Below are the top cycling news stories in Colorado based on web traffic, your emails and my own personal opinion.

• Boulder Velodrome Opens. For those who have been around Boulder for awhile you will know how many times this has been attempted, South Boulder, Valmont Park, Lyons, Erie, Broomfield, etc all attempts to get a Velodrome so many were, "We will believe it when we see it". Well it came! Hundreds have attended classes, sessions and parties at the Velodrome... they even held a pretty cool Cyclocross race there this fall. Look for interesting developments ahead in 2010 with the velodrome like their upcoming Boulder Madison Square Garden event in Jan(limited details out).
  
  
  
• Lyon's Bike Park Opens, Valmont Bike Park get started. Valmont Bike Park has been a work-in-progress for many years with the help of few like Bobby Knoyes and Mike Eubank this park has really made this dream of having a world class Bike Park a reality, really a first of its kind. Then early this summer with the speed of a Colorado flash flood the Lyon's Bike Park pops up and host the Teva games there. Now communities around the nation are getting Bike Parks.
• Lance and Ritter talk about future big race. This item received the most emails as big news for 2009 which I agree is big but if these talks are true then this will be HUGE in 2010 so stay tuned!.
  
  
  Gov. Ritter signs in
  Colorado Safety Bill
  (photo bicycleColorado)
• Bicycle Safety Bill Passes. Love it or hate it, the new bicycle safety bill came into law and has sparked a tension point with motorist and some question whether it has made cyclist safer.
• Lefthand canyon residents and motorist battle with Sunrise century
• ACA changes race schedules, some love it, some hate it.
• Walker Finch of Fort Collins wins #1 rank in expert ABA BMX for 12yr
• Trees vs. Bikes on 30th street
• Cyclist killed on Hwy 36
• UCI level racing returns to Colorado with 2 days of cross racing at the Boulder Cup and Blue Sky Velo Cup
• Colorado does well at Cyclocross Nationals
• Return of the Rocky Mountain Bike Show
• Best Bike Video 2009 best non-colorado video Performance
• Third time is a charm for the Koppenberg
• Lyons to Boulder Trail shoot down
• 2009 Master Track Nationals at 7-11 Velodrome
• Lance wins Leadville 100
• Most Bizarre Story, L'alpe D Flag
  
  
  
  Single Speed World Championships came to Colorado
• Rider Assist Problem at Copper
• Sheriff Alderdern at it again

It was hard to wait until Friday but the recent release of Team Radio Shack's race kits are getting a lot of bad press. Joe Lindsey recently ran a humorous story listing Team Radio Shack's jersey up with other great bad team kits... now Lance needs to get a Mullet like Brochard did. Local teams have had some pretty bad kits, my favorite is a local team that has a white and grey kit that under some circumstances is very sheer in the bib... not hot. Also the seasame street jersey... really, who buys those? And my favorite was my 1995 University of Missouri jersey we wore at MTB Nats, a sister of the team made them by hand in the car on the way to Colorado, but we weren't the worst, some school in NM had T-shirts that were hand painted, probably intoxicated too. What past team jerseys have you seen are just plain bad?

Now that the season is over and you're not training you can spend hours pouring over the internet on sites like 303cycling or my latest time suck crossresults.com

I stopped by the race this morning around 10:15am and it was cold! My car thermometer was reading 14 degrees. Ouch! The Mens 35+ Open race was happening and the 35+ 4s were warming up. The music was going and the atmosphere was great. The course looked great wandering in and around the Gateway Fun park. A portion of the course was on the go-cart track! Hopefully next year this race is earlier in the season. The location alone will draw large crowds.