I Love EPO

So Put Another Vial in the Cooler, Baby: well, it's great news for the cyclists just ahead of the Grand Boucle, as a new study shows that athletes using EPO are highly unlikely to get caught, which raises the question what the hell Manolo Saiz was smoking when he (or his crack medical squad) was (allegedly!) doping up Roberto Heras, if any clown--much less someone with as much (alleged!) expertise as our mastermind--can pull it off without a drug bust. Sue his !@@ Roberto!

Old Friends: okay, doping bad, yap yap, anyone who does it has all the moral street cred of a serial killer and deserves to be banned for life, yap, anyone (and I name no names here) who won't shut the hell up about it afterwards should be smothered in barbecue sauce and thrown into a pit of starving rabid wolverines. But in light of the news that one's odds of sneaking a blood-booster past the narcs are somewhere north of "ginormous", am I the only one feeling a twinge of sympathy for our late lamented exile and monstrous cheating pig Jan Ullrich, for whom watching a slew of compatriots he knows damn well are still at this very moment no less stoked than he ever was triumph at the Tour must leave him wallowing in a particularly grim sludgepit of his own personal Hell? Sure, the sport's a cesspool, but please don't give up your love of the bike Jan--even poor Landis, who at least was spared your own quick-n-painless flameout in *his* endless miserable melodrama, still hits the road (and mountain) when he can!

Question o' the Day: okay, it's been indeed a quiet season so far, with only a couple of funny blood values detected, and lord knows some people's tearful messages as to the evils of doping have had plenty of press time to take effect, so perhaps it's true that, except for a few loathesome renegades, our beloved peloton is clean as a whistle now and for all time in the future. Back to reality. Any predictions on who, if anyone, or which team, if any, is likely to get nailed at the Tour this year?