No doubt you know by now that the 2008 Vuelta a España ended on Sunday with it's native son, Alberto Contador (Astana), becoming only the 5th rider to win all three grand Tours. Contador came into this race as the heavy favorite, carrying all of the baggage that comes with being the marked man. Having sat out this year's Tour de France, he was fresh, feisty and ready to stamp his authority on the rest of the peloton. His team came packed with their big guns, ready to help their young team captain make even more history. The team included 2 other previous Tour de France podium finishers in German Andreas Klöden and American Levi Leipheimer. By far, they were the strongest team.

But Contador's win did not come easy. He narrowly beat his own teammate, Leipheimer, by less than one minute. It was thanks to the time bonuses (and probably some team tactics) that shifted the balance of power towards the Spaniard. If the Vuelta followed the route of this year's Tour de France and not have given out the bonuses, Contador and Leipheimer would have been tied. (Since they time to the decimal, Contador had a slight edge and would have won anyways.)

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Levi Leipheimer is currently the top American cyclist in the pro peloton. He's been that way ever since Lance Armstrong retired in 2005. Sure, there's been Floyd Landis for a quick moment, but that's another story. Throughout Levi's career, he's always shown the potential to do great things. His first real breakout party came at the Vuelta (where he is currently racing right now) in 2001 when he placed 3rd while riding for the United States Postal Service team of Armstrong. From then on, Levi switched teams, hoping to challenge for bigger and better races such as the Tour de France.

First he was with Rabobank, where he made the top 10 a few times and then to Gerolsteiner where he almost won a mountain stage in 2006. At the end of the 2006 season, Levi decided to return to Johan Bruyneel and race for the Discovery Channel team. This seemed to be the perfect fit. Discovery Channel just lost the retiring Armstrong and was looking for a new leader to replace him and it ended up being a bonus that it was another American. For Levi, this was a dream scenario. He now has the means and the support needed to win the Tour de France. All seemed good leading into the 2007 season.

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Week 2 of the Vuelta ended the very same way as the first week. Italian Paolo Bettini (Quick Step) won the stage before the rest day while the GC favorites held out for a huge showdown on Saturday. Too bad none of this week's stages or results were the biggest news. Lance Armstrong's recent announcement that he will come out of retirement easily overshadowed anything the Vuelta could have produced. But as this week ends, the attention will return to the mountain goats as they tackle the final stretch of the last 3 week race of the 2008 season.

Stage 7 was the first big mountain stage of the the Tour. I wish I could comment on it but the entire broadcast was rained out. CyclingTV's coverage (and others as well since it was a problem with the feed) consisted of a recap of the early part of the stage and the final 1km run into the finish line. From what I've read, the stage was dominated by a day long break of which the winner, Alessandro Ballan (Lampre), broke away from to win the stage. The classics rider showed he can climb the big mountains as well. Behind him, the GC contenders revved it up in the final kilometer. Big favorite, Alberto Contador (Astana) attacked his challengers but was only able to gain 5 seconds for his hard work. Ballan ended up taking over the gold jersey as the new leader of the Tour.

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Just as everyone has speculated in the last few days, Lance Armstrong confirmed today that he WILL return to professional cycling for the 2009 season. In the much talked about Vanity Fair article, Armstrong sites cancer awareness as one of his main reasons for returning. Of course, there's also that "itch" that is factored into the decision as well.

This is decidedly good news for the world of cycling. A world that has been reeling from a series of doping scandals and a general drop in attention since his retirement. It is extremely important for American cycling as well. He has done more for this sport than any other cyclist and his name will no doubt bring even more attention in 2009. This means more fans, a rise in sponsorship money and hopefully a resurgence for the Tour de Georgia. Once the biggest race in the States, it has now been threatened by the lack of funds and may not return next year. With Armstrong's verbal commitment to participate in 2009, the race organizers have found the fuel needed to find a major sponsor for at least one more year.

It remains to be seen what ASO thinks since it's still no guarantee his team (assuming it's Astana) will be able to ride the Tour. If not, Armstrong has a plan. In published statements, Armstrong has stated that he has already talked to French President Nicolas Sarkozy about this, clearly bringing the same fire that he exhibited while winning 7 straight Tours.

Click here for the Vanity Fair article.

And click here for a personal message from Lance himself.

Could Lance Armstrong be coming out of retirement? The answer is "yes", if you ask Velonews. Their report states that Armstrong has already taken steps needed to return to the pro peloton. Nothing has been confirmed yet but stay tuned. This is surely to be a huge story for cycling (even if a lot of die hard cycling fans roll their eyes). Stay tuned for more. In the meantime, read the Velonews article here or the cyclingnews article here.

Week 1 of the 2008 Vuelta closed with a lot of action, many changes in leadership and a fine butt whipping by Astana. Mirroring the Giro, this year's Tour of Spain started out with a short team time trial. These exist purely for show as minimal time can be gained between the GC contenders. Nevertheless, it did produce a lot of suffering as most teams finished with well less than the 9 riders each team started with. Surprise winner, Liquigas finished 8 seconds ahead of Euskaltel - Euskadi and put leader Filippo Pozzato in the first gold leader's jersey.

The second stage was very similar to this year's stage 1 of the Tour de France and consisted of a sharp uphill just before the finish. And just like the Tour, Spanish champ Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), triumphed and ended the day with the leader's jersey. Proving to everyone that his form is good, Valverde still insisted he is here to win stages and not for a high placing on GC.

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American Levi Leipheimer (Astana) won today's 42.5km time trial stage at the Vuelta! He becomes only the 5th American to win a stage in the Spanish tour and only the 2nd American ever to wear the leader's golden jersey (Floyd Landis was the other).

Leipheimer gained a good chunk of time off of his other GC rivals, including teammate Alberto Contador. He sits at least 30 seconds ahead of any other favorite. Tonight's team meeting should be interesting in determining the next course of action for Team Astana. Astana comes into this race with their full support for Contador but this amazing ride changes the dynamic a bit. I think Astana will likely hedge their bets by supporting both riders and may the best cyclist win!

See the results of this stage here.

Tyler Hamilton (Rock Racing) seems to be enjoying a renaissance of sorts this year. He won the Tour of Qinghai Lake, has shown good form at other races such as the Tour de Georgia and now has capped his comeback by winning the US Road Race Championships. Clearly the biggest win since returning to racing from a 2 year suspension, Hamilton beat out the entire Garmin-Chipotle team as well as Team Columbia's George Hincapie to claim the US National jersey from Levi Leipheimer who is racing the Vuelta.

How much did he win by? A hair, literally. Take a peak at the photos from the link below.

Click here for the full results.

Link: http://www.lavuelta.com

Note: This post was written on Friday but because of server problems, this didn't get posted until Sunday.

It's almost September, a full month after an exciting Tour de France and big time cycling is back! Yes, the 63rd running of the Vuelta a España, or the Tour of Spain, will commence this Saturday, August 30th and finish 3 weeks later on September 21st. The final grand tour of this season will see some big guns battling it out in a war that wasn't allowed to take place in July.

Spain's Alberto Contador and his Astana team are back with a vengeance to prove once again that they are both the best stage racing team in the world and that Contador is the best stage racer in the world. Joining Contador at the top of the favorites list are this year's Tour champ Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank), Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne), Damiano Cunego (Lampre), Igor Antón (Euskaltel Euskadi) and Contador's teammates Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden.

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The last week or two have been extremely important for cycling. For one, the Olympics presented us with some epic races for both the men and the women. We are all excited to have Levi Leipheimer has a bronze medalist and Kristen Armstrong as Olympic Champion. The other major development was the ongoing dialogue related to the future of the Pro Tour and the battle between the governing body of cycling, the UCI and the owners of the Tour de France, ASO.

It was announced this past Monday that we could possibly be close to a concrete agreement between the UCI and ASO in how the international cycling calendar should be organized. But first, a quick background.

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Now that the 2008 Tour de France has come to a close, I can honestly say I was dead wrong. Wrong in who I predicted to win and how the race would have panned out. There were a lot of surprises and a few disappointments but it was filled with action! Here's the run down.

Spanish rider Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) proved he was the strongest rider throughout the 3 weeks and came away as the undisputed winner of this year's Tour. Sastre kept under the radar until it mattered and showed he was the freshest of all of the contenders when it counted, in the final Stage 20 time trial. At 33 years old, Sastre had always been a podium contender but just missed that little bit of something to put him over the edge. Well, he had that little bit of something this year. But also, he (and whomever would have won) benefited from the absence of Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer (Astana) making this Tour as open as the 1999 Tour was. Way to go Carlos!

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As week 2 of this year's Tour comes to a close, it certainly didn't end without causing a lot of controversy. Unfortunately again, the main topic was not what happened on the road but what happened off of it.

We learned this week that in addition to Manuel Beltran (Liquigas) testing positive for dope, two other riders also were caught. Spanish rider Moisés Dueñas (Barloworld) also tested positive for EPO and was kicked out of the Tour but his team decided to continue the race. So far, even with these two riders testing positive, the general consensus was that this is still a successful Tour and that the cheats are now few and far between. But then the big news broke on Thursday. Italian rock star Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott) tested positive for EPO. But this wasn't any old EPO. He was found to have traces of a new generation of EPO called CERA. Apparently some people think that the testing agencies haven't caught up and thought they could sneak by with this new drug. Riccò found out the hard way that this type of action will not be tolerated. Let's hope week 3 will be clear of negative news.

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I am writing this as I watch the Versus evening recap to today's stage 7. If you haven't been in front of the internet today, then you probably will be surprised by the fact that Manuel Beltran (Liquigas) has tested positive for EPO. Yet another black cloud has moved over the Tour de France. Just when we thought the dopers have lost, this news erupts. Here in America, it has always been innocent until proven guilty so I will reserve judgment until Beltran's B sample gets tested. But I am very, very disappointed for all cycling fans and for the rest of the peloton. Now on to the review...

Week 1 of the 2008 Tour has no doubt been one of the most exciting first weeks in recent history. Certainly I can't remember anything that can be compared. The organizers have completely rethought how the first week works in hopes of making the Tour more exciting. They've done that with great success. We no longer have to sit through 7 or 8 days of rather monotonous racing just to get to the first mountain stage.

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First, let me say happy 4th to all of the Americans and happy Friday to the rest of the world! I'm writing from Philadelphia, the birth place of America, today as we're here to visit some friends and just be tourists for the weekend. Of course, I do have the DVR set to record the first 2 stages of this year's Tour and will anxiously follow cyclingnews' live commentary on my phone. (My wife's rolling her eyes now.)

Before I get into the Tour, let's recap the poll that has been running on the right side of this page. The poll asked, "Who do you like better?" between the 3 American winners of the Tour de France. (Yes, Floyd was included.) The winner by only 4% is Greg LeMond. Lance Armstrong followed with Floyd trailing in for 3rd. I was particularly surprised with Greg coming out on top because of his recent spats with Lance and Trek. I think the reason may be because all of us will always remember the first American Tour winner and the dramatics that Greg provided through all of his 3 wins. Sure, Lance won a record 7 times, but bar 2003, it was relatively "routine". So now we have it, unscientific of course. It's time for a new poll. Who will win the Tour? Now on to the preview.

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By now I'm sure you've heard the outcome of the CAS decision in the Floyd Landis case. I'm not going to get into the specifics (you can get all you want here) but just want to say how disappointed I am with the verdict. I still choose to believe in Floyd and hope that something good can come out of this. I also hope that Floyd can come back stronger and once and for all prove everyone wrong. But I am pessimistic about this since the same system that put him in this predicament still exists. As the 2008 Tour begins in a few days, I can't help but imagine what would have been if Floyd, Levi and Alberto could have been in the hunt against the likes of Cadel, Alejandro and Damiano. We can only dream at this point.

The 72nd Tour de Suisse ended today and completed the last of the major warm ups for the upcoming Tour de France in July. While the racing was certainly exciting, it was the eventual winner that was the biggest surprise of the tour. 22 year old Czech rider Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) defeated German Andreas Klöden (Astana) and Spain's Igor Anton (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and won one stage in the process.

The race started with Spain's sure thing, Oscar Freire (Rabobank), winning the stage 1 sprint and the first leader's yellow jersey. The mountains began immediately on stage 2 with the first mountain top finish up the Flumserberg. Igor Anton won over Luxembourger Kim Kirchen (High Road) while major contenders Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and Andreas Klöden all lost some time. Anton also became the leader of the race from here forward. The next 2 stages saw Aussie Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) reclaim his winning ways by taking the field sprints in stages 3 and 4.

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Just in case you need a reminder that cycling is a dangerous sport, here's a video of today's Tour de Suisse stage that will really make you want to enjoy a nice beach vacation rather than a bike ride.

Luxembourger Frank Schleck was about to ride into the leader's jersey and possibly the stage win before he abruptly lost control on the descent to the finish. If you were watching CyclingTV, you'll know he was very tentative throughout the descent before the incident. But it was his lucky day, he was fine and finished the stage a few minutes later. Grab a hold of something when you watch this, the crash is about 20 seconds in and you'll be taken for a ride.

Link: http://www.harlemrocks.com/

My wife and I enjoyed a nice afternoon in Harlem this past Sunday watching the 35th Annual Skyscraper Harlem Cycling Classic. As you no doubt may have seen or heard, Rock Racing was in town! Their fearless leader Michael Ball brought in flare and some of his best cyclists. (You might be interested in this interview of him by Velocity Nation.) Fast Freddie Rodriquez, Tyler Hamilton and Rashaan Bahati all made the trip this year. Ball also recruited a couple of Toyota-United riders including the Cuban Missile, Ivan Dominguez to make up a world class field.

Too bad Rock didn't win. Leave it up to a youngster, Eric Barlevav of Time Pro Cycling, to steel the thunder. Not only did he out throw Bahati at the line, he proceeded to cross the finish line on the ground. It seemed like he preferred to win with a belly flop rather than the traditional salute. Job well done though. Take a look below at his soon to be patented salute. I don't recommend this to anyone.

See the final results here.

The 60th Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré ended on Sunday and so far presented us with the best preview of what is to come in July at the Tour de France (Tour de Suisse is going on as I type). Well, as accurate as it can be if Astana would have been invited to the Tour. If you were able to follow this race, you’ll know it was very exciting. Spain’s Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) was very impressive as he took the top step over Australian Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and American Levi Leipheimer (Astana). Can you say potential Tour podium? Too bad ASO had something else in mind.

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The UCI is expanding the Pro Tour to Russia in 2009 by including a tour of the Sochi region. (This happens to be the site of the 2014 winter Olympic games.) What the heck is the UCI thinking? I'm usually a pretty big supporter of the UCI (as evidenced in my pro UCI rant here) because I feel that cycling does need a governing body to regulate the sport, but this is ridiculous! I totally understand globalizing the sport and making it grow but why grant Pro Tour status to an untested event? How the UCI can overlook proven events like the Tour of California or the Tour de Georgia is beyond me! It just seems logical to expand the Pro Tour with a race in the US rather than Russia.

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