The Dark Knight

King, Whatever: so I see Lance Armstrong's sucked yet another team-leader-in-his-own-right into the hellish pitch-black vortex that is Team RadioSkank: yep, as if losing Levi to it weren't enough, now he's signed the eternally-doomed we-love-so-shut-the-hell-up-he-didn't-take-anything-everyone-else-didn't-take-twice-as-much-of Andreas Kloden. Aaaaaiiiiggggggghhhhh--oh Klodi! Fine, you'll always have Romandie, but yet another Tour being some ungrateful wanker's water-!@#$% instead of climbing the podium in Paris...dammit, how much more of this can we be expected to take?

All Hands On Dek: meantime, Rabobank/Silence-Lotto Dutch hope-o'-the-future Thomas "I Should've Waited Til I Could Afford a Doctor Who Knew How to Microdose" Dekker, who strongly denied doping til he stupidly insisted on having his B sample tested, has now come out with the Official Faux-Repentant Cheat-Weasel Wah-Wah Of The UCI ProTour, tearfully confessing a one-time weakness due to extreme youth and immaturity and vowing his belief in honor, fair play, and his ability to get a lucrative new gig in two years if he plays this B.S. Shawshank Redemption older-'n'-wiser sage-of-the-antidoping-movement maudlin overacting opportunity right. Y'know, as someone who's certainly been young and stupid, I sympathize with young'n'stupid, and it's often a plausible and even genuine explanation for many sins of feckless greedy jailbait. But damn, with all the info about illicit substances available to the peloton, shouldn't we hold these clowns to an even higher standard of at least being able to figure out how to do this right? Ah well--frees up a few bucks for the new sponsor to buy Cadel Evans another crap dope-fiend domestique who'll screw him over next season!

(No) License to Kill: well, venerable (if underperforming) French squads Cofidis and BBox-Bweeguh continue to digest the full extent of their humiliation as they ponder their demotion from the ProTour, and, I'm unsurprised to report, the recriminations, vendettas, and general backstabbing are rolling in apace. UCI's scorning the French teams' unbearably arrogant "France IS Cycling" contradictory monster suckage (despite, to be fair, some quite stellar individual talents, Thomas Voeckler among them); whiny riders like Pierrick "Where Were My Results Before This Season, Exactly?" Fedrigo are screeching to be freed from contracts they were too dense to negotiate an out-clause into in the first place; the squads are telling the riders to stick it since they're still gonna get into the Tour de France next year if (literally) nothing else; and Pro-Continental gigs Cervelo (home of green jersey god Thor Hushovd and dear little Sastre of course) and even Giro overlord Gilberto Simoni's Diquigiovanni get to gloat that they've stomped these delusional out-of-date egomaniacs into the tarmac. Astana's license, meanwhile, is still on the auction block, as UCI frantically searches for a legitimate or at least smell-test-passable way to keep punishing the vexingly forthright Alexander Vinokorouv, and poor sap Alberto Contador continues to face the disconcerting prospect of racing for a team that's only gonna be invited to ride the prestigious "Race Ya To The End of My Driveway for My Nintendo DS." Oh well--since our wee little champion's guaranteed to take that one, at least he'll stay entertained while watching the Tour de France on TV next July!

Can We All Quit Whining About the Worlds Already?: over in excruciating hangover land, the Italians are still angrily microparsing the Worlds road race to figure out exactly who they ought to turn on the most, and while I'm generally in agreement that your boys did blow it, I can't help but feel compelled to remind you (as, to their credit, the tifosi continue to swoon over) that the 2009 *women's* road race champion is none other than your own brilliantly-supported tactically-smashing escape artist Tatiana Guderzo. *That's* how it's done, baby!

California Here I Come--Please, For the Love of God, Please!: finally, as I'm reminded yet again of the organizers' disgusting thoughtlessness in scheduling the Tour of California at the same time as the "There Goes Half the Peloton Worth Watching, You Nits" Giro d' Italia--because we all know what's gonna get all the airplay in the US--The One is pondering which one of them he's gonna ride next year in preparation for dope-slapping his entire team into unquestioning automaton subservience come July, and for my money, I'm hoping--hell, I'll go flat out begging--that (and I truly do sympathize with the Italians' need for the hype-machine tourist dough here) it ain't the beautiful, flawless, fanatically scandal-filled smack-talking joy that is the Giro. Lance, pink's not even your color--you can't get decent Tex-Mex in Italy--they're all gonna EPO right past your struggling carcass in the Pyrenees anyway--your prior mentorship of Ivan Basso morally precludes your taking him on next year--the California press'll kiss your !@# far more than the Italians will--help me people, I'm running out of rationalizations here...