I haven't paid much attention to the on-road battles of the last weekend or so, so let's recap quickly:
- In the Tour de Langkawi, a Korean won a stage for the first time -- Jae Won Lee of the Seoul Cycling squad. His win puts Malaysian sprinter Anuar Manan into the overall lead. Big day for Asian Cycling. Alberto Loddo, winner of five stages last year, continues to get shut out. Matthieu Sprick and Jeremy Hunt own the other two wins here.
- The Cycling season got underway on the Boot Saturday, as Alessandro Petacchi held serve at the GP Costa degli Etruschi (Tuscany) for the fourth time, outsprinting Gabriele Balducci (Acqua e Sapone), Francesco Chicchi (Liquigas) and Danilo Napolitano (Milram).
- Balducci got his reward today, though. Further down the coast in Calabria, the A&S sprinter won the first stage of the Giro Della Provincia Regio Calabria, beating Max Richeze and Yuri Mitlushenko for the win. Not much star power in Calabria today as Milram skipped the event, but Danilo DiLuca made his LPR debut, quietly.
- In Mallorca, Graeme Brown avenged a loss yesterday to Philippe Gilbert in the Trofeo Mallorca series with a sprint victory, good for the overall lead.
- Wednesday the Tour Méditerranéen kicks off, with a solid startlist. I'll try to watch this a bit more closely before Cali consumes me.
Going forward, I'll be picking my spots for more active involvement in races -- it's a long season and the site is busy, so I plan to pace myself as more people get more involved. I'll set up open threads for any race on the VDS race list and probably be an active participant in all of those when real life allows, i.e. most days. For any race not on the list, I'll usually set up open threads for anything being broadcast live (e.g. Tour of Cali or Georgia), but if you want to start a chat on a race you're not sure I'll be involved in, do a race thread diary and email me 24 hours ahead of time about your intentions, so I won't forget to promote it in time.