Uh, Maybe I *Won't* Dope Today...Tales From Cycling's Dark Underbelly (Well, Underpants)

Playing Chicken: that's right, the hits just keep on coming from Michael Rasmussen's tell-all about the gory, glory days of Team Raboskank: having already hastily retracted, under threat of lawsuit, suggestions that we still love so bite me Oscar Freire and Juan Antonio Flecha were doping, when in fact he didn't actually personally *see* them doping--which I'm sure means they didn't--and admitted in a truly gnarly act of filial (im)piety that he asked his dad to literally roll up his sleeves and hand over some nice compatible blood for his own vampire benefit, he's now wittily recounted the tale of how his team bus driver packed a buncha EPO into his underwear in order to evade the skeptical invading narcs. Y'know, I don't care *which* business end those vials were nestled up against, I am *losing* the Tour de France and shattering my lifelong dreams and the whole purpose of my puny human existence rather'n use that !@#$ afterwards. Fine, eat your own twin, store a pint o' yerself next to the moldy yogurt in the defective minifridge, p!@# black for a week while your internal organs freak out from what you've ingested--but using the bus driver's nut-nestled stash? Ewwwwwwww!

The Trials of Being Alberto: and, pity poor wee former Rider of His Generation Alberto Contador: despite winning a bucket of Grand Tours and being still at the tender and primo winning age of 30, two straight DSes have now pegged Chris Froome as the boy to beat for years to come, with sad-sack Pistolero apparently perceived to have Wigginsed off into the sunset. Add to that the beastly threat of Oleg "You Blow, You Overpaid Lazy Worm!" Tinkov reportedly considering buying Saxo Bank and Alberto's sorry butt outright, and I think he's got pretty well one option left: jump into Bjarne's arms, grab 'im in a death grip, and start bawling at the top of his lungs. Glad to see you're remaining tranquillo though, Alberto--just switch yer training plan back to whatever worked for you before, and hope it's (1) undetectable and (2) enough!

The Cit(ies) of Brotherly Love: meantime, cycling's greatest (or hell, even just past marginal) dopers continue to slag each other, with Tyler Hamilton reacting to Lance's latest bull!@#$ I wanna-help-cycling oppressed-victim pity-party on cyclingnews with the friendly Twitter invite "Hey @lancearmstrong - If you're sincere about wanting to talk, jump on your jet and fly to Missoula, Montana. Your posse is not invited." and angry scapegoat Joerg Jaksche musing, as he also commented on Lance's interview, "My last tweet brought me to the question is 'being more honest than [Jonathan Vaughters] a benchmark? Fuck..NO!!" Y'know, it's heartening to see all these guys bonding over how to fix the sport...

Hire Samu' Dammit! Hire Samu'!: finally, eager as I am to start my campaign to Make Patrick Lefevre Let Tom Boonen Ride the Tour de France, I gotta say, Luis Leon Sanchez is about to ink a new gig right after he got dumped over (perhaps, to be fair, unjustified) doping accusations, and Euskaltel's Samuel Sanchez freakin' remains without a contract? Look, look what the boy can do!