CyclingFans: Saturday's Giro d'Italia Stage 20 departs Caldes/Val di Sole at 10:25am CET (4:25am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at Passo dello Stelvio at around 5:15pm CET (11:15am U.S. Eastern).  Giro d'Italia live streaming video should get underway at around 1:30pm CET (7:30am U.S. Eastern).

road.cc: Dan Lloyd rides the Stelvio & talks preparation & strategy while Geraint Thomas talks tactics.

CyclingNews: Astana’s Roman Kreuziger climbed to victory in an epic stage 19 at the 2012 Giro d’Italia, coming home 19 seconds clear of Garmin-Barracuda’s Ryder Hesjedal and going some way towards restoring his reputation after a race that hasn’t gone to plan over the last three weeks.

CyclingNews: Garmin-Barracuda's Ryder Hesjedal lies in second place in the overall GC after 18 stage of the 2012 Giro d'Italia and is just 30 seconds behind the pink jersey holder Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha). The Canadian's superb form and set-your-watch consistency has been one of the big talking points of the race so far and has surprised all but his most ardent fans and those in his inner circle.

Giro d'Italia - May 5-27 (Stages & results),
The Exergy Tour - May 24-28 (Stages & results),
An Post Ras - May 20-27 (Stages & results),
Bayern-Rundfahrt - May 23-27 (Stages & results),
Tour of Belgium - May 23-27 (Stages & results),
Tour of Japan - May 20-27 (Stages & results),
Amgen Tour of California - May 13-20 (Stages & Results),
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...

CyclingNews: Frenchman claims race lead.

CyclingNews: A dramatic finish to stage 18 of the 2012 Giro d'Italia produced a moment that has become all too rare in the sport of road cycling over the last few years - a defeat for Mark Cavendish in bunched sprint to the line when he has been set up perfectly by his team. The Team Sky rider was beaten into second place and denied a fourth stage win in the race by an astonishing display from Farnese Vini-Selle Italia's Andrea Guardini.

VeloNews: Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) is hoping to end the 2012 Giro d’Italia the same way he started it: with victory in the final-day time trial to complement his opening-day win in Denmark.

CyclingNews: Fabian Cancellara has finally returned to racing, more than seven weeks after suffering a quadruple fracture of the right collarbone. The RadioShack-Nissan rider said that he was “satisfied” with his performance in the Bayern Rundfahrt, where he finished at the rear of the 125-rider strong group with the same time as winner Alessandro Petacchi.

Bicycling: "Take advantage of the summer's fresh fruit and get your next recovery snack from the produce aisle. These five summer fruits are nutritional champs for cyclists."

CyclingFans: Saturday's Tour of Belgium Stage 4, a 20.5km Individual Time Trial from Turnhout to Arendonk, gets underway with the departure of the first rider at 12:43pm CET (6:43am U.S. Eastern).  Tour of Belgium live streaming video should get underway at around 2:05pm CET (8:05am U.S. Eastern).

CyclingNews: Bronzini crashes out in final sprint.

VeloNation: Finish marred as first two crash after the line.

VeloNation: The Gorilla is unbeatable as Lotto-Belisol dominates its home race.

VeloNews: In a hard blow to the Exergy Twenty12 team, hometown favorite Kristin Armstrong crashed hard Thursday, halfway through the Exergy Tour’s 3.2km prologue. She was later diagnosed with a fractured collarbone and will undergo surgery on Friday.

CyclingNews: Marianne Vos has suffered an apparent broken collarbone in a crash at the Parkhotel Valkenburg Classic today. The Rabobank captain was taken down on the decent of the Fromberg by a race motorcycle with 63km remaining in the 95km race, according to rabosport.nl.

RedKitePrayer: The first Tour de France, held in 1903, was considered an absolute success. It changed the fortunes of the newspaper that sponsored the event, l’Auto, and united France in following what was arguably the greatest sporting spectacle of the age. The following years didn’t go as smoothly.

When no police are near, we are the Leonardo Da Vinci of inventing parking spots, creatively driving up forested hills in the woods, on sidewalks in town, down the wrong way on one-way streets. With our pink and green press car stickers, we feel invincible. (We are not.)

Prologue start time: Thursday 18:30 MDT (5:30 PM PDT);
Earliest live video: TBA;
Approximate finish: 20:15 MDT (7:15 PM PDT).

BikeRadar: "Running in conjunction with the 'How to' section from our sister magazine Cycling Plus, here's the first in a multi-part road cycling skills series featuring pro tips from members of the British Continental squad Team Raleigh-GAC."

BikeRumor: Friday Roundup – Bicycle Bits And Pieces.

CyclingNews: RadioShack-Nissan team principal Johan Bruyneel has used his regular Telesport column to slam what he sees as his team's poor overall form in 2012 and warned his star riders that complacency won't be tolerated ahead of the Tour de France in a month's time. And despite insisting earlier this week that he understood Frank Schleck's reasons for withdrawing from the Giro d'Italia last weekend, Bruyneel couldn't resist having another veiled dig at the man from Luxembourg.

SBS: Andy Schleck will receive the winner's yellow jersey for the 2010 Tour de France in a ceremony in the Luxembourg town of Mondorf next Tuesday, it was confirmed overnight.

CyclingIQ: 37-year old Fortunato Baliani invested forty minutes and twenty three seconds of his life and got 18 seconds back. Though other riders got better relative returns in today’s 11.4 kilometer mass-start hill climb up Fujisan, the wily Italian moved closer to the biggest prize.

CyclingIQ: 2012 marks a major milestone for Giant; two decades have passed since the Taiwanese brand first forayed onto the mainland. Following a tour of Giant’s impressive new factory in Kunshan, Cycling iQ sat down with Giant China’s GM of domestic marketing, Kevin Zhu, to get a status update on the company’s progress in China.

SRAM XX1 prototype spotted - this one goes to 11.

BikeRadar: "We’d long heard rumblings of a new 11-speed mountain bike group coming from SRAM. We expected it to be an updated XX with a wider range that more closely replicated a conventional triple. Instead, SRAM have developed a progressive, dedicated, single-ring 11-speed group called XX1. The company hope it will change mainstream thinking in terms of mountain bike drivetrains."

BikeRadar: German helmet and sunglasses manufacturer Uvex will offer a new flagship helmet for 2013, called the fp 5. The lid will be available this fall but is already in use by the Argos-Shimano professional road team in Europe. Uvex will also offer an Ultrasonic helmet, and top their stalwart Crow Pro shield-type sunglasses with a pair called SGL 104.

VeloNews: Louis Garneau brought their flagship Carbon Pro Team shoes to the market this past winter. The Carbon Pro Team, like most shoes with “Pro” in the name, sports a high modulus carbon sole and a ratcheting buckle. You can find the Carbon Pro Teams being worn by Europcar, though after some investigation we found that Thomas Voekler opts for LG’s lightest weight Carbon X-Lites that lack a ratcheting buckle in favor of a third Velcro strap.

CyclingNews: The doping case involving former pro rider Wim Vansevenant has taken a surprise turn. An analysis has shown that the “doping products” he ordered did not contain the advertised contents, and that he was scammed by the company from which he bought the products.

CyclingNews: Team Tibco to the Top got off to a rough start before the 2012 Exergy Tour in Boise, Idaho, when thieves made off with the squad's supply of race machines from a trailer in the hotel parking lot early Wednesday morning. But by Wednesday afternoon Boise police announced that all of the bikes had been recovered following a citizen tip.

CyclingTips: It’s one thing preparing your nutrition plan for a single day race. It’s tougher for a week-long stage race. But nutrition for the grand tours is something else. Optimising performance and recovery, and maintaining a healthy gut and immune system whilst constantly on the move for three weeks is a massive logistical challenge for teams and their support staff.