VeloNation: First win of 2012 for former RadioShack rider as breakaway dominates stage.

Amstel Gold Race - April 15 (Start list),
Tour of the Battenkill - April 15 (Start list),
De Brabantse Pijl - April 11 (Results),
Vuelta a Castilla y Leon - April 13-15 (Stages),
MTB World Cup Cross Country #2 April 13-15 (Races),
Giro d'Italia - May 5-27 (Stages),
Amgen Tour of California - May 13-20 (Stages),
Tour de France - June 30 - July 22 (Stages),
2012 Olympic Games - July 28 - August 12 (Races),
Vuelta a España - August 18 - September 9 (Stages),
More...

VeloNation: BMC Racing Team lineup for Amstel Gold to include Evans and Gilbert.

VeloNation: Schlecks not yet in form of 2011.

road.cc: In the last of his Paris Roubaix trilogy Phil Gale talks to three very different riders tackling the Queen of the Classics for the first time.

CyclingNews: Alex Rasmussen plans to win the prologue of the Giro d'Italia in his native Denmark. But the Garmin-Barracuda rider is also looking forward to many of the other stages, except for the final week, “which looks completely insane.”

VeloNation: Longer course makes World Cup race a closer challenge to the men’s WorldTour race.

BikeHugger: For heavy rider on a hot day, riding a long descent, and perhaps amongst a congestion of riders, that carbon clincher rim might see temperatures in excess of 300deg…hot enough for the resin holding the carbon fibres to crap out.

Stage 1 start time: Friday 13:28 CET (4:28 AM PDT);
Earliest live video: 16:00 CET (7:00 AM PDT);
Approximate finish: 17:15 CET (8:15 AM PDT).

Bicycling: Rough riding tips, whether you're tackling the infamous Muur or hitting local dirt roads.

CyclingFans: Sunday's Amstel Gold Race departs Maastricht at 10:21am CET (4:21am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at Valkenburg at around 4:45pm CET (10:45am U.S. Eastern).  Amstel Gold Race live streaming video should get underway at around 2:00pm CET (8:00am U.S. Eastern).

Peloton: When conspiracy theorists examine data that tend to support their theories, they use them copiously to prove their point. That has been the case for decades with those cynics who try to connect the increased speeds in professional cycling with increased (or more sophisticated) use of doping products.

CyclingNews: “It could be weeks or days,” so answered Pat McQuaid in November of last year when Cyclingnews asked him when new biological passport cases would be opened.

CyclingNews: Tony Martin was only three kilometres away from home at the end of his training ride when he was hit by a car earlier this week. The Omega Pharma-QuickStep rider doesn't know exactly what happened, but he ended up in hospital with “the left half of my face totally smashed.”

EuroSport: With the cobblestone and Flemish races now over and the Ardennes classics just around the corner, Saddles weighs in with 10 key points he'd like to get off his chest.

BikeRumor: We spoke with Gerard Vroomen, Cervelo’s co-founder, about his new project with Andy Kessler, BMC’s former CEO. It’s a new company, they’re not working with any established players. It’s called Open, and it’s based in Basel, Switzerland, but Vroomen says it’s a very virtual company, operating largely in the cloud.

VeloNews: From Riccò to Zirbel, Armstrong to Contador, the court of public opinion is varied and unpredictable. Where fans welcome one rider convicted of performance enhancing drug use back as a spokesperson for clean sport, they crucify another.

RBAction: Creating a safer way to ride indoors - plus - indoor training tips.

BikeRumor: What’s a factory tour if there aren’t some prototypes and other new projects laying around?

CyclingIQ: The Philippines’ only UCI-sanctioned professional road cycling event starts this Saturday. Starting from the north of the archipelago’s largest island, Luzon, the four-stage UCI2.2 ranked mini-tour will guide 12 foreign teams and 5 local teams over 502 kilometers through to a Queen stage that one local newspaper described as “perilous”.

Video: Belgian Waffle Ride...

RBAction: A Belgian Spring Classic right in our own backyard, and somehow we got sucked into riding it.

RedKitePrayer: It’s amazing how quickly things can change from one season to the next. This year, GreenEdge won Milan-San Remo with a rejuvenated Simon Gerrans—not with Matthew Goss, the defending champion. Tom Boonen tore through the cobbled classics after two seasons of relative mediocrity, while Fabian Cancellara was nowhere to be seen after bad luck and a broken collarbone ruined his April. Now a winless Philippe Gilbert looks to be a complete non-factor in races he dominated less than a year ago.

BicycleRetailer: If you noticed an unusual number of new road racing product introductions in the media this spring, there may be a contributing factor — the international racing union is requiring manufacturers to publish information about new bikes before the bikes can be used in international competition.

VeloNation: Book signing today for triple Tour winner, group ride Sunday.

InnerRing: Giant crowds, 25 different climbs and a brewery as race sponsor, what’s not to like about the Amstel Gold Race?

SBS: The Accent.Jobs-Willems Veranda's team has signed Jerome Gilbert, BMC rider Philippe's, younger sibling to boost its exposure ahead of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, on April 22.

Today's Quote.

VeloNews: Usually by this time of year, Ryder Hesjedal has already been knocking around the top-five of races such as Montepaschi Strade Bianche and the Vuelta al País Vasco. With the Ardennes classics opening Sunday at Amstel Gold Race, where Hesjedal rode to second in 2010, he is usually pedal-to-the-medal.

PodiumCafe: When we last saw Grischa Janorschke, he was headed into the Forest of Arenberg, and a date with an all-too-familiar cycling destiny.

Bicycling: The American rider talks about motivation, learning Flemish, Wouter Weylandt, comparisons to Mark Cavendish, and, yes, winning bicycle races.

CXMagazine: You’re done. You’re tired. You’ve hung up the bike. It’s time to take a break, but not too much of a break. This time of year can play an important role in how you will prepare for the following season.