On Friday, federal prosecutors closed their investigation into whether Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs without filing any charges against him.

Today, in a separate case, an appeals court found that Alberto Contador did use clenbuterol, a weight loss and muscle building drug, when he won the 2010 Tour de France. If you recall, Contador blamed tainted meat for introducing the substance into his body, though he tested positive for plasticizers commonly found in IV bags at the same time.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, overturned the original ruling by the Spanish cycling federation that cleared Contador. The effect is a two-year racing ban from the time of the accusation, which ends on August 5th and strips him of all race results during that time, including the 2010 TdF. That means Andy Schleck will become the de facto winner of that year’s Tour, and Contador loses his 2011 Giro d’Italia win, among others.

For Armstrong, he can breathe some sigh of relief that the federal criminal inquiry has been dropped, which included investigating possible crimes of defrauding the government, money laundering, drug trafficking and conspiracy. The charges were under consideration largely because his Postal Service team was funded by a U.S. government body rather than private enterprise. This little victory is somewhat overshadowed by an ongoing investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which is supported by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency).

More on Contador’s case here, and the full Armstrong story is here.

• American Classic is sponsoring their first Pro Tour team, putting lightweight hoops under Cofidis riders for 2012. They even have an early season win under their belts thanks to Rain Taramae at GP Marseillaise.
• Bespoked Bristol, the UK Handmade Bicycle Show 2012, will be held this year on March 23-25th. Over 70 independent bicycle builders from the UK, Italy, France, USA and Germany will be present for you to drool over their handmade wares. Click here for more info.
• Mark your calendars for the March 10th Autodrop Doubleshot to be held in Moore’s Springs north of Hanging Rock State Park in North Carolina. The combination 12 mile single track/ 13 mile road race will raise money for the Moore’s Springs trail system and campground.
• GT Bicycles adds Kyle Strait, freerider extraordinaire, and Kenny Baley, multi-time Trials World Champion, to their Wingmen team.
• Ike Tseng, founder of Merida, passed away January 30 at the ripe old age of 81. According to the brand’s statement, he served as a multi-term chairman of Taiwan Bicycle Exporters’ Association which helped turn the country into the powerhouse bike manufacturer they are today, and invented welding robots that guaranteed quality mass production way early in the game. Full story here.
• OnYerBikeSeat has introduced brand able rain covers (pic after the break) for your bicycle saddle. They also protect against dive-bombing pigeons and presumably baking hot sun. Eventually, maybe, we’ll run out of places to advertise.
• Wanna know what your riding buddies are really thinking? Well, at least the riding buddies that a) subscribe to Bicycling Magazine and b) took the time to fill in their reader survey? Download the Reader’s Choice results as a PDF right over here.
• The 2013-2014 USA Cycling Gravity National Championships have found at home at Angel Fire, NM. Exact dates are still rolling around. Official PR below.

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For nearly as long as I have been following the Peaty and the downhill race scene, SRAM and the Santa Cruz Syndicate seemed to go hand in hand. Wherever you would see Peat, Minnaar, Bryceland, etc, you would see them aboard the latest and greatest from the big red machine. As they say, all good things come to an end, and after 8 long and successful years, the Syndicate is thanking Sram for their incredible support while moving on.

What are they moving to? Rumors have been circulating that the new bikes will be equipped with Shimano parts and possibly Fox suspension, but only time will tell.

Check out the full press release from Santa Cruz after the break.

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• Ray’s Mountain Bike Park is hosting two Women’s Weekends, one at Cleveland (Feb 17th) and one in Milwaukee (March 9). Both are FREE to attend for women and offer professional coaching and guidance from Leigh Donovan and others. It’s not only free of cost, it’ll be free of dudes, too. Full details at the links.
• The Tran-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race returns for year numero tres, scheduled for May 27 to June 2, 2012 in State College, PA. Sponsored by Stan’s NoTubes and Dirt Rag Magazine, the event will drop a few miles in order to up the fun quotient, says promoter Mike Kuhn. Full press release along with some choice event photos after the break (plus the one above!).
• Retailer registration for DealerCamp 2012, scheduled for July 24-26, is now open. All bicycle retailers are invited to register and attend this free event. You can even apply to have your trip subsidized or covered.
• Trek Bicycles has launched the Trek-ODI developmental DH racing team. Comprised of five juniors, they’ve put World Cup champion Aaron Gwin in charge of coaching the grooms (including US 16-and-under National Champion Logan Mulally, plus Jason Schroeder, Charlie Harrison, Matt Branney, and John Buckell) into international gravity stars. They’ll be racing the Session 88 decked out with Bontrager parts and rubber.
• Zym, one of our favorites among the effervescent electrolyte tabs, is celebrating five years on the market. Congrats, guys!

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“What’s the course like?”

It’s a common question when signing up for a race, and now promoters have a tool to provide that information quickly, easily and video-y. SportRecon is a new event management site that allows promoters to not only upload video and photos of the course, but take advantage of integrated social media features and automatically generated registrant info. They can even upload liability waivers, which we all know would save time and frustration at check-in when there are inevitably not enough pens and copies 15 minutes before the gun goes off. Oh, and payments are processed and sent to the promoter in real time, no more hold-and-pay, which is perhaps the biggest eye popper for anyone putting on an event.

For the racer, they’ll have Google Earth created elevation maps, course fly overs and photo walk throughs. Plus, assuming the promoter fills everything out, all of the event info is pretty well displayed on a single page, something many smaller event sites are lacking.

The screen grab above shows the flyover for a sample crit race. Not sure how that’ll translate to a mountain bike race, but it does give some pretty good intel on the course. Heck, you could even tell your rowdy, cowbell swinging friends where to stand for the best spectating!

Make the jump for the official PR…

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After winning the USA National Cyclocross Title, Jeremy Powers looks to be getting a special National Champion paint scheme from Focus Bikes. This spy shot comes via CyclingDirt, taken by T. Hopper.

• Okole Stuff chamois ointment is now available in three sizes: 6oz., 2oz., and a convenient “four application” tin.
• We don’t cover a whole lot of racing news, but it seems like kind of a big deal that the Athertons have signed on with GT Bicycles. It’ll be particularly interesting to see what sort of product developments come from their feedback and whether they stick with the I-Drive design or come up with something new.
• If stupidity entertains you, check out this massive FAIL.
• Foundry Cycles has announced an essay competition to find 5 “Tradesmen” to win one of their bikes and represent their brand. Winners will be announced at the end of April and will be flown to Foundry HQ in Bloomington, MN, to receive a free Foundry bike of their choice. Click here for more information.
• This year, the TD Five Boro Bike Tour is instituting a lottery system for their 40 mile traffic-free bike ride through the 5 boroughs of New York. The lottery is open Jan17- Feb. 7th and costs a non-refundable fee of $6 to participate. Click here to register and for more info.
• DeFeet is honoring the Honey Badger with their new high-top Aireator sock design… “Honey Badger don’t care, it takes what it wants.”
• Last year, Yuba utility bicycles and LevelGround, an outfit that supports fair trade practices with small producers in third world countries, partnered together to donate 6 cargo bikes to a coffee collective in Tanzania. Throughout the year, Yuba’s customers were encouraged to donate money for the bikes and Yuba matched their money dollar for dollar. They are continuing the program this year with donations and bikes going to a different farm collective.
• Tomorrow (Saturday, Jan 14) is the last day to guarantee you’ll get the sweet TwinSix x Krautstache t-shirt when preregistering for the Southern Cross epic cyclocross race in GA. You can still register after that, there’s just no guarantee you’ll get the tee. But, we’ll be there doing a Schwag Toss with lots of goodies, so you may still get something just for showing up.
• Castelli is giving away one of the new Garmin-Barracuda team kits via their Facebook page. All you have to do is come up with the winning caption for whatever photo they post.

The little post about the new Team Garmin-Barracuda kit and Castelli’s update revealed something quite interesting…Magura is signed on as a sponsor for the road-only pro cycling team.

It’s no secret that Magura is launching something big for road very soon. Their own people say not until February, but the Slipstream Sports team is set to roll into action at the Tour Down Under this weekend (Jan 15), so perhaps some eagle eyed fans will get a first look at what’s new.

The other obvious sponsor there is Rotor, but we’ve confirmed with them that they don’t have any magical new shifting systems up their sleeves, but also said “they’ll need some shifters to go with those brakes.” Either they’re being coy, or they’re just as in the dark as the rest of us.

At present, SRAM is still listed as a team sponsor on their website, but we suspect that’ll change for 2012 as it just doesn’t make sense that they’d split group up to run with brakes from another manufacturer, especially given the rumors that they’re working on their own hydraulic brake systems (oh, and yes, we’ve heard murmur that could even include hydraulic rim brakes!).

We’ve heard Cervelo, which is the team’s current bike sponsor, had some big news coming, but it was actually of a different type of bicycle. Whatever form that “big news” comes in, it’s good to see the brand is moving forward despite taking steps to sell the company.

At this point, we’re guessing the team will run with either custom integrated electronic shifting system from either Campy or, more likely, Shimano, or we’ll see something totally new. There’s rumor floating around it could be a road version of Acros’ hydraulic mountain bike shifters and derailleurs. The only thing we see holding that back would be fitting two master cylinders into a single shifter/lever unit, but hey, we’ve put people on the moon, right?

…but only if you’re a high school girl that races. Sorry boys.

Here’s the details, also available on her Facebook page: If you’re a high school student and a girl, you can email Pua answers about where you go to school, what got you into riding and why you want to join her team for the 12 Hours of Temecula team relay mountain bike race.

One winner from each grade, freshman, sophomore, junior and senior- will win a spot on a 5-person team with Pua at the event on January 21, 2012. They’ll also get full race support, team kit and other schwag. Rules, contact info and more info at the link above.

• DeFeet has been named Business of the Year for 2012 by Business North Carolina. Congrats Shane! (PR copied after the break)
• We’re happy to say the alarm over the Blue Ridge Parkway ban on cycling was perhaps a bit inflated. Bicycle Retailer has an interview with the parkway’s superintendent, Phil Francis, that says the biggest issue is simply a lack of funds to improve services. Still, it’s worth putting in your two cents as it reinforces that the BRP should remain open to cyclists forever. Comment period closes today, here’s the link.
• The NTSB is considering a recommended ban on ALL cell phone use, including calls, hands free use and of course texting or typing for any reason. While the board’s recommendations don’t carry any legal weight, they reportedly have a lot of sway when it comes to state and federal law making.
• Racer news: Jeremiah Bishop has re-upped with Cannondale Factory Racing’s UCI squad, and Geoff Kabush will lead a new U.S. based XC race team called the Scott – 3Rox Racing Team that’s got its sights set on the UCI calendar and 2012 Olympics along with select North American events.

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PRESS RELEASE: Beginning a new partnership with the prestigious USA Pro Cycling Challenge stage race, InsideCycling.TV (ICTV) announces that it will provide the live internet broadcast for next week’s exclusive celebration for the event’s 2012 official host cities. Live streaming video of this special event, with athlete interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, will be produced and broadcast by ICTV on Tuesday, December 13 from 4p.m. to 6p.m. (MST).

USA Pro Cycling Challenge, recently elevated to a 2.HC stage race by the Union Cycliste Internationale, unveiled the names of the 12 Colorado host cities for the 2012 event this past week. At Tuesday’s private reception in Denver, Colo., an all-star cast of professional cyclists and Colorado Senator Al White, who serves as the Director for Colorado Tourism Office, will join in a celebration with these community leaders. The second edition of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge will be held August 20-26, 2012.

InsideCycling.TV will produce this internet broadcast on its home page as a free service for cycling fans. The broadcast will begin with live shots from the reception and interviews with special guests. A formal presentation of the new host cities is expected to begin at 5:15 p.m. (MST). Along with audio and video, viewers will be able to engage in conversations with athletes using Twitter and Facebook. ICTV provides this interactive feature as part of its partnership with YouTube, and is complimentary for any registered YouTube member. The live streaming audio/video broadcast is also available at the official event site, www.usaprocyclingchallenge.com.

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Joining the ranks of Trek and various retired pros, Cervelo has announced their new Pro Travel Experience, offering fully supported road bike rides surrounding major pro races and iconic rides.

Working with Butterfield and Robinson, Cervelo will provide the bike, a custom kit from Castelli and everything else you’d need to just kick back and enjoy the ride. Options include rides at some of the biggest European and American races and rides centered around legendary areas that combine climbs on Madeleine, Croix de Fer, Galibier and Alpe d’Huez, among others.

For its inaugural year, they’ve got 14 events are on the calendar, starting at $3,495. Private trips are offered, too. Full PR and another photo that’s gonna make you change your holiday wish list behind the break…

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