Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

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Riccardo Ricco flash visions of Marco Pantani with the vicious atacks up the Col D’Aspin to claim his second stage win of the Tour. Ricco’s attack came up the final climb but before several kilometers of downhill. The main favorites in the select bunch that was left behind seemed to halt their attacks [...]

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Riccardo Ricco put his stamp on the Tour with a nice win st Super Besse during stage 6. With the help of Leonardo Piepoli who joined an attack by Christian Vande Velde with 5km to go in the stage Ricco was able to take advantage of a counter attack.
Alejandro Valverde showed that [...]

(AFP/Pascal Pavani)
Alejandro Valverde wasted no time in taking the Yellow Jersey during the Tour de France’s first stage today. The Tour started with a road stage for the first time since 1967. The very open Giro like Tour featured a tough final kilometer that brought all of the main contenders to the front and left [...]

Alejandro Valverde now has two Liege-Bastonge-Liege wins in his pocket. The Spanish climbing-sprinting sensation looks to be on track to be a contender in the Tour once again. Though he admitted that his form was not as good as in 2006 when he took his last win at Liege, he was able to use his [...]

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Wow the Albi TT was nothing but surprises all around.
Rasmussen does not meltdown or lose time. In fact he catches and passes his three minute man Alejandro Valverde.
Alejandro Valverde put in a time around Alessandro Ballan’s whoo must have been riding simply to get through the TT and hunt for stage wins in [...]

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Alexandre Vinokourov’s charge for the Mailliot Jaune could be a lost cause for 2007. Vino could not hold the pace of the top contenders and finds himself several minutes behind. Vino has been battling injuries and the pain showed today as he was riding with the group of second flight contenders and came [...]

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Michael Rasmussen took the initiative in what is seen as an annual break to gain the Polka Dot climbers jersey. The difference this year is that he was also able to snatch the Yellow Jersey. The wiry Dane dominated an early breakaway with Michael Rogers. It looked like Rogers would take over the [...]

Looks like Alejandro Valverde will not be donning a magenta jersey after all. Now for my Stephan Colbert moment: Just as I predicted earlier, the Valverde move to T-Mobile was not going to happen. Team manager Eusebio Unzué was able to press the sponsors to extend deals or put in more money. There was enough [...]

The on-again off again, confirmed but not confirmed move to T-Mobile is not a dead deal yet. The story keeps being denied, but then fresh reports come back to show that there just may be a link between Alejandro Valverde moving to T-Mobile for a price of $10 million Euros for the next three years. [...]

Black appears to be the new blue for 2007. Team kit designs for the pro peloton seem to follow common trends as each team has their own variation on a popular theme. The previoulsy trend was a blue team kit that started getting popular in the 1990s when cyclist realized they did not always [...]