Questions from Newbies; and, The Heat Is On, Baby!

Today, I take a moment to address a few burning questions posed to me this morning by a dear TdF newbie, intrigued, but befoozled by, a sport not involving three strikes, peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Reasonable people may certainly disagree, but then, I'm not one of 'em anyway. So here we go:

Q. What the hell is all this I keep hearing about problems on Armstrong's team?
A. Here’s the scoop. The opening day was a time trial and Alberto Contador beat his teammate Lance Armstrong, which made it look like Armstrong might ultimately have to concede team leadership over to Contador. Monday should have been a routine sprint, but it was very windy, which split the peloton into two groups. 20-odd riders, including Lance but not including Contador or GC contenders the Schleck brothers, Cadel Evans (2nd last year), or Denis Menchov (winner of this year’s Giro and 2 Vuelta a Espanas) made the front of the split. The controversy: Astana, Lance and Alberto’s team, should’ve just chosen a damn team leader before the start of the race and backed him 100%. Instead, Lance and Alberto are infighting for team leadership, and the whole team is in disarray as a result with some domestiques backing Contador and others Lance. So when Lance made the split, Johan Bruyneel, the team manager in charge of picking the team leader, told two other Astana riders who also made the split to pick up the pace for Lance, therefore hurting Alberto who was in the second group, so that Lance ultimately gained about 40 seconds on Contador (though in the overall Contador is only 19 seconds back, which he can probably pick up in the mountains in the third week). The upshot: Armstrong was smug, Contador (who should have quit this team the second Lance announced his comeback) is ticked, and the whole team is a demoralized angry trainwreck. Fun!

Q. Why do the French hate Lance so much? Who would the French like to see win instead?
A. The French press hates Lance’s guts because they all think he’s a doper; of course, so are their own riders, but that's perfectly fine with them. The fans are a little nicer to Lance since he learned to speak French the last couple years. Mostly though they all just hate him because the French riders have, for several years running, pretty well sucked. Can you say "displacement," boys and girls? They are looking to French riders like Sylvain Chavanel and Christophe Moreau for stage wins and a decent finish overall. Barring that, they will probably root for Contador—he’s very handsome and has a really flashy style in the mountains—tres chic!

Q. What is this "domestique" thing? Do they *do* anything?
A. Domestiques are the “worker bee” riders on a team whose job is to support the team leader. For example, on a flat stage, they will surround the team leader like a cocoon to keep him from being jostled by other riders so he won’t crash, and will keep him towards the front of the peloton, as most crashes happen in the middle of the group where it’s most crowded; in the mountains, they will go to the front of the race to set a very fast pace to try to exhaust and distance the team leader’s rivals, and will also ride right in front of the team leader, taking the brunt of the wind resistance for him, so the leader can ride in their slipstream and conserve his own energy so he is strong enough to attack later. If the team leader crashes, and the team support car is too far away to bring him a new bike right away, they’ll even give the team leader their own bike so he doesn’t lose time waiting. If you're really low on the totem pole, or if later in this year's race, you're, oh, say, Alberto Contador, you have to schlep back to the team car to get water bottles for everyone, which you shove down your shirt like a spandex-covered camel. Your only consolation: covered in your sweat and skank from hours of riding, that's what your boss gets to drink from. Sweet!

Q. So who is going to win the Tour? Who do you want to win?
A. If I were betting, I would bet on Alberto Contador—-he is absolutely the best Grand Tour racer in the world right now, and he is not only a great climber with amazing acceleration, but he has learned to time trial, which you need to be able to do to win. He is still very young and needs some better tactical sense but he is learning. He deserves to win but if Armstrong bushwhacks him the rest of the race he may not. However, I would like to see Carlos Sastre, the defending Tour de France champ, win again. He likely won’t though-—he is a “pure climber”, and the best he can do in the time trials is try to limit his losses. He also has worked quite humbly for other guys his whole career, like Ivan Basso who got busted for doping, without any complaint despite his own capabilities and deserving leadership before that himself, so, in keeping with my neverending backing of losing causes, I am dreaming of a karmic victory here. Allez allez little Carlos!

The Hosed and the Beautiful: meantime, as the Astana boys and team management trade barbs, backtracks, and damage control, the team time trial today made certain things clear: namely, Cadel Evans is unequivocally jacked. I mean, when a pack of mountaineer munchkins like Euskaltel-Euskadi kick your squad's !@# in the time trial, you *know* you might as well go home. Poor baby--was anyone else just heartbroken watching Cadel drive his own team to the line? Nor do things look much better for Denis Menchov, or even the aforementioned we love Carlos Sastre for that matter. Not to worry folks--at least my boy can actually attack in the mountains!

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