By IlGruppo.cc

Team NetApp’s Steven Cozza has been forced out of his home race, the Amgen Tour of California, due to illness. The California native was recently diagnosed with an intestinal infection and will have to skip the team’s first race outside of Europe.

“That news came as a shock for Steven,” said team manager, Ralph Denk.

“The fact that he won’t be able to ride at a race in his own country of all places is very regrettable for all of us.”

Despite Cozza’s absence, the German outfit will still field a strong team for North America’s premier road race and is headed to California with a very specific list of objectives.

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Discrete Sport LLC has added four snowboarders to its athlete roster. Ralph Backstrom of Lake Tahoe and Matt Annetts of Jackson Hole are both big mountain snowboarding specialists with proven skills in competition and film projects.

“I’m super pumped to be a part of Discrete,” Backstrom said in a press release. “I look forward to future projects with them, they are doing it right.”

The other athletes are Sam Taxwood and Griffin Siebert, both based in Park City.

Backstrom has proven himself on the big mountain circuit, racking up wins and top three finishes on the Masters Tour and New Zealand Heli Challenge.

Discrete TV was introduced in November 2010 to provide a platform for Discrete’s athletes, artists, and employees a fun place to create content.

Discrete Headwear began business operations in 2008 and is a collaboration of athletes, designers, musicians, artists, and photographers.

By Blair Anthony Robertson, Sacramento Bee

Jim Felt’s career as a design guru and geek who owns an international bicycle manufacturing company may have begun with a run he never finished, a lunch he didn’t hold down and the best $100 he ever lost.

In the mid-70s and still in his 20s, Felt was a hotshot motorcycle mechanic, designer and former racer who spent more time partying than taking care of himself. One day, a friend who was into physical fitness bet Felt $100 he couldn’t run a mile.

“I was cocky and I told him, ‘I’ll take your money any day,’ ” Felt recalled recently, shaking his head and laughing. “I started to run with him and I don’t think I made it half a mile. I bonked. I was throwing up. I was schooled.

“It hit me so hard that I decided then and there I was going to learn how to run.”

He started with short runs, gasping and coughing along the way. But he got better, the outings longer. Eventually, he started riding a road bike so he could get involved in a new sport called triathlon. By then, the 5-foot-9 Felt had gone from 190 pounds to 145.

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By Richard Pestes, PezCycling News

There’s almost never a bad time to see a bike race, and with the Tour of California now running in May, it’s an even better time to actually ride your bike there too. Former pros Chris Huber and Greg Oravetz will guide a select group of guests through the opening stages in the scenic Lake Tahoe area.

Based out of Lake Tahoe, RoadBiking California is a new tour company started by former U.S. pro’s Chris Huber and Greg Oravetz – you’ll likely recall them both from their days as Coors Light Silver Bullet riders in the late 80s and 90s.

Being in the cycling tour business takes a special breed of person – you gotta love riding your bike, and guests rely on you to make sure all the details are covered. But that something extra is what sets any business venture apart – and in this case the fact that the owners and guides are both ex-pros who have lived and ridden in these parts for years is what makes them unique.

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Weekend poll results from the Sacramento Bee.

Where will you watch the Amgen Tour of California?

• Lake Tahoe area: 8 percent

• As it heads toward Sacramento: 18 percent

• Auburn: 6 percent

• TV coverage on VS: 14 percent

• Not interested: 54 percent

Total votes: 181

– Joe Davidson, Sacramento Bee

North Tahoe Public Utility District has expanded hours at the North Tahoe Regional Park from 7am-7:30pm.

Beginning June 1, the park hours will close at 9pm.

To maintain the park, stay off turf areas until they have dried.

Construction will start again at the new playground in the park once the area has dried out enough for work to commence.

The boat launch at Tahoe Vista Recreation Area will open on May 23. The launch will be open from 7am-7pm. The restrooms will be open by May 15.

Coon Street Boat Launch will open for the season May 26 from 9am-5pm Thursday through Monday; closed Tuesday and Wednesday. The restrooms will be open by May 15.

Both launches will be staffed in compliance with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s Blue Boating and Aquatic Invasive Species Inspections and all boats being launched must have the proper documentation prior to launching. When no staff is present, the launches will be closed and locked.

Updated: May 8 at 9:24am: It’s sunny now in South Lake Tahoe.

For those who have forgotten what falling snow looks like can just look outside their windows in South Lake Tahoe.

A deep area of low pressure is sitting over the Lake Tahoe Basin. It will be here through Monday.

Good thing flowers in Tahoe are resilient. Photo/LTN

The National Weather Service in Reno has some revealing figures about area temperatures:

High temps                  May 6                      May 8              May 9

South Lake Tahoe                  69                                46                       42

Truckee                                    68                                48                       42

Reno                                         81                                60                       53

Carson City                             75                                57                       50.

Snow is possible into Monday, with the sun coming out Tuesday – just in time for Caltrans to close Echo Summit on Wednesday.

The long-term forecast is that it will be raining in the basin while the cyclists on May 15 pedal around the lake 1.5 times in the Tour de California.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

As a part of the 10-day countdown to Amgen, Barton Health physical therapist, certified strength and conditioning specialist and professional bike fitter Jason Collin will join Lake Tahoe Community College’s certified strength and conditioning specialist Walter Morris to present Pedaling to Peak Performance.

The event is May 12 from 6-8pm at Embassy Suites.

Jason Collin

Collin will address reducing or eliminating back, neck and knee pain while riding.

This is one of Barton’s 2011 wellness lectures.

By Susan Voyles, Reno Gazette-Journal

Stone Mother, a well-known tufa rock formation at Pyramid Lake, created the lake with her tears, according to ancient Paiute legends.

Now she’s weeping again. Graffiti vandals have left their marks in spray paint on nearby tufa rocks. Broken glass from past drinking parties sparkles in the sunlight.

Sick of the desecration, the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribal Council has closed to the general public the area near Stone Mother and the nearby Pyramid Rock island to motorists as well as boaters on the east side of the lake.

It was not an easy decision, as the tribe depends on permits from more than 150,000 visitors a year who come to the reservation, said Scott Carey, tribal planner. The namesake Pyramid Rock, as well as Stone Mother, also known as the Woman with a Basket, are popular attractions.

The ban on visitors will be enforced while Paiutes find solutions to prevent additional vandalism and promote responsible use of the sacred area, Paiute Chairman Wayne Burke has said.

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Wildfires, destructive insects and disease destroy millions of acres of U.S. national forests each year, but there’s a way consumers can help.

Bayer Advanced, one of the leading consumer lawn and garden brands in the United States, is working with the Arbor Day Foundation for the sixth consecutive year to help restore our national forests and demonstrate Bayer’s commitment to sustainability.

Bayer Advanced will donate one tree for each 32-ounce bottle or 1–gallon bottle peope buy of Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub Protect & Feed Concentrate. (Limit: 50,000 trees through May 31.)

The U.S. Forest Service has identified more than a million acres of devastated forests that are in need of replanting due to wildfires, destructive insects and disease.

This spring, more trees are being planted as a result of this program, bringing the total to 580,000 trees planted in seven national forests in four states:

Tahoe National Forest (Nevada City)

Inyo National Forest (Bishop)

Lassen National Forest (Susanville)

Sequoia National Forest (Porterville)

Bankhead National Forest (Double Springs, Ala.)

Huron–Manistee National Forest (Cadillac, Mich.)

Flathead National Forest (Kalispell, Mont.).