Bike World News

It’s December 10th and that means just five weeks to the Tour Down Under!

In today’s news: Lance Armstrong will start second retirement in 2012,  Eladio Jimenez ends his career after doping positive and more….

• Tom Boonen and the rest of the Quick Step crew will be wearing helmets and eyewear from BBB for 2010. The change is due to Specialized moving their equipment sponsorship dollars over to Astana. As we’ve previously covered, the team will ride Merckx bikes next year.
• Estonian cyclist Jaan Kirsipuu will celebrate his 41st birthday in 2010, but he has no desire to walk away from the sport. He has signed with the CKT – Champion Systems team and will race alongside his compatriot Ojavee Mart, the Swiss Roger Beuchat, Serge Herz and Holger Burkhardt.
• In comments from Team Radio Shack’s media day, Lance Armstrong told reporters that the fans want the rivalry between the sport’s stars and that it likely brought more fans to it. He acknowledged that it will be tough to beat Contador, calling him “…the biggest and best talent we have now, and maybe the biggest we’ve ever seen.”
• Lance says that he’ll do everything he can for an 8th Tour de France title, but he expects that 2011 will be his last year.
• Eladio Jimenez plans to end his cycling career following the recently announced positive doping test.
• Team Nutrixxion has renewed contracts with Lars Wackernagel, René Obst, Mitja Schlüter and Grisha Janorschke.
• The Austrian team Voralberg Corratec announced that it had hired the Switzerland’s Hubert Schwab away from the Quick Step. Schwab turned professional with the Saeco Romers team in 2005, then spent the last four years in the service of Paolo Bettini and Tom Boonen.
• Noel Dejonckheere joins the BMC team as the director of their European program. He currently runs the United State’s U-23 program in Belgium. BMC is holding simultaneous training camps in Europe and in Utah. The team also announced that it will be wearing technical clothing from Hincapie Sportswear, owned in part by recent recruite George Hincapie.
• Sven Vanthourenhout showed he is back on form yesterday when he took the win in the Asteasu Ziklo-krossa Saria in Spain’s Basque Country over a handful of Belgium’s top racers.

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