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As the ninth part of a series to explore the famous roads of cycling, here is the Croce d’Aune on the edge of the Italian Alps. The idea is to discover the road and its place in the world, whether as part of cycling’s history or to look at the route on a day without racing and it is open to all.

The Croce d’Aune isn’t the highest road nor the hardest. But it has been a place of disaster and invention and it is in a scenic ride in its own right. If last week’s piece on France’s Col de la République was partly a celebration of the derailleur, the Croce d’Aune is the birthplace of the quick release lever and more. In fact a wheel change on this climb arguably led to the invention and perfection of modern cycle componentry as we know it today.

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Chris Froome won the Tour of Oman. Watching him attack with 1km to go on Stage 5 was a strange moment. It was exciting but not the usual “safety-first” tactics deployed by Team Sky where a rider will often only attack if backed-up by a team mate or if it’s clear they’ll go away. Froome’s move had risk all over it, if caught he left himself exposed to a counter-attack. But it all worked out and he won his first ever stage race.

More urgently perhaps, Thor Hushovd’s win was his first win since September 2011. All of a sudden we’re seeing old and new comes coming to the fore ahead of the classics season that’s now less than a week away with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad next Saturday.

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Here’s the calendar for the 2013 season. You’ll find all the prime pro races in the world for men and women. This was first published last October. Since then races have been cancelled, others have been abbreviated or seen the dates change. Some of the dates on the UCI calendar were provisional and a few were wrong.

So if you downloaded the iCal file before be sure to get the latest edition as the calendar is regularly updated to reflect changes on the calendar. You can also subscribe so this is done automatically for you.

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Saturday’s Stage 4 of the Tour Méditerranéen features the classic summit finish on Mont Faron. A short and steep climb above the naval city of Toulon, this is a tough and selective point in the race that reveals the early season form.

It’s the first summit finish of the year in Europe and to celebrate this moment in the season here’s a look at the climb plus a chance to try your forecasting skills to win some goodies.

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The Mouvement Pour Un Cyclisme Crédible translates as the Movement for Credible Cycling and is a grouping of teams created in 2007. It’s getting headlines these days so here’s a look at what it’s about, who is behind it and more.

It’s a good idea that has quietly helped set the agenda for cleaning up cycling but as it grows I can’t help thinking of Groucho Marx and his joke about not wanting to belong to a club that would accept him. My concern is that any team can sign up but the real test comes when a team has to decide between its self-interest or the collective MPCC rules. As I’ll show below voluntary deals between teams typically fall apart faster than a prototype carbon rim on a cobbled road.

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Frank Schleck has got a one year ban after his positive test in the 2012 Tour de France when the rules say he should have got a two year ban. He’s got lucky after the Luxembourg Anti-Doping Agency appears to have dropped the strict WADA Code, preferring instead to speculate on the source of contamination as a reason to reduce the ban, something the Spanish tried to do with Contador after his 2010 Tour de France positive until the UCI and WADA teamed up to fix things.

So this is might not be the end of the story. WADA won’t enjoy seeing its Code applied selectively and there’s now every chance of an appeal and a longer ban.

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