Briefs

• Euskaltel will send pretty much all their big stars to the Tour of Beijing, reports Cyclingnews. The race, which kicks off at October 5, will see nine orange-clad riders in action, and it's not just any nine: Samuel Sánchez, Mikel Astarloza, Mikel Nieve, Amets Txurruka, Igor Antón, Jon Izagirre, Álan Pérez, Pierre Cazaux and Romain Sicard. Landa and Aramendía are listed as reserves. The five-day event is the penultimate WorldTour-ranked race of the year, and so securing points towards that ranking is of utmost importance. I assume that's the reason they'll be sending such a powerful team.
• Víctor Cabedo was today forced to abandon the Tour de l'Avenir on the race's penultimate stage. The Orbea rider has been struggling all race, and I can only expect it's because of a virus or something like that. More news on Cabedo's DNF will be posted here in the coming days.
• For those of you who missed out on the Challenge Sprint Pro in Québec on Thursday night, the first of its kind, Romain Sicard went out at the earliest possible stage of the competition. Not unexpectedly, former track ace Michael Mörköv took the spoils.
• Naturgas will line-up at the Clásica de Bermeo on Sunday hoping to repeat last year's victory in the team rankings. Roster: Barbero (who crashed badly a the recently-concluded Vuelta a Salamanca), Baudron, Carazo, Chetout, García (who also crashed out of Salamanca), González, Grijalba, Guinea, Larrinaga, Legarra, Merino and Ocampos.