It's the 2012 Tour de France, Baby (Again)--Somewhere, Andy Schleck is Crying

Off-Season My !@#!: well, the Tour de France route's been formally announced after a concerted campaign to hunt down and kneecap the bastard who caused the epic route-leaking screw up earlier, and baby Schleck, you can forget those few short months of R&R after dragging approximately 8 million miles outta yer legs this season: you've got basically the winter to correct your main weakness before Cadel, Alberto, and even Ivan beat the crap out of you at the Tour, or, in Desperate Pollyanna P.R. Bull!@#$-speak, "I am really looking forward to working with Johan Bruyneel, the guys at Trek, and the aero-geeks at MIT in the wind tunnel to refine and perfect my time-trialing position this winter." Good luck with that, Andy, truly--you are gonna freakin' need it! Still, you'll have yer chance to shine and conquer at the punchy new climbs and the few summit finishes, so long as there aren't any of those irksome "descents" along the way. Hey, if Alberto actually gets banned, I'm sure *he* could help you with that--he sure won't have anything else to do the next 12 months!

Wow, Maybe Katusha Doesn't Suck So Much After All: sure, they tossed Pippo Pozzato into the trash like a radioactive germ-stuffed hanky in flu season, but Team Katusha apparently ain't *all* bad--unlike lame-!@# Rabobank and Movistar, they're reportedly on the verge of hiring the great Oscar Freire for his last (aaaaiiiiggggghhhh!) season in the peloton. Even better, they bagged the legendary Erik Zabel (no, he didn't "dope," he said he rinsed with "Scope," you haters!) to coach the fast men. All right, Katusha, here's yer chance--now give we love Oscar the support he deserves, and don't !@#$ this up you trolls!

Search and Destroy: finally, peloton god Jens Voigt tweets that he's got a fine new hobby, geocaching, which seems to me the perfect opportunity: some directeur sportif--please, *anyone*--needs to suss out Jens' next search target, and leave a new contract and a huge bundle of unmarked euros as the prize. Oh, I know, dear Jens is sweetly loyal to the Schlecks--but come on, surely Bjarne Riis at least is flippin' out enough over his betting the farm so rashly on Alberto Contador next year to bankroll a sufficient sum to make a breach o' contract with RadioSkank worthwhile!