CyclingFans: Friday's Tour de Suisse Stage 7, a 34.3km Individual Time Trial at Gossau gets underway with the departure of the first rider at 1:44pm CET (7:44am U.S. Eastern).  Start Order and Times here.  Tour de Suisse live streaming video should get underway at around 3:45pm CET (9:45am U.S. Eastern).

CyclingNews: Former teammate stands by former Tour winner in USADA case.

VeloNation: Italian wins crash-strewn stage as the peloton splits on the final climb.

VeloNation: German wunderkind beats Renshaw and Cavendish in Dutch stage race opener.

PodiumInsight: Peter Sagan, of the Liquigas-Cannondale team, has been winning a lot and by a lot, I mean five stages at the Amgen Tour of California and four, so far, at the Tour de Suisse. The young Slovakian rider is fast, very fast, and also shows off different victory salutes.

CyclingNews: Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) continued his dominance in the Tour de Suisse, coming from behind to win the sprint of the sixth stage in Bischofszell. In the last few meters he caught and passed Ben Swift (Sky) who finished second, with Allan Davis of Orica-GreenEdge finishing third.

VeloNews: After storming the slopes of Mount Baldy in May at the Amgen Tour of California on his way to a 12th place overall finish, 21-year-old Joe Dombrowski and his U.S. National teammates have taken on Europe and the Girobio, affectionately known as the Baby Giro.

CyclingNews: Cardenas moves into leader's jersey.

PodiumInsight: Riders from Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies did the hardest work in Wednesday night’s St. Paul Criterium, the second stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix. They chased down Loren Rowney of Specialized-lululemon on a late-race breakout and protected the overall yellow jersey for teammate Carmen Small, winner of Wednesday morning’s time trial.

Tour de Suisse - June 9-17 (Stages & results),
Tour de Serbie - June 12-17 (Stages & results),
Nature Valley Grand Prix - June13-17 (Stages & results),
Tour de Beauce - June 12-17 (Stages & results),
Vuelta a Colombia - June 12-24 (Stages & results),
Giro Ciclistico d'Italia - June 8-17 (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: When a blog on Skysports let slip that the British team of Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish had made a presentation to ASO ahead of this year’s Tour de France, it raised eyebrows – especially when the blog mentioned that part of the presentation was to ensure they ‘won't get any nasty surprises’.

VeloNation: Tom Van Damme states federation can’t move until it is given evidence of wrongdoing.

RedKitePrayer: So the big news is that USADA is finally charging Lance Armstrong with doping—really and for true!

CyclingNews: For the first time in five years, the Schleck brothers will not be together at the start of the Tour de France. With Andy Schleck out due to injuries, Fränk Schleck must face the Tour alone, “but this belongs to the rider's life.”

Outside: Andy Schleck doesn’t like the asterisk next to his name in the Tour de France history books.

PEZ: American Classic has long been a company known for pushing forth innovative new products. The latest piece of awesome to leap out of Bill Shook's brain is a new rim design resulting in a fantastically light set of tubeless wheels. Looking forward, this new rim shape opens the door for still more new developments in the future.

Off The Beaten Path: "Tire resistance is much more important than previously thought. For most riders, changing the tires is by far the biggest improvement they can make to their bikes’ performance. (Aero wheels will improve your bicycle’s speed by less than 2%, whereas tires can make a 20% difference.)"

InnerRing: Andy Schleck is out of the 2012 Tour de France. The news first appeared this morning in the Luxembourg media with RTL. A press conference has been called at 4.00pm by Radioshack and this is expected to confirm the news and update with information on Schleck’s injuries.

VeloNation: A MRI scan taken yesterday in a Luxembourg hospital has detected a fracture in his sacrum, where the spinal column joins the pelvis.

BrowneEye: "The Washington Post article, just three paragraphs in, states that USADA has collected blood samples, “fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions” from 2009 and 2010. That’s very recent. I wonder if the people who want to “let it go” are in a state of denial, didn’t really read the article or read it and ignored a fact that ruined their version of their Armstrong reality?"

VeloNation: Armstrong critic applauds USADA action, says Tygart has stood up for sport.

RedKitePrayer: What are they going to charge him with? Who gets to decide his guilt? How long before we hear about the result?

Mark Renshaw: My next race starts on Thursday, Ster ZLM Toer and I'm hoping to be in the mix. I've been doing a lot of work on my sprinting and climbing lately. There's always a couple of hard stages there for a Gilbert style rider but I am hoping for a couple of sprint chances also.

BikeRumor: The Spot Sprawl is one of four commuter/street bikes offered by Spot, and it’s the most classic, city oriented offering by far.

BikeRumor: Ursus just released two new wheelsets – the Miura T45 Tubular (left) and Hybrida alloy clincher. The Miura T45 has a 45mm profile and weighs 600g in the front with 20 spokes, 720g in the rear with 24 spokes. Hubs are carbon alloy CNC.

VeloNews: Lance Armstrong faces sanction from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and has been banned from triathlon competition until the resolution of the investigation. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that USADA has sent the seven-time Tour de France champion and others a 15-page letter outlining the allegations that stem from his run with the U.S. Postal Service and Discovery team between 1998 and 2005, as well as his comeback in 2009-2010.

RedKitePrayer: There was a time, not very long ago, when the average fan’s perception of Cadel Evans was not entirely favorable. Clearly a huge talent, Evans’ demeanor suggested a lack of maturity, a tendency to whine and the distinct impression that the biggest prizes would elude him. Perhaps it was the influence of the late Aldo Sassi, perhaps it was winning a World Championship, perhaps it was getting married, but Evans finally got himself over the hump.

From L'Equipe today: Number of victories at age 22: Laurent Jalabert, 1; Sean Kelly, 2; Philippe Gilbert, 5; Peter Sagan, 33.