No Cadel Evans of Silence-Lotto, but the Giro d’Italia lineup is still stacked:

Two past Giro champs: Danilo DiLuca of LPR Brakes, Gilberto Simoni of S. Diquigiovanni-Androni G.

The Astana three: Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden

Past Vuelta champ: Denis Menchov…

What a cuppla days for the Astana cycling team.

Johan Bruyneel’s team is bound for the Giro d’Italia after the Giro organizer, RCS, reversed field and extended an invitation to the race.

And on Sunday, Andreas Kloden wrapped up the…

The organizers of the Giro d’Italia apparently have come to their senses and invited the best team in cycling — Astana — to the Giro, which starts next week.

Better late than never, I reckon.

The Associated Press reports that Astana’s…

Yep, the team barred from the Tour de France sits atop of the UCI world rankings as the top team in cycling.

So much for Tour director Christian Prudhomme’s pronouncement after naming the teams invited to the Tour de France: ”These are, I…

Astana’s Alberto Contador and Silence-Lotto’s Cadel Evans, the one-two finishes in last year’s Tour de France, went head-to-head last week in the Vuelta al País Vasco — aka Tour of Basque Country — in the Basque region of Spain.

But alas, because…