!@#% Armstrong !@#$%$#@ !@#$!

Cause and Effect: so poor Andreas Kloden is officially screwed *again* for an entire upcoming season and, of course, it's all Lance Armstrong's fault. Here's why. Schumi wins two time trials at the Tour de France, and gets busted for doping. Bernhard Kohl is third on the podium and king of the mountains at the Tour de France, and gets busted for doping. Therefore, the Tour of Germany announces it's shutting down for 2009. This means that Andreas Kloden, who rocks at the TdG, can't even ride it, much less be allowed to ride to win it by that ruthless tool Bruyneel. His upcoming season, ergo, is complete crap. It's complete crap because, having signed with Astana, Klodi was first forced to be Contador's minion for the 2007 Tour, kept out of it entirely in 2008 because of Contador's ex-Liberty Seguros teammate Vino's poz in 2007, then was forced to be Contador's !@#$% this year in the Vuelta. And next year, when he might've had half a chance of racing for himself, Contador--having kissed and made up with fickle suitor Bruyneel--is naturally taking the Tour, Levi and now Haimar Zubeldia (and don't even get me started on how screwed *he* is)'re gonna get the Vuelta, and while Klodi might otherwise at least have been given the Giro, that egomaniacal selfish sinkhole Lance Armstrong has now decided he's afraid of looking like a colossal wussbag if Contador crushes him in July, so he's prevailed upon Johan to hand him Italy instead, which leaves Kloden with no races of his own at all to ride and the rather dubious consolation prize of getting whacked upside the head with a 2 x 4 by his team leader every time he gets in the saddle and made to skulk off back to the team car every ten seconds to be a subservient underutilized errand-running waterboy. !@#$#$% Armstrong you !@##$!

I Think I'm Turning Japanese/I Really Think So: yes, to the delight--and total hypocrite unadulterated forgiveness from the same folks jabbing pitchforks and blazing torches at fellow cheat-skank countryman Riccardo Ricco', I might add, though I assume the difference is the simple fact that our dreamboat only *tried* to dope--of swooning Italian tifosi of every persuasion (save a few tiresome zero-tolerance purists who'd better stay under the radar if they don't want the !@## beaten out of 'em by his rabid defenders), Ivan Basso is back for the Japan Cup, wheeling suavely into his press conference in full Liquigas kit and ready to start from "kilometer one" to earn his place in the peloton and the faith of his fans anew, though considering rumored plans to erect a humungous golden temple to Basso in his hometown with an eternal flame tended by fifty vestal virgins, I rather imagine that even if he should hook up to an IV right in front of Pat "Dick" McQuaid, their faith is unlikely to be shaken so long as he just keep batting those lovely eyelashes of his. And, lest anyone doubt he's been reborn, his largely-dormant web page assures us it's gonna debut its all-new season in a mere 5 days 1 hour 50 minutes and 28 seconds, though if you click on the tiny print for his blog next to his wee-but-still-pouty photo, you can already get pics of him posing with his spankin' new bicycle. You're exceedingly thrilling to watch, Ivan, but even that unbearably wanky Simoni was right-on calling you an "extraterrestri"--we'll see how you do now that you've been brought so rudely back to earth!

The Densest !@#damn Thing I've Ever Heard Of: no, not everything UCI and WADA have ever done, though that comes close, but this one's for the crybabies over at German TV, apparently dead set on depriving an entire nation of cycling heavyweights of the Tour de France, all because Bernard Kohl and Stefan Schumacher have brought the entire sport into disrepute with the only two doping positives this sport has seen since the invention of television. Leaving aside the fact that Kohl's actually freakin' Austrian, you guys kept the klieg lights on for the entirety of T-Mobile's dirty doping existence and you're seriously gonna say with straight faces that *that* boy is your moral dealbreaker? What the hell have you guys been taking the last 10 years? Don't tell me you've been partying with Jan Ullrich again...

Chat Stuey: finally, a big shout-out to the Aussie contingent for their boy O'Grady's smashing win at the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, capping off a self-sacrificing season with a little well-deserved glory of his own and not only warmly complimenting every past and future Australian rider in cycling history (and there's a lot to fawn over, to be sure) but, even better, declaring himself ready to take the fearsome Hell of the North once again next year. Finally feeling all better, are we?--
Go get 'em Stuey--let them eat pave'!