Following up on Thursday's post about US cyclists picked for 2007 Tour de France team rosters, Team CSC has chosen David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde.

Pending further changes, six US cyclists will race in the 2007 Tour de France.

Team CSC did not pick Bobby Julich for this year's Tour; T-Mobile chose neither Aaron Olson or Canadian Michael Barry.

Zabriskie is the US time trial champion and finished 5th overall in the week-long Dauphine Libere earlier this month, surviving the many climbs of that bike race. A teammate, Fabian Cancellara, is the world time trial champ. ...   more »

OK. There's no Lance and no Landis, but we still have Levi for this year's Tour de France bicycle race.

Even so, broadcast media watcher MediaDailyNews says the Versus cable network is in for a "rough ride" with this year's Tour de France broadcast ratings, what with no clear American favorite and the doping scandals that are ripping apart cycling.

Versus has scheduled 17 hours of daily Tour de France coverage from the July 7th prologue in London to the July 29th finish in Paris. The usual suspects will be behind the microphones: Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen are returning as the main commentators, and Bob "Tour Day France" Roll and Al Trautwig will host the extended prime-time replay. ...   more »

Pro cycling teams are announcing their rosters for the 2007 Tour de France as the race starts in London in a little more than a week.

The US-based Discovery Channel pro cycling team is sending a squad led by California's Levi Leipheimer, winner of the Tour of California in February. He'll be joined by US road champion George Hincapie.

The rest of Discovery's international cast is comprised of Alberto Contador, Vladimir Gusev, Egoi Martinez, Benjamin Noval, Sergio Paulinho, Yaroslav Popovych and Tomas Vaitkus...   more »

Last week's Dauphiné Libéré, which ended Sunday, is considered a warm-up for the Tour de France.

But the winner of that French bicycling race, Christophe Moreau, isn't the cyclist coming out of the stage race who is being touted as a top contender for the Tour, which runs July 7-29.

It's Alexander Vinokourov, above, the captain of the Kazakhstan-based Astana team. In spite of his 20th-place finish overall, Vinokourov won two stages (a time trial and the mountainous final stage), and wore the leader's jersey for one stage. ...   more »

This is good news. Once again, the Versus cable network is offering nearly around-the-clock TV coverage of the 2007 Tour de France, which runs July 7-29.

The sports network (still OLN in Canada) is broadcasting an average 17 hours a day of Tour coverage, generally starting at 8:30 a.m. (ET) with replays throughout the day and early morning hours.

Cycling fans without access to cable TV will have options on the Internet, such as the live text tickers at CyclingNews and VeloNews, audio play-by-play at Eurosport, and the virtual "tete de la course" updates on maps and stage profiles at the official Tour de France website. ...   more »