This past weekend I had the opportunity to race in the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race. Unfortunately Lance Armstrong was not there but Levi Leipheimer was there and crushed the course recorded that Lance set last year.

It is an epic event!

Below is a picture of Levi getting his feed before heading up to Columbine.

Picture of Levi and I at the awards ceremony.

Dave Wiens and Travis Brown. Got to spend some time with Dave and Travis. Great guys!

“The race was very hard,” said the big Belgian after collecting his third win here, following triumphs in 2005 and 2008. Praising runner-up Filippo Pozzato (Katusha), he added: “This victory for me is the most beautiful because I beat Pozzato, who is a great champion.”

For more pictures and a blow by blow article of the race check out the article on VeloNews.

Photo Credit: Agence France Presse

This past week it  hit me how the internet has really changed the world. In the past, if something happen you would have to wait for the 6 pm news, the newspaper or for it to show up on the news wires on the internet. The actual person that was in the news did not have control of the speed at which the news was released.

Now with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook individuals have control of their own news and can instantly get news out to the world in seconds no longer relying on the media.

Case in point: Last week when Lance Armstrong crashed and broke his collarbone the race was on a live feed on the internet. As soon as the crashed happen, within seconds, Twitter lit up and Facebook updates were already coming in long before any major news source broke the story.

So lets take a look at how you can gain access on the internet to get up-to-date information on cycling or anything else you want to follow.

Social Networking

For team and individual cycling news www.Twitter.com is defiantly the fastest way to get up to the second news. Twitter has a cool function search www.search.twitter.com where you can search for specific people and follow them. Thanks to Blackberry and iPhone that many guys carry, they can easy jot down a 140 character message is less than a minute.

At the office or home check out www.tweetdeck.com. This program allows you to organize Twitter in neat columns and search for things to really keep you up-to-date.

Also check out www.Facebook.com.

Cycling Information

There some great site to gain access to cycling news. Some of the top ones are: www.cyclingnews.com, www.velownews.com and www.pezcyclingnews.com.

There also some great international sites out there that are not in English. What do you do if you stumble upon a site that is not in English. Check out www.translate.google.com to have a site translated in your language.

Video, Audio and Text

Now let’s talk about actually watching and hearing some racing. As most of you know you can pay for this service at www.cycling.tv. They offer some great coverage and commentary.

Free is alway good  so take a look at www.justin.tv as well as www.cyclingfans.com and www.steephill.tv.

Emerging platforms can create new opportunities to find and acquire new relationships. Twitter is a cool new breakthrough product of 2009 because of its unique ability to create a lightweight and fluid conversation in near real time around any topic.

Twitter  is like having a public email account that anyone can see.

Lance Armstrong  is up on the times and has a Twitter account to share with the world what he is doing and promote LIVESTRONG and the fight for cancer. You can now follow Lance on Twitter and keep up with his come back plus follow Levi Leipheimer and Geroge Hincapie. Even Barack Obama has a Twitter account.

My Twitter url is: www.twitter.com/tyler_ford

If you find other notable cyclists on Twitter comment on this post with their Twitter URL.

“I am here to fight this disease. I am here so I don’t have to deal with it, you don’t have to deal with it, none of us have to deal with it, my children don’t have to deal with it. Yet you said I am the cancer. And the cancer is out of remission. So it goes without saying, no, we aren’t going to sit down and do an interview.”

“You [pointing at Kimmage] are not worth the chair you’re sitting on.”

Below is the video clip of the dialog between Lance and the reporter Kimmage.

For more on what happen visit this link.