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....