This Is The Best They've Got?

The Entire Peloton Goes Down: well, not exactly, as UCI makes good on its promise of mind-boggling celebrity drug busts by taking out one man, the king of all cyclists, um, Toni Colom? Needless to say, Katusha's already suspended him and Colom has (1) denied everything (2) demanded his B sample analysis and (3) worst of all, sicced his lawyers on the narcs. So we've spent what, eighty gazillion dollars, consumed thousands of needles, and issued 900 panting-hot press releases about the biological passport and *this* is the sum total of your accomplishments? Wow. Perhaps stung by the ho-hum response to this fearsome revelation, Pat "Dick" McQuaid and co. announced today that *next* week, they're really, really, really gonna surprise us with a bio-passport CSI thriller for the ages. Like what, you've now nailed some recreational cyclist for taking too much Sudafed to soothe her sniffles?

Just Say Yes: speaking of the UCI's terrible powers, the banned 'n' bitter Tour cheat Bernard Kohl continues to laud them with hosannas for providing a glorious roadmap to fail-safe doping levels, details his quite impressive out of competition drug intake, and snorts that there's no way the top ten at the Tour weren't doping right along with him and that twerp Ricco' last year, and it's a good thing he's not planning on ever coming back to the peloton, because while I imagine, say, Carlos Sastre couldn't take Kohl in a fist-fight, and we all know Cadel's incapable of attacking anyone, I bet that cagey little !@#$%$^ Denis Menchov could do him some pretty serious bodily damage. But wait! He didn't actually say this after all! He was misquoted entirely! Somehow, kid, I don't think that's gonna save you from either your all-star beatdown *or* the lawyers nipping at your heels. Hmmmmm....you can't bike anymore...I doubt other pro athletes would welcome you either...I suppose knitting always makes a nice harmless hobby, right?

Island of the Blue Dauphins: and my, our stolid Cadel is on fine form, taking 2nd in the time trial to Bert Grabsch, while Shameless St. Millar Defender's boy came in a handsome third. Valverde, of course, gacked up an entire 1 minute 31 seconds back at Cadel (which, for certain reasons, paradoxically makes him look better to me at least), and with Contador at 40-odd seconds back and the death march up Mt. Ventoux to come tomorrow, he could, if Cadel's notoriously tick-like wheelsucking ability should somehow fail him, easily make that up and then some. But since there's no way in hell Silence-Lotto can possibly support its star enough in July, and in harmony with my lifelong habit of backing losing causes, I'm rather hoping Cadel takes this one and perhaps even the whole Dauphine. Allez allez Cadel--you're gonna need it!

I Imply Nothing, Nothing!: because I am absolutely certain that Ivan Basso's radical change in time trial performance between, oh, 2006 and 2009 is 100% the result of (1) being out of competition so long and (2) total and complete coincidence. Oh, Ivan, I *do* like you better this way...just don't start getting *too* nostalgic for all those trophies press-slobbering enablers and podium babes, you hear?

Welcome to the Jungle: finally, it's a warm welcome back to the Tour de France for leather-skirted stud-machine Tom Boonen--if not by the French sports minister-- whose charming antics, cute little vials of nose candy, and wholly irrelevant enormous cash-cow potential have convinced the UCI and ASO that even so clean a race as the Tour won't be unduly besmirched if he participates. Alejandro Valverde, however, is not so lucky, as Christian Prudhomme says his !!@# is out, apparently not because the French just now found out about his scandalous involvement in some obscure "Operacion Puerto" thingy, but because the more foreigners ASO can keep out entirely, the greater the chance an actual French cyclist will get within lougie-hocking distance of a podium sometime before Bernard Hinault's great-great-great-grandchildren are unearthed in some far-off Planet of the Apes archeological dig. Don't give up quite yet, Alejandro--maybe you could offer to do a few extra loops up the Galibier to make up the kilometers everyone else'll be riding in Italy?