We Are the Knights Who Say (I) Ni(ver Want to Win the Tour Again)!; Tinkov Makes Amends; and, Yay, It's Euskistar!

That's *Sir* Brad, You Serf!: hearty congrats to 2012 Tour de France champ Brad Wiggins, knighted today by Queen Elizabeth and, with the newfound gallantry appropriate to his rank, all kindsa "I Heart Froomey" and "Nope, Still Don't Want the Tour Again." Froome, for his part, graciously allowed that the hatchet is indeed buried between the two, not only, he swears, because Brad can now have him beheaded. Brad, from your former rabble subjects across the pond, we doff our hats--now *don't* diss the beautiful Giro d'Italia again by claiming you really want that win either!

I'm Sorry, You Lazy Hack!: in other olive-branch news, enjoyably unstable cycling oligarch Oleg Tinkov has sorta apologized to Alberto Contador for last Tour's blizzard of humiliation tweets, offering that he was only doing it to "provoke" the demoralized boy into some positive action. Next up--Tinkov throws our hero's !@# into 10 years of hard labor in some miserable rock-breaking hellhole to "encourage" him. Awww, that's sweet he cares so much!

That's *Eye*-gor!: last but not least, much as I've admittedly hated team Movistar's fat-cat thieving Euskaltel-poaching guts for contributing to the downfall of the squad by persisting snatching some of their best talent, now that our beloved Carrots are indeed no more (except for the new development team--in five years, watch out suckers!), I gotta concede I'm pretty stoked that frighteningly jobless erstwhile Igor Anton has been signed by the team, along with the previously-snagged alums climber-duo Ion and Gorka Izaguirre and sprinter Juanjo Lobato. All right, the hell with Valverde, you *seen* these boys in the high passes?--change those blue jerseys to orange already, and make Piti fight for it next year!