Good news for Chris Horner and his team. Airgas-Safeway gets late invitation to Tour of Qinghai Lake, a 14-day UCI 2.HC race in China. This competition is scheduled for July 5-18. This team, managed by Chris Johnson, were disappointed after missing Tour of California wild card.

"We received a very late invitation to the race", Johnson explained according to Cyclingnews. "We had reached out to them for some time now, but like the other races I think they wanted to see the depth of our team."

In August, Airgas Safeway has a great program for this summer with a pair of 2.HC races: Colorado's USA Pro Challenge and the Larry H. Miller Tour of Urah. The past two years, Chris Horner finished second to Tom Danielson in Utah.

"I hope that getting invited to a 2.HC race in Asia will help our chances of getting invited to a similar race or races here in the United States", he said. ìFor us to be able to do a race of that level shows that the races in other countries are really recognizing our ability and depth as a team."