Cadel Evans, Class Act o' the Tour

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi!: yes, I've slagged Cadel Evans for being a wheel-sucking attack-fearing tick-remora until this year's World Champion stripes made him up the ante completely. And come to think of it, since he's never got a teammate within 20 minutes of 'im in the mountains, it's a shock he can ever do much more than that. But Cadel's first thoughts after finally crossing the line--to apologize to his teammates for the wholly human act of finally succumbing to physical agony--was the mark of a true leader's concern for his troops over himself. Maybe he *does* have it in 'im to win a Grand Tour; maybe, even without catastrophic injury, he just don't. Either way, the boy's got more class in one toenail in one day than Armstrong'll ever have in his entire selfish body. You fought hard and well, Cadel--all admiration to you for that!

Lookin' Good for Lance, Baby!!: speaking of the One, leaving aside the passionate hordes of Armstrong fans that make up the entire USA, *someone's* apparently taking Landis' allegations of doping, fraud 'n' strippers seriously--yep, the feds have apparently issued subpoenas to a bucket o' witnesses, among whom, I imagine, are likely to be one or more of the riders finked on by Landis. Damn, can't George get a half-second to recover from a tough day for BMC in the Alps?--it's not like Armstrong hasn't gotten away with it for a dozen years already, what's the rush?!

Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys Unite!: back to actual Tour action, the ever-wannabe French of all riders are at last doing their own Grand Tour quite proud, as canny Sandy Casar--whose last Tour stage win I believe involved a bloody face-plant over some dopemeister Golden Retriever, and who damn near tossed it out the window today in the last kilometer by golly!--takes the stage over LL Cool Sanchez and a so-close-to-glory Damiano Cunego. Nice work again, Sandy--another 50 wins or so and the French boys' peloton'll almost stop being an embarrassment to millenium-long road-champ Jeannie Longo!

Cunego-Go: Speaking of Cunego, speculation's gettin' hot as to who the suave Piccolo Principe is gonna sign with, and word from the boy himself is that he's seriously considering either Sky or Garmin for the interesting opportunity to learn English and investigate a new culture. Me, aside from seeing how this affects him at the Classics of course, I'm looking forward to seeing how our dapper Milan-runway Princeling adjusts to shopping for the classic American guy wardrobe of relaxed-waist Dockers, bland golf shirt, and baseball caps worn to fine restaurants. The white socks go *inside* the man-sandals, Cunego!

Anger Management: finally, lest the Photographer Desperately Trying To Remain Anonymous thinks the potentially-violent Robbie McEwenhas forgiven the "tool" for knocking off his bike--yeah, well,he ain't. Screw just parachuting into a jungle to get away from 'im, pal--I think radical plastic surgery is in order! Hmmm, maybe you can convince some uncredentialed underground hack to make you over into Mark Cavendish--that'd be an entertaining misunderstanding at the start line!