Bike World News

Pereiro to support Contador at Astana, UCI track changes may kill six day racing, Boasson Hagen and Lokvist say Columbia too focused on sprinters, Radio Shack steps back on Beppu matter and more

In today’s bicycle racing news, a Dutch face for the Giro, Footon-Servetto and Caisse d’Epargne transfers, AToC looks to be a Tour de France warmup, Ricco returns and more…

Welcome back! Here’s all of the latest road racing news, World Championships rosters as well as some updates from the Tours of Missouri, Britain and Spain.

The big news over the weekend was that Astana expressed their intention to hold Alberto Contador to his contract through the 2010 season, saying “a transfer is not negotiable, and we will honor the contract.”

Milram’s Fabian Wegmann will marry his girlfriend Johanna shortly before the start of the Vuelta. Also in today’s news, Gert Steegmans picks up independent sponsor, Ballan may stay with Lampre, race results and more

Frank and Andy Schleck showed us their strength today, but so did Alberto Contador as all three riders came across the finish line closely together – Frank, Alberto, then Andy. Lance Armstrong was not able to hang onto the yellow jersey group today, and as a result, lost some spots in the overall general classification.

Welcome back to our fourth day of coverage of the 2009 Tour de France. Today saw the return of Lance Armstrong and the “blue train” while many others crashed and burned on the technical and windy course.

In Stage 3 of the 2009 Tour de France, Mark Cavendish and Columbia-HTC make a move with 30 km to go for Cav’s sixth stage win and a shakeup in the G.C.!

Once again, while the Giro continues, there is no shortage of cycling news from the rest of the world. Let’s get started!

I just realized that I’ve been focusing on the close of the Vuelta and all of the new product announcements that have been coming through and haven’t covered the racing world for a while. Here are some of the latest headlines.

World Championships News:

Levi Leipheimer will lead the US contingent of Steven Cozza, Lucas Euser, Tyler Farrar and Craig Lewis at the World Championships. George Hincapie, Jason McCartney and Christian Vande Velde, as well as USA Cycling Professional Road Race Champion Tyler Hamilton all declined automatic invitations, citing a long and hard season. …