Tirreno-Adriatico: Sagan wins stage 6.

Peter Sagan won his first race of the season on stage 6 of Tirreno-Adriatico from Rieti to Porto Sant'Elpidio. Gerald Ciolek finished in second with Belgian road champion Jens Debusschere in third.

Nairo Quintana retained his lead in the overall and heads into the final stage with a 39 second advantage over Bauke Mollema.

Cancellara saves Mollema after huge scare in Tirreno.

It was a soggy, long day in the saddle for the 210-kilometer penultimate stage in Tirreno-Adriatico. The cold, rain pelted all day making riders indistinguishable clad in black leggings, dark rain jackets, long fingered gloves and rain caps pulled low.

It was a wretched day to be on the bike for five hours.

The race culminated on two local finishing circuits in Porto Sant’Elpidio and with Italian roads notorious to turn into ice-like conditions in the wet, Trek Factory Racing’s strategy was simple but vital: get second placed Bauke Mollema over the finish line safe and sound.

And, it almost didn’t happen.

Etixx-Quickstep pulls Cavendish from cold, rainy Tirreno-Adriatico.

With Mark Cavendish looking unlikely to win another stage in Tirreno-Adriatico, directeur sportif Brian Holm took the decision to simply throw in the towel and pull Cavendish and his entire lead-out train from the race.

Cavendish was part of a large group of riders dropped by the furious pace of the Tinkoff-Saxo team, who eventually won the stage with Peter Sagan, on the climb of the Montelparo, 72km from the finish. Etixx-Quickstep waited for him, but the team decided to cut its losses ahead of Milan-San Remo this weekend.

Reijnen is king of the mountain at Tour de Langkawi.

From the opening stage of the 20th Tour de Langkawi on March 8, American Kiel Reijnen claimed the KOM jersey and never let go.

“We came to race aggressively,” Reijnen said Sunday at the conclusion of the race. “I was hoping for a stage win but the KOM jersey is a nice consolation, and being able to wear it from day one onwards was nice. It was a big team effort and the guys took really good care of me.

“I was hoping we could upset the sprinters on a few stages but that wasn’t to be, but I am really happy with the way I raced and the form I have going back to Europe now.”

Yates impresses with ride to Terminillo.

Adam Yates took another step forward in is development Sunday with an impressive ride in the falling snow to end Tirreno-Adriatico's Queen Stage. The 22-year-old British rider climbed into contention for a podium, finishing seventh during Sunday's stage 5 and moving into sixth overall.

"Right now my legs are sore," Yates told Cyclingnews outside the Orica team bus as it waited to take the riders off the snow-covered slopes of Terminillo. "It was a pretty good performance. I'm happy with my performance going into these last couple of stages."

2014-15 Races & Results.

Tirreno-Adriatico - Mar 11-17 (Stages & Results),

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),

Paris Nice - Mar 8-15 (Results),

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

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

Strade Bianche - Mar 7 (Results),

Strade Bianche Women - Mar 7 (Results),

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

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

More ...

2015 Tirreno Adriatico LIVE.

Tuesday's Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 7, a 10km Individual Time Trial at San Benedetto del Tronto, gets underway at 1:30pm CET (8:30am U.S. Eastern) with the departure of the first rider. Start Order and Times to come.

Tirreno-Adriatico live streaming video should get underway at around 2:30pm CET (9:30am U.S. Eastern).

2015 Milan-San Remo LIVE.

2015 Milan-San Remo LIVE Sunday, March 22, Italy.

Race starts at 10:10am CET (5:10am U.S. Eastern)

Finish at around 5:09pm CET (12:09pm U.S. Eastern)

Live video from *1:40pm CET (*8:40am U.S. Eastern).

Guess who’s coming back to the Tour (kind of)?

Call it Comeback 3.0. Could Lance Armstrong be returning to the Tour de France? Well, sort of.
 
According to a story in The Daily Mail, the banned-for-life Armstrong has agreed to join portions of a charity ride that will trace the route of the 2015 Tour one day ahead of the pro peloton.
 
The Mail reported that Armstrong will join former footballer and cancer survivor Geoff Thomas for few days of a fundraising ride for a cancer charity.

Thomas said Armstrong’s own tale of surviving cancer inspired him more than a decade ago, and now he wants to link up with the Texan in a charity ride ahead of the Tour route.

Uran realistic about Tirreno TT, enthusiastic about Giro’s.

Rigoberto Urán is realistic about his chances of taking back enough time in Tuesday’s time trial to win the overall at Tirreno-Adriatico, but ask him about what lies in store in the Giro d’Italia, and the Colombian gets excited.

Urán will start Tuesday’s 10km time trial at San Benedetto del Tronto in third place overall, 48 seconds behind compatriot Nairo Quintana, and though Urán is arguably the better time trialist of the two, he recognizes he will likely run out of asphalt before having a chance at the overall.

“I would be happy to finish on the podium in a race of this caliber. The time trial is only 10km, it’s not one of 50km,” Urán told VeloNews. “I went the maximum [up Terminillo], and considering how bad the conditions were, we have to be satisfied. The podium is realistic.”

After Tirreno-Adriatico stage 6 victory, is Sagan under pressure to win more?

Peter Sagan essentially touched the relief valve of the team Tinkoff-Saxo pressure chamber Monday when he won for the first time in nine months.

Inside, however, the desire and need for a win — especially a big classic — is still high. “Pressure? I feel well,” Sagan said after winning the sixth stage of Tirreno-Adriatico.

“A contract is a contract. I’ve done a lot in four years, it’s not like I’ve come from nowhere to get this contract. You have to merit it.”

Five conclusions from Paris Nice.

He may have woven last year’s sorrow into silk with his two stage wins and the overall but Richie Porte has had the ability to win week-long races for a number of seasons, so his Paris-Nice ride can be summed up as recovery rather than a revolution or reformation.

Of greater significance is the debate over whether he has the necessary capabilities to lead a team in a Grand Tour. That in itself is a topic that has hung over the 30-year-old’s head for nearly five years.

The next two months should provide the final answer, but Porte is at least somewhere near his best, having arrested the decline from a hugely disappointing 2014 with an impressive start to this campaign.

Richie Porte and Team Sky top WorldTour rankings after Paris-Nice.

Paris-Nice champion Richie Porte tops the latest UCI WorldTour ranking, with Team Sky rising to lead the team ranking.

Australian Porte won Paris-Nice on Sunday after clinching the finale time trial stage, and now sits in the lead of the season-long ranking which currently includes points from the Tour Down Under – in which Porte placed second – and Paris-Nice.

Porte sits ahead of Tour Down Under winner and fellow Australian Rohan Dennis with 198 points to 114. Michal Kwiatkowski is in third with 89 points.

News shorts: Pinot laments co-operation on road to Terminillo. No excuses for Gallopin at Paris-Nice.

Wearing the best young rider’s jersey at Tirreno-Adriatico, Thibaut Pinot blended into the snowy conditions but not well enough for the likes of Alberto Contador to let him stretch his legs on the climb to Terminillo after the stage winning attack by Nairo Quintana.

While Quintana was putting time into all his overall classification contenders, Pinot lamented a lack of cooperation from Contador and Domenico Pozzovivo and then a lack of freedom to follow the Movistar rider.

Nibali voices Milan-San Remo doubts.

Vincenzo Nibali has cast doubt on his participation in next Sunday’s Milan-San Remo, citing his current lack of form and the absence of the climb of Le Manie from the route.

The Sicilian has been some way short of his best at Tirreno-Adriatico and he conceded over two minutes on Sunday’s snowbound summit finish at Terminillo.

Wilier’s Climber Reviewed: Zero.7 Dura-Ace.

When the subject turns to ride quality it’s typically not too long before the name Wilier comes up. They may play second fiddle to Pinarello and Colnago in ‘bling’ factor, but Wilier can take on all comers with its beautiful ride quality.

Through all its iterations the Cento1 has carried this flag and the original Zero.7, Wilier’s ultra light road racer, continued the tradition.

For 2015 the Zero.7 has been redesigned and far from subtle changes, the bike is a wholly new animal – a wholly new animal we hoped retained the Wilier road magic.

Independent Fabrication updates XSOS titanium/carbon frameset with disc brakes.

Independent Fabrication has revealed an updated XSOS, a frame that blends carbon fibre and titanium tubes, with a redesigned rear triangle to accommodate disc brakes.

First introduced two years ago, the XSOS was an update on the original XS, the US company’s first frame to combine carbon fibre main tubes with welded titanium lugs.

This new XSOS carries all the same features of the regular model, including oversized Enve main tubes and an Enve fork with a 1.5in tapered steerer tube making the most of the 44mm head tube, along with pressfit 30 bottom bracket.

Mollema and Uran set to fight for Tirreno-Adriatico podium spots.

Daily Distractions.

Video: Caleb Ewan - “It’s a dream to one day, hopefully, win the green jersey.”

Hearts, minds and eyes: Mara Abbott on the equality and visibility of women’s cycling.

"As much as a race victory means to the riders and staff who contribute to it, there is generally a small problem with its economic value: it doesn’t really have one. In 2008, as a wide-eyed neo-pro on Columbia-High Road, I was initially shocked by the galling salary discrepancy between the male and female riders, even within the same organization. Here is the real bummer about it – the chasm was actually absolutely fair.

In fact, we were darn lucky the boys were there to support us. The sponsorship dollars brought in by just the women’s faction would in no way have sustained our program. We could face a grimmer picture, but for the grace of male media leverage."

US Women Make Waves in Europe.

Women’s cycling in the US just keeps getting better. After posting last week about the big shake-up that’s been happening within the women’s professional peloton, American women delivered three amazing results.

2012 national road race champion Megan Guarnier soloed to victory at the inaugural women’s edition of the Italian Strade Bianche. With over 30 seconds on second place, her commanding win makes her poised as a possibility to contest the Olympic road race in 2016.

She beat out riders such as two-time world road race champion Giorgia Bronzini and two-time national road race winner and two-time Giro Rosa winner Mara Abbott.

Fabian Cancellara leads calls for change after Tirreno blizzard.

Three weeks after he held court under a motorway bridge at the Tour of Oman, Fabian Cancellara again found himself leading the call for rule changes after extreme weather at Tirreno-Adriatico.

Whereas the stifling 45-degree heat of the desert was the issue in February, on Sunday riders felt the other end of the spectrum, riding the final kilometers to the top of the Terminillo in a blizzard.

Brailsford says Lance Armstrong should stay away from Tour de France.

Lance Armstrong should stay away from the Tour de France, says Team Sky boss Dave Brailsford, with the banned cyclist reported to be riding the route of a couple of stages of the race for charity this summer.

It emerged yesterday that Armstrong plans to join former England footballer and fellow cancer survivor Geoff Thomas for part of his One Day Ahead charity ride this summer which aims to raise £1 million for Cure Leukaemia.

Top Ride: The Dirty Devil!

On an early March day this year Robert Panzera headed out into the spectacular countryside of San Diego County, California for a recon of the famous Dirty Devil Ultra Century Ride. This unique ride takes in 28 miles of packed dirt roads, amazing scenery, 11,000 feet of ascent (3,350 m) and makes for a perfect – and yet challenging ride.

Years ago many of the roads that are used for The Dirty Devil were seldom traversed by those on road bikes. Most did not do that type of riding with the skinny tires, but saved those adventures for bikes with fatter tires and maybe a bit of suspension.

But alas, we’ve moved into the time of the gravel grinder, and riding road bikes and beefier approximations of road bikes on the unpaved backgrounds is all the rage.

Critérium International Route Announced.

The route and a preliminary entry list for the 84th edition of the Critérium International, the 6th to be held in southern Corsica, were presented today in Porto-Vecchio, by Mayor Georges Mela and race organizer François Lemarchand.

Defending champion, Jean-Christophe Péraud, will be one of the main favorites for the win on the three-stage race this coming 28 and 29 March. But the runner-up on the 2014 Tour de France will face stiff competition, led by Thibaut Pinot, who joined him on the podium in Paris last July.

NAHBS 2015, Part VII.

"Each year at NAHBS there are a number of bikes displayed that go home empty-handed, bikes of such obvious merit that many attendees question the judgment—if not the sanity—of the judges.

In my final post on NAHBS, I want to address a few of these bikes."

Scott Contessa Solace 35.

"Luxury comes with a price—and vice versa. My Solace 35 came with Shimano's lower-tier Tiagra drivetrain and mostly Syncros components (Scott's house brand). Shifting wasn't as crisp as it is with higher-end parts, and I found the saddle to be a little unfriendly after only one ride—though saddles are an easy swap, and one of the most common with new bikes. This SUV is a little more "built Ford tough" than "the ultimate driving machine"—but for $1,800, it's a steal.

More important, it's versatile. I didn't just test this bike on different terrain, or in different weather conditions, or on different routes. I rode it under different circumstances and through different emotions."