So now that all that nonsense down in the boot is done with, time to recap what went on in the rest the continent. Hometown (or I guess homecountry) hero Tom Boonen rocked the Tour of Belgium, taking two stages and most remarkably of all, coming in second in a 15k ITT to maintain the […]

FULL LISTING OF PICKS LOCATED HERE. The Giro is over. So what are you going to do for the next month while you wait for the Tour to start? Work your mind-numbing, spirit-crushing job? Log hours of hard training time in hopes of maybe snaring a 20 dollar prime at some Cat 4 stage race? […]

Consensus seems to be that Lance Armstrong’s success has been good for American cycling. And yeah, Lance has gotten a lot of otherwise oblivious people onto bikes (usually flimsy little Treks), and has opened up a few more eyes to the fact that there is a world of professional cycling out there. But Americans, being […]

PSYCH! Everything went exactly according to plan in the final stage of the ’05 Giro. The field piddled along at 27 kph for a while (oh yeah, it was downhill, too), before Discovery fired up the first of the 12 finishing circuits. Some Australians tried solo moves before Petacchi and Fassa kicked the GI tract […]

Now that was exciting. Simoni, DiLuca and Rujano take off on the old-school gravel road, putting 2 and a half minutes on Savodelli. What does Il Falco do? Stays cool as the other side of the pillow, that’s what. He lets Wim Van Huffel (what a great name, eh?) and Lotto set tempo, then rakes […]

Was Basso denied this year’s Giro by less than 10 micrometers (10µm of stomach virus, that is)? After his second stage win in a row (his rivals can’t play the GC card in a TT), it sure looks that way. While race leader Savoldelli held tough for 4th on the day, his closes rivals, the […]

After announcing that he saw today’s today’s stage as “an appetizer” (that’s “anitpasto” en italiano), Gilberto Simoni rode it as just that; not a filling meal, but certainly enough to whet his appetite for later. While Ivan Basso came back from the dead to claim the stage (a much easier thing to do when you’re […]

So after Sunday’s debacle, I was ready for a little revenge on the various bike shop teams of Aspen [BTW, the “Telco” guys are really “Jelco” guys; they’re from Ajax Bikes, I believe]. Today’s course was a short circuit that basically went up moderately, and then down less moderately. I think the loop was 3-5 […]

You’d think that coming off a rest day, with only one other flat stage left in the race, the handful of remaining sprinters would be raring to go today. But you’d be wrong. As the Discovery Channel-lead peloton languished 20 minutes behind, young Frenchman Christophe Le Mevel sprung away from his breakaway companions with 2k […]

So it’s a Giro rest day; that means no news, right? No way, man. The world of competitve cycling never stops turning. Let’s begin on the home front where American U23 phenom Tyler Farrar (gotta love the victory salute) was recently reported to have signed with Cofidis. Well, turns out he didn’t. Or at least […]