Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies/

Tell Me Lies: so Johan "How Can I Hose Andreas Kloden? Let Me Count the Ways" Bruyneel has weighed in on the season ahead, and in addition to the revelation that Contador's lame victories at all 3 Grand Tours haven't been enough to keep his hand off the snooze button, our Machiavellian genius has actually had the astonishing chutzpah to suggest with a straight face that whatever Lance's plans may be and with buckets o' podium contenders to pick from, Johan personally is gonna back the strongest rider in any race to the fullest. Um, tell me again how you're gonna get Lance The Golden Celebrity-Snogging Media-Suckin' Hero to domestique for, say, Levi Leipheimer, even if the our humble time-trialling genius is clearly podium-bound as usual? Yeah, didn't think so--and isn't building up an all-star team of subservient !@#$$%es the reason you just hired Popovych? Aiiiggggghhh!--why, Klodi and Levi, why didn't you head for the hills when you had your chance?!

Glorified G: speaking of Grand Tours, none other than we love Gilberto "Basso Non E' Uomo" Simoni is already pondering next year's Giro d'Italia, expressing delight at the formidable Rebellin's addition to Team Diquigiovanni, healthy concern at but also the desire for the Italians to humiliate Armstrong on his return, and a contemptuous shrug at the prospects of "man for the Classics" (and he's damn right, at that) Cunego. As for old friend St. Ivan of Varese, whose last rendezvous together, if I recall correctly, consisted of Simoni accusing Basso of being a doping honorless stage-buying cheat-pimp and Basso flexing his shirtless self in the pages of Gazzetta dello Sport in riposte? He does "not even consider him," which, with all due respect to the peerless Gibo, he's probably gonna have to when our dreamy-eyed princeling (1) comes pretty close to slaughtering damn near everyone in the overall and (2) is irksomely rewarded with a blitzkrieg of tossed roses and panties from squealing fans and swooning journalists alike everytime he hocks a lougie while poor Simoni is left woefully unappreciated on the sidelines. Chin up, Simoni--you were still right to call bull!@#$ on him in '06, and you *know* who won that mountain time trial last year whether that dissembling dirtbag Sella apologizes or not!

Spin City: meantime, over in la-la land, Riccardo Ricco', according to his dad, is training hard for his imminent return to racing, sticking to a strict diet in anticipation of his next stint in jail and, for those who may be taking a little trip to Italy anytime soon and looking for a nice gym while on the road, continuing to teach spinning classes (10 euros extra for a confidential tip session and small plain-brown-wrappered package on "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Winning a Tour de France Stage But Were Afraid to Ingest.") Oh, poor little Ricco'--take some lessons on pouting those lips and sobbing those eyes out for the cameras from the big boys, and *then* we'll talk about your prospects for 2010!

Woo-hoo, Samu!: and miraculously, our beautiful dope-smacked September-race-o'-perpetually-dissed-perfection is finally gonna get its due this year, as Samuel "Holy Crap He's the Olympic Gold Medalist!" Sanchez is, despite some heartbreaking reluctance and his smashing 6th-place finish at the Tour, making his primary goal this year the maglia d'oro at the Vuelta. Only wrench in the works: Pat "Dick" McQuaid's whining threat to extend blood-doping skankmaster Alexander Vinokourouv's ban to two years after Vino reneged on his promise to retire and the Kazakh sport minister cheerfully promised to have him back on Astana just in time to lead the squad into comical ego-driven implosion at the Grand Boucle, notwithstanding Vino's latest protestations of obvious innocence, which, of course, will bring our resident erratic mobile psycho back to the peloton just in time to jack over the Vuelta. But oh, Samu--he's got lucrative options elsewhere, he's got a clear shot at the podium at the Tour, he *still* sticks with our beloved brave broke-!@# Euskaltel-Euskadi--what's *not* to love about this man? Aupa Sanchez!

Legal Shout-Out o' the Week: finally, having sadly accepted years back that even Ivan Basso's smashing lawyer Massimo Martelli has his limits working with damaged goods, I've now got a new ween-crush on Jan Ullrich's legal team, who, having watched their client endure a loooooooong lecture from the local judge on the evils and exact definition of perjury, somehow managed to coach the boy both to a 500,000 euro win in his breach-of-contract suit with Team Coast and keep the boy out of the big house, as Jan quite precisely testified that he never took then-banned performance-enhancing substances during the moments he was riding on his bicycle with Coast at the start of 2003. Well, that's the sort of beautiful barn-burning weaselry to make a lovelorn litigator's heart thump! Just do yourself a colossal favor though, Jan, and avoid ever having to testify under oath about your untainted spree at T-Mobile--hot pink you may wear handsomely, but prison stripes, perhaps not so much!