Universal Sports, the network that brought us live streaming of the Giro d'Italia, is following up with live online and delayed broadcasts of the 2009 Vuelta a Espana which rolls out from August 29 to September 20.

All 21 stages will be shown live at UniversalSports.com every morning, complete with an online "Tracker" that shows riders' positions on the course and stage maps and profiles.

The stages will be replayed on the Universal Sports broadcast and cable network during the day and followed by an enhanced replay in primetime.

Meanwhile, Tour de France broadcaster Versus announced that viewership  soared 41% over the previous year. Multichannel News reported that the Versus website fared well too, with a 117% increase in traffic over 2008 ...   more »

Usually by the time the Vuelta a Espana rolls around, I'm burned out on the Euro pro cycling scene.

The three-week race around Spain follows the Tour de France by 3 or 4 weeks. That's when all the Tour's post-race doping news is hitting its stride, and I'm fed up with the sport and the cheating cyclists.

Who knows whether this year will be different. The course for the Vuelta is certainly unusual, as it starts in the Dutch city of Assen and the bike race's first three days take place in the Netherlands. Then the peloton passes into Belgium before taking a day off to travel to Tarragona, Spain, to continue the race ...   more »

Alberto Contador joined an elite club on Sunday when he became one of only five cyclists to win all three Grand Tours.

The 25-year-old Spanish bicyclist's championship at the Vuelta a Espana in Madrid put him in the record books after previous wins at the Giro d'Italia in May and the Tour de France in 2007.

No one has ever won all three Grand Tours in the same year, that's an indication of the difficulty of achieving such a mark. The other four cyclists with a championship from each race: ...   more »

Alberto Contador left them all in the dust on the dreaded Alto de l'Angliru climb at the Vuelta a Espana on Saturday, as he won the mountaintop finish and put himself in the overall leader's gold jersey.

Contador teammate Levi Leipheimer moved up to second place overall at 1:07 behind his Astana team leader.

Carlos Sastre, Team CSC's Tour de France winner, didn't fare as well on the final climb as he did on Alpe d'Huez in this year's Tour. Leipheimer marked him on the climb before driving past him to beat him to the summit by nearly 30 seconds ...   more »

Levi Leipheimer donned the golden jersey for the second time during the 2008 Vuelta a Espana on Sunday as the peloton finished its second day in the Pyrénées.

His Astana teammate and race favorite Alberto Contador sits just 21 seconds behind Leipheimer, the sole American in the three week race that's entering its second week. David Moncoutie of Cofidis won Stage 8 that boasted four major climbs, including the mountaintop finish at Pla de Beret.

Leipheimer first gained the overall leader's jersey on Wednesday ...   more »

Levi Leipheimer's time in the golden jersey was brief -- one day -- as he dropped to second place behind Sylvain Chavanel by 10 seconds after Stage 6 of the Vuelta a Espana on Thursday.

World Champion Paolo Bettini won the 93-mile stage from Ciudad Real to Toledo. The peloton gets a rest day on Friday.

Chavanel snagged the golden leader's jersey from Leipheimer by taking intermediate sprint bonus points along the race route. Leipheimer only had a 2-second advantage over the Frenchman after Wednesday's individual time trial...   more »

Levi Leipheimer is wearing the golden jersey at the Vuelta a Espana after winning the 26-mile individual time trial on Wednesday.

The cyclist from Santa Rosa is the only US rider in the three-week stage race around Spain. His commitment to compete for Team Astana made him one of the few to miss the US pro cycling championships in Greenville, South Carolina, last weekend.

Winning the time trial and donning the overall leader's golden jersey will surely take some of the sting out of not being able to defend his US Pro cycling title ...   more »

Wouldn't it be cool if the Vuelta a Espana boiled down to a mano a mano contest between Carlos Sastre, winner of this year's Tour de France, and Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour winner who was unable to defend his title in 2008?

After winning in the Tour de France in 2007, Contador and others on Team Astana were disappointed to learn they had been uninvited to the Tour de France. The team channeled its anger into winning the three-week Giro d'Italia.

Now the Vuelta a Espana has released the rosters for this year's three week race, rolling out Aug. 30 through Sept. 21. Sastre's Team CSC and Contador's Astana team will both be racing ...   more »

If you're still interested in pro cycling, the 2007 Vuelta a Espana kicks off Saturday for a three-week tour of Spain.

The online bicycle racing network Cycling.tv is webcasting the race and offering a low-resolution webcast for free to those who don't know if they want to shell out 21 Euros for a better view.

Only three Americans are competing in the event, as it conflicts with the US Cycling Pro championships that run Saturday and Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina, and the Tour of Missouri (Sept. 11-16)....   more »

If you like to witness cyclists struggling on mountain stages, you'll need to check in early with the 2007 Vuelta a Espana.

Instead of opening with a week for the sprinters, the three-week-long Tour of Spain -- September 1-23 -- boasts a mountaintop finish on the difficult Lagos de Covadonga on the fourth day.

In all, the Vuelta route announced today boasts seven mountain stages, four mountaintop finishes, and two time trials as it spins for 2,009 miles clockwise ...   more »

Imagine this scene, cycling fans.