via Focus Road And Urban Range 2011 – BikeRadar.

HOY SET FOR PRUSZKOWBy Matt McGeehan, Press Association Sport

Click here for Team Sky official website
Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton will travel to Poland rather than Delhi this autumn after the European Cycling Union confirmed Pruszkow will be the venue for the European Elite Track Cycling Championships.

Hoy and Pendleton were forced to pull out of October’s Commonwealth Games due to a scheduling clash with the European Championships, which has been upgraded from an under-23 event to now offer Olympic qualification points ahead of London 2012.

The competition will take place in Pruszkow, near the Polish capital Warsaw, from November 5 to 7 at the BGZ Arena which played host to the 2009 Track Cycling World Championships.

Hoy and Pendleton, Commonwealth gold medallists in Melbourne in 2006 for Scotland and England respectively, last month withdrew from the Delhi Games due to the scheduling clash in order to prioritise their progression to the London 2012 Olympics.

The duo were the first of British Cycling’s star names to announce they would not be travelling to India for the October 3 to 14 Commonwealth Games.

The full impact of the European Championships on the British squads at the Commonwealth Games will be revealed later this week with England’s cycling squad is set to be announced.

Ross Edgar, who was in the same gold medal winning team sprint squad as Hoy in 2006, was earlier this month named by Commonwealth Games Scotland, putting a question mark over his participation in the European Championships.

Wales’ Geraint Thomas will travel to Delhi for the road events, but will miss the track competition due to his expected participation in the World Road Championships in Melbourne.

Thomas, though, indicated he was never intending to ride in the early part of the track season, which runs throughout the winter months, due to having been racing on the road since February with Team Sky.

A convo over at the CXM forums has arisen asking, “do online shops work for the retailer and the consumer? And are local bike shops (LBS) going away?”  My response is here, but I’d be interested to hear what others have to say.

SALT LAKE CITY — As Olympic medalists, world champions and Tour de France racers powerfully and gracefully raced their bikes at speeds in excess of 40 mph around Memory Grove near the Utah state Capitol, Steve Miller was already plotting the 2011 version of the Tour of Utah.

Miller, the president of the popular bike race that is now a six-day event attracting many of the best cyclists in the world, sees the race growing to the point it joins the top tier of races in the world.

“As long as we continue in the direction we’re on,” Miller said, “we can continue to grow to the UCI level.”

I well written article for the cycling industry news websites.  Definitely worth a few minutes of your day…

Michael Creed: Why I Never Doped And My Future In The Sport | Cyclingnews.com.

1. A bike up to 56cm (sorry super tall dudes) can fit inside without cutting up the frame.
2. Something that we won’t have to pay $3,000 each way at the airport…
3. And something that will last for AT LEAST 5 seasons of traveling

Is that too much to ask?

One last thing: It can’t cost $500 each.  At that we’ll just ship the bike via FedEx and have a home bike for training.

Always fun to read. The BMC Team stuff was not covered, but there are a fair number of other teams (Radioshack) that also are not on this list.

Cyclingnews had one up last week, but good luck finding it on there…

Riccardo Riccò signs with Quick Step – VeloNews.

By Andrew Hood • Published: Aug 13th 2010 7:04 AM EDT

Riccardo Riccò, the controversial Italian who tested positive for CERA-EPO during the 2008 Tour de France, has penned a deal to join Quick Step.

Riccò hasn’t been on a ProTour team since he left the 2008 Tour de France.

According to a story in La Gazzetta dello Sport, Riccò has signed a deal with the Belgian outfit through the end of the 2011 season.

“I don’t know when my new adventure will begin, but I hope I can race the Vuelta,” Riccò told the Italian sports daily. “I wouldn’t go thinking about the GC, but rather to try to win stages. It’s been since the 2008 Giro that I have raced a three-week grand tour.”

Riccò’s name did not appear on a preliminary start list revealed Thursday by Vuelta race organizers. It will be interesting to see if Vuelta officials allow Riccò to race. Last year, Michael Rasmussen tried to find a late-hour ride with a Spanish team but was denied a starting place in the Vuelta when his name was not listed on the preliminary start list.

On Thursday, Ceramica Flaminia officials confirmed that Riccò would be leaving the team.

Riccò, 26, also said he had received offers from Vacansoleil and from Caisse d’Epargne, which announced a new sponsor with Team Movistar on Thursday. The Italian said he chose Quick Step because it offered the best chances to get into the biggest races.

Riccò served a 20-month ban and returned to racing this season in mid-March. He won stages and finished overall at both the Settimana Lombarda and the Giro del Trentino, but his Flaminia team was not invited to the Giro d’Italia. Riccò recently won two stages and the overall at the Tour of Austria.

Any time this season Echappe Equipment is offering FREE tubular gluing on all qualifying purchases.

To be eligible, simply pick up any tubular wheelset and a pair of new tires and we’ll install them for free!  If you have a team discount or coaching affiliation discount, we’ll install the tires for a modest fee of $25/wheel.

To get started, follow this link to our cyclocross section.

If you have any questions, feel free to call us at 347-404-5315 or email us  at info [at] racewheelrental [dot] com

Updated pricing for the track wheels.  Its pretty straight forward:  Pay per session.  So, race Tuesday night, pay one session. Race Saturday, 1 session.  At National Events where there are morning and evening sessions, thats 2 sessions.

As always – ask if you don’t know.