Second win for Gaviria in Tour de San Luis.

Mark Cavendish lost his second straight sprint in 2015 to 20-year-old Fernando Gaviria. Just as in stage one, the Colombian, riding for his national team, jumped Cavendish early and held him off for stage three of the Tour de San Luis in Juana Koslay, Argentina.

Cavendish crossed the line gesturing in complaint at something that happened in the sprint, but his complaints fell upon deaf ears by the jury, and once more Etixx-Quickstep had to be content with second after a hard day's work.

Big names line up for massive year of cycling.

A mouth-watering four-way tussle for the Tour de France title and Bradley Wiggins's challenges on the Paris-Roubaix and the hour record promise to make 2015 a vintage year for cycling.

Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali, 2013 winner Chris Froome, double champion Alberto Contador and the indefatigable Nairo Quintana are expected to fight it out for the yellow jersey on a Tour tailor-made for pure climbers.

Spaniard Contador is planning to take the toughest road to Paris as he will also compete in the Giro d'Italia, looking to become the first rider since the late Marco Pantani in 1998 to achieve that particular double.

"He knows how to get ready for them and if anyone can back up the Giro/Tour then I would say he's the guy to do it," Briton Froome told Cycling Weekly.

Cycling’s double-standard creates headaches for Lampre.

Cycling’s multi-layered anti-doping rules may create headaches for Lampre-Merida when it deals with Diego Ulissi. A rival team might even have the opportunity to sign him after his doping ban ends in March.

The Tuscan cyclist won two stages in the 2014 Giro d’Italia. Anti-doping tests, however, later revealed that he over-used asthma drug Salbutamol in the 11th stage to Savona.

Switzerland, where Ulissi lives and is licensed, issued a back-dated nine-month ban Monday. It took into account the time he already sat out last summer and allows him to return to racing on March 28. Ulissi could return in time for the Ardennes classics and the Giro d’Italia, and thanks to a contract technicality, he could do so in Lampre’s blue and pink racing kit.

The Italian team is one of 11 first-division teams that signed up for the voluntary group, the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC). The teams must follow the group’s anti-doping rules, which provide additional, stricter sanctions than those written by cycling’s governing body, the UCI.

Australian road champion Peta Mullens continues along rocky path of mountain biking.

Peta Mullens has the Australian road champion’s jersey on her back, a deal with one of the top women’s road teams, Wiggle Honda, and enviable form on the road but that is not enough to make the determined 26-year-old Victorian turn her back on the obstacle-strewn path of mountain biking.

Mullens has delivered a swag of road results in the past three months, starting off with the Melbourne Kermesse Championships, where she beat a field peppered with some of Australia’s top riders even after rushing to the start line from a win at a mountain bike race that morning. She also took out a stage of the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic and second place in the criterium at the Mars Cycling Australia Road National Championships before winning the elite women’s road race.

Meeusen to take legal action after Worlds exclusion.

Belgian cyclo-cross rider Tom Meeusen is considering legal action after being excluded from the national team for the World Championships. Meeusen and two others - Laurens Sweeck and Bart Wellens – were all deemed ineligible for the event, which begins on January 31 in Tabor, Czech Republic.

"The team has hired a lawyer. I'm not really aware of the investigation I have not heard about it for months,” Meeusen told ATV. “At the BK (Belgian Championships) last year, a week before it, I had to give a DNA sample. I don't know if there's anything else I have to do."

Tour de Yorkshire route revealed.

Amaury Sport Organization has presented the route for the inaugural Tour de Yorkshire at an unveiling in Bridlington, the location for the race’s first stage. The race will be held between May 1-3, with three individual stages as well as a women’s criterium on May 2.

The events forms part of the legacy established after the Tour de France started in Yorkshire in 2014.

2014-15 Races & Results.

Santos Women's Tour 2015 - Jan 17-20 (Stages & Results),

Santos Tour Down Under 2015 - Jan 18-25 (Stages),

Tour de San Luis 2015 - Jan 19-25 (Stages),

Dubai Tour 2015 - Feb 4-7 (Stages),

Giro d'Italia 2015 - May 9-31 (Stages),

Tour de France 2015 - July 4-26 (Stages),

UCI Road World Championship 2014 - Sept 20-27 (Results),

Vuelta a España 2014 - Aug 23-Sept 14 (Results),

Tour de France 2014  - July 5-27 (Results),

Giro d'Italia 2014 - May 9 - June 1 (Results),

More ...

Leon Sanchez thankful for second chance with Astana.

Every season offers new opportunities, and for some, like Cadel Evans, the end of the road. For Luis León Sánchez, 2015 represents a new lease on life.

The 31-year-old Spanish all-rounder is back in the bigs after one season with second-tier Spanish team Caja Rural thanks to a lifeline from Astana.

After a tumultuous 2013 season, when new doubts resurfaced about alleged links to notorious Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, Sánchez was bought out of his contract by his then-Belkin team, and his future was uncertain at best.

Astana, however, held no such qualms about Sánchez, and picked him up for the 2015 season..

Froome hails best squad in Sky’s five-year history.

When the Tour de France route was announced, Chris Froome considered riding the Giro d’Italia instead. “But given where I am right now in my career, given that I am 29 and coming into my best years, and given that the Tour de France is the biggest race for us, it would be a loss to miss it,” he explained.

“Having said that, the Giro this year is a great route for me. I would have liked to have been there, but if you’re realistically looking to win both, it’s a big ask.”

Alberto Contador has said that he will ride both. “I’d say he’s set himself a very difficult task,” said Froome. “It’s not impossible and Alberto is the rider who knows how to do it. He’s been winning these races since 2007, so he knows how to get himself ready for a race like the Tour de France. I know how hard it is to do two Grand Tours back-to-back, and go for the win, so my priority remains the Tour.”

2015 Tour de San Luis LIVE.

Wednesday's Tour de San Luis Stage 3 departs Concaran at 2:24pm local (12:24pm U.S. Eastern, 18:24 CET) and is expected at the finish at Juana Koslay at around 6:35pm local (4:35pm U.S. Eastern, 22:35 CET).  Tour de San Luis live video streaming is expected for the start and finish and at other times during the stage.

Note that live radio streaming should be available throughout the race.

Argentine Diaz wins one for host country in San Luis stage 2.

On a day that seemed to favor Movistar and its climbing ace Nairo Quintana, Daniel Díaz scored a win for the host country, Argentina, in stage 2 of Tour de San Luis.

The Tuesday stage from La Punta to Mirador de Potrero finished with a 4.8km climb that averaged 6.7 percent. Díaz wasted no time, attacking early on the Mirador after a select group of climbers split off the front of the peloton. He brought along Rodolfo Torres, but in the end it was all Díaz, who attacked the final kilometer and won the day handily with a gap of six seconds.

The winner, a 25-year-old Argentine, won the 2013 edition of the Tour de San Luis. Díaz is also Argentina’s national road champion..

Quintana: I’m only at 50 percent of my condition.

The voice of the speaker at the summit of the Mirador del Potrero rose several decibels when the grainy images on the big screen behind her showed a familiar figure in a Movistar jersey bridging across to the two leaders. It was not, as she initially thought, Nairo Quintana, however, but his younger brother Dayer, and shortly afterwards, he too fell back, unable to match the pace of stage winner Dani Diaz.

It was that kind of day for the Quintana brothers on stage 2 of the Tour de San Luis. The external expectation was that Nairo Quintana would sparkle on the slopes of the Mirador del Potrero, but before the race began he had warned that he was still some way short of his best.

2015 Tour Down Under LIVE.

Stage 3 start time: Wednesday 11:00 CDT (4:30:00 PM PST);
Earliest live video: 13:30 CDT (7:00:00 PM PST);
Approximate finish: 14:41 CDT (8:11:00 PM PST).

Lobato snags stage 2 win at Tour Down Under.

Spain’s Juan Jose Lobato Del Valle swooped in over the last 50 meters to win the second stage of the Tour Down Under in the South Australian town of Stirling on Wednesday.

Lobato Del Valle came from 10th place in the closing stages to fly past South African Daryl Impey at the end of the long uphill finish and win in 3 hours, 42 minutes, 24 seconds.

His Movistar teammate Gorka Izaguirre Insausti was third, just ahead of Dutchman Tom Dumoulin.

“It was a very difficult finish for me but I managed to come through towards the end, and it’s a good win for the team,” Lobato Dell Valle said.

Impey focused on overall success at the Tour Down Under.

Daryl Impey went close to victory on stage two of the Tour Down Under, with only Juan Jose Lobato passing him before the line with a powerful late surge in Sterling.

In the absence of 2014 winner Simon Gerrans, Impey is team leader for Orica-GreenEdge and is focused on the fight for overall victory. His second place was a consequence of fighting for the precious time bonuses that could decide the final overall classification on Sunday. Impey is now fourth overall, seven seconds behind race leader Jack Bobridge. He is four seconds behind Lobato, who is arguably his biggest rival in the overall classification.

“Unfortunately there was just one guy faster than me. Hats off to him, there was nothing more we could have done today,” Impey said in a statement from the Australian team.

Gerrans upbeat about missing Tour Down Under.

The top Australian cyclist is back in Europe as he continues to recover from a broken collarbone.

No racing at home this month means Gerrans can have an extended block of pre-season training before the April Ardennes classics, his first major goals of the year.

Gerrans is the glaring absentee at the Tour Down Under, the first WorldTour race of the year.

The Orica-GreenEDGE team leader was the defending champion at the TDU.

Hansen: Greipel's absence puts pressure on Lotto-Soudal at Tour Down Under.

The absence of German sprinter and leader Andre Greipel at this year’s Tour Down Under has increased the pressure on the Lotto-Soudal riders in the six stage event, rather than taken it off them, according to his Australian teammate Adam Hansen.

Hansen, 33, said were Greipel in this year’s race, the Belgian team would still have been called upon to work hard in chasing breaks and leading him in the bunch sprints. Yet as history shows, they knew Greipel would usually come up trumps with a win. However, without him in the Tour Down Under, Hansen says the pressure is now on him and his teammates to produce a result in the first World Tour event of the year.

Lobato continues Movistar's love affair with Australia.

Juan Jose Lobato started his season with second place behind Marcel Kittel on Sunday night at the flat People's Choice Classic but proved to be the fastest on the selective Stirling circuit at the Tour Down Under even after flatting on the final lap. The Movistar rider timed his sprint to perfection as he came around Daryl Impey to claim his first WorldTour win while teammate Gorka Izagirre's third place made it an occasion to remember.

"I am very content to start the season like this and I am grateful for my team," Lobato told reporters after the stage. "I've had two years of good results, and I couldn't started off 2015 any better.

Injured Pozzovivo still optimistic for TDU success.

Stage-hunting specialist Domenico Pozzovivo entered the 2015 UCI WorldTour season as one of a handful of pre-race favorites lining up at the 17th edition of the Tour Down Under (TDU) in Adelaide this week.

However, the diminutive Italian suffered a fractured left wrist when he collided with an automobile during a pre-race training ride last Thursday. Now bandaged and bruised, the five-foot-five, 117-pound 32-year-old from Policoro must survive the first stages of the six-day race in an effort to recover in time for what he hopes is a shot atop the infamous Willunga Hill at the end of TDU stage 5.

“I don’t think it changes our strategy, and we will still try to do our best,” Pozzovivo told VeloNews prior to the start of the 150.5km stage 2 from Unley to Stirling. “I still think the stage for me is Saturday on Willunga, and today and tomorrow I will try to rest with the favorites.”

De Gendt aims to bring Tour Down Under mountains jersey home.

With a new lease on his career in the form of a two-year contract with Lotto-Soudal, Thomas De Gendt aimed to make the best of his 2015 season, and put in a solid effort toward that goal by claiming the mountains classification lead in stage 2 of the Tour Down Under on Wednesday. The Belgian is now looking to keep the jersey through the end of the race on Sunday.

"It will be difficult to take the mountains jersey home, but it is achievable. So far, so good," he said to Belga.

It's been almost three years since De Gendt stunned the peloton on the Stelvio in the Giro d'Italia, then moved himself into a potentially career-making third place overall. The intervening years never provided the Belgian with the kind of elevation of status generally afforded to Grand Tour podium finishers. After a knee injury, the demise of his Vacansoleil team, and a grudging one-year contract at a sharply reduced salary with Omega Pharma-Quickstep last year, it seemed De Gendt's career might be ground down to a halt at the young age of 28.

Tour de Langkawi announce agressive route for 2015.

The Tour de Langkawi is getting tougher in 2015 as it cuts its days from 10 to eight while still increasing the number of mountain stages. Traditionally, the race has been a sprinter’s paradise with nine predominantly flat stages and a mountain stage thrown in just to shake up the general classification.

"Although shortened to eight stages this year, we believe all the elements required to make this an exciting route has been met. So we are looking forward to this edition of the race which we expect to be a fitting celebration of 20 years of Le Tour de Langkawi," said race CEO Datuk Malik Mydin.

This year’s Tour de Langkawi – which, despite the name, only spends a single day on the idyllic island, will feature two stages in the Titiwangsa Mountains in the final three days while the shortened route he been designed to speed up the racing.

Michelin offers wider PRO4 Endurance tire.

Responding to road cyclists' recent interest in wider lightweight tires, Michelin is now offering its PRO4 Endurance tire in a 700 x 28 size. Previously the model was available no wider than 25.

The PRO4 Endurance 28mm has enhanced protection against punctures and a dual compound tread for long wear and cornering grip. It's available now through some of Michelin's U.S. distributors.

"We know that a larger contact patch to provide a more comfortable ride and protection against punctures while not sacrificing performance is important to riders," said Yohann Leblanc, sales and marketing manager at Michelin North America Bicycle. "The PRO4 is one of our most popular road tires and this 28mm tire hits the sweet spot for today's rider demands."

Santos Women's Tour: Hoskins wins on final day.

Daily Distractions.

Video: Highlights from Lobato's win on stage two of the Tour Down Under.

Do Women Racers Matter Less?

First things first: no one set out to screw over the juniors fields, and especially the junior women, at the recently concluded National Cyclocross Championships.

The Sunday announcement from the Austin Parks Department that the event was cancelled due to concerns about damage to trees set in motion a chaotic few hours that culminated in a negotiated compromise: Racing could finish Monday, after a one-day delay, but could not start until 12:30PM. That forced USA Cycling to pull off an interesting trick: since sunset in Austin was roughly 5:45, they had to fit eight categories of racers into a narrow window of available daylight just over five hours long.

Under UCI rules, races can’t be shortened. That meant categories would have to be combined. Someone was going to get pinched. But the valid question is whether what happened was in fact fair. As it happens, it’s all in how you define “fair.”

“We surely thought it was an error,” said Bryan MacDonald in an e-mail where he recounted his reaction to the new schedule. That schedule showed both junior women’s fields racing at the same time as the junior men 17-18, while the junior men 15-16 kept their own slot. His daughter Ciara raced in the 15-16 women’s field. “The 15-16 girls racing together with the 17-18 boys was just bizarre,” he wrote.

Flakemore breaks collarbone in post-race crash.

BMC Racing Team reported today that Campbell Flakemore, the young neo-pro who spent most of Wednesday's stage 2 in a breakaway with Cameron Meyer and Thomas de Gendt, broke his collarbone in a crash while riding from the end of the stage to the race hotel.

"BMC Racing Team's @cflakemore crashed and broke his left collarbone while riding to the team hotel after @tourdownunder Stage 2," the team posted on their Twitter account. "BMC Racing Team's @docmajor reports @cflakemore crashed on a descent, breaking his left collarbone and suffering minor road rash."

Alpecin Shampoo Review.

The Giant-Alpecin team is off to a great start with Marcel Kittel winning the first race of the year. New for 2015 is sponsor Alpecin, a brand of shampoo from Germany. It’s got caffeine inside, the idea is it will stimulate the roots of your hair. Does it work?

Dr. August Wolff started out making pharmaceuticals in 1905 and Alpecin appeared in 1930, designed to help combat dandruff. Today over two million bottles are sold a year in Germany and the company is launching its product around the world and the cycling team is part of the marketing effort.

How Velon is vying to boost the value and stability of pro cycling.

When it was launched on November 25th the Velon company declared that it had three goals, with perhaps the most important of those being a stated desire to create a new and better economic future for the sport.

Somewhat inevitably, this was met with calls for clarification of how precisely that might work.

How much would be achieved for each team? Who would pay? How would Velon be able to convince ASO and the other race organisers to agree to hand over a share of television revenue which they had hitherto monopolized?

Furthermore, even if ASO and others did agree to that, how would each team’s share of that revenue possibly make a significant dent in what are already very high budget requirements?

Almost two months on the company has had a chance to build plans and relationships. It is now in a position to give a better insight into how a new revenue stream might be built.

IAM Cycling clarifies debate about UCI blocking preferred design of jersey.

In the first, non-permitted version, the rider’s name (Clement, signifying Stef Clement) appeared directly below the IAM name. The second – approved – version also showed the name, but it was in smaller lettering and was positioned above the sponsor title plus its website address.

The UCI’s reasoning is that the space where the surname previously appeared is reserved for sponsors.

The tweet quickly created a cacophony of dissent, with some of the team’s fans and others on Twitter expressing criticism of the UCI for what they said was an unreasonably bureaucratic stance.

Bobridge: Tour Down Under lead isn't hindering Hour Record attempt.

The question for Jack Bobridge is whether overall success at the Tour Down Under would mean more than claiming the Hour Record on January 31 and having that broken a week later by Rohan Dennis. Bobridge finished the second stage of the WorldTour race to Stirling on the same time as winner Juan Jose Lobato to retain his overall lead at the race ahead of the key GC stage to Paracombe.

"It is an attempt next Saturday night and I would love to break it but this chance doesn't come around all the time to be sitting in the leader's jersey at the Tour Down Under," Bobridge told reporters after the stage. "It is hard to say what is more important, Hour Record is pretty special but it is also Tour Down Under.

PEZ Down Under: The Day Of The Joey!

Day three of David Pearce’s Australian adventure takes in stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under. More big crowds were at the roadside to greet the riders as they battled towards the up-hill finish in Stirling. With all the Joey’s around we are definitely in Australia, but it was a day for the Spanish.

Voeckler says finding new sponsor will not be a solo act.

Twelve months ago, the start of Thomas Voeckler’s season was over before it even began. The Frenchman flew halfway around the world to ride the Tour Down Under only to crash and break his collarbone within hours of touching down in Adelaide. He was already back in France before the race kicked off, the early months of his 2014 campaign compromised.

A year on, Voeckler has come to Argentina for something of a do-over, even if that Australian incident has understandably left its mark. As the Frenchman called home while waiting for the start of stage 2 of the Tour de San Luis on Tuesday, he looked to reassure his children in soft tones. "I’ll try not to fall off," he repeated with a smile.

Going After Garmin: Magellan Cyclo315.

"Competition is a beautiful thing, which is why we were so thrilled to see Magellan bring its new line of GPS cycling computers to the states. Garmin’s decidedly dominant position has resulted in snail’s pace development of cycling GPS. We want our GPS to better integrate with our phone, STRAVA, friends, electronic drive trains, and do it seamlessly across multiple protocols and do it all cheaper – things that will happen faster if multiple brands are competing for that coveted spot on your handle bars."

The new Magellan GPS computers have been available in Europe under the MIO name and now the Cyclo315 and the Cyclo505 have hit our shores.

BikeSnobNYC: This Just In: I'm Going On Maternity Leave!