Radio/ Someone Still Loves You

But It Ain't the Vuelta: so yes, the fabulous and ever-underrated Vuelta has announced its 22 squads, and who one of 'em ain't is our friends at RadioSkank, for, the Vuelta assures us in spite of Johan Bruyneel going absolutely bull!@#$, entirely legitimate "sporting reasons." In instead: Garmin, Katusha, Sky, Cervelo for dear little Carlos of course, and a couple of small-yet-respectable Spanish teams. Yee-owtch! Natch, the part of me that wants Levi and Klodi to get the Grand Tour win I *know* they are capable of if only Lance Armstrong stops nut-kneeing 'em is crushed, but it's not like Lance'd be sending his top-form A-Team to support their worthless lowlife carcasses anyway. The part of me that has no soul? Oh, yeah, I'm diggin' it, baby! Of course, it's not the One gives a rat's !@# about this perfect race anyway, but then, that's precisely why the squad doesn't deserve to race the Vuelta. Love it or leave it, Skanks!

Psych-Out!: okay, so after the first rainy day in Switzerland Lance is sayin' he's just not the rider he was in the rain back in the day. So are we seeing a guy who is really more risk-averse and is gonna ride gingerly for the long haul to his inevitable detriment in the Tour--reservations our young Contador still doesn't seem to have--or is this just another famed psych-out move against cocky little Alberto a la' BSing Jan Ullrich that he was in the bonk of his life lo these many years ago? Me, I think Lance was maybe a bit shaken by his first-time busted collarbone and is cautious about losing Zubeldia to a routine crash, but the fact is, back in the day or not, as his brilliant avoidance of we still love Joseba Beloki's downfall showed, he's one of the best bike handlers of all time, and I can't imagine, retirement or not, that that brilliance ain't still in there somewhere. More, if Lance is gonna be beaten (again--ha!), it'll just be a better Tour and a nobler victory if the man is beaten at the top of his game. That said, I still wanna see him whomped in July. Go Schlecks!

Nice Work Cav!: finally, it was bloody carnage at the finish line of the Tour de Suisse today as Mark Cavendish swerved like a drunken Tom Boonen smack into Heinrich Haussler, knocking the poor thing out of the race entirely just as he'd snagged a stage and was coming back into form, and big kudos to class-act-o'-the-race Alessandro Petacchi for declaring himself disappointed in his own win as he'd been too far out to deserve it in the first place. Don't worry, Ale-Jet--if Cav keeps riding like this much of a clod, you're gonna really earn another one soon enough!