TIM KORTE, AP Sports Writer, SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP)  Although Lance Armstrong still has improvements to make in his buildup to the Giro d’Italia, he believes his decision to race in the Tour of the Gila was a good move.

After several weeks of training in Aspen, Colo., the climate has been more favorable in New Mexico.

(Chris Horner and Lance Armstrong ride the front during the second stage of the Tour of GIla. AP Photo )

“Similar elevations, but a little lower, warmer and sunnier,” Armstrong said Thursday. “It’s a good continuation because we’ll have a whole month at elevation before the Tour of Italy. It works well.”

Astana general manager Johan Bruyneel, who oversaw Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles, said Armstrong’s current conditioning wouldn’t put him in contention next week in Italy, “but he can improve.”

That’s because Armstrong’s fitness is sure to increase during the Giro. Right now, Bruyneel said, Armstrong is at the level he showed before breaking his collarbone last month during a crash in Spain.

“No more crashes and just time,” Bruyneel said when asked what Armstrong needs. “This week will be very good training to get the intensity that he’s lacking. He needs to get some speed in the legs for the start of the Giro.”

(Do not try this on your next club ride. Armstrong stretches his lower back during the second stage of the Tour of Gila. AP Photo)

Armstrong got plenty of speed during the finish of Thursday’s second stage of the five-day Tour of the Gila. The 80-mile race ended in a mass sprint, won by Colavita team racer Lucas Sebastian Haedo of Argentina.

Armstrong crossed with the large pack, along with teammates Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner. The Astana riders are entered independently this week, wearing the kits of Armstrong’s Mellow Johnny’s bike shop.

“It was another hard day,” Horner said. “Lance and I rode the front for 80 kilometers.”

Besides another tough workout, Armstrong was pulled into doping control.

“Been awhile. Thought they forgot about me,” he reported on his Twitter feed.

The course featured a dangerous 3-mile descent at the 27-mile mark, followed by rolling hills and a climb over the 6,710-foot summit of the Continental Divide, then a sharp rise back to the Silver City area.

There were a few breakaways over the final 12 miles, including one with OUCH team cyclist and former Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, but the peleton had no trouble catching up.

“Everybody was there at the end,” Horner said.

Bruyneel said this kind of racing bodes well for Armstrong, provided he can get through the next three days without incident.

The Mellow Johnny’s team isn’t here to win, just to get into race shape, and Leipheimer’s victory in the opening stage was a bonus. As for Armstrong, Bruyneel said the focus is on his form.

( Astana general manager Johan Bruyneel talks to the media about Armstrong’s form and fitness. Interesting that he’s here in the states and not with his teams racing in Europe. AP Photo)

“It’s difficult to evaluate among a peleton which isn’t up to the level of European races, but he did a lot of work yesterday,” Bruyneel said.

Asked what he expects for himself in Italy, Armstrong hedged. He said the top favorite will be Italian Ivan Basso, then made an argument for Leipheimer, who remained the Gila’s overall race leader.

“He’s had a great year,” Armstrong said. “He’s riding well and he’s motivated. He doesn’t race like the Italians do, but he’s close. My responsibility will be to ride strong and to help him.”

Looking ahead to the Gila time trial on Friday gave Armstrong a chance to reflect on his only other competition in New Mexico.

As a high school senior in September 1989, he raced in Moriarty, N.M., where he shattered a national youth record for a 12-mile time trial.

The tale has been well documented, not only for helping Armstrong gain a spot on the 1990 U.S. junior national team but because he had forgotten his warmup gear and used his mother’s undersized pink jacket before the race.

“We didn’t expect it to be cold,” Armstrong recalled. “We woke up in the morning and it was about 40 degrees. I didn’t have any clothes to warm up in. I borrowed my mom’s pink jacket.”

A group of fans had gathered outside the Mellow Johnny’s motorcoach and laughed at the story.

“Not the best,” Armstrong said.

TIM KORTE, AP Sports Writer, MOGOLLON, N.M. (AP) Lance Armstrong felt some jitters when he saddled up for his first race since breaking a collarbone during a crash in Spain last month.

He left satisfied after the opening stage of the five-day Tour of the Gila on Wednesday. He came to New Mexico, he said, to regain a feel for the peleton, work at racing pace and boost his conditioning for the Giro d’Italia, which begins May 9.

“You definitely feel stiff or blocked a little bit,” Armstrong said after his eighth-place finish. “That’s to be expected. You can train those intense intervals but it doesn’t replicate a race.”

Armstrong only spent about 20 miles during the 94-mile race from Silver City to Mogollon in the lead group. His tactical mission was helping teammate and stage winner Levi Leipheimer on a big finishing climb.

“Getting the rythym, the speed, getting some accelerations in a peleton,” said Armstrong’s boss, Astana general manager Johan Bruyneel. “Also, we’re looking at how he feels. Today, he felt good. He did some work for Levi until Levi could launch his attack.”

Leipheimer won in an unofficial time of 3 hours, 36.02 seconds. Armstrong was clocked at 3:37.42. Kristin Armstrong, gold medalist in the time trial at the Beijing Olympics, won the 73-mile women’s race in 3:40.42.

Afterward, the seven-time Tour de France champion reported no concerns with the collarbone and said it hasn’t bothered him for weeks. Asked to calculate where his recovery stands, he said that was difficult.

“Better than I thought I would be,” he replied. “I feel strong. I feel like the recovery has been good. Those are the things you need. Getting lighter is another thing you need. It’s working out so far.”

The course crossed the Continental Divide just outside Silver City and dropped through rolling ranchland characterized by undulating hills of yucca, yellow grass and olive-colored juniper bushes.

Then came the demanding climb to Mogollon. The route featured an 11 percent grade over the final three miles, which narrowed to a single-vehicle width and a summit elevation of 6,794 feet.

“Typical climb in the states when it’s inconsistent,” Armstrong said. “You know, some steep pieces, some flat pieces. The pavement was rough. It was hard. Obviously, you have high elevation. It was tough.”

Although Bruyneel made the trip, Armstrong is riding with Astana teammates Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner as independents, wearing jerseys representing Armstrong’s Mellow Johnny’s bike shop in Austin, Texas.

Armstrong has been out of competition since his fall during the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon on March 23. He had surgery two days later to stabilize the injury with a steel plate and 12 screws.

“There’s so much hardware in there, it’s not going to move,” he joked.

Armstrong admitted feeling a little nervousness early in Wednesday’s race, especially when two riders crashed.

“Downhill start, everybody’s fresh,” he said. “I think the race has (had) a lot of attention in the last few days, so guys want to be in the front, want to be competitive. That’s to be expected. You just try to watch out for those things and anticipate crashes in front of you.”

Armstrong has enjoyed a healthy career in a dangerous sport. Although he broke a neck vertebra during training for the Sydney Olympics in 2000, it didn’t sideline him and he won a bronze medal in the time trial.

The crash in Spain, though, was a different experience. Armstrong said he’d never had such a significant injury.

“Mentally, it was a shock to me,” he said. “Then of course with that you have the obvious side effects — pain, time off the bike and psychologically you’re 37 years old, laying in a ditch in Spain. You’re going, ‘OK, what am I doing?’

“But it’s come back pretty good. I’m having fun still.”

Armstrong said he’s still focused on the Tour de France. Along with Leipheimer and Horner, he will rejoin the Astana squad next week.

“We’ll see how it goes here. We’ll see how it goes in Italy,” Armstrong said. “Then the month of June in the states, training and preparing for the Tour. That’s the granddaddy of them all. We’ll go there and ride as fast as we can.”

AP Photos

Here’s an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer by  my friend Christopher K. Hepp. It’s good news for pro cycling fans.

The race is on.

After 10 days of uncertainty, organizers of the TD Bank Philadelphia Cycling Championship announced yesterday that they had secured two new sponsors needed to assure the event’s 25th running.

They declined to identify the sponsors, but they said they would cover about half of the $500,000 budget gap that had put the professional cycling race in jeopardy.

“We will name the sponsors at a news conference next week,” Dave Chauner, cofounder of the race, said. “But we wanted to let everyone know now that the race was on so plans that have to be made can proceed.”

Even with recently increased ticket sales, Chauner said his group still needed to find $100,000 to $150,000 in funding, but he said he was confident that would happen between now and the June 7 race.

“With the new sponsors and the momentum we have had with VIP ticket sales, I think we are going to be all right,” he said.

The annual race is one of Philadelphia’s signature public events. It is considered the premier single-day professional cycling race in the United States. It also is a free festival that draws hundreds of thousands of fans and revelers to a daylong block party running from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Manayunk “Wall.”

First held in 1985, the race was threatened this year by the global fiscal crisis.

First, organizers lost a number of sponsors, including two that had provided $225,000. Then the city, facing its own financial troubles, announced it could no longer subsidize the race by waiving the cost of police and sanitation services. That amounts to nearly $250,000 in additional expenses.

To read more of the article click here.

Just read a column by Associated Press writer John Leicster and one of his items stood out.

By JOHN LEICESTER
AP Sports Columnist
Good riddance Tyler Hamilton. Lance Armstrong’s former teammate is gone from cycling after testing positive for the banned steroid dehydroepiandrosterone.

Hamilton said he knowingly took the steroid in an herbal remedy for depression. He said the debilitating illness runs in his family. If that’s true, one sympathizes. But once a cheat, always a cheat? Announcing the positive test, Hamilton missed an opportunity to come clean about other alleged doping skeletons in his closet.

Hamilton was suspected at the 2004 Olympics of ghoulishly injecting himself with someone else’s blood. He escaped on a technicality and declared himself “100 percent innocent,” but failed another test a month later.

Now would have been the time to fully confess. When, where, how, with whom did he dope in the past? Are those who injected him still in cycling? Does he know other riders who cheated? By answering such questions, Hamilton might have been remembered for a measure of courage as well as for the damage he did to his sport.

John, I have to agree with you, good riddance. I have no room for Hamilton at this point. He did some amazing things on a bike. Finishing the 2003 Tour de France with a broken collarbone was one of them. But I cannot believe anything he says or champion anything he has done at this point. I also look forward to the sanctions cycling governing body will place on him. He cannot just retire and walk away to find his way back into the sport. He must serve his time and if you ask me it should be a lifetime ban. His record should not allow him to teach and work with young up and coming cyclists. He should not be allowed to manage a team or riders. He can lead tours and group rides of the few fans that still believe in him, that’s about it.

Have you ever been DOORED or nearly doored in a downtown community while riding? Here’s a story about a new law in Wisconsin that holds motorists responsible. New York has a law that also requires the motorist to not to create a hazard in the lane of traffic by opening thier door.

RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer, MADISON, Wis. (AP)  Wisconsin drivers, listen up: Either look for bikers before you open your car doors or you could soon be ticketed.

Both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature on Tuesday passed a bill requiring drivers to take steps to ensure that opening their doors will not interfere with traffic or endanger people or vehicles. Those who violate the law could be cited and fined $40, which would grow to $100 for a second offense in the same year.

The plan, expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jim Doyle, also eliminates a requirement that bikers stay at least 3 feet from vehicles.

Supporters say the bill correctly puts the onus on drivers to prevent the common collisions between bikes and car doors. Eighteen other states have laws requiring drivers to make sure it’s safe before they open car doors, according to the League of American Bicyclists.

This week, the group named Wisconsin, which has a strong bicycling culture and many trails, one of the nation’s top four bicycle-friendly states. Wisconsin would be the site of the 2016 Olympics cycling competition if Chicago lands the games and is home to several bike companies, including Trek Bicycle Corp.

The bill passed both houses on voice votes with overwhelming support. One critic, however, couldn’t resist the opportunity to blast bicyclists in the state’s capital city.

“The bicyclists around here and around the university don’t seem to have a clue that we have traffic laws in this state,” Rep. Marlin Schneider, D-Wisconsin Rapids, said on the Assembly floor. “And with this legislation we’re going to place an additional burden on motorists.”

Lawmakers introduced the bill after a Madison woman fractured a vertebra last year when a motorist opened a car door that threw her off her bike. While 50-year-old Linda Willsey was in the hospital, a police officer gave her a $10 citation for riding too close to the car.

The motorist’s insurance company later used the citation to blame her for the accident and try to get out of paying for her health care costs, said Willsey, a pharmacist. The city dismissed the ticket after she fought it.

Rep. Spencer Black, a Madison Democrat who rides his bike to work at the Capitol, said the bill is designed to prevent similar problems.

“There’s too many accidents that are caused by the callous opening of car doors,” Black said at a news conference outside the Capitol, with hundreds of bicyclists behind him. The bicyclists later met with lawmakers to push for the bill and other bike-friendly laws.

Black said the requirement that bikers stay 3 feet from vehicles was “unnecessary and unsafe.” Few bikers follow the requirement, and those who do can be pushed out into traffic, he said.

Randy Swart, director of the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute in Arlington, Va., cautioned that 3 feet is a good rule that should still be followed. He said getting “doored” is a major safety problem but questioned whether the law and small fines would be enough to change drivers’ behavior.

“My suspicion is it won’t help much,” he said. “But it certainly will be better than ticketing somebody in an emergency room because somebody ‘doored’ her. I can understand the sense of outrage.”

Some critics, including the Wisconsin Sheriffs and Deputy Sheriffs Association, said a change in the law wasn’t needed. Drivers don’t need a law to be “more mindful of what they’re doing,” said the group’s lobbyist, Jeffrey Wiswell.

But Matt Wilson, 31, of Madison, said getting drivers to pay more attention is precisely why a law is needed. He said he’s had close calls while commuting to work in the suburb of Fitchburg, and one of his friends was injured by a car door last year.

“There’s enough dangers out on the roads as it is,” Wilson said. “A little care from motorists would go a long way.”

Six Olympians have tested positive after their blood samples were rechecked for EPO variant CERA. The testing was developed in time for last year’s Tour de France  which caught several riders.

La Gazzetta dello Sport is reporting that one of the six is cyclist David Rebellin who placed second in the Olympic Road Race in Beijing. The Italian Olympic Committee has confirmed that one of it’s athletes tested positive.

37-year-old Rebellien just won a spring classic, Fleche Wallonne for his trade team, Serramenti- Diquigiovanni. In the AP photos, Rebellien is sprinting to second place on the right in the top photo and teasting his silver medal on the left below.

The Associated Press reports that three track and field athletes, two cyclists, and one weightlifter make up the six positive tests. One of the track and field athleses is a male gold medalist.

Westchester County will again be closing the Bronx River Parkway to cars and all motorized traffic and open to cyclists, in-line skaters, joggers, and walkers on Sundays in May and again in September. The parkway is closed at 10:00am until 2:00pm and you must be off the parkway by 1:50pm.

A portion of the Bronx River Parkway will be closed for Bicycle Sundays. The closed area begins at the Westchester County Center in White Plains and south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers. The round trip is 13.1 miles of traffic free riding. There are many entry and exit points along the way.

Sunday May 3rd will begin the closures and a special Bicycle Safety Poster Contest will be held. This was open to third through fifth graders in Westchester County. May 17th the parkway will be used in conjunction with the Pediatric Cancer Foundation Bike-a-thon.

If the weather is bad the parkway will not be closed to traffic, please visit the County Center Online or call 914-995-4050 for cancellation information.

Rules and Regulations for Bicycle Sundays:

1.     Bicyclists, in-line skaters, scooters, walkers and joggers ONLY; no motorized vehicles allowed.
2.     Walkers, joggers and slower wheeled traffic must use right lane; faster-wheeled traffic must use left    lane.
3.     Helmets are required by New York State law for children under 14 years of age, including those riding in bike trailers, and are recommended for all wheeled participants.
4.     New York State law prohibits children under age one from riding on bicycles or in a separate seat.
5.     All headsets are prohibited; this includes but is not limited to music devices and hands free cell phones.
6.     No skateboarding allowed.
7.     No dogs allowed.
8.     Bicyclists must obey posted parkway speed limit of 40 m.p.h.
9.     Children riding in strollers must be strapped in at all times.
10.     Children under age 10 must be accompanied by an adult.
11.     All participants must be off the parkway by 1:50 p.m.
12.     Stay alert and be considerate of others.

Bicycle Sundays are sponsored by Westchester County Parks and Be Fit Westchester, a county-wide effort to get people to eat smarter and play harder everyday and 1000.7 WHUD Radio is the media sponsor. For more information contact the County Parks Department or call 914-864-PARK.

As part of The City of White Plains promoting cycling in general and safety in particular is hosting a Bike Safety Rally Saturday May 2, 2009 at 9:30am in Delfino Park on Lake Street.

Kids will go from station to station where volunteers will teach a specific safety skill. The rally for White Plains residents will run until noon.

Volunteers are still needed, please contact Mark J. Lalloo at 914-946-8816 or email electrovelo@optonline.net . A fun ride lead by Ed Cangialosi for the volunteers will follow the event, weather permitting.

Mount Kisco Police Department held a bike saftey day Sunday, April 26, 2009. Bikes were inspected for saftey and tips were taught on how to be safe on the coumminty roads. Target helped sponser the event for the more then 50 young cyclists. Click on the photo to see the 11 photos.

Westchester Biking & Walking Alliance is a new organization to be an advocate in Westchester County for walkers and cyclists that. The WBWA will be an umbrella group for a number of community organizations to provide information, education, and advocacy resources. Their first meeting will be Monday May 11th at the Bronxville Library.
The hope of the WBWA is to have a citizen representative form all of Westchester has 45 cities, towns, and villages. The current people spear heading this new group is David Wilson, President of the Westchester Cycle Club and Michael Oliva of the Mid-Atlantic Coordiantor of the East Coast Greenway Alliance.
I asked David Wilson these questions.
1. How did the WBWA come in to existence? – the group grew out of the organizing effort for the Westchester Bike Summit, April 7, inWhite Plains.
2. Who are the current organizers? Westchester cycle Club President David Wilson and East Coast Greenway Mid Atlantic Trail Coordinator Mike Oliva, who lives in Tarrytown
3. What are your short term goals? – we want to create an organization that can carry on the work of the bike summit – our top issues are bike racks on county buses, bike lockers at transit centers, and creation of a bike facility along Westchester Avenue.
4. Long term goals? Creation of an organization with staff, like Transportation Alternatives in NYC
5. What are the top 3 issues facing cyclists and walkers in Westchester? for walkers – lack of sidewalks in many community centers, so walkers are discouraged. for Cyclists, lack of adequate secure bike storage and the state DOT’s anti-bike attitude in Region 8.
6. Westchester is a very diverse set of communities with very dense and urban areas in the south and central districts and rural and small towns in the north. What do these areas have in common and how can they be served differently?

7. You will hold your first meeting May 11th at 7:00pm at the Bronxville library, have you worked up an agenda yet? The agenda includes how we set up the organization, organizing volunteers, and starting a letter-writing campaign to the county to support bike racks on buses.

If you would like to join the new WBWA please email westchesterbikewalk@gmail.com or visit their website http://www.westchesterbikewalk.org/index.html