Yer Rest-Day Roundup, Or, What the Hell Did JJ Flecha Ever Do To *You*?

Road Rage is Right: okay, we'll get to the rest of the carnage in a moment--but what the hell was that with that media car suddenly swerving at top speed right into the entirely non-threatening JJ Flecha and, by extension, poor bloody barbed-wired (and far more gracious than these freaks deserved) Hoogerland? Jeez, why don't we just stick the camera guys on the back of a !@#damn Zamboni so they can flatten the riders right into the road surface next time? That oughta work, you reckless !@#$s! Just look at this:

Ouch Report: in other disasters, Contatwerp went flying head-first into a spectator--Bjarne, can you order *some* of your extra boys to surround this little menace to society so no-one else gets hurt?--our beloved Dave Z is gone with a reported broken wrist, luckless nice-guy Van de Velde fell over, green jersey/class act Gilbert swore post-stage to keep on fighting for the shoulder-snapped van den Broeck's sake, and, worst of all, the gloriously destructive Alexander Vinokourov was forced to withdraw from his last Tour de France with, not a sarcastic tirade against the press and peloton and a leg-crushing stage win or two, but a broken femur and a host of other excruciating injuries after a hideous flyer into a woodsy ditch. Y'know, winning the Tour de France merely by attrition is *not* the way to take this great race. I mean, do we *really* want to see Cav and Greipel as the only two guys left slugging it out for GC in the Pyrenees?

Well, Excuuuuuuuuuse Me: oh, yeah, here it comes, Contador's respectable bailout: quite legitimately, no doubt, Alberto's suffering from some pretty bad-!@# knee pain from his series of crashes and his entanglement with Vladimir Karpets today. Still, the boy is pretty tenacious, plus outwardly optimistic about the restorative effects of a day off, and I won't be surprised if he sticks it out if he has to handstand his way across the finish line in Paris. Heck, he's more likely to stay upright that way lately than on two wheels, it seems...anyway, Alberto, get well by Tuesday, 'cause if baby Schleck's gonna beat you, I want him to have to beat you at your best!

A Gentle Plea for Reform: finally, I don't know what the hell's causing the gorefest at this year's Tour--whether the riders are still twitchy and terrified from the tragic events of the season, the routes chosen are narrow crap, the roads are just too damn crowded as Marco Pinotti suggests, or the pressure for spectacle from us clueless tifosi has driven all common sense from the race organizers--but can better minds than mine (come on, they can't be *that* hard to find) please get on the problem and try to keep these riders out of the ER for 10 minutes? Whatever it takes, we swear it's good by us! Big pillows tied onto their hips? Closing off the streets of NYC for 3 weeks so the boys can ride on a nice clean straight grid? Tricycles, what? Figure it out, ASO, so you've still got some undented kids to ride this thing--I beg you!