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The round-trip commute from Rancho Cordova to downtown Sacramento is 40 miles, and for 25 years Jacques Graber has made the weekday journey by bicycle.

Graber has customized two modern-day bikes for the trips. His streamlined road bike is ideal during cooperative weather on the route along the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail and city streets. Graber's other primary commute bike is a more heavily equipped mountain bike for inclement weather.

But on special occasions, just as he did while traversing Tasmania or riding in Berlin and Prague or while setting long-distance mileage records, Graber might decide to commute on an antique bike. He could choose an 1884 Humber, an 1895 Columbia, an 1889 Eagle or any of the more than 100 bikes in his collection.

An engineering geologist for the State of California, Graber, 52, is a builder, collector, curator, restorer and expert among experts in the niche world of vintage bicycles. The older the machine, the better.

A decade into his professional career, David Clinger is riding for his eighth team. It's a squad that seems like a perfect fit for a cyclist who, like his new squad, has attracted as much attention off the bike as he has while pedaling.

A former teammate of Lance Armstrong, Clinger of Tarzana, Calif., returned from a unique off-season January, 2005 trip to Argentina. Enamored with the lifestyle and philosophy of the Polynesian culture, he had his face and scalp emblazoned with a Maori warrior-like tattoo that took 12 hours to complete.



Like tandems and recumbents, folding bicycles provide a unique alternative for cyclists concerned about space, portability and convenience.

The concept is simple: With a few adjustments, a smaller-wheeled or full-sized bike becomes compact and more easily transportable – often in less than 30 seconds.

Until in recent years, however, the folding bicycle industry suffered from a hard-to-overcome dilemma. Folding bikes not only looked different, a prevailing thought was that they folded at less-than-ideal moments.

As such, folding bikes were popular among boat owners, private pilots and recreational vehicle enthusiasts. They packed their folding bikes in tight spaces and used them emergencies or for short excursions to complement their main recreations.

Mainstream cyclists, however, largely remained unimpressed and were among the non-buying majority.

That's an image, of course, folding bike manufacturers like Dahon, Brompton and Bike Friday, among others, believe is changing
.

The official route of the 2009 Amgen Tour of California, the expanded fourth edition of the largest professional stage race in the United States was announced Thursday race organizers, a few hours prior to various media briefings throughout the state. As previously announced, the nine-day, estimated 750-mile course will progress from Sacramento to Escondido, Feb. 14-22 and will be one day and about 100 miles longer than the 2008 edition.
Chad Gerlach once climbed mountains with the best cyclists in the world and rode as a teammate of Lance Armstrong. Gerlach’s athletic acclaim is long gone, but he’s about return to a national spotlight no one seeks. The winner of nearly 100 career races will be the subject beginning Monday night (June 16) on the Arts & Entertainment Network program, Intervention.
Bicycle racing is sometimes equated to chess on wheels. The players move strategically, hopeful to properly balance risk and reward for their teams.

As the current pro season begins to conclude, the match is still in progress, but who's wearing what colors for what teams and where the allegiances align is all about to change.

For the Discovery Channel team, which includes Levi Leipheimer of Santa Rosa, the beginning of the end to the current configuration will begin Tuesday at the inaugural Tour of Missouri.

The six-day, estimated 562.2-mile event joins the Tour of California (February) and Tour de Georgia (April) as the final major U.S. stage race of the year conducted by Georgia-based Medalist Sports.

Eight members of the 27-rider Discovery Channel team, including reigning Tour de France titlist Alberto Contador of Spain, Yaroslav Popovych of Ukraine and Leipheimer will be among the 15-team, 120-rider field.


Professional bicycle racing's most prestigious event could be on the verge of implosion. But for the third straight year, the Tour of California will return next February and will feature many of the same riders and teams currently participating in the embattled Tour de France.

On the same day as the Tour's race leader Michael Rasmussen of Denmark was kicked out of the race by his team, several cities that held press conferences Wednesday to announce their involvement as stage departure or finish cities for the race's 2008 edition.

The Tour of California will begin Sunday, Feb. 17 with a prologue (a short individual time trial to determine a race leader) at Stanford University in Palo Alto.

Like every veteran professional cyclist, Mike Sayers knows the sport’s pitfalls. He’s ridden while sick and pedaled for hours in nasty weather. He’s crested snow-covered peaks in rarefied air and he survived a crash in Belgium six years ago in which some onlookers thought he had perished.

But how could Sayers have known that one day last month, while beginning his preparation for the Amgen Tour of California, his entire season--and perhaps his career--might have abruptly ended compliments of a frightened, wayward beaver?

During the convergence of riding for a new team, the recent birth of his first child and his 37th birthday, Sayers was riding alone on the lower stretches of the Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail. Like he’d done for years, he was en route to the River Ride, the well-known Saturday-morning journey where locals push each other at high speeds to the Sacramento-Yolo County border and back. As with most cycling accidents, the unexpected occurred suddenly. Sayers swerved to miss a fast-moving blur in front of him on the trail and he crashed--hard.

Jeannie Longo of France may be the best athlete in the world who gets the least recognition.

Now age 48, the reigning national road and time trial champion, recently signed a one-year, 2007 contract to race international events with the Austrian-based Uniqa Team.

Longo has more than 900 career victories, the most of any cyclist in history. Her list of titles include: an Olympic gold medal, three Tour de France titles, 38 world records, 52 national titles and 13 world titles.

According to CyclingNews.com, Klaus Kabasser, the Uniqa team manager, commented: "It all happened very suddenly and surprisingly. Two weeks ago we received an e-mail in which Longo expressed her interest. She didn't have a team for international races."

Kabasser continued: "Like her colleagues, she will earn a small salary, nothing unusual. The only different thing is that she (Longo) will have a private sponsor, which she will present on her jersey."

Despite often competing against women less than half her age, Longo remains highly competitive.

I first reported on women's cycling about more than 20 years ago.  It was the best of times for the sport on the road, on the track and in the dirt.

Jeannie Longo of France, one of the greatest athletes in history, was in her prime and American riders like Inga Thompson, Connie Paraskevin-Young, Karen Bliss, Ruthie Matthes, Rebecca Twigg and Julia Furtado rode impressively and unheralded in their respective specialties.

It was during same time frame, I first met Marion Clignet. She was outspoken, funny and there was a sparkle in her eyes — like she knew something the rest of us didn't.

Marion was overweight and she had epilepsy. She was shunned by the U.S. Cycling Federation and she spoke her mind about her disagreements with the country's cycling governing body. She worked hard to succeed in cycling, and I liked her immediately.

I don't Marion Clignet well. She retired in 2004 and lives in France where her parents were born and raised. But we've e-mailed from time to time through the years and she recently sent me a copy of her autobiography, Tenacious.

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