We are fast bearing down on the 2007 Tour of Germany which begins on Saturday, 10 August and running until Sunday, 18th, and all the times have now been finalised for the race with 4 UCI Pro Continental teams chosen as wildcards and issued starting licences to join the 19 Pro Tour teams (Astana are taking a break). The 4 wildcard entrants are Team Elkhaus Simplon, Team Volksbank, Team Wiesenhof Felt and SKIL-Shimano.
In accepting the starting licences, Team managements had to give written agreement of the UCI ethics code which determines that pro cyclists being proved of doping, will be inhibited of joining a UCI ProTeam for four years.
Among the various features of the Tour we see the second stage Team Time Trial in Bretten and the 5th Stage which culminates in the mountain finish atop Rettenbachferner.
Meanwhile, the 22nd team to be invited to this year's Vuelta a España is the UCI Pro Continental team Relax-GAM. It will be interesting to see the team that ends up being named for the Vuelta given the proviso that Unipublic has made that no cyclist linked to a doping affair be allowed to participate...and all of the top Relax riders who have, in one way or another, been linked to doping controversy.
On to team changes and contract extensions and Julian Dean, the champion of 
New Zealand is leaving Credit Agricole at the end of the season for the bright appeal of Team Slipstream to join the previously announced Zabriskie, Vandevelde and Millar.
T-Mobile are looking forward to their home tour and have announced their spearhead at the Tour of Germany will be Linus Gerdemann freshened up after his successful debut in the Tour De France. Like every other team with GC aspirations they are looking towards the climb up Rettenbachferner glacier as the make or break moment in the race and has named Giuseppe Guerini as Gerdemann's main helper.
Equal time to "home tour" aspirants must be given and Gerolsteiner have named their team, nominating Davide Rebellin and Bernhard Kohl as their two main men. They will also be looking toward sprinter Robert Förster to pick up a stage win.
In what has been a rich vein of form for Saunier Duval riders just lately, David Millar won the British National Road Race Championships beating out David Lloyd with whom he rode in an escape that lasted for 80km. Millar was thrilled with the victory saying "This win is massive for me. It means a huge amount". Well done, old son.
Upcoming races to watch out for include the Paris-Correze (2.1) over the 8th and 9th August, the GP Città di Camaiore (1.1) in Italy on Thursday 9th and on the weekend the Giro del Lazio (1.HC) in Italy on Saturday will be followed on Sunday by the Memorial Henryka Lasaka (1.1) in Poland and the Trofeo Matteotti (1.1), again in Italy.
