CyclingFans: Volta a Catalunya 2012 Live Dashboard... 2012 Volta a Catalunya LIVE - Stage 5. Stage Profile CyclingFans: Friday's Volta a Catalunya Stage 5 departs Ascó La vostra energia at 12:05pm CET (7:05am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at Manresa at around 5:00pm CET (12:00pm U.S. Eastern). Volta a Catalunya live streaming video is scheduled to get underway by around 3:45pm CET (10:45am U.S. Eastern).

CyclingNews: Julien Simon of Saur-Sojasun gave his team a WorldTour win, taking the mass sprint in the fifth stage of the Volta a Catalunya. He outpaced the previous day's winner Rigoberto Uran (Sky),with Liquigas' Sylvester Symyd taking third.

VeloNews: Loren Rowney and Patrick Bevin won the first road stage of the National Racing Calendar Friday, taking out stage 1 of the Redlands Bicycle Classic in California.

The sport’s governing body, the UCI, is moving towards greater regulation of equipment, both the bike and clothing. While rules about the bio passport or race radios might seem abstract, there’s a high chance these ones will affect you.

Volta a Catalunya - March 19-25 (Stages & results),
Tour de Normandie - March 19-25 (Stages & results),
Vuelta Mexico  - March 18-28 (Stages & results),
Gent - Wevelgem - March 25 (Start list),
Trofeo Alfredo Binda - March 25 (Start list),
E3 Prijs Vlaanderen - Harelbeke - March 23 (Start list),
Coppi e Bartali March - 20-24 (Stages & results),
Dwars door Vlaanderen - March 21 (Results),
Milan-San Remo - March 17 (Results),
Amgen Tour of California - May 13-20 (Stages ),
More...

SBS: There are several comparisons to be made between BMC Racing teammates George Hincapie and Marcus Burghardt as the latter finds himself in the midst of another spring campaign.

BikeRadar: Speedplay's Zero pedals are almost universally lauded for their user-friendly two-sided design, secure retention, tunable and generous float, and lightweight yet durable construction. However, the cleats are among the most difficult of the major brands' to walk in on account of their bare aluminum surface. Thankfully you can add some much needed traction for less than US$10 using common hardware store supplies.

CyclingNews: Reigning Olympic Champion Nicole Cooke has revealed that she has forgiven British rival Lizzie Armitstead for her comments made following the women's road race world championships in Copenhagen. Armitstead accused her Great Britain teammate of "riding for herself and never working for a teammate" after Cooke finished in fourth place and Armitstead in seventh.

John Degenkolb: I'm still pinching myself: fifth at my first go at Milan-San Remo! What an incredible feeling. Our team was staying 100m from the bottom of the Poggio in the week coming into the race and when we rode the climb on training rides it gave us goose bumps to imagine all the cameras, the fans and the atmosphere that would be there on race day – it was all we expected and so much more.

Pedal: It’s day one of the Redlands Classic and Team TIBCO has wasted no time in making its presence known. Olympic long team member Megan Guarnier won today’s time trial and is set up to contend for the stage race General Classification.

CyclingFans: Stages 1 and 2 are on Saturday.  Only the final stage on Sunday is being broadcast live on television this year. Stage 1 starts at 9:15am CET (4:15am U.S. Eastern). Stage 1 finish at around 11:32am CET (6:32am U.S. Eastern). Stage 2 starts at 2:30pm CET (9:30am U.S. Eastern). Stage 2 finish at around 4:38pm CET (11:38am U.S. Eastern). Live video for Stage 3 only (Sunday).

CyclingFans: Saturday's Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali Stage 5, a 14.3km Individual Time Trial at Crevalcore, gets underway at 1:00pm CET (8:00am U.S. Eastern) with the departure of the first rider. There is no live television coverage but we will have photos and videos as available.

EuroSport: The Italian Lampre-ISD rider won in Pavullo as he took the stage in convincing fashion – a repeat of his success the previous day.

Pedal: After a dozen or so riders crashed on a slick descent early in last Wednesday’s stage of the Volta a Catalunya—with Dane Jakob Fuglsang breaking his scaphoid and New Zealander Julian Dean colliding with a parked car and fracturing a leg — the RadioShack-Nissan-Trek team director José Azevedo told his team Web site: “Normally, the peloton would wait for everyone to get back on their bikes. Not anymore. There was no waiting.”

RedKitePrayer: Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen kicked-off the run to the cobbled monuments with a gutsy solo win for Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Niki Terpstra. Now all eyes turn to the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen and Ghent-Wevelgem, two races who have seen quite a bit of change over the past few years. Traditionally held a week and a day before the Tour of Flanders, the E3 Prijs was considered by most to be the final check-point for riders hoping to win the Ronde.

Today's Quote

“I hope they don’t do like last year. It’s never been my tactic to just follow one guy. Of course, if you give Fabian five seconds, it’s hard to get it back, but I’m not going to be the guy who is always behind him. If he attacks I’ll have to follow him, but I’m not a guy like [Filippo] Pozzato, always following.” - Philippe Gilbert VeloNews

Criterium International for Evans

VeloNation: Pinotti also a protected rider for BMC Racing Team.

road.cc: Short films showcase cycling heritsage of Grand Depart host Corsica and Nice, where race returns to mainland.

PEZ: At the recent BMC training camp, based in the rather nice Marriott La Sella Golf Hotel in Denia, Spain, the rider interviews finished off with a group quizzing of the English speaking riders on the team. Tejay Van Garderen, Adam Blythe, Steve Cummings, Taylor Phinney, Brent Bookwalter, Tim Roe and George Hincapie lined up in front of the gathered press for a few questions. 

Bicycling: The Amira Compact is the entry-level member of the seven-model Amira family. The bike’s costliest sibling bears a sticker price of $8,000, a disparity deriving from the spec and the grade of carbon. All of them, however, share a race-oriented geometry that still suits many women’s anatomical needs with a more-upright stance.

CXMagazine: Todd Wells took a tumble in South Africa. Sven had some cyclocross legs that didn’t quite suit, but is he coming to Louisville now? Marianne Vos has to have won something, because she’s … well, Marianne Vos. Katie Compton heads to Pietermaritzburg to chase some Olympic qualification points. Then there’s Tim Johnson’s Ride on Washington. In some massive news, our very own Molly Hurford signed a contract to write a book on cyclocross!

 

CycleSport: The crux of this weekend’s Ghent-Wevelgem race is the famous Kemmelberg climb, featured in Cycle Sport’s Iconic Places series earlier this year.

EuroSport: The Omega Pharma-Quickstep rider edged out three-time world champion Oscar Freire in a sprint finish at the end of the 203km race that began and ended in Harelbeke.

InnerRing: The GP E3 Harelbeke race is on today, marking the beginning of a four week period of spring classics in and around Belgium. In particular the region of Flanders will host many races. A hotbed of cycling, some opinion polls suggest that nobody else in the world likes cycling as much as the inhabitants of Flanders. Here is a look at the region via its language, its flag and more.

CyclingWeekly: Team Sky chief and Team GB performance director David Brailsford has said that having Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish aiming for glory in the Tour de France and Olympic Games is a 'recipe for failure.'

Crew-neck semi-fitted T with contrast colored stiching detail. Finely printed T shirt front, rear, and sleeve, and '10 commandments of spin' badge. Cotton elastane single jersey, enzyme-washed for that super-soft, worn feel.

road.cc: Organization calls for 10 per cent of all tests to be performed on blood to detect substances such as HGH.

CyclingNews: At the age of 46, Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree is preparing a bid to break the world landspeed record on a bike in the USA later this year. As this video shows, he is busy "obsessively" building a bike at his home from recycled components which he hopes will help him make history.

Bicycling: 12 simple but vital repairs you can master with basic tools.

Vacansoleil-DCM are rumoured to be considering sports psychology sessions for their anxiety-ridden rider Johnny Hoogerland, who is set to sit out the first waffle of Belgian classics while he cobbles together a plan to beat the demons in his head and maybe, just maybe, one day stand on top of the podium for anything other than a Most Combative Rider award or a token KOM jersey.

CyclingFans: Friday's E3 Harelbeke (E3 Prijs Vlaanderen - Harelbeke) departs Harelbeke at 12:00pm CET (7:00am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at Harelbeke at around 4:49pm CET (11:49am U.S. Eastern).  E3 Harelbeke live streaming video should get underway at around 2:45pm CET (9:45am U.S. Eastern).

RedKitePrayer: I am about to buy a new bike. Never mind which bike. It’s a bike that I will love. It’s the one I want the most right now. It’s another bike, but it’s a solution for a problem I didn’t know I had, but am now very concerned about.