Bike World News

It took its time, but Indian Summer has finally arrived at BWN HQ. It’s 80 degrees out there today. The roads are calling me!

In today’s cycling news, Footon-Servetto bolsters their ranks, Gent-Wevelgem looking to be a Sunday Classic, slow day for Columbia-HTC’s PR department, and more.

The News:

• Footon-Servetto announced the arrival of six new riders on Thursday. Giampaolo Cheula (Barloworld) will take a leadership role while the team will bolster its ranks with a number of young riders, including young Spaniards Pedro Merino (Fuji-Cervetto B), 22, and Enrique Mata (Burgos Monumental), 24 , Briton Tom Faiers (Camargo) and Austrian Markus Eibegger and Matthias Brändle (Elk Haus).
• Team Garmin-Slipstream announced today that it has added Australian Travis Meyer to its roster. Meyer will join his older brother, Australia’s reigning points race World Champion, Cameron Meyer, and his fellow countryman, Under 23 World Time Trial Champion, Jack Bobridge on the team.
• Gent-Wevelgem will move to a Sunday and add 50 km to their course for 2010. They are also looking for some additional cobbled sections to add to the race.
• The Greenville Hospital System USA Cycling Professional Championships will return to Greenville, S.C. for a fifth consecutive year in 2010, with new dates set for September 18-19, 2010. To accommodate two new ProTour races, the first ever to be held in North America, the US Pro TT and Road Championships  were moved down three weeks in the calendar, and the Tour of Missouri shifted earlier to  August 30 – September 5th.
• 82 samples of urine from 7 riders from the 2008 Giro d’Italia are being retested for CERA. Prosecutors in Padua called for the retest following comments made by Emanuele Sella. CERA was first found in urine samples collected at that year’s Tour de France, which came nearly two months after the Giro. Of course, Alberto Contador won the Giro that year, and Ricardo Ricco, who was found to be using CERA during the Tour de France, came in second.
• Contador hopes to know where he will ride next year by mid-December. He still expresses interest in leaving Astana, but allows that the new leadership at Astana is “serious” [About winning, or about breaking your legs if you leave? - Ed.] and he could end up in the same place next year.
• In case you wanted to know, Columbia-HTC has already nailed down their roster for the 2010 Tour Down Under. Andre Greipel will lead a team consisting of  Michael Rogers, Adam Hansen, Mark Renshaw, Matthew Goss, Marcel Sieberg and Hayden Roulston. Greipel crashed out of the race last year and spent months on the sideline.
• Geraint Thomas was in championship form on the opening day of the Track World Cup after setting the second fastest individual pursuit time in history. The 23-year-old Welsh rider clocked a time of 4’15.015″ in qualifying with the best time for the 4km pursuit. It is the quickest ride since Chris Boardman’s world record in August 1996.
• The Columbia-HTC Women’s Team has concluded another highly successful season in 2009, totaling 46 victories for the year and 152 wins over the last three seasons, far more than any other team.

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