Bike World News

Happy New Year! We’re back and ready for another year of race news, results and rumors. Here are the latest headlines from the past few days.

• The Trek-Volkswagen mountain bike team is no more. Volkswagen withdrew its sponsorship dollars after supporting the team for 13 years. The news came too late for many of the riders as most professional teams have already filled their rosters for the year (Velo News)
• Four Pro Tour teams (Garmin-Chipotle, Fuji-Servetto, Bouygues Telecom and AG2R) and five UCI Continental teams will compete in the Tour of Langkawi. The race will start on 9 February of Putrajaya, the country’s political center, and will end on 15 in Kuala Lumpur, the capital. (L’Equipe.fr)
• Pro Tour overall winner Alejandro Valverde will start his season with the Ardennes classics (Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallonne and Liege -Bastogne-Liege) and will then focus his efforts on the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. (Radsport-Active.de)
• Damiano Cungeo will be focusing his year on victories at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Giro and the World Championships (L’Equipe.fr)
• British track racer Chris Hoy was named a Knight of the British Empire for his efforts in the 2008 Olympics. (Actualidad del Ciclismo)
• Sven Nys pocketed another win, taking his eponymous GP event at Baal. Czech Zdenek Štybar took second and Niels Albert came in third. (sportweek.nl)
• ‘Cross World Champion Lars Boom is in the hospital, dealing with an infection in an elbow wound received in a fall at the Loenhout race last Tuesday (12/30). (Sportweek.nl)
• Despite some rumors in the fall about walking away, Milram team sponsorship says that they are satisfied with their experience as a team backer, but that they are “constantly reviewing” their involvement. (Rad-net.de)
• The Cervelo Team will be sporting a very cool looking black, white and red jersey for 2009. (Actualidad del Ciclismo)
• Simon Gerrans, who will start riding soon for the Cervelo team, won the first stage of the Jayco Bay Cycling Classic in Australia, riding for the local O2 Networks squad on Friday. Graeme Brown (Rabobank) took the second stage and Will Walker of Fuji-Servetto won Stage 3. (Velo News)
• BikeRadar.com chats with Mark Cavendish. He’ll start his season at the Tour of Qatar and will then focus on the Tour of California. (BikeRadar.com)
• Erik Zabel will be a bike tester for the German manufacturer Canyon. He will also serve as a consultant to the company’s young rider development program. (Radsport-News.com)
• Johan Bruyneel will be writing a column for the Dutch newspaper The Telegraph. His first article will appear in mid-March. (telegraaf.nl)
• Baden Cooke plans to sue Rock Racing team owner Michael Ball for breach of contract. Cooke was originally signed to a two year contract with the team and was promised that the team would race the Giro and other European races. Now he faces a significantly downgraded six month contract and will likely only see action in the U.S. (Radsport-News.com)
• The Fuji-Servetto team, successor to Saunier-Duval/Scott, will have their internal doping control program run by the MAPEI Sports center, the same organization that’s working with Ivan Basso. (Radsport-News.com)

Related Posts:

• Road News and Results – February 26, 2009 (0)
• News and Results – November 25, 2008 (0)
• Road News and Results – January 31, 2009 (0)
• Road News and Results – January 28, 2009 (0)
• Racing News, Results and Previews – April 29, 2008 (0)