Štybar Wins Strade Bianche.

Zdeněk Štybar took the win in the Strade Bianche Eroica, exploding past Greg Van Avermaet in the final few hundred meters. Alejandro Valverde who was dropped on the final 16% climb, finished third.

The trio had gotten away alone with some 20 km left on the day and despite various attempted attacks, came to the flamme rouge together. Van Avermaet was the first to attack in the finale, but Stybar shot past him to victory.

Guarnier wins Women's Strade Bianche 2015.

Megan Guarnier of Boels-Dolman won the first edition of the women’s Strade Bianche, with a powerful solo attack, with teammate Lizzie Armitstead taking second ahead of Elisa Longo Borghini.

The steep gravel roads and strong wind tore the field apart during the long second sector of dirt roads after 58km of the 103km race.

Gerrans fractures radial head in Strade Bianche.

Back from injury in his first race for the season, 2014 Liege-Bastogne-Liege champion Simon Gerrans withdrew from the race shortly after a minor crash at 120km.

Having undergone precautionary x-rays, it was confirmed that he suffered a fractured radial head.

2014-15 Races & Results.

Paris Nice - Mar 8-15 (Stages),

Le Tour de Langkawi - Mar 8-15 (Stages),

Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen - Mar 6-8 (Stages & Results),

Tirreno-Adriatico - Mar 11-17 (Start List),

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

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

Vuelta a España 2015 - Aug 22-Sept 13 (Stages),

UCI Road World Championship 2015 - Sept 20-27 (Stages),

Strade Bianche - Mar 7 (Results),

Strade Bianche Women - Mar 7 (Results),

Le Samyn - Mar 4 (Results),

Le Samyn des Dames - Mar 4 (Results),

Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne - Mar 1 (Results),

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite - Feb 28 (Results),

UCI Track World Championships - Feb 18-22 (Results),

UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships - Jan 31-Feb 1 (Results).

More ...

2015 Paris-Nice LIVE.

Sunday's Paris-Nice Prologue, a 6.7km Individual Time Trial at Maurepas, gets underway at 1:35pm CET (8:35am U.S. Eastern) with the departure of the first rider.

Paris-Nice live streaming video should get underway at around 2:00pm CET (9:00am U.S. Eastern, 6:00am Pacific).

Brailsford: This is Sky's best start to a season.

Dave Brailsford, General Manager of Team Sky, has called the opening three months to 2015 Sky’s “best ever start to a season”.

Already in 2015 Richie Porte has won a stage Down Under and at Algarve, plus he took the Australian National Time Trial. Chris Froome took a stage win and the GC ahead of Alberto Contador at the Ruta del Sol. Ian Stannard won a second consecutive Het Nieuwsblad and Geraint Thomas took a stage on route to the GC win in Algarve.

He told Sky Sports News HQ: "It's been our best start to the season ever. We've had more victories at this point of the year than we've ever had so it's been a terrific start.”

Trek Domane 5.2.

BikeRadar verdict: 4.5 out of 5 stars. "Designed for the Classics – and a classic race machine."
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Anton Vorobyev wins Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen prologue ...

Vorobyev wins prologue in Middelkerke.

Preview: Strade Bianche promises to be a strongman’s race.

Nibali claims Astana’s license woes are about politics.

Vincenzo Nibali has said he believes the UCI decision to request the withdrawal of the Astana WorldTour license is a question of politics.

Speaking before the start of the Strade Bianche race, the 2014 Tour de France winner was confident that the Astana team would obtain wild card invitations to races even if the UCI License commission decided to revoke the team’s status from the WorldTour.

“My opinion is that it’s all about politics. It’s not anything to do with the riders,” Nibali said after initially saying he did not want to comment.

Paris-Nice Prologue Preview.

A 6.7km prologue that’s not for prologue specialists. It’ll establish an early pecking order and prise apart the riders in a race that’s expected to be close all week

The Course: not as flat as profile suggests, it dips down gradually before a long drag starting after the 3km point that averages 4% for over a kilometer.

Once the road has risen up it levels out before the finish on the appropriately named Boulevard Miserey.

There are four corners in total, it’s all about the long straights, consequently it’s not for prologue specialists who dive in corners and power out in a series of big sprints like a crit rider, this route has long sections where the time trial specialists can cruise at high speed.

Prudhomme: I still think it's better not to have bonus seconds.

In the last few hours, one of the most surprising cycling news has been the confirmation that all road stages in the Tour de France will include 10, 6 and 4 bonus seconds to the first three riders across the line.

"We have included bonus seconds to compensate for the time trial on the first day in Utrecht," race director Thierry Gouvenou told L'Equipe.

"The idea is to give life to the first week. Organizers ASO know that not everybody likes the decision. Speaking to L'Equipe, race director Christian Prudhomme couldn't hide his dissatisfaction.

"I still believe it is better to only take the real time," he said. However, he admitted that it will gave an impact on the outcome of the stages in the third week. "I have to be pragmatic," he said. "The bonuses are justified and this is the first time in several years that we have 10 flat days in the beginning."

Dennis targeting Paris-Nice prologue.

Rohan Dennis does not have title ambitions at Paris-Nice but could nonetheless claim the first leader’s jersey of the race given Sunday’s 6.7km prologue plays to the South Australian’s strengths.

Dennis left yesterday for the eight-day event, which serves as a Tour de France dress rehearsal with the Tour Down Under champion aiming to support BMC’s now No.1 Grand Tour contender, Tejay van Garderen hopefully in both.

Tour of Langkawi race preview.

To borrow from the old bus cliché, such is the nature of the cycling calendar that you can go a couple of weeks without seeing a race and the next thing you know three turn up at once.

Having two WorldTour races – Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico – running concurrently is a significant enough clash in itself but in Asia a third stage race, starting Sunday, is vying for attention – the Tour de Langkawi.

It may not boast the marquee names of its European counterparts but there’s plenty of anticipation nonetheless, particularly since Team Sky has decided to make a debut here, joining fellow WorldTour outfits Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Orica-GreenEdge.

2015 Tour de Langkawi LIVE.

 2015 Le Tour de Langkawi LIVE March 8-15.

Stage 1 starts Sunday at 9:00am local (2:00am CET) (8:00pm U.S. Eastern).

Finish at around 11:21am local (4:21am CET) (10:21pm U.S. Eastern).

Live video from 10:00am local (3:00am CET) (9:00pm U.S. Eastern, 6:00am Pacific).

McQuaid divulges 2017 Worlds contract with Makarov.

Daily Distractions.

Steve Tilford: Pneumonia for Bromont.

Pat McQuaid defends UCI presidency ahead of doping report.

Pat McQuaid, the former UCI president, has launched a pre-emptive defense of his tenure at the helm of cycling's world governing body as the sport braces itself for the publication of the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) report into doping on Sunday.

Armed with a budget of around £3m, the three-man CIRC panel has spent the past year interviewing everyone from riders and team staff to journalists and anti-doping officials, in an effort to understand how the doping culture in cycling came to be all-pervasive around the turn of the century, to ascertain how widespread doping remains and to make recommendations to safeguard the sport's future.

Yves Lampaert wins stage, takes lead in Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen .

Yves Lampaert took stage 1 and the overall lead of the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen on Saturday.

The Belgian proved the best of a five-rider breakaway, with Tosh Van der Sande second and Sander Cordeel third.

Lampaert and his break-mates, including Alexis Gougaerd and Mirko Selvaggi, formed the decisive selection out of a much larger group with 57km to go in the 174.1km stage from Brugge to Harelbeke.

Van der Sande led the charge, and heading into the final circuit — four laps of of 9.9km each — the quintet had 40 seconds’ advantage.

Van Avermaet won't show at the Disciplinary Committee.

Greg Van Avermaet was expected to show at the Disciplinary Committee next Friday to explain his relations with the „ozone doctor” Chris Mertens.

The BMC Racing rider will be represented by his attorney, though, as he will take the start of the Tirreno-Adriatico on Wednesday.

NAHBS 2015, Day 1.

"So much of what I’d like to present to you right now I’m not at liberty to share with you. Technically, I’m not under a media embargo, but as the chief judge for the awards, I’m not allowed to reveal what won anything today, and judging awards was essentially the entirety of my day.

My fellow judges for the day were Nick Legan of Dispatch Communications (and former VeloNews staffer) and Jeff Archer of First Flight Bicycles and MOMBAT. Jeff helped out last year, while this is Nick’s third tour of duty.

Andrew Yee of Cyclocross.com helped with the cyclocross award and Maurice Tierney of Dirt Rag and Bicycle Times, who served as a judge in Sacramento, joined us for best mountain bike, road bike, tandem, experimental, city/utility, finish and artisan awards.

Having a foursome is dangerous because it leaves open the possibility of a tie, but that never happened, which is in part a testament to the way the conversations went, but also the way some builders really pulled out all the stops to offer something distinctive."

Prototype Enve disc-brake dirt road fork and seatpost spotted at NAHBS.

Enve Composites tucked a pair of Easter eggs amongst the treasure trove of titanium bikes at the Moots booth at this year’s North American Handmade Bicycle Show: a prototype carbon road disc fork with clearance for big tires, and a new carbon fiber seatpost, both of which we anticipate could be available for sale later this year.

Enve’s new fork looks to be catering specifically to the burgeoning crop of all-road bikes hitting the market with a 382mm axle-to-crown length that splits the difference almost perfectly between the current Road Disc (367mm) and Cross Disc (395mm) models.

Official details on the new fork are scant as it’s still in the development phase but based on the available dimensions, we expect it to fit tires perhaps as wide as 38mm wide and tip the scales at around 350g.

2015 Tirreno-Adriatico LIVE.

Tirreno-Adriatico LIVE starting Wednesday, March 11th through the 17th.

Stage 1 starts at 2:00pm CET (9:00am U.S. Eastern).

Finish at around 4:10pm CET (11:10am U.S. Eastern).

Live video from 2:30pm CET (9:30am U.S. Eastern, 6:30am Pacific).

Steve Tilford: Chris Froome Testifies to CIRC about What???