Today Lotto-Belisol's Jürgen Roelandts raced his first race since his horrible crash in the Tour Down Under in late January. In de Heistste Pijl (the arrow of Heist, or Heistse Flecha if you will), Roelandts bridged to a three man breakaway, but didn't managed to beat them in the end. Still, fourth after four months of inactivity is not too shabby. The race was won by Katusha's Maxim Vantomme.

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While the Tour of California regularly does not greatly excite me, while checking the Cali startlist my heart went a little bit a flutter. There, in very final position of the cyclingfever startlist for the Bontrager Livestrong team: Jasper Stuyven. Also known as the next next big thing.

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Herning 8.7 km TT

Grand Tour season starts here. Herning, in the heartland of Danish cycling, hosts the start of the Giro

Podicci's Pazzo Pick: Geraint Thomas

Official site , Startlist , Stageinfo , Starttimes TT below

Live video: 15:30 CEST (09:30 US EDT, 23:30 AUS EST)

Video: GazzettaTV , steephill , cyclingfans , Procyclinglive , Sports Livez.

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Berck sur Mer - Montreuil sur Mer 180 km

The four day race in the Nord-Pas de Calais region most famous for actually being a five day race.

FSA DS Cat 5 , Check your roster here.

Podiumcafe random lottery pick: Gert Steegmans

Official site , Startlist , Stageinfo

Live video: 14:45 CEST (08:45 US EDT, 22:45 AUS EST)

Video: steephill , cyclingfans , Procyclinglive , Sports Livez.

After giving up in Amstel, Evans won't be scoring better results in neither Fleche nor LBL, so says the team on their website.

After years and years of well, pretty much guessing who is going to win the next important race, I have found a new way. No, not ouija boards. That went terribly wrong that one day. Never again. No, I am going the way of... statistics!

Don't look at me like that Thor. There will not be (complicated) maths. I hate maths. I blame it on teenage overexposure. Also, I suck at maths. So we're going to do statistics, the easy way. Come join me below the fold!

That sounds dirty. But you should do it anyway.

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Levi Leipheimer (USA, OPQS) got hit by a car while out training in Spain today. He's ok, but he'll miss the Tour of the Basque country. All this per Sporza

Leipheimer got hit from behind by an upcoming car, says Sporza. Thankfully for Levi his wounds are not too bad. His left leg is swollen, but that's it. But he won't be starting in the Tour of the Basque country. Instead he'll be returning to Cali. "It was a big shock, mostly. It was pretty frightening. But mostly I'm glad to be alive", so Sporza quotes him.

Brugge - Oudenaarde 256.9 km

Best day of the year. Enjoy, just enjoy!

Podiumcafe op de hoek pick: Sylvain Chavanel

Official site , Startlist , Raceinfo , Profile

Live video:12:00 CEST (06:00 US EDT, 20:00 AUS EST)
Sporza also has 1h from the start at 09:00 CEST (03:00 US EDT , 17:00 AUS EST)

Video: steephill , cyclingfans , Procyclinglive , Sports Livez.

The biggest race favourite for the women's Ronde van Vlaanderen (and pretty much every other race on the planet, really), won't be starting tomorrow. Rabo informs us that she is ill.

Luuc Eisenga ‏

Due to illness, Marianne Vos wont start tomorrows Ronde van Vlaanderen. Sarah Duster takes her place. @RaboCycling @rabowielrennen

Which makes the full Rabo team for RVV: Liesbet de Vocht, Iris Slappendel, Pauline Ferrand Prevot, Tatiana Antoshina, Sarah Düster and Annemiek van Vleuten.

And this is probably true too:

Scott O'Raw ‏ @velocast

No Flanders for Marianne Vos tomorrow as she is ill. If you listen carefully you can hear the rest of the peloton breathing a sigh of relief

With twenty-three victories under their lycra belts so far, Omega Pharma-Quick Step is definitely the team of the year so far. And by winning all the races of De Vlaamse Wielerweek so far (Dwars: Terpstra, E3: Tombo, GW: Tombo, Driedaagse: Chava) they have got to be the most feared team for Sunday's RVV. Their final line-up has been published as Tom Boonen, Sylvain Chavanel, Niki Terpstra, Dries Devenyns, Nikolas Maes, Gert Steegmans, Matteo Trentin and Stijn Vandenbergh. But who are these guys, really?

Tom Boonen

Really? You don't need me to explain who Tombo is, right? The now 32-year old (I can't believe he's 32 years old) started his career in the pro peloton not at TSV, not at Lotto, not at QST, but at... US Postal. For one year, he was on the same team as Lance Armstrong, Floyd Llandis and George Hincapie. He arrived on the scene super style: with a third place in a really, really great edition of PR (dirty faces, Hincapie falling over, the discovery of Tombo, Museeuw's two times five is ten... <- awesomesauce). The rest of the story is well known: three Roubaixs, two RVVs, one world champ title and a green jersey). 2010 and 2011 were marred by bad luck, crashes, shit form and other different kinds of unluck. But now he's back, with more wins this season than the previous two together.

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Gav is on the road to somewhere (or nowhere, that's cool too), so you'll have to live with my subconscious ramblings for today.

You probably think you know what I'm going to talk about. I bet you think you know what I'm going to talk about. It's RVV time after all! I hope you're all stocking up on beers and French fries to survive the mighty holy day that is this Sunday. Me, I have a bet with a co-worker that Chava is going to win on Sunday. And you? What do you think?

Oh, and if you're one of them crazy blasphemous types who doesn't like cobbles... well, in that case we're no longer friends, for one. But if you are, then you can talk about the new - all white! - shorts of the new Argos-Shimano team (which is actually the old 1t4i R2D2 Skil team), which don't really leave much to the imagination. Finally, we'll be able to tell if winning ssr's really makes them happy.

Chris Threadjack: We do polls! [Update] and photos! Op de flip...

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Deinze - Wevelgem 235 km

More sweet Vlaandrian racing. This time for the fastmen.

Podiumcafe op de hoek pick: Daniel Oss

Official site , Startlist , Stageinfo , Profile

Live video:14:00 CEST (08:00 US EDT, 23:00 AUS EDT) (may just be studio first 45 mins?)

Video: steephill , cyclingfans , Procyclinglive , Sports Livez.

Last year Tom Boonen had to forego his E3-prijs in favour of Gent-Wevelgem, because a slumping Quick-Step needed the WorldTour points to give them a slightly better team car position ahead of RVV and PR. This didn't make Tom particularly happy, but he went to Gent anyway. And he won. In a sprint, beating Bennati and and Farrar.

Gent-Wevelgem is often won in a sprint. Point in case: Mario Cipollini is one of four recordholders here, with three wins each (Merckx, Van Looy and Van Eenaeme are the other three). Sure, there are hellingen along the way, but the final one, the Monteberg, is 32km from the finish line. So while Friday's E3-prijs is genuinely preferred for some last minute RVV-finetuning, Sunday's race is a lot more sprinter friendly. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be boring though, oh no. Friday's race ended in a sprint, and that was the best day of cycling I've seen in a long, long while. Possibly since last year's RVV.

So who will win? Let's find out, below the fold.

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Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, the cobbles are back! There is only one thing wrong with Dwars door Vlaanderen, and that's that it is on a Wednesday where I can't quite get away with boozing up while watching the race. Everything else about it is totally aces though. Hellingen? Check, 13 of them. Cobbled sectors? Check, three of them. Enough loops, roundabouts and turn arounds that the map makes you totally dizzy? Check. Plus, cobbles. Cobbles rock.

For those of you not completely fluent in the language called Dutch (or Nederlands, Vloamsch or Diets), Dwars door Vlaanderen means Straight through Flanders which is a bit of a deceptive name considering they only go through a little tiny bit of Flanders, but I'm willing to ignore that minute flaw on account of this race being awesome.

Below the fold I give you a wee overview, featuring all your (ok, all my) favourites participants. I also go off on lots of tangents cause that's pretty much what I do.

^

Not all Belgian!

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His hip-fracture is still bothering Saxo rider Nick Nuyens too much, and he has therefore decided he will not be starting RVV. Nuyens is the defending champion.

"Every movement hurts", Nuyens tells Sporza. "I can't even put on my socks. Luckily I have someone for that at home (laughs). It's annoying. On the other hand, the stress of 'will I make RVV or not?' is gone now. Cause it won't happen. And that's final. Accepting this is the only thing I can do. 2011 was the height of joy, now it's the opposite. And for the classics that come after RVV things don't look good either, because I'm missing that little extra."

Picture by Cindy Trossaert, used under a creative commons license.

American boy and Ghent resident Tyler Farrar received the very first edition of Ghent's own cycling jersey today, so reports the Omloop Gazette. The Barracuda sprinter also got honoured as a meritorious resident of the city.

Picture taken by tgsgirl, at the 2011 Eneco Tour. I'm fairly sure I have permission to use it.

So yeah, cross season is just over, I know. But I have news! Next year, the GVA trophy is going to be different, with real time differences measured at the finish (limited to five minutes), so we'll have a sort of GC at the end. Interesting!

Linkage (in Dutch)

It is the end, my friends. The final cross race of the season. It's ok though, because next week, road season begins for real. But that is next week. Before the cobbles, we play in sand one more time.

Sven Nys in the sand at Middelkerke cross. Photo taken by Balint Hamvas, cyclephotos.co.uk, used with permission.

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A standalone cross, on the Cauberg (I know, you're shocked). All the bigs are there, except for Stybs I think.

Website: www.caubergcyclocross.com/

Live links: sports-livez.com/

Don't cry. If you cry, I will cry too, and I don't think I'd be able to stop.

It's the final Superprestige race of the season. Whaaaaaaaaaaa!

Dansel tells us all about it. And he points us to livestreams, too. Good lad, that Dansel.

Picture taken by Balint Hamvas (cyclephotos.co.uk), used with permission

ps - after this race VT4 is doing an hour-long best of the Superprestige thingy, and after that they've got a Superprestige show. There is weird talk on the internet that they had the big names doing things like dressing up mannequins while riding on segways. Seriously.

Have we done this yet? If so, can we do this again? There are new kits out there people!

Are you swayed by the fluorescent shades of edgy green, or do you like your kits to have more crotch-eagle? Does argyle entice you, or would you rather see confusing fake Luxembourgish champ jerseys? Please, call upon your inner Armani and tell us -

mirror, mirror on the wall
who is the fairest of them all?

And for added word-count power: "As punishment for her wicked ways, a pair of heated iron shoes are brought forth with tongs and placed before the Queen. She is then forced to step into the iron shoes and dance until she drops dead." What? Snow White is a cruel, cruel story folks.

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What, I have to work and suddenly there's no one here to watch cx? Come on, the race is halfway done already!

Links: cyclingfans.com

Well, when I say I'm writing a book... Balint Hamvas (aka, cyclephotos) is compiling all his best pictures of the 2011-2012 cyclocross season in a book again, and this year, I'm writing the texts to accompany his shots.

If you wanna take a look (or if you just wanna go ahead and pre-order one, that's ok too) go to: cyclephotos.co.uk/book/

Picture by Balint Hamvas (cyclephotos.co.uk)

Good afternoon! Welcome to the second of four world champs races this weekend. This afternoon, it's time for the U23.

Where will they be racing? On sand!

Who will be racing? Startlist

Where can I watch? Sportz-livez or Cyclingfans

When does it start? At 15 CET.

Who will win? Well, they'll pretty much all be chasing Lars van der Haar

Goodmorning! Welcome to the first of four world champs races in the next two days. This morning, it's time for the juniors.

Where will they be racing? On sand!

Who will be racing? Startlist

Where can I watch? Sportz-livez or Cyclingfans

When does it start? At 11am CET.

Who will win? Well, my money's on Holland's Mathieu van der Poel

So, by now I'm sure you know we have CX worlds coming up this weekend. And you've probably also - if you're an English speaker at least - giggled at the name Koksijde. And you've heard talk of sand, maybe. But, where will they be racing, really? Come find out all about the circuit, below the jump!

Picture by Balint Hamvas, via cyclephotos.co.uk (used with permission)

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Dansel has told us all we need to know about the race already. Recap? It's flat, twisty and very muddy.

Current world cup ranking

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A ten(ish) minute interview - in English (mostly) - with Tony Martin, when he visited De Laatste Show, a Flemish talk show. "My main motivation for helping Cav? The kisses!"

Picture by Petit Brun

Learn all (or nothing) about the race from Chris.

Sporza is already live, and you can check for links at cyclingfans.com or sports-livez.com.

Hey, TDU hasn't started yet, so this still counts! I'm not too late! You're not my boss, you can't fire me.

(picture by a great and subconscious girl)

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