The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

...That, and the Terrifying French Cycling Hooligans: so as Lance gets all aero again for some serious reckoning with his bike positioning, he's still a' wafflin' on riding the 2009 Tour de France he so forcefully proclaimed his intent to win just a few short weeks ago, and the reason he's citing is, surprisingly enough, not the serious possibility that Contador's gonna whup his !@# next July, but cold-blooded fear of the French cycling authorities, media, and above all, fans. Why? Well, you're not "protected" at all as a cyclist (and to be fair, it *is* pretty mindboggling that you can shove a rider struggling for GC contention up a climb by his rear end without getting much more'n an irritated brush-off, as opposed to, say, getting summarily sacked and bludgeoned by a truckload of bodygoons as you would if you tried to pull that !@@# at an NBA game), "so if they hate you and you're on the roads and they want you, they can get you." Oddly enough, he then went on to insult the very folks he's so afraid of, deriding the French cycling mentality that believes not showing pain or emotion is wrong and "panache" is some show-pony drama queen who's "swinging all over his bike and looks like he's about to fall off" when, as he helpfully points out to Those-Who-Are-Already-Mortified-They-Haven't-Won-Their-Own-Grand-Tour-Since-Like-1918, he's "never found that to be an effective way to try to win." Well, that oughta bring out the love there, Lance! Leaving that aside, let's review the actual threat here from the French fans--what, they're gonna try to whine and moan you to death when you go by as they bang back pate' and champagne in their roadside beach chairs waiting in humiliation for their bonking hometown faves to drag up the slopes of Mont Ventoux? Quelle horreur!

Mea Culpa--Not!: and, I see that after (as bill hue so kindly posted) Lance Armstrong dismissed Linus Gerdemann as a buzzing-gnat-nobody-of-no-wins compared to the legendary greats of his own era when the boy expressed some disappointment at riders of a certain all-doping vintage returning to the peloton this year, Linus bounced back from this "oh, snap!" reminder of his own inferiority by strong-arming cyclingnews into "clarifying" his position: he doesn't think Miguel Indurain Sean Kelly and those guys were cheating super-human drug-stoked cyborgs, he just thinks *Lance* was. Feeling better now, Lance--or are ya just gonna hire a posse of legal thugs to thwap a lawsuit on his !@#?

Faster Than a Speeding Boonen: meantime, it's a sigh of relief for Tom Boonen, as--just days after some hair testing revealed the unstartling news that he was snarfing coke on quite a frequent basis before his little pre-Tour dustup, to the reassuring shrugs of Patrick "As Long As You Don't Get Busted for EPO, You Can Snort the Entire Nation of Columbia up Your Nose for All I Care" Lefevere--his own vehicle was in a near-miss with another car on the way to the airport and, fortunately, our boy was uninjured. Y'know, between this and your penchant for racking up speeding tickets on your Lamborghini collection, you really oughta be more careful on the roads, Tom--forget what could happen to your sprinting legs, look what happened to poor Luke Skywalker's career after he busted up *his* pretty face in a car crash!

Let's !@#$%-Slap the Vuelta for Christmas: finally, yet another fine rider has decided to ditch the Vuelta this year in favor of using the Giro to prep for the Tour, and yes, it's we love defending Tour Champ wee little Carlos Sastre, though at least, however suckmaster, this does make sense. Goddammit, can't *anyone* ever ride the thing without implying they'd rather get an anvil dropped on their heads from eight stories up than have to endure adoration fame and glory from winning one of the most challenging and beautiful races on earth? Aiiiggghhhh!