It's the 2010 Tour de France, Baby! and, Adventures in Kazakh Cycling

Bring Me a Higher Love: so woo-hoo! the 2010 Tour de France route is a pure climbers' hot hot hot fiesta, and if Alberto Contador doesn't manage to bash his fragile tiny body to bits on the cruel pave' of Belgium (take it, Thor!) right outta the gate, it's gonna be a dirty nasty slugfest-o'-the-featherweights in the Pyrenees for supremacy, and Cadel, honey, you better get ready to keep this new attack !@#$ of yours *up*. The reactions, of course, have been rocketing in, with Mark Cavendish, natch, taking the wholly irrelevant opportunity to whine once more that he *should've* gotten the green jersey *this* year. Which you would've, to be sure, if you hadn't (1) been a total punk-!@# and rightly been relegated and (2) we love Thor Hushovd hadn't beaten you senseless in the mountains anyway. Meantime, in actually relevant commentary, Sastre is holding out for the Giro and Vuelta; the other sprinters are wary; and Alberto, instead of using the element of surprise to sissy-boy-slap-fight Armstrong for his piglike behavior on this year's podium at the press conference, glossed over his umpteenth doping accusation and, in a verbal sissy-boy-slap-fight I suppose, tagged baby Schleck as his number 1 rival. Ouch!

Sunday, Bloody Sunday (and Monday, and Tuesday, and...): meanwhile, having stuck their heads out cautiously to attend the Tour announcement, I imagine more than a few DSes are already planning their throw-the-individual-riders-under-the-bus press-conference statements, as the French narcs investigate, as previously reported, somewhat suspicious medical waste from the teams including transfusion equipment and non-banned medications for conditions like diabetes, high-blood pressure, and seizures. The team denials, of course, are out in force, because any idiot knows that it's impossible for a team to detect 12 guys packed 2 to a hotel room on the same floor within 3 feet of their managers wandering around with blood bags sticking out of their arms attached to one of those 5-foot-high hospital wheelie contraptions. Leaving aside that there's a whole squad dedicated to folks combating diabetes and anyone who takes stuff used to control it for performance-enhancing purposes is exhibiting extreme doucheosity, anyone else expecting, like the "asthma" craze a few years back, that there's gonna be a sudden rash of previously-misplaced doctor's notes popping out for insulin imbalances?

Holy Crap I Think I'm Starting to Love Alexander Vinokourov Again: no, not because he's a repulsive IV-sucking spawn-o-Satan--though he does get massive points for not apologizing to UCI about it on the grounds that he's the least of their disgusting problems--or even because he's a smashingly erratic psychopath, but because the newly-flush Team Astana has just announced that it ain't letting we love Andreas Kloden, Haimar "That's What You Get For Betraying Samu' Sanchez You Chump" Zubeldia, or even the harmless amiable Gregory Rast out of their contracts to go to Team RadioSkank next year. So why does this set my black heart all a-flutter? Let's be honest, if this ridiculous plan holds, Klodi is gonna be in the best damn spot of his life, because if there's one nice thing you can say about Vino, it's that he never, ever begrudged his loyal domestiques the right--and more importantly, the support--to pursue their own glory. Romandie my butt, Klodi--even if Contador can't weasel out of his iron maiden of a contract and gets his Tour, how's the Vuelta for ya as a consolation prize? Go Vino, and suck it Armstrong!