CyclingFans: There are two stages on Thursday.  Thursday morning's Three Days of De Panne Stage 3a departs De Panne at 09:25am CET (3:25am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at De Panne at around 12:10pm CET (6:10am U.S. Eastern).  3 Days of De Panne Stage 3a live streaming video should get underway at around 10:30am CET (4:30am U.S. Eastern).
The afternoon stage, Stage 3b, is a 14.7km Individual Time Trial at De Panne.  The TT is scheduled to get underway at 2:30pm CET (8:30am U.S. Eastern).  3 Days of De Panne Stage 3b live streaming video should get underway at around 2:45pm CET (8:45am U.S. Eastern).

Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara might not crack the top ten of this Sunday's Ronde van Vlaanderen, but you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone writing about the race and not starting the conversation with one or both of these stars.

CyclingNews: Taylor Phinney (BMC) has missed out on selection for Sunday's Tour of Flanders but remains optimistic over his chances of starting Paris-Roubaix. The American had made the long-list for Andy Rhis's Flanders squad but missed out, with the team edging for a more experienced line-up.

Cape Epic - March 25-April 1 (Races & results),
De Panne-Koksijde - March 27-29 (Stages & results),
Volta a Catalunya - March 19-25 (Stages & results),
Critérium International - March 24-25 (Stages & results),
Tour de Normandie - March 19-25 (Stages & results),
Vuelta Mexico  - March 18-25 (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),
Amgen Tour of California - May 13-20 (Stages ),
More...

VeloNation: Second place for Alexander Kristoff gives Norwegian champion the lead after Peter Sagan dropped.

CyclingWeekly: Marcel Kittel said after his win today in the Three Days of De Panne that his dream is in the Tour de France. He wants to take on Mark Cavendish and win the most famous sprinters' stage on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Marijn de Vries: A thick fog hangs over the Middelkerke beach. The wind is blowing from the sea and it’s very cold. We wait in the bus as long as we can and then rush to the start of Gent-Wevelgem, or Middelkerke-Wevelgem in our case.

VeloNation: Rider had been fired after testing positive in Tour de France, then cleared by CAS.

CyclingNews: Bigham and Süss further their streak of stage victories.

BikeRadar: It's not often a wooden time trial bike is brought by the office but that's precisely what happened today with the Renovo Hoodoo.

Bicycling: Does milk—and its product spin-offs—really do a body good? Absolutely, if you know what and how much to consume.

Trek Bicycle is building five bikes for 1985 Heisman Trophy winner Bo Jackson, who is leading a ride across Alabama to raise money for victims of last year\'s tornados.

CyclingNews: The long-running Mantova-based doping investigation centred around the Lampre squad and pharmacist Guido Nigrelli has taken another step towards resolution following the confirmation that a judge will soon decide on whether to charge the 32 people named in the final report made by the public prosecutor in the case last year.

Former rider seeking to overturn suspended sentence.

The Dutch squad Project 1t4i has found a new title sponsor and will announce the team’s new name on Friday.

Millar: “I am quite happy looking forward to the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games,” he added. “That will be a much more joyful experience than me going to the Olympics as a black sheep.”

While there are endless choices in technical riding kit, the question of what to wear after your ride was largely unsolved – until Après Velo founder Leonard Greis saw an opportunity and stepped up – creating a brand that has grown in just five years to present a distinct offering in casual tops and bottoms to wear... after your ride.

Most of the elite women finished up their season at Nationals, but what now?

VeloNews: How much do you train? Maybe not as much as you’d like, but you still spend a lot of time cycling on your local roads. In some areas that experience is a good one, in others it’s more like a war. What’s strange is that for as much time as racing cyclists (and I count myself in this number) spend using roads and trails, we, as a group, do very little to make the country a safer place to ride a bicycle.

VeloNews: “The Spring Classics: Cycling’s Greatest One-Day Races” delves deeply into the glorious, beautiful history of cycling’s monuments.

"I have a problem with the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. No, it isn’t the preponderance of handlebar mustaches, nor the vast seas of off-the-bike cycling caps, or even the chainring tattoos that are, highly ironically, often actual tattoos. That whole offbeat culture is endearing, if a bit comical at times. My problem is with the name, in relation to the show’s contents, or, more specifically, what can’t be found there."

BikeRadar verdict: 4.5 out of 5 stars. "Very, very expensive but the pinnacle of mountain bike shoe development."

Clara Hughes: Nervous energy and the bergs that beckon in Belgium.

CyclingWeekly: Fans will be licking their lips at the prospect of Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) vs Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan-Trek) once again at the Tour of Flanders this Sunday (April 1).

Today's Quote

"People do make mistakes and I think they should be punished. But they should be forgiven and given the opportunity for a second chance. We are human beings. Why should sports men and women get punished harder than people in the normal world?” - David Millar CyclingNews

InnerRing: Pro cycling is a nakedly commercial sport. The above cartoon by Pellos mocks the way the 1956 Tour de France consumes the environment with branding. Half a century later only the sponsor names have changed. Riders act as mobile billboards to sell Quickstep laminated flooring and Liquigas bottled gas. However this culture is set to clash with the Olympic Games, now just four months away.

SoCalCycling: Stage race month concludes with the most challenging, most grueling and most prestigious stage race of them all, the Redlands Bicycle Classic. Okay, maybe this year the San Dimas Stage Race was more "epic" than any other stage race because of the way the heavens unloaded on the unfortunate riders during the road race, but if San Dimas is the opening act then Redlands is the Big Show.

SingleTrack: In the world of multi day, self-supported racing, there are three major races: the Arizona Trail Race, Tour Divide, and the Colorado Trail Race. The first of the season — starting April 13 at 9 am — is the Arizona Trail Race.

Pedal: Canada’s own Team SpiderTech powered by C10 made another breakthrough in professional cycling today, receiving an invitation to race the 2012 Tour de Suisse, the first-ever invite from a WorldTour race in Europe.

Three years in development, the Turbo has been designed specifically to be "the fastest and best e-bike ever". However, its top assisted speed of 45km/h (28mph) is 13km/h faster than is allowed under US federal law and 20km/h more than is permitted in the EU*, including Britain.

RedKitePrayer: Charles Pelkey will be bringing even more of his talent to RKP this year. RKP will be running Charles’ inimitable Live Update Guy race commentary for some of the season’s marquee events. If all goes according to plan, we will begin with Paris-Roubaix, but the bulk of the coverage will be focused on, as usual, the Grand Tours.

CyclingIQ: As professional road cycling continues to spread its global wings, it has been fascinating to witness the number of Asian, Australian and Kiwi cyclists breaking into the top echelon of professional road cycling; sometimes via quite long and convoluted pathways. Starting with Oceania, Cycling iQ looks at where “home” is for these pioneering riders.

PEZ: The Belgian classics season has returned and with all the names, the stories, the bergs and the cobbles that make it so special. As a fan, riding a section of any of those classics is on most short lists. For the racer, Immersion Cycling goes a step further, offering guests the chance to turn their pedals in anger on Belgian soil, in real Belgian races – on real Belgian cobbles.

The hood doubles as a helmet for the soft-headed. The soft-headed will like this one: Would have, should have, could have...hood have! Perfect for walking around the neighborhood, or receiving a knighthood, or even statehood. When you see it, you will likelihood (French). It is a real hood, not a falsehood!

CyclingNews: Eddy Merckx has been indicted in a corruption case involving his bike company, Eddy Merckx Cycles, and the local police service of Anderlecht, a Belgian municipality.

VeloNation: Eight foreign teams amongst field in tough 1.2-ranked race.