All In the (Cheat-Wanker) Family; And, An Update

Buona CERA: yes, as you've likely heard, Vania Rossi, Italian cyclocross bad-girl and Tour weasel Riccardo Ricco's partner and mom of their munchkin, has tested positive for CERA, and aside from the fact that Ricco' can call his comeback over since clearly somebody's still got a massive stash in his nightstand, the denials are already flying thick 'n' fast and watch out, narcs, 'cuz she's pulling the Mom card: Vania sez no way it's true, because she's breastfeeding. My, starting Junior young, aren't we?--look for this child of paragons to be lighting up the Giro in 2035!

We'll Always Have Paris (-Roubaix): so just as I was eagerly awaiting a largely Lanceless Classics season--which'd've given at least a brief, blessed respite from the gory bloodthirsty piranha-frenzy that is the rump-kissing unbearable laudatory press coverage of the One over here stateside before the inevitably-vomitorious Tour de France adulation kicks in--comes the irksome news that I'll be forced to watch the same retina-scalding orgy in just about every Classic this season, including, dammit, Milano-San Remo. Aw, heck--even the babelicious Tom Boonen could pose in another butt-baring porno-gladiator costume every day and we *still* wouldn't get coverage of any other rider--why don't we just skip the freakin' races no-one in the US is even gonna get to see and just get straight to the 24/7 Armstrongathon and maybe the 2-second money shots of spraying champagne and podium babes? Oh, well, maybe if I move to Italy I'll get to see some actual racing on TV....

A Plea For Team RadioShack (Yeah, You Heard Me): all right, no one else is gonna do it--hell, it sickens even *me* to do it--so here goes: quit !@#$ing over RadioSkank and reschedule the Tour of California the hell away from the Giro! No, I don't give a festering gangrenous saddlesore about Lance--it's his serf-peasant dirt-farmer domestiques I'm talkin' about here! Don't you nimrods realize that, self-negating as some of them inexplicably are, Grand Tour podium finishers like Levi and Klodi still deserve their own, truly supported shots at 3-week glory, and the Giro d'Italia's their only hope? These boys are gonna be exhausted wraith basketcases by the Vuelta after that guy's done suckin' off 'em all July, so for heck's sake let's try to reward 'em with *something*--aaaaiiiiggghhhhh!

And You Thought Boonen on a Bender Was Bad: finally, in cyclist crime news, I see a fearless if dim-witted rider was busted riding with an innovative weapon consisting of a butcher-knife apparently duct-taped to a pool-cue, which, one surmises, comes in awfully handy when you're trying to keep the peloton's greedy filthy mitts off your crack pipe. Damn, is Valverde getting paranoid about the results of his CAS appeal, or what?

And, The Prize For Total Stronzo of the Year Goes To: yep, you guessed it--in an unprecedented early win for the 2010 Racejunkie Awards, the coveted !@#hole of the Year Award goes to Riccardo Ricco', who's not only, as we already knew, a complete tool, but also a coward, a pansy, a fool, a narcissist, *and* a pig , namely for absolutely dissociating himself from the mother of his child in her time of need (after she backed his sorry scrawny little !@#, no less), praising himself of all drug-sucking little freaks for being "honest" for crawling out from behind his mama's skirts and admitting the obvious only under severe duress, hiding away in training like a wuss-baby to emphasize his geographical distance from the guilty hag, and affirming that of course this would never have happened under his watch anyway because he doesn't like his wife cycling because everyone knows women shouldn't bike because it's ouchy. Unlike childbirth, you cretin--but then, you couldn't ride without assistance either, right? Congratulations Ricco', you weakling weasel--only you could beat Raimondo Rumsas' letting his wife go to prison rather than admit the EPO, steroids, and growth hormone she was carrying for him in her car trunk belonged to him and not his "mother-in-law"!

He's Baaaaaa-aaaack; and, Lessons From the Tour Down Under

Wastin' Away Again In Margaritaville: look, you either love him because he was cruelly framed and wrongfully nailed in a disgusting farce of a lab-chimp monkey trial, or you hate him for discrediting a flawless sport without so much as a tearful Valverdean confessional wah-wah (wait a minute....). But either way, he's back on the bike, and with egomaniacal overpriced-jeans poseur Michael Ball having failed to score Rock Racing even a crappy Pro Continental license, and the relentless doper-sucking hypocrites in the Euro peloton having some peculiar issue with re-hiring our own purported miscreants, Floyd Landis is back at the Tour of the Bahamas, taking the time trial while his colleagues make the big bucks and grab the major races in other climes. Ah well, at least you don't have to slog through some sucky Classics sleetstorm or endure the 3-week grind of a Grand Tour--that and your nice new tan are pretty sweet consolation prizes, no?

"It's Good To See Less of Armstrong This Year": Right on, Johan--finally, an assessment from you I can agree with! Oh. You mean "less" in terms of upper-body muscle mass, not "less" in the sense of "if I have to watch one more !@#$ing fawning irrelevant interview with Lance in a race that has nothing whatsoever to do with him my head is going to freaking explode into a lurid pile of brain-guts." Oops, my bad--wait a minute, *your* bad Bruyneel, and the dimwit noncycling press' while we're at it--can we please just get this god!@#$ circus over with already?

The Gert Locker: in other news, after ditching Katusha over some silly anti-doping rule and landing safely, of course, at RadioSkank, I see Johan "Hope You Don't Mind the Wind In Your Face" Bruyneel's issued Champs-Elysees whiz Gert Steegmans an incredibly warm welcome: we're so happy to have you, in fact, that we're entirely stiffing you out of a lead-out. I'm sure Johan's correct that they're not necessary for a *real* sprinter, Gert--I mean, no-one else uses 'em, right?

Lessons From the Tour Down Under: well, it was an exciting Tour Down Under, and while for me of course the best part was watching the fabulous Euskaltel "Holy Crap Samuel Sanchez Is the Olympic Gold Medalist!" Euskadi attack every six seconds so watch your !@# 'Skank in the Tour de France this year, for the rest of you, even more important lessons have no doubt been learned, which for my money are, in no particular order and certainly of no particular use:
1. Luis Leon Sanchez is gonna win a Grand Tour someday. Not yet, not as many as his Liberty Seguros cribmate Contador, but he will.
2. Alejandro Valverde actually makes a generous and helpful domestique. Too bad he ain't gonna be at it much longer.
3. Robbie McEwen still has it. Even if he has to maybe occasionally shove a compatriot into the barriers to do it.
4. Oh my word, I do believe Cadel "the Tick" Evans *really* *has* *changed.* Attacking? Unprovoked? Without the team car jamming a cattle prod into 'im? By George, I think he's got it--he *can't* take the Tour just by wheel-sucking!
5. Team Sky is about two days into their season and they're already making half the ProTour look completely, utterly lame. Unless some of you suckers want to be begging for a gig as their towel boys, you better start picking it up!
6. We love Jens! Sure, it's largely irrelevant, but he did sign in and all, and so long as he's not actively dealing heroin to toddlers (and possibly even if is), the man can do no wrong. Woo-hoo Jens!

Hi-Yo, Silver!: finally, courtesy of tuttobici, I bring you footage of damn near the only racer (besides Thor, of course) who has a rat's chance of beating Mark Cavendish this year: Allez allez Mr. Ed!

Alberto Contador Is Scr*wed!

D'oh!: Okay. It's only the first big race of the season. And heck, Alberto's not even in it. But am I alone in thinking that one day into the Tour Down Under, Alberto Contador this year is already completely !@#$ed? As I see it, there are two problems here: (1) tactical and (2) head-up-your-!@#ical. (1) y'all might remember one rather key day in the Tour de France last year when the peloton split in a crosswind, Contador missed it, and his Lance-beeyotch teammates drove the pace and lost the child valuable GC time. So now Allan Davis' boys do effectively the same thing to him--and that's with a bunch of domestiques who *don't* hate him? Yep, Contador's hosed. (2) you *forgot* the freakin' race radios? Aside from the fact that some poor low-level Kazakh manager/towel-boy stooge is fired and consigned to some unheated gulag, more importantly, with a rider of Contador's, shall we say, less-than-rocket-scientist leanings, Astana, you are going to *need* these things. Helpful hint for the Tour de France--don't forget the bikes! Y'know, they're these sort of triangular carbon-fiber frame thingies, they have two big round "wheels," there's all these funny "chains" and "cables" hanging off 'em, cyclists ride 'em in "bike" races...

Sissy-Boy Slapfight o' the Week: meantime, I see Giro-blaspheming cheat-skank Riccardo Ricco' is hitting back hard at Mark Cavendish for calling him a parasite, challenging Cav to prove his point on the road instead, which, of course, is a moot point luckily for Ricco', as one of 'em's a hulking musclebound testosterone-stuffed sprinter, and the other has the approximate size and physical intimidation factor of one of those sea monkeys you see advertised in the back of Richie Rich comic books. Oh, he's quiverin', Riccardo--good thing that even off the juice, you can still get away from him on a climb!

Rockin' Robin/Tweet, Tweetly-Tweet: speaking of Ricco', and those who aren't exactly feelin' the love for him, belated colossal discretion points to former Saunier Duval teammate/multiple Italian time trial champ Marco Pinotti, who read all about Ricco's incredible remorse and eagerness to return to the Giro and generously tweeted that "it make me puke." Geez, tapeworms, catastrophic gastrointestinal distress...I think I'm starting to see a pattern here Riccardo, it ought to be a warm welcome back to you from the peloton!

The Straight-Talk Express: over on Planet Pissed-Off, Michael Rasmussen is still raging against the Pro Tour's phenomenal hypocrisy for not hiring him even tho' Rabobank and UCI knew perfectly well weeks before the Tour de France they almost let him win that he'd snaked out of a bunch of doping controls, and frankly, I call bull!@#$. There's no hypocrisy in the ProTour, Rasmussen, you're just being over-sensitive--just ask Ivan Basso or David Millar, whydontcha?

Lampre, You Big Tease!: so despite 2x Giro god Gilberto Simoni's manager's constant pimping of Simoni's just-about-finished signing with Team "Damiano Cunego Should Still Grovel On His Bony Knees For Simoni's Magnanimous Forgiveness" Lampre, the team page remains annoyingly coy about the purported deal, showing only comely photos of Cunego and Ale-Jet and announcing in its breaking-news section that Lampre's shoes this season will be--you guessed it--turquoise and fuschia. Dammit you tools, either pay up the exorbitant sum he deserves even if he should just slump in the team bus bitching about other riders all day, or cut it with the on-again-off-again romance already!

WADA Load...Um, Off My Mind: finally, major kudos to the Dudley Do-Rights over at WADA, hard at work with the pharmaceutical industry to develop tests to snag disgusting dopers like Kohl & Schumi, which will ensure, as we all know, that no-one in the noble endeavor of cycling in particular will dare try to fool the cops again. Aw, man, back to autologous blood doping I guess...wait, then you might get nailed by the preset baselines in your biological passport...how about masking agents?...no, look where that got Danilo "Strawberry Shortcake" DiLuca...or they could all just ride clean and quit dishonoring the sport and the non-scumly riders...no....

Do You Come From a Tour Down Under?

And they're off!: yes, fans, it's time to put away your own bikes, ditch that silly training routine, and return your rump to the couch where you rightfully belong, because cycling season's back and it's time for the Tour Down Under, baby! The big news: Lance Armstrong tweeted a "come ride with the insufferable king of the universe" and 5000 adoring fans showed up. Oh, what's happening with the run-up to the actual *race*, you mean--!@#$ if I know, why the hell would the press cover *that*?

You're As Cold As Ice: meantime, our fragile little Contador is back in the saddlestruggling with his cold-weather training in bitter Spain and dreaming of warmer days ahead. First: honey, they're called "snowpants", and I'm sure they're still made in your size--just don't forget the mittens that come with the long string to attach 'em so you don't lose 'em when you go out to play, alright? Second, why don't you just look at the chilly weather as valuable practice for the attitude you're gonna get from Armstrong when you're standing above him on the podium *again* this coming July?

The Stockholm Syndrome: in other Contador news, our hero had a streaming press-conference yesterday in which he lauded his Astana teammates and expressed both confidence and joy in his situation for his upcoming season. Actually, it's kind of sweet watching Alberto speak so pleasantly of his alliance with Astana, particularly since he's spent the last six months actively trying to claw Vinokourov's eyes out with his stumpy little fingernails to get out of it. Oh...I think I'm starting to tear up...our baby's all grown up into a big-boy diplomat!

La Bella Figura: over at better races than the tiresome Tour, I see the 2010 Giro d'Italia has released the new maglia rosa with the help of comely starlets Ivan Basso, Damiano Cunego and Yolanthe Cabau: Now, which one's the podium babe again?

Mother, Jugs and Speed: y'know, much as he tends to irk me, I gotta hand it to Crest Whitestrips spokesman/(almost) unbeatable sprint lord Mark Cavendish: he sure don't hold back when it comes to unrepentant "parasite" Riccardo Ricco', his total lack of need for a sprint lead-out unlike *some* pathetic weakling losers we all know, and his continued obsession with losing the green jersey to Thor Hushovd in 2009 which totally wasn't a big deal to him *at all.* Holy heck, if he keeps insulting Ricco' this big smack-talking lunkhead is gonna start to grow on me--maybe I won't even crow *too* badly when Thor whumps your !@# again this year!

Pigs Fly: in legal news, I see brilliant tactician Alejandro Valverde has offered to pony up his DNA to the narcs in his continued wrangling over his Op Puerto bloodbags, in case claiming that the code name "Valv" is, like, completely unrelated to "Valverde" and his dog "Piti" couldn't have been the source for his other code name, because despite the fact that several witnesses claim to have seen him playing with Piti in 2006 the dog was actually a fetus at the time, don't throw CAS off his trail. Um, Alejandro, not to worry you or nothin', but you realize you can't cover up your DNA with your regular masking agents, right?

An Open Call to Auto-Driving and Pet-Neglecting Assclowns: finally, as one cyclist after another ties up the training season getting whacked by some oblivious moron in a 2,000-lb steel missle o' spindly-cyclist bone-mangling doom or tripped up by some wandering uncontrolled critter--most recently, and seriously, poor Klodi pal Matthias Kessler, now in an induced coma from a collision with some nimrod's cat--may I prevail upon my fellow pet lovers and lazy gas-suckin' smog-spewin' drivers to WATCH THE !@#$ OUT? Yes, I know animals do meander off, and I know it's imperative to Formula 1 race your !@# to the local 7-Eleven for that all-important cup of tar-swill coffee or 87-ounce blue raspberry Slurpee, as well as allow Kitty and Fido their freedom--but ya think ya mightn't try to *kill* anyone over it?

Take That, Armstrong!

And You Thought the Maillot Jaune Was Cool: yap, I won another Grand Tour, yap, I'm gonna whomp Armstrong again this year, yap--what *really* oughta matter to Alberto Contador is this incredible honor from a Spanish bread-promotion consortium: yes, the boy's won a "good as bread" poll over a soccer player (I know, faithful readers outside the US, it's really "football") *and* the mayor of Madrid. Strikingly, there is no mention of this monumental achievement on Alberto's personal website, but then, that's just typical of our shy champion's adorable discretion and charming modesty. Try talkin' smack to me *now*, Lance!

Saiz You, Buddy: speaking of Contador, his babyhood mentor/Operacion Puerto supervillian Manolo "Who Doesn't Carry 60 Thousand Euros In A Suitcase To Meet A Pal For An Innocent Coffee?" Saiz has finally decided to speak, at least enough to say he didn't do nuthin', none of his boys did nuthin', and while we're at it, dear little Carlos Sastre's Tour win was a pleasant surprise. Well, at least we can be confident he's not lying about *one* of those things!

Breakin' Rock In the Hot Sun/I Fought UCI and UCI Won: so with UCI's denial of a Pro-Continental license to Rock Racing--presumably because they have almost as many busted dopers as, say, your random sample of 5 Spanish riders--two questions immediately arise: (1) how could they deny *anyone* with such stylish outfits the right to ride in Europe, especially when you compare it to the lame new RadioSkank kit, and (2) so what the !@#$ happens to Landis? Guess you might as well go full-on after that hour record, Floyd, at least if you can't find a better gig in a hurry--Michael Ball sure as hell ain't gonna have enough for you to do!

Jesus, Jesus!: finally, tomorrow is Alejandro Valverde's CAS date with destiny, and if Neolithic-era still-bitter disgraced ex-Kelme teammate/avenging angel Jesus Manzano's got anything to say about it, the narcs are !@#damn well gonna take him down once and for all. Y'know, Jesus, I *understand* it's no fun to get caught when you know everyone around you is doing it too and getting off scot-free--but how *exactly* is it poor Alejandro's fault that you were just too stupid to do it right?

April Fools! (I Mean, It's Gotta Be, Right?)

Am I on an absolutely hallucinatory paranoiac incoherent mumbling meth-binge here, or is Lance "On Your Knees, Beeyotch!" Armstrong actually now shrieking at Alberto Contador for (1) having an ego (2) being surrounded by yes-men (3) having limited success and (4) expecting his domestiques to work for him? Now, I'm not gonna be a total blind apologist for the uppity dimwitted little noodge--he *was* an ass to darling Levi and Klodi not so many seasons ago, which no I haven't forgotten--but let's review, shall we, Captain Total Oblivious Denial? Based solely on your own voluntary appearances in the press--not in your personal life, of which I certainly know nothing and in which you may well be an utterly self-effacing doormat (I'm sure)--(1) you seem to have, like Contador, a healthy (and justified) sense of self-worth; (2) you've got a rump-rubbing Hollywood entourage that alone could fill a Vicarious-Glory Celebrity-Sucking Hall of Obsequious Fame ostentatiously playing on your neato carbon bikes and mugging for the paparazzi like some cheap tawdry reality-slut Kardashian at the start line of the Tour de France for !##$'s sake; (3) you're unquestionably the greatest Tour de France rider in history and one of the great cyclists of all time but, unlike Contador, Merckx, and a few other champions you're perfectly familiar with, you haven't won or indeed even seriously raced any other Grand Tour, plus Alberto's only 26 years old so there's an actual limit as to what he's had time to accomplish, so that "let's see where he is in 15 years" is BS as he'd still have (unlike you) won all three Grand Tours if he started to suck tomorrow so don't be a petty belittling jerkface about it; and (4) it took you freakin' 7 years to even allow the incredible uberloyal Hincapie to take a single stage win as thanks for completely sacrificing his entire career to your own, which frankly even that psycho doping pig Vinokourov routinely did for his laundress before taking a win for himself so who are you to suddenly wah-wah over how oppressed they are? Yes, it's awfully nice that you're gonna 'domestique' for Levi between photo ops at the Tour of California--how about giving him a day off the leash at a ride *you're* interested in?

Not that I'm suggesting you invest in a pocket mirror or nothin'. I'm just sayin'.