CyclingFans: Saturday's Tour of the Basque Country Stage 6, an 18.9km Individual Time Trial at Onati, gets underway with the departure of the first rider at 2:28pm CET (8:28am U.S. Eastern).  Tour of the Basque Country live streaming video should get underway at around 4:00pm CET (10:00am U.S. Eastern).

Argos joins three French wildcards...

VeloNation: Twenty-two teams on Liège start line; Argos-Shimano gets the nod ahead of Bretagne-Schuller.

CyclingNews: Tyler Farrar is confident that defending champion Johan Vansummeren can lead the line for Garmin-Barracuda at this Sunday's Paris-Roubaix. A crash on the Paterberg hampered Vansummeren in the finale of the Tour of Flanders, but Farrar believes his teammate has the same sort of condition that carried him to victory at Roubaix 12 months ago.

CyclingNews: With Fabian Cancellara missing from Sunsday’s Paris-Roubaix, RadioShack-Nissan-Trek has been forced to seek an alternative game-plan. With Cancellara in the team the rest of the squad would have rallied behind the two-time race winner, confident in his ability of capturing his third title.

CyclingNews: Purito successfully defends race lead.

Paris - Roubaix - April 8 (Start list),
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco - April 2-7 (Stages & results),
Scheldeprijs - April 4 (Start list),
Circuit Cycliste Sarthe - April 3-6 (Stages & results),
UCI Track World Championships - April 4-8 (Races & results),
Tour of Flanders - Women - April 1 (Results),
Tour of Flanders - Men - April 1 (Results),
Cape Epic - March 25-April 1 (Races & results),
Amgen Tour of California - May 13-20 (Stages ),
More...

CyclingNews: Race winner Luke Durbridge (Greenedge Cycling Team).

road.cc: Briton overcomes crash in first race of semi against Anna Meares to beat Australian rival by a whisker.

PodiumCafe: Part of what always gets me so worked up about the classics is the drama of a one-day race, where just about anything can happen. All the glory goes to the winner, while another guy who was every bit as good has to wait 364 days for another shot, when once again fate could deal him a pitiless hand: brought down from behind in a crash, flat tire, mistimed sprint... you name it. The classics, they are fickle.

BikeRadar: For this test of electric bikes we've picked machines from three manufacturers based on a simple brief: around the £1,000 mark, with a two-year battery guarantee*. At this pricepoint you start to get components that are a step up from those found on the bargain basement e-bikes, which can make for an unpleasant riding experience.

RBAction: As we all know, there is no shortage of consumer choices when it comes to buying a new set of wheels. Alumium or carbon, deep wall or shallow, tubular or clincher, there's all that plus a whole lot more. Today we look at two different types of wheels, both with impressive Europan pedigree not to compare as much as to contrast. The French made Mavic meets up with the Italian made Miche.

CyclingNews: Sources have told Cyclingnews that former professional cyclist Floyd Landis is under investigation by US Federal authorities. Landis could face charges of fraud dating back to 2007. In 2006 the American won the Tour de France but tested positive for testosterone after an epic stage win to Morzine. He was stripped of his Tour de France title failed to ride in the European peloton again.

CyclingNews: After his Omega Pharma - Quick Step team dominated the first part of the season with 25 wins, manager Patrick Lefevre is heading into the legendary one day Classic, Paris-Roubaix, with the race's top favorite. The team's leader for the Hell of the North race is Tom Boonen, a triple winner of the French event and six-time podium finisher.

CyclingNews: Following his early abandons at Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya, Andy Schleck finally put a smile on his face after racing at the front in the Circuit de la Sarthe-Pays de la Loire that finished on Friday in Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

"Cav is no Biblical philistine and he clearly knows his religious references; presumably calling his daughter Delilah was a means at getting under the skin of his old sprinting foe Andre Greipel, who's son is called Sampson."

Bicycling: Yesterday, organizers of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge announced detailed route information for the seven-stage race, August 19 to 26. As expected from the initial announcements of the stages’ host towns, the 2012 route looks longer and harder than the inaugural edition—and very likely to be suspenseful to the final stage.

Tom Boonen has looked invulnerable in classics finales over the past two weekends, but Thor Hushovd is confident that he can beat the Belgian in a sprint should the pair arrive together in the velodrome at Paris-Roubaix on Sunday.

VeloNation: Former rower convinced it’s not too late to secure Olympic qualification.

BikeHugger: Twenty years ago then 37 year old French pro Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle won Paris-Roubaix by 20seconds. The next year he won again by the thinnest of margins in a nail-biter, 2-up sprint photo finish, thereby becoming the oldest winner on record at 38 years and 8 months. The year after that Andre Tchmil stormed to victory in a legendary solo move. All three victories were won with a Rock Shox Paris-Roubaix suspension fork.

CyclingWeekly: The Trouée d'Arenberg: 2400m of unpaved madness ready to smash the peloton to pieces.

 

SteepHill - Start time: Sunday April 8 10:10 CET (1:10 AM PDT);
Earliest live video: 13:00 CET (3:00 AM PST);
Approximate finish 16:46 CET (7:46 AM PDT).

InnerRing: The Belgians might say the Tour of Flanders is the best race of the year. Italians could say Milan-Sanremo is the most beautiful. But the hardest race of the year? With labels like “hell”, “brutal”, “hardest of the hardest”, “queen of the classics”, Paris-Roubaix must be the toughest race of the year.

CyclingNews: Your first Paris-Roubaix deserves a special bike and Taylor Phinney will be hoping his BMC Granfondo is exactly that on Sunday. The second year professional, along with his seven teammates, will all be lining-up in Compiègne with the Swiss company’s new racing model.

Peloton: Unparalleled Roubaix record - 14 consecutive starts, one abandon, two seventh places, one sixth, one fifth, one third, four seconds and four victories. It was no wonder that when Roger De Vlaeminck took his fourth win in 1977 the headline across the front page of L’Équipe was: “C’est Monsieur Paris-Roubaix.”

VeloNation: Italian forced out of Omnium due to yesterday’s points race crash.

Today's Quote

“I am really disappointed, but the real victory here is that I survived the collision and that I’m alive to meet that challenge at all. It’s amazing that all I did was break my fibula.” - Levi Leipheimer VeloNation

BikeRadar: Tom Boonen, Sylvain Chavanel, and other members of Omega Pharma-QuickStep will tackle the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix aboard a new bike from team sponsor Specialized. The bike doesn't officially have a name yet, but past convention tells us this will be the next-generation S-Works Roubaix SL4.

"Brilliant coverage and no distortion makes these some of the best cycling-specific shades available – at a price, though ($510)."

CyclingNews: While out training alone the day before the start of the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, Leipheimer was struck from behind by a car, which he estimates was traveling between 50 to 60 miles per hour.

RedKitePrayer: Filippo Pozatto and Alessandro Ballan have each gone to bed four times since the 2012 Tour of Flanders has ended. Both riders turned in exceptional performances, rides worth remembering.