Love Stinks! (Yeah, Yeah)

Smile Like You Mean It: as Levi Leipheimer valiantly continues his quiet effort to humiliate ASO into allowing Astana into the Tour de France by kicking as much @#$ as humanly possible in the Tour of California time trial and overall, baby savant/defending (stolen from Rasmussen) champ Alberto Contador has grimly taken to the airwaves in a decidedly more defeatist fashion, candidly admitting that signing with Astana was "a mistake," but since he's got a contract he can't get out of even though he wants to, he's not gonna be able to bail to another team to ride the Tour no matter how much it upsets his fans. A spurned Johan Bruyneel, of course, confirmed his deathgrip on his now-reluctant young paramour, cheerfully noting Contador's unassailable two-year contract but promising that, while he won't tolerate the boy sneaking off into the bushes with some other squad for the Grand Boucle, he'll make "every effort" to see he gets to ride it with Astana. Hell, between ASO's love for Johan, and their equally likely appreciation of UCI's recent threats to sue on Contador's behalf, I'm confident they'll let 'em in, aren't you?

Remain Calm! All is Well!: and, I see the expected mob of cyclists eager to accept the Spanish courts' generous offer to let 'em compare their DNA to that in Fuentes' formidable stash of blood bags to prove their innocence in the Op Puerto affair has shockingly failed to materialize, leaving the poor phlebotomists to twiddle their thumbs as the implicated boys and their agents, I imagine, scramble to write up some yip-yapping b.s. press release about outrageous violations of human rights and insults to riderly dignity in a desperate effort to divert ASO and the other Grand Tour gatekeepers' attention from the actual point so they can continue to ride in blissful security. Hey, it worked for Andrei Kashechkin, right? Oh, wait....

Prison Break: and, the rewards continue to mount for repentant cyclists who courageously admit their wrongdoing in an effort to selflessly clean up the sport, at least if you're David Millar or Ivan Basso, as confessed T-Mobile doping poz Patrik Sinkewitz, already thwapped with a one-year ban for his noble honesty, now faces the friendly offer of a year in prison if he doesn't cough up the names of all his teammates who similarly spent a relaxing evening under the care of the tender loving care of the T-Mobile team docs during a rather recent Tour de France. Um, not to excuse Sinkewitz' egregious wrongdoing and all, but out of the entire freakin' peloton, is he *really* the only one the authorities can think of who should communing with the rats in some dank dungeon at this point?

Robbie McEwen is A Wuss: finally, a cycling smackdown for your viewing pleasure that outweighs even our head-butting Pocket Rocket in sheer gore 'n' guts violence: