I Said Get Me a *Double* Espresso, Beeyotch!

I'm Never Gonna Dance Again/ Guilty Feet Have Got No Rhythm: no, Riccardo Ricco didn't dope--his total calamitous organ failure was just a completely random event, sorta like sneezing, or voluntarily jamming a drugged-up syringe into yer scrawny spandex !@--um, sorta like sneezing. And yes, he blames cycling for it instead of himself--so not only does the whole sport make him wanna barf, he's quitting to become a barista. Plenty o' call for them at the start line of a Grand Tour, Riccardo--just watch out some of your former teammates don't toss their scalding ristrettos into your eyeballs! And okay, a barista is actually a bartender, but really, even a hard-core customer can't drink enough bourbon to make this clown bearable. Look, I'm very sorry Ricco' almost killed himself disgracing the legacy of the great Italian trainer Aldo Sassi (and even worse, his undeserved mentor Gilberto Simoni) with a bag o' expired blood, particularly since the oily little gnome actually managed to spawn and nearly left an innocent child behind. And I'm truly glad he's wholly recovered, particularly 'cause it'll give him about 50 years to get over his cowardly ingrained denial and his wussmasterian tendency to run'n'hide behind his fiancee and mama's skirts and go apologize to the clean riders (oh, come on! there's gotta be *some*!) he !@#$ed out of a Grand Tour stage win. Ergo, one last, fond look at our little Cobra in action:
Oops, wrong link!:

All the Race News That Don't Make You Sick: meantime, there's been some pretty high excitement over at Tirreno-Adriatico and Paris-Nice this week, and for my money, aside from Andreas Kloden being allowed to win a race with his ex-boss no longer around to whip 'em (and did anyone tell the great Levi Leipheimer he's free to ride now that he doesn't need to do Lance's laundry anymore?) the most noteworthy is that--and we all know reigning World Champions don't hardly domestique for anybody, whether they've got the legs to win or not--smashingly gracious big lug we love Thor Hushovd deigned to lead out teammate Tyler Farrar for the jersey and stage win. You're great to watch, Tyler, but you better remember this favor on the cobbles at Paris-Roubaix--now get to work with a hammer'n'chisel and start smoothin' 'em out for the man!

Friends In High Places: finally, if uber-narc/Lance nemesis Jeff Novitzky didn't have it hard enough evading hordes of pro-Lance torch-bearing villagers armed with pitchforks and Colt .45s trying to stop the search for truth in its tracks in Armstrong's home digs in Texas, now the man's got a Georgia Congressman on his butt, and to my mind anyway, I'd rather be rolled in tar and feathers and set on fire on some remote ranch somewhere than have to justify myself before a Congressional committee. Pretty good to be the king, Lance--but you still shoulda got Bush on your side before he got pissed crashing on his mountain bike!