Norwegian Sky rider escapes a select breakaway to win third Challenge Mallorce race.

Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) secured his first win for Sky and his first as World Champion, taking stage 3 of the Tour of Qatar with a trademark sprint. Race leader Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma Quick Step) finished in second with Aidis Kruopis (GreenEdge) in third.

CyclingNews: Races & Results.
Tour of Qatar (Stages & results),
Etoile de Bessèges (Stages & results),
Superprestige Hoogstraten (Men's results),
Superprestige Hoogstraten (Women's results),
Trofeo Palma (Stages & results),
G.P. Costa degli Etruschi (Stages & results),
Paris - Nice (Stages & results),
Copenhagen 6-days (Days & results),
Ladies Tour of Qatar (Stages & results),
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The Tour’s publicity caravan is filled with piped pop music and disco dancers, while the brass band that performs on one of the custom floats is not actually using its trombones and trumpets — they’re just lip-synching. But a real oom-pah band does come from the Netherlands every year, jazzing the crowds at places like Dutch Corner on L’Alpe d’Huez.

2011 road world champion Mark Cavendish held a press conference at the Tour of Qatar on Monday night, where he elaborated on the illness that jeoparised his Team Sky debut, his preparations for the biggest summer of his career, who he fears most among his fellow sprinters and what it is about his new team that sets it apart from the others.

"In all honesty, I didn’t expect to like Lezyne’s Super Drive.  As a commuter who regularly starts and finishes his morning commute in the dark, I’ve been spoiled by trail-ready 900+ Lumen lighting systems and the vision -and visibility- that they guarantee."

Cane Creek is a small company with a big name. Like any other small company, their people cross over between roles to get the job done. Chris Strout is no different, juggling customer service -which means shops, distributors and consumers like us- with sales while also getting out in the field to promote the company at events like Interbike, Sea Otter Classic and smaller events throughout the U.S.

BikeRadar verdict: 3.5 out of 5 stars. "Rides so well it’s a shame that Evans have only made 90 of them."

Tuesday's Tour of Qatar Stage 3 departs Dukhan at 12:30pm local (10:30am CET, 4:30am U.S. Eastern) and is expected at the finish at Al Gharafa Stadium at around 3:48pm local (1:48pm CET, 7:48am U.S. Eastern).  Tour of Qatar live video streaming is expected to begin at around 3:00pm local (1:00pm CET, 7:00am U.S. Eastern).

Team states rider wants to renew with Danish squad.

The cycling world was shocked when it learned of the CAS verdict stripping Alberto Contador of two Grand Tour titles and issuing a two-year retroactive ban. Not only has the decision put cycling into disarray, but it also has potentially damaging effects to Bjarne Riis’ Saxo squad that was tightly built around Contador.

Rasmussen and Van den Broeck react to yesterday’s sanction.

After displaying prodigious talent as a teenager, Taylor Phinney has long been identified as the next big thing in US cycling. After a meteoric rise to fame that included a host of world and national junior championships on the track and victory in the U23 race at Paris-Roubaix in 2010 in Livestrong Trek colours, much was expected of him when he signed to race for BMC last year.

London designer Dominic Wilcox resorts to subterfuge and in his case it's working so far.

"Few people have the opportunity to spend a week in a French chateau, to say nothing of being welcomed and hosted like old friends of the owners. But that’s exactly what you’ll experience on one of France From Inside’s trips to their family’s Chateau Pitray. Company owner Allan Reeves tells us more about his uniquely intimate European bike trips."

The Daily Distraction.

The UCI appealed the Swiss Olympic Committee's decision to close the file on evidence linking Ullrich to the Operacion Puerto doping case. Ullrich retired after being implicated in the 2006 investigation, and was later linked to blood evidence by DNA testing.

According the NPR, sources indicated that charges were close to being brought against a number of individuals, which included fraud, witness tampering, mail fraud, and drug distribution. One source, NPR says, said there were ‘no weaknesses in the case’.

Saxo Bank will continue to sponsor Bjarne Riis's team, even without Alberto Contador. The Spaniard's two-year ban for doping “is not something that affects our attitude toward sponsorship,” the bank said Monday.

“It’s a sad day for Alberto Contador; it's a sad day for cycling. I think people want to kill off cycling. I’m the first to say that we need good anti-doping tests, but I think that in cycling they go too far.”  -  Eddy Merckx VeloNation

Given the overnight CAS ruling for Alberto Contador's positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France, the Spaniard's race results dating back to and including the 2010 Tour have been deemed void.