Ivan Basso participates in phone call with Lance Armstrong. Though only the Italian’s end of the conversation can be heard, it clearly ends with Basso saying “In this Tour – if you need something you just ask for it.” If that doesn’t sound quite legal to some of you, that’s because it isn’t.

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The product reviews here at Cyclocosm aim to be a bit different than on other sites. We tell you as much as possible, as quickly as possible. The testers decide what traits of a product are important to that product’s not sucking, then rate those traits 1-5, with 3 being the industry standard. No overall score is given, as different people will want different things from each product.

This lovely energy supplement is an extremely sugary liquid, billed as “nitrous for your body.” The idea is to boost your performance over the last hour of a race or hard ride.

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Not much to report on today. “Fast” Freddie Rodriguez, who always seems to be the National Road Champ (and did he ever tell you about the time he beat Petacchi?) got outmanned by US domestic squad HealthNet in the first day of racing at Wachovia. The top three finishers in the race (Greg Henderson, Fred Rodriguez and Ivan Dominguez, in that order) all had the same number of letters in their first and last names. Isn’t that interesting? The victory marked the second time in seven days that HealthNet used numbers to beat up on an established American Euro-pro, as Bobby Julich fell victim to the squad at last week’s CSC Invitational.

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