It's Your Official Tour de France Guide to Cyclist-Speak!

Yes folks, it's time for the Tour de France again, and if you *really* wanna know what's going on in the race, the riders' own words'll say it. Trouble is, they're crap. Ergo, Yer Official Guide to What Those Guys Are Really Sayin':

1."The sensations are good." I *sucked* today. I mean boy, did I *suck.* !@#$, where's Michele Ferrari when you need 'im?

2. "Wah, wah, wah, Greipel/Petacchi/Garmin, wah." Cav wanted to win the stage, but didn't.

3. "I dropped my chain on the bottom of the Galibier. That's cycling." When I get back to the hotel, I'm gonna beat my mechanic half to death with it.

4. "I didn't eat enough during the stage." I didn't eat enough clenbuterol during the stage.

5. "Chapeau to ___, he really deserved the stage." What's *that* jerk on?

6. "Cadel was just amazing today." Cadel was just amazing today.

7. "I'm really happy to win my first stage in the Tour." I'm really happy my team captain took me seriously when I said I'd kill him if he didn't let me take one stage after 12 years of faithful service.

8. "This win is for my team." This win is for my team...doctor.

9. "Leopard-Trek set a hard pace." Jens Voigt kicked back with some spectators downing beer and pretzels for six hours and still pounded the whole peloton into whimpering smithereens.

10. "I spent half the day throwing up on the side of the road." I have a stomach virus.

11. "___has pulled out of the race with a stomach virus." ___ has tested positive for dope.

12. "I think I hit a piece of road furniture." So *that's* the sound Pat "Dick" McQuaid makes when you run over 'im!

13. "I don't have a problem with the no-needle policy." I take *my* !@#$ by mouth.

14. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, c'est soir?" Hey, you think Tommeke'll pose naked getting a massage again?

15. "I'm feeling okay today. We'll see how it goes." I am going to spit Andy Schleck out on the climb of Mt. Ventoux today like a gangly six-foot lougie.

16. Stuey O'Grady: "it's just a little road rash." I broke both arms, a femur, and sixteen vertebrae this morning. A little nap'll fix it.

17. David Millar: "The conditions were unbelievably hazardous out there today! It's an outrage how the race organizers don't give a !@#$ about the riders!" It's just a little road rash.

18. Ivan Basso: "I'm finding my rhythm." What I need to find is how the !@#$ to keep up with the dopers these days.

19. "I got a little boxed in during the sprint." Damn, I could barely hang on to Euskaltel at the back of the peloton.

20. "The cross-wind was incredible." I missed the move.

21. "The fans are so encouraging." Next !@#$in' nutbag who tosses water in my face is gonna get my fist tossed into his.

22. Samuel Sanchez: "My team did an excellent job today. It's such an honor to work with them." My team did an excellent job today. It's such an honor to work with them.

23. "I'm so proud to be on the podium. Again." I can't believe that backstabbing little !@#$ beat me. Again.

Well, dear readers, now you're set to really call the race. And don't forget to shout, Allez, Allez!

Let the Games Begin!

Who Iiiiiiiiiis It?: yes, days before the Tour, the road-rage hypocrite enablers at UCI have announced that certain "top riders" are in their sights and are imminently going down. Who? None of your damn beeswax, suckers--until your DS tells you you've contracted an enormously disgusting "stomach ailment" and you have to drop out the night before the Tour! Um, anyone wanna chip in for a $500,000 piece of lab equipment for our friends? Thought so! Start passing the hat, A--yeah, maybe I just better stop right there!

He's Baaaaaaaaa-aaaaaack!: and, continuing the season's highly disconcerting trend of guys older than those 4,000-year-old redwoods in the Guinness Book of World Records pounding the crap out of their younger compatriots in every single race on earth, no less a wingnut-emeritus than comic-book villain Alexander Vinokourov is gunning for a spot on the Tour de France podium, which, if he doesn't get abducted by a black van full of masked goons dragged off to UCI headquarters and subjected to "enhanced interrogation" til he coughs up the details of his, uh, training regimen, is distinctly not impossible if half his immediate top-five rivals decide, y'know, they'd much much much rather chill out at home doing club rides for three weeks in July instead. Oh, come on, like you don't secretly *love* to watch him while your guts just roil in self-loathing for it!

Thooooooooor!: okay, let's be honest, compared to Garmin, Europcar right now is somewhere at the butt-end of squat. But we love Thor Hushovd has not been feeling appreciated lately, so if they can genuinely pony up for some hard-core Classics backing--and of course an obscene amount of dough for you personally--honey, I'm all for the move. Vaughters, don't tell me you can't find the cash to counter-offer--now make our big sensitive World Champion lug feel *loved*!

And Now, A Gratuitous Tom Boonen Shot: finally, in honor of Tom Boonen's return to form and promised return to leg-crushing stage wins, and certain faithful fans and dear reader, I include this reminder that our darling clean-livin' boy's still got it: Geez, Tommeke, nice pic--but doesn't your *mom* see this stuff?!

RadioSkank Is Scr!@#d!

Oh, Poor Levi: first, yes, I *am* personally a former Tour de France winner who's personally guided one of the best cyclists in history *and* the little twerp upstart I screwed over for him and he still won anyway to like half the Tour wins in the last generation, so !#@$ off, I *do* have the right to this opinion. Second, what the hell is RadioSkank thinking? Four GC contenders? Figuring out halfway through the race which one's got the legs then putting the other three guys who've already whacked themselves senseless trying to get the honor half-uselessly at his service? And tho' neither Levi, Klodi, Horner, nor Janez have mercifully shown any irritating signs over their (largely) long careers that they've got insufferable Lance-ian egos, so I suppose we needn't worry about any of them smiling with their heads then trying to kick the nuts off their intra-team rivals with their feet, does anyone else remember what happened the last time Johan decided to let the best rider win? Yes, a win, to be fair, but arguably the single bitchiest-behaved team and podium in Tour de France history, and this time, Bruyneel ain't quite got those freaks-o-nature to rely on. Dang, Johan, all those guys have talent to spare--if you want more'n just some stage wins, at least give one of them a no-holds-barred blitz of undisputed 100% support from day one til the chosen one chokes before dissing 'im!

Aw, Rats!: and, the 'Skank's roster also leaves we love Robbie McEwen at home, which not only inevitably dulls the sprint finishes, but dumps the entire responsibility for aggressive head-butting, violent outbursts, and general fisticuffs on poor Mark Cavendish, who, though undeniably a brilliant (and yes, Cav fans, very dashing too) sprinter, has frankly already got enough to worry about with Thor and Tyler set to stomp him out of the green jersey. Don't worry Cav, you'll still get a good half the sprints--just pray your hired goons' antics don't show up on the replay!

The Union of the Snake is on the Cliiiii-iiiimb: meantime, fallout continues from banned cheat-weasel Riccardo "the Cobra" Ricco' (now claiming his catastrophic incapacitating health crisis wasn't due to bad blood, but a really, really bad cold)'s cheap-shot sneak into a local gran fondo to help his buds, mainly in the form of hysterical "free Ricco'!" screeching from his Manchurian-Candidate brainwashed fans and sensible pleas from calmer tifosi just begging the nasty little squirt to go away. Oh, so he's banned from riding on the entire planet by his own cycling fed--he could always be someone's really, really, really helpful soigneur, right? Wait, maybe that's not such a good idea...unless you *like* 250 visits from the narcs a day!

Bow, Quick Step!: in transfer news, I see we love Tom Boonen has graciously decided to stay with ungrateful smack-talking jerkface Patrick Lefevere over at Quick Step now that the latter's turned unctuously complimentary, which makes me think there's *some* possibility the squad might actually give Tom the support he needs from now on. Hint: negative reinforcement doesn't work with 'im, you troll--but can you *try* to find a happy medium that doesn't involve an OD's worth of saccharine?

Is He or Isn't He? Part Deux: finally, speculation's still high as to Andy Schleck's form leading up to the Tour de France, with estimates continuing to range from "crap" to "don't worry! He's super! I swear!" Me, I'm just hoping that, with Rabobank sworn to revenge in July over Leopard-Trek heartily picking up the pace during the pleasant Bauke Mollema's ill-timed flat at the Tour de Suisse, Andy finally quits wanking about Chaingate from now on. He sure sounds confident: Oh, Schlecks, if we love Jens has your back, I've got no choice but to root for you anyway...

PS: I'm delighted, as I'm sure everyone is, to hear that Mauricio Soler continues to improve, and it looks like he has, fortunately, escaped any spinal cord injury. Keep it up Mauricio!

Watch Out, Alberto--Maybe!

So Is He or Isn't He?: okay, first Andy Schleck cracks spectacularly in the mountains of the Tour de Suisse, lookin' like Contador could've ridden a whole nother Giro since May and still kicked Andy's !@# at the Tour, but begging the question of whether he was (1) teabagging (sandbagging, whatever); (2) just sensibly riding his way into his form for July; or (3) completely, monstrously !@#$ed. But now, baby Schleck's fought back, looking less like a wind-whipped noodle and far more like the kind of guy who can whomp to the top of the podium a few weeks from now. Geez, pick a form, whydontcha--forget psyching out Contatwerp, yer rockin'n'rollin' is making *me* seasick! Here's the last few minutes:

Oh, !@#$!: well, thanks to new UCI rules, we can pretty much guarantee that the "Help Wanted" signs on ProTour team buses'll be up for a while: if ya doped as a rider, yer out of team management for good. Wisely, the UCI is *not* applying the rule retroactively, due, no doubt, not to actual justice or peloton cleanliness concerns, but because of the simple fact that if they did, the only staffer left in cycling tomorrow morning'd *maybe* be the BMC guy in charge of washing Cadel Evans' underpants. Anyhoo, while comely studmuffins like Ivan Basso or Alessandro Petacchi can certainly find post-riding gigs as runway models, inspirational speakers, or, y'know, male escorts, the rest of y'all are gonna have to find less glamorous careers. How do you say "No, the Value Meal comes with *small* fries" in Kazakh again?

It's a Small Worlds After All: meantime, the Italian cycling fed has taken a particularly strong stance on doping this year, ordering that any rider who has tested poz for drugs is automatically out of the World Championship squad this year. The problem: as commissario tecnico/we still miss from the gruppo we love Paolo Bettini delicately puts it, he is now stuck enouraging along a very, very, very young team. Oh, come on, Paolo--a little caffeine in their sippy cups, and yer boys'll be all right!

Injury Report: finally, in more serious news, as so much of the women's peloton hits the pavement in the Nature Valley Grand Prix that it caused a wholesale neutralization of the stage, the news on brilliant Colombian climber/former Tour de France polka-dot jersey winner Mauricio Soler luckily continues to slowly improve after his terrible crash in the Tour de Suisse, with latest reports from the team and elsewhere indicating that, while he remains in an induced coma, the swelling in his brain is coming down. Please, do get fully and speedily well, Mauricio--we're rooting for you, and thinking of you, your family, and your team!

The French Take Alberto Contador Down

Busted!: oh yeah, baby, one of the most damaging and controversial doping scandals in Tour de France history is over: the French gendarmes have definitively nailed and stripped all results from 2010 Tour "champion" Alberto Contador for...um...riding down the Galibier without a tail-light. Voila'--after generations of their own innocent countrymen losing the Tour to dirty cheating foreign swine, the honor of the French Republic has been restored! Oh, sure, Alberto, they've long packed away that horrid guillotine, it's just a few years in the craphole basement of the Bastille being gnawed by rats now--but no pate' for you, you thieving little sh*@!

Thoooooooooooooooooooooor!: and, as you've certainly heard, we love world champion Thor Hushovd has finally broken the Curse of the Rainbow Jersey, taking an uphill sprint at the Tour de Suisse and, along with the happy news that Tyler Farrar has decided despite his mourning for his dear friend Wouter Weylandt to ride the Tour de France after all, getting ready to unload a two-pack of whup-!@# on Mark Cavendish come July. Here's Thor with the win--now bow, peons!

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Musical Saddles: in transfer news, supreme peloton smack-talker (and, come to think of it, just plain smacker) Robbie McEwen, currently of the heinous RadioSkank, is heading to GreenEdge, Sylvain Chavanel apparently has buckets of lucrative offers from everywhere, and Quick Step head Patrick Lefevere, who's spent most of the season insulting Tom Boonen like a wanker, is suddenly swooning again over our erstwhile ex-party boy and is begging him to stay with the squad. I don't know, Tommeke--if this is love, what the hell is Lefevere gonna do to you when you piss him off?

Lance Armstrong: Punk-!@# Schoolyard Bully

What a Goon: remember that charmless dimwit high-school alpha jock who always took out his raging adolescent insecurities on whatever harmless nerdlings who had the bad luck to pass His Highness on the way to their lockers to the grunting approval of his Neanderthal inbred beer buddies? Well, as if siccing your legal team on former teammates, Tweet-slapping 'em like a whiny beeyotch, and screeching every two minutes about your own nobility and unimpeachable perfection weren't enough, now Lance feels compelled to corner his enemies outside men's rooms and get 'em kicked out of Aspen restaurants that apparently are his own personal rock-star preserve. Classy! His defense: he was really just asking after Tyler's well being. Yeah, the same way he was helping Floyd Landis on Brasstown Bald that time by offering that friendly encouraging gesture! And people say sportsmanship is dead...

Excuses, Excuses: and, the controversy over whether Alberto Contador should ride in July has intensified, with no less than Dauphine champ Wiggo on the bandwagon, the French crying like babies as usual, and Bjarne, of course, utterly certain that the clen in Alberto's system was the result of a culinary accident. Contador, meantime, is focused on his form, and I can't decide if his coyness over how exhausted he still is from the Giro is merely a Lanceian attempt at faking a bonk a month early to send Schleck into a tizzy of fruitless overexertion when Andy foolishly attempts to capitalize on it, or a sincere admission that even he may not be able to pull off a rare Grand Tour two-fer. Y'know, not to give the boy *too* much credit for poindexterosity, but an indifferent if solid first week of the Tour de France *would* have the added benefit of making Contador look suitability vulnerable and possibly even human, which surely couldn't hurt him with a bevy of narcs just begging for an excuse to legitimize themselves by taking someone of Contador's stature down. Boy, are you *tired* those 1st seven days, Alberto--you hear?

News From the Freak Injury Department: pellet-gun assaults, twisted spinal columns, rump-chomping saddlesores--yep, poor we love Oscar Freire's had it all, and now, it's more surgery on his nasal polyps, with the team flat mum so far on his chances for the remainder of the season. And, am I just imagining things, or, between this worldwide spike in farmhouse clenbuterol doping and Euskaltel's innocent Mikel Landa getting flattened by some renegade charging cloven-hooved monstrosity, are cattle becoming the single biggest threat to the peloton since Vinokourov? Anyway, here's the damage: Get well soon Mikel!

Alberto, Not Again!

Now He's Bionic: yep, just when you thought all Alberto Contador had to contend with is a bunch of babies accusing of cheating the entire peloton by clenbuterol microdosing, now there's (wholly speculative and unsupported) allegations from the French that the child is mechanically bike-doping in the mountains, based, it seems, on (1) his suspiciously changing bikes at critical points in the Giro and (2) that long wire attached to a battery pack that Bjarne Riis sticks into Contador's top tube whenever he goes back to the team car for a "water bottle." Um, isn't it possible this is just a cheap-shot tactic to draw attention away from the fact that, a few stellar guys excepted, the French lately just plain suck? Hey--look--I think Andy Schleck's got spikes on his derailleur to take out the wheels of his competitors--that must be why we haven't won the Tour in 20 years!

Sportsmanship o' the Year Award: meantime, I see none other than Lance superenabler/RadioSkank overlord Johan Bruyneel says he thinks Contador is innocent and ought to ride the Tour de France, which is not only a gesture of great and benevolent kindness to his former wayward protege, but also, it can be surmised, an easy proclamation to change his mind on and immediately accuse the little !@#$%%$& of doping and destroying Lance and Johan's innocent faith should Alberto actually win the Tour again. Y'know, I am still dearly rooting for Levi--but Johan and his Machiavellian cadre of minions, not so much!

Forza, Ivan!: finally, though there may well be doubts at this point of the wisdom of Ivan Basso ditching his defense of the Giro in pursuit of his ever-elusive and Op-Puerto disrupted dream of the Tour de France, I gotta say, based on his Dauphine Ivan really got hosed by that crap training crash on Mt. Etna a few weeks back, and I'm exceedingly hoping, at least for livening-up-the-usual-Alberto-Andy-battle purposes, he rides into form enough in the first week of the Tour to keep himself a genuine threat for the podium. Or, accident aside, it could just be his regular-innocent-guy blood values causing the "problem"--what the heck was that stuff Schleck and those guys were mixing into their sports drinks again?

It's the Road to the Tour, Baby!

Watch Out, Baby Schleck: yep, for a guy just at the Dauphine for "training" along with most of the other Tour de France big guns, Cadel Evans is sure lookin' good out there as he pulls highly respectable results in the prologue time trial and sincewise, and if *I* were a guy like Andy Schleck who blows at the time trial, however brief this one was, I'd be feeling a miiiiiite twitchy about my prospects for July right now. Y'know, about the the only thing Cadel could do to make me like him *more* lately would be to threaten to bludgeon another journalist who got too close to his dog. Woo-hoo Cadel!

Readin', Ridin', and 'Rithmetic: and, it's apparently autobiography season in the peloton, as dandy pinup Ivan Basso's got a fine new tome out, "Climbing Against the Wind"--both, according to Basso, a metaphor for cycling and life--and even if you *don't* read Italian, or simply can't bear to read again that ghastly bull!@#$ that he only "tried" to dope in 2006, I believe it's entirely worth it for the pictures, including a full-color, three-part centerfold of Ivan reclining on a bear-skin rug clad only in his skivv--wait, am I reading this review right? Anyhoo, endlessly tiresome whinemeister St. David Millar also's got a brand new book, which, while the title escapes me--primarily because he's so unbearable I can't stand to look too close--apparently contains the shockingly un-introspective but distinctly displeased revelation that former Saunier Duval weasel-teammate Riccardo Ricco was particularly adept with a syringe. (Contador, apparently, gets a walk.) All right, all right, you're freakin' reformed, the sport's still a hideous cesspool, everyone else except you is still a dope-snorting dirtbag--has it *ever* occurred to you in the midst of your righteous wailing that, once in a while, when talented as you are even you lose a race, the guy who beat you might actually be clean? Next on stands: Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen's life story. Buy it or he'll !#@$in' jam his fist down yer throat, you !@#$in' !@#$er!

It's the Official Racejunkie Let's Save Team RadioSkank Petition Drive!: okay guys, it's becoming increasingly obvious that, thanks to the "FactsF-OverLance" Armstrong doping scandal, Team RadioShack's continued sponsorship is in doubt, and, as I *do* feel kindly inclined to some of these guys, I hereby launch the Official Racejunkie Let's Save Team RadioSkank Petition Drive! My plan: we got a perfect (and race-winning!) shill in the great, admitted junk-food addict Chris "Supersize Me" Horner, we need something wholesome to draw in Americans to the sport, so we're targeting McDonald's, baby! !@#$, if a lunch-time-musette Big Mac, Filet-o'Fish, Quarter Pounder, french fries, icy Coke, thick shake, sundae, and apple pie ain't gonna float you up that mountain like you got wings, what exactly *do* you think can do it, clenbuterol? Suckers!
Oh, come on--let's do it!

An Ode to My Public J7

My J7 is a dashing steed,
It glides along at perfect speed,
Encompassing a ride in haste,
Or a meander, to my taste,
Drawing gawks from dazzled peasants,
Humbled by its gloried presence.

You lit up ridestudiocafe,
On a dull and sunless day,
In your coat of gleaming latte,
You were truly quite a hot-te.
In looks it has a city feel,
Its frame of fine cro-moly steel,
Of carbon fiber it knows not,
Beneath contempt to roadie snots,
But as I watch some spandex twit,
Blow by in full faux world-champ kit,
I forget all my travails,
Communing with the leafy trails,
As it elicits compliments
From friendly speedsters far less dense.

Its step-through top tube is a peach,
It puts the saddle well in reach,
So I needn't strain my thighs,
Stretching my legs up to the skies,
Its woven basket perched just so,
To carry sundries to and fro
And oh! the many happy stories,
Of ice-cream trips to Rancatore's!

No, it can't whisk me to the line,
In a Cavendish-esque time,
Nor titillate a shrieking fan,
While it climbs up Zoncolan,
Samu' or Jens I'll never be,
A podium I'll never see,
And though we cannot win a race,
My Public is the perfect ace!