Back Away From the 'Skank, Son!

Don't Do It,Floyd!: okay, the thought of you on some half-!@#$% Continental squad that's gonna be clawing desperately at the barriers just outside the sign-in areas at any European race worth watching while the paranoiac race organizers beat your hands off the things with bike pumps makes me feel a little unwell. And prospect of seeing you under the thumb of that poseur clotheshorse publicity slut-weasel Michael Ball at Rock Racing makes me downright queasy. But the possibility of you going to Levi'n'Klodi !@#$%-Slapped Chamois-Washer Bike-Cleat-Licker Purgatory in the service of the One at RadioSkank makes me actively want to yack. Don't do it Floyd--what's the point of going back to Europe if Armstrong's just gonna make you his towel boy? Aw, come on Vaughters, take a chance--I know they hate 'im and they'll be pissed if you hire 'im, but it's not like the French hold a grudge against the *teams*, right--how the hell else would, say, Rabobank, or 90% of the rest of those enabler clowns still be in there year after year?

Don't Do It, Ivan!: okay, I'll cop to it: after a whole season watching St. Ivan of Varese not win, my disgust over his earlier omnipresent smirk-o-superiority and relentless smarmy image rehab blitzkrieg is starting to be replaced with a sneaking, if still highly tenuous, suspicion that he might not actually be on back on the juice. At the moment. In which case, the comely comeback boy is in serious danger of engendering my sympathy--tho' of course, a groveling, weeping prostration of a public apology to the great Gilberto Simoni would go a long way towards helping this. So in the interest of optimism, fairness, and a faith which will surely be viciously nut-kneed out of existence *again*, I humbly plead, don't do it Ivan--stay the hell away from that arrogant jailbait's entreaties to join him at Astana in 2011! Why? First, if you want to win the Tour, as you've only just said you do, and you go with Alberto, that's *over*--the babe's made it perfectly clear that he's only taken the Giro and Vuelta as crap consolation prizes on the path to !@#-snapping Armstrong with his next (6) maillot jaune(s) in Paris. Second, all due respect to the child, but you really think that even if you agree to go for another Giro or Vuelta instead in exchange for your service at the Tour, he won't hesitate to decimate your own domestique firepower for his own princely needs? Ya can't spend that much time with Armstrong and not learn to treat your teammates like serfs, honey! Third, given Franco of the Euromullet's results last year, and his stated ambition to take the Tour himself, if you don't beat down Pellizotti within the first few races this year, you can count yourself out of Liquigas as well, so you might as well scratch both these gigs off your list. Hmmm...it don't look like Contador's going to Quick Step...or maybe you can just bide your time and Lance'll order Johan Bruyneel to take you back when the his legs finally give out at RadioSkank?

Do It, Iban!: First, shut the hell up. I'm still in deep denial and I have every intention, no matter how many opiates it takes, of staying that way. But it does bring me great pleasure to note that the beautiful Vuelta may be returning to the Basque country for the first time in many years. What does this have to do with we love Iban Mayo, last reported to be starting a restaurant or something, you don't care enough to ask? Because it's the perfect opportunity for our jacked-over hero (shut up! is too!) to make a body-crushing Hinaultesque flying tackle on to every witch-hunting bottom-suckin' Z-sample-scrounging UCI official there (all two pounds of him, but I digress) and pound their weasel indiscriminate iron-maiden-wielding Inquisition !@#es into the pavement 'til they're unrecognizable blubbering pulp. Go Iban--heck, you're off the bike, a little upper-body bulking-up at the ol' boxing ring between now and next September can't hurt!