I Mean, This *Is* April Fools', Right?

Knights of the Round Table (And Their Sucker Soigneurs): remember all those stories about medieval English kings where some poor doomed bastard had to taste the food first to ensure that the lord high honcho didn't keel over poisoned from some wily assassination plot, only to himself die writhing in agony at his sovereign's sainted feet? Well, I'm still waiting for someone far less gullible than I to call bull!@#$ on this one, but is it me, or has Lance Armstrong finally veered off into certifiable coke-stuffed Columbian drug-lord territory by having enough A-Team goons, sniffer dogs, hermetically-sealed anti-tamper water bottles and double-secret-safeguards around him to grubstake the massive paranoia quotient of some reclusive tropical-forest megalomaniac cult leader ahead of not even the America-hatin' Tour de France but the freakin' harmless Tour of Flanders for !@#$'s sake? Hear those Rottweilers barking?--don't even *try* anything, Contador you twerp!

Smells Like Team Spirit: speaking of the Tour of Flanders, it's only a few short days away, and not only are prime contenders dropping from the start list like Spaniards from...oh, why get my !@# sued?, but Quick Step guru Patrick Lefevere is going on the offensive to malign his own multiple-champ Stijn Devolder as a pathetic weakling, Devolder's wasting valuable energy (1) protesting his maidenly virtue and (2) trying to keep his rather handsome contract into next year, and even the preternaturally amiable Fabian Cancellara is dope-smacking the boy for not being enough of a doormat for Tom Boonen in the race. Y'know, I want Boonen to win as much as much as anyone, but surely this dandy performance deserves more than a *total* beatdown from Lefevere?:


I'm In With The In Crowd/I Go Where The In-Crowd Goes: meanwhile, as you've no doubt heard, the Tour de France team list is out, and I gotta agree with the reject DSes who are going all psycho over it, it is *complete* crap that 2009 mountain stage winner Brice Feillu (now of Vacansoleil) is out. I mean, not to be disrespectful or nothin', but not only is he one of the few French riders not to decisively blow in the last several years, which in itself makes him and by extension his squad an exceedingly valuable commodity, but *Cofidis* gets in over these guys? What the heck kind of justice is that?

And Baby Makes Three: so with Cav's announcement that he's not going to ride the Giro--because, to be fair, like most young sprinters he outright sucks in the high passes--and Boonen already in, by my genius math that's *two* Europeans outside RadioSkank to make it the Tour of California, and, as neither are GC threats, so far as I can tell Levi Leipheimer can stay home on the couch drinking lite beer and scratching himself and still take home, as he always does anyway, the prize. Sigh. Oh, Levi, I'd have *loved* to see in your rightful place on a Grand Tour podium again this year--too bad Samuel Sanchez is already scheduled to kick everyone's !@# if he rides the Vuelta!

A Friendly Plea to Our Pretty Pretty Pink Pals at Lampre: last but not least, a mild request for a bunch of Barbie lookalikes: you've got your ProTour license, NOW HIRE GILBERTO SIMONI FOR ONE LAST GIRO !##DAMMIT! Admit it, guys--it's not like Cunego's gonna take it anyway, is he? Aaaaiiiigggghhhhh! Aaaaiiiiggghhhh!

Punk-!@# Yap o' the Week

Me, Me, Me, Me, ME!!!!: now, I don't what the hell race *you* all were watching at Criterium International this weekend, but me, I saw heck-strong young RadioShack pro Tiago Machado take a really spectacular 2nd on the stage to boy-is-it-nice-to-see-the-French-all-not-suck-for-once Pierrick Fedrigo the day before the child also clawed his way to third on the overall, too. But if you were team leader/legend emeritus/noble nurturer of awe-inspiring future talent Lance Armstrong, in your 5-minute post-race press-orgasmatron with the fawning media so intent on capturing the brilliance and inevitable immortality of your every precious word that a mere mumble from you could make or break somebody for all human history, after a race you had no intention of being a contender in anyway, what *you* apparently saw worth noting that day was an in-depth exploration of your gastrointestinal problems, a thoughtful exposition of the weather, a detailed lecture on catching germs from little kids, and--in a truly Oscar-winning performance of total egomania--that "a couple of our boys were up front today." Generous! Man, just thank Levi Leipheimer for hauling your !@# up the Alps next July by kicking him straight in the nuts, whydontcha?

Millar Time: meanwhile, it was actually quite lovely to see the irksome ostentatious faux-wah-wah-king St. David Millar finally take a win, an interesting contrast given his post-doping tendency to blame the fact that he's basically stopped winning a damn thing because clearly everyone else but him is still on the juice (and giant bonus points to ever-diplomat we love Phil Liggett for delicately not pointing out the reason for the boy's loooooooooooong fallow period since then.) Not that I'm suggesting that the fact that he finally *is* winning means anything, particularly because Great Britain has notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel laws. I'm just sayin'. I mean I'm not saying nothin', nothin' you hear me!

An Encouraging Shout-Out to Tom Boonen: okay, he didn't win E3 Prijs, thanks to Flecha suckin' off him like a leech and Cancellara's perfectly timed attack. But he also hasn't been on a drug-fueled booze-blacked-out Ferrari-wreckin' bender this season, either, and he's really on fine form ahead of the big cobbles, so I think it's important he knows how very, very proud we are of him. You go, Tom--it's only a matter of time you big lug!

California, Here I Come!

Dream of Californication: so as Tom Boonen gets ready to blast the cobbled Classics, he's already looking ahead to sunnier climes: yep, everyone's favorite studmuffinly comeback-gladiator is gonna take on the Amgen EPO tour of California along with great American we love Levi Leipheimer. Well, that's *one* good European rider for the ToC--any other takers?

No Schlecks in the Champagne Room: over in Holy Crap What is Happening to Poor Baby Schleck This Season? News, our curiously unsung 2010 maillot jaune threat is reassuring his freaked-out tifosi that despite his stomach problems he's on the mend and ready to hit the road at full force. For those of you who just can't wait to see him ride, check out this almost disturbing homage to Frank'n'Andy by his Italian fan club: Forza Andy--and watch out Contador in July!

My Little Runaway/A-Run-Run-Run-Run-A-Runaway: meantime, what's we still love lord of the climbs Joseba Beloki been up to besides his new DS gig with a smashing Basque youngster squad? Like you even care, which you will if you know what's good for you, but yes, like Whatsisface-With-The-Yellow-Bracelets before him, he's training to run the venerable New York Marathon this fall. Note to TV watchers: the wee woman in the crowd dressed in orange holding an "Americans for Euskaltel" sign and screaming "Aupa Joseba!" would be me. Go Joseba!

Jeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnsssssssss!: okay, I'm *still* crushed he's not gonna defend his perma-title at Criterium Internationale, but who won the stage today at the bitchin' Volta a Catalunya? That's right, it's Jens Voigt, baby!:


The Return of the Weasel: and, Riccardo "Don't Let the Door Hit You in the !@# On the Way Out, Sweetheart" Ricco' is officially back in the peloton, so how'd our climbing prodigy do in the hills at Coppi & Bartali the last couple days? Well, not so bad actually, and he had (or was forced into) the public relations sense to fawn over the help of his loving tifosi and team, but still, he couldn't quite pull off the win. To be fair (shut up! I am too), it's taken even the dreamy and far superior Ivan Basso a whole season to get back up to speed (and I bet Franco Pellizotti at least is hoping it'll take him a whole nother one), so perhaps we oughta give this sincerely apologetic wayward son a chance or two before we simply conclude that it's not that he made a "youthful mistake," it's that now that he's no longer on the juice, he simply sucks. Or not!

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka: finally, if anyone thinks that the Italians hunted down Alejandro Valverde in a vengeful bloodlust over their own riders' failure to escape from Op Puerto, you're damn right, honey, as anti-doping icon/cycling guru Ivano Fanini cheerfully opines that Valverde "got what he deserved" and that the once-implicated Alberto Contador, if he had any guts, would put himself at the Italian executioners' mercy as well. Boy, would I be eager to take him up on that one, Alberto--heck, even he thinks you're innocent, what've you got to lose?

Please Don't Hurt Me!

Mystery Press Release o' the Week: so Alejandro Valverde, one might surmise, oughta have as his absolute top priority keeping his dirty doping carcass in the peloton at the moment, but what's he doing instead? Inexplicably, issuing desperate press releases swearing, out of nowhere, that he did not so either rat out one of his own teammates to the narcs as being the owner of Operacion Puerto blood bag #18, previously linked to Valverde, when he was being tortured, I mean subject to advanced interrogation techniques, by the investigating authorities in order to save his own butt. Now, I don't know who Valverde could've ratted out that he'd have to be afraid of, but just looking at the 2006 team presentation photos it appears that Vladimir Karpets at least (who I have no reason to suggest ever ever did anything remotely wrong, so please don't hurt me either) is big enough to snap him in two...

Guess Who's (Not) Coming To Dinner?: so Team RadioSkank hasn't been invited to the Giro, and, depending on you believe, either the race organizers are massively offended over the team's high-caliber bail-out for the idiotically-rescheduled Tour of California and still annoyed over Armstrong wanking about last year's (ultimately cut-down) Milano circuit, and Johan Bruyneel tweeting cyclingnews they never even wanted to go to the stupid thing anyway. Me, I'm just as happy not to see Armstrong's giant publicity-whore machine demean this perfect race *again*, but man, can't Johan give Levi and Klodi *some* Grand Tour glories to look forward to, unless you count (as I imagine someone does) their fetching Lance his chamois creme every morning the equivalent of their collective giant bucket of Grand Tour podium finishes goddammit?

Who the Hell is Sacha Modolo?: well, I didn't know, anyway, 'til I saw him come in a rather astonishing 4th in the fabulous Milano-Sanremo yesterday, but here's a link to this young pro's FACEBOOK FUNS CLUB and his very fine, if barely begun, palmares. I assume we'll be seeing a lot more of this kid, at least if he doesn't Ricco' himself out of the running?

Sanremo In Review: speaking of Milano-Sanremo, I might as well should've saved the trouble of grossly mis-calling the race yet again, as intermittent bodily trainwreck/tenacious dexter Oscar Freire not only correctly assessed his chances for the race, but also called out the entire podium as well. Only woof: that no-one'd attack about the end, and big points to Pippo Pozzato and Philippe Gilbert (and didja see Thor right up there with the leading group?) for throwing down the hammer and taking some risks. Better luck next year, Cav and Edvald!

Vai Paolo!: all right, even without his wily presence to shake things up in the peloton, the retired Paolo Bettini's still a god, and with the tragic death of national coach Franco Ballerini the squadra azzurra is still, naturally, rudderless, so let's hope the rumors that Bettini's gonna take control are true. Forza Paolo--and really, could Italian cycling do any better than him?

(Criterium) International Male: finally, we all know it blows that Jens isn't gonna be riding and inevitably winning Criterium Internationale this year, tho' as Lance and Alberto are facing off for the first time since Tour de France 2009, and aren't even particularly considered contenders, it's not like anyone's gonna actually report who wins it anyway. The down'n'dirty? According to Johan Bruyneel, our delicate flower Lance is still recovering from illness, which means (1) Lance is on form, and is gonna clobber him; (2) Lance is on form, and still can't clobber him, so Johan's looking for a gentler excuse than "he's just better than I am now" or (3) Lance isn't on form, and Johan really doesn't want a bunch of crap over it from stupid Americans who expect him to win every time and beeyotchy Euros who always hope he doesn't. Me, you can guess where I'm aiming, but anyhoo, in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I do want to wish--and I'm sure you will as well-- Lance a full and speedy recovery from what's ailing him--after all, when Contador kicks the crap out of you in July and you're truly on top of your game, what could be more satisfying than that?

Blood Is Thicker Than Water (Especially With All the !@#$ Valverde Pumps Into It)

Law and Order: so to the delight of UCI--which, having announced as its most recent anti-doping triumph nailing one of Pat McQuaid's grandkids for sneaking that extra Pop-Tart, could use some good news for once--the Court of Arbitration for Sport has upheld Alejandro "Mainline" Valverde's Italian ban for the 2006 Operacion Puerto doping scandal UCI itself was too lame to bag him for, opening the door for a world-wide ban just in time for Alejandro to, according to his website, sic pretty much all of Spain on their hypocrite narco-enabler rumps and, likely, delay his actual worldwide full-stop until sometime after Jens Voigt abandons the peloton for retirement in 2023. No moss growing on that boy, for sure! Me, I actually find Valverde's lately steady, well-measured performances a lot more disconcerting than his 2006-era intermittent brilliance and multiple catastrophic meltdowns, but then, I'm sure that's just the magic of mood-stabilizers over the slickly calibrated daily manipulation of hormone levels, so I'm certain you'll all join me in wishing our Alejandro the very best of luck in the remaining 2 riding days of his career. Luis Leon Sanchez--here's your chance, buddy! 'Til then however, and just in case we really don't see him again, here's an enthusiastic tribute to Alejandro:


Side Effects: meantime, despite how pissed off the Italians are for Ivan Basso hitting the skids while Valverde pedaled away in smug security the last 4 years, am I the only one who's thinking that, if other countries start banning less-than-sparkling foreign riders willy-nilly for stuff with only the most tenuous connection to their own soil, they're gonna start losing all *their* star riders to outside cycling federations' personal vendettas at a truly scorched-earth pace? DiLuca, Petacchi, Basso, Sella, Scarponi, even the great Simoni, unless you accept unquestioningly as I do that he did indeed accidentally snor--I mean eat--those Peruvian candies his grandma sent him--let's face it, there's barely gonna be anyone left in the Italian peloton except Cunego, McEwen and Cavendish, and two of those guys ain't even Italian. Be careful what you wish for--you just may get it after all!

Mint Milano: over in Classics countdowns, the favorites are starting to eye each other quite closely, with McEwen gracefully bowing out as teammate/former champ Pippo Pozzato gets the Katusha nod, Pippo outing himself as a metrosexual and defending the long road to the line as "foreplay", Cav flat-out calling himself a goner on this one, Tommeke modestly assessing his own form and the Italians arguing over whether Lance (1) just there as some crap uncaring publicity stunt and (2)whether any of 'em even ought to care since any idiot knows Petacchi's the only cyclist who matters anyhow. Me, I've been pondering all week over which inevitably-losing underdog I ought to root for, with Petacchi ultimately getting my vote because Boonen's already won his first Italian race this season and he's been largely absent from the studmuffin fanzine headlines anyhow. Allez Ale!

Welcome Back, Wanker: finally, a hearty embrace back for Riccardo Ricco' to racing action, rejoining his compatriots at the fine Coppi e Bartali, one of the few races that weasel's been welcomed into so far this season and notably free of any of the huge list of riders who've indicated they'd rather like to slug him. Ricco', tho', is earnestly following the Official Ghost-Written Pat Apology o' Desperate Money-Grubbing Necessity, complimenting his team, his DSes, his mechanics, and the mother he cowered behind like a smack-talking over-precocious two-year-old when he got busted, and his loyal tifosi (both of 'em) are looking forward to our wee climbing rocket coming back and, drug-free, show the peloton who's who when he drags in on the autobus on the first climb steeper than your local playground speed-bump. Aw, Ricco', I'm sure you'll do just as great riding clean as you did when you were doping--just look at how David Millar has done! Oh, wait....

Contador's Hosed!

Uh-Oh: yep, it was a smashing (and for riders' bodies, oft-smashed) Paris-Nice all right, as Samuel Sanchez narrowly avoids a disastrous last-minute crash at the wheel of Christophe Le Mevel, Alejandro Valverde continues his creepy new ability to ride more than one day in a row without completely imploding physically and emotionally, Luis Leon Sanchez gets ready to take the Tour two years out, Voeckler violently yacks up defeat from the jaws of victory on the final day at the line, and race revelation/extreme Liquigas youngster Peter Sagan, whose previous palmares apparently consists of being the fastest kid on his 6th-grade paper-route, already ups his asking price for next season. But for my money, the most important thing out of Paris-Nice is this: I don't care what the hell Alexander Vinokorouv's gonna mainline from his musette at the feed zone this year, if he doesn't beat or drug Astana into form toute-suite, between Caisse Saxo Bank and yeah I'll damn well suck it up and admit it Radioskank even if Lance could barely pull of a ninth-place in South Africa this weekend, Alberto Contador is absolutely !@#$ed in July. Or am I the only one who noticed that the Kazakh laundry boy was the only guy in blue-and-yellow anywhere near our pistol-popping aging-ingenue after the first 5 km of the day? Too bad for you, twerp--I *told* you last winter to bail out of that hellhole!

DiLuded: and, just when you thought you'd heard the last of Danilo "Strawberry Shortcake" DiLuca, the disgraced catwalk master drops a bomb on Italian TV telling the interviewer he's just signing a huge honkin' Giro-bound contract with Lampre--like I needed another reason besides their jerking around Gilberto Simoni to be annoyed with 'em--only to immediately back off, one presumes under serious threats from pinstriped legal goons, and say that what he really meant was that he might have a new gig dusting the team bus for Vini Farnese. Nice save, Danilo--now back to Dolce & Gabbana for you!

Schlecks and the Sponsor: meantime, former Astana manager Marc Biver--who herded the squad through the glory days of some of the most voluminous doping pozes since Rock Racing got started--has confirmed that he's in talks to start up a Luxembourg-based gig with Frank'n'Andy. Bjarne, has your admission to winning your own yellow jersey in a dope-soaked haze clouded your mind--you can't find *anyone* to cough up the dough to keep everyone on board with your boys' collective reps?

War and Peace: so I'm lookin' at former Giro d'Italia winner/Tour de France aspirant Ivan Basso's Twitter feed, and thinkin' that, while our pretty principe is cheerfully going on about relaxing dinners with friends and the tranquil beauty of snowfall on branches, the real question here is still how long before a fist-fight--okay, more like a sissy-slap-fight, but I digress--between him and well-coiffed rival/teammate Franco Pellizotti, whose most recent source of irritation seems to be "why does that has-been-never-was Ivan keep getting more press coverage than I do no matter how many times I whomp him each season?" Well, *we* still love you, and your blonde highlights, Franco, so if being King of the Mountains and a truly rising Italian star of, y'know, actual cycling isn't enough for you, here's a little appreciation from your pals at racejunkie:

Did I mention you look just like Betty Grable in that photograph?

It's (Almost) Milano-Sanremo, Baby! last but not least, as Op Puerto refugee Michele Scarponi tears up the tarmac near the end of Tirreno-Adriatico--and I'm sure it's just the Wheaties he's been eating every morning--it's just 8 days and counting to Milano-Sanremo, with a Petacchi-Bennati showdown the big news, and poor achy Cavendish a mere afterthought, if that, for the bookies. Y'know, I wouldn't count Cav out yet, if indeed he's well enough to ride--no offense to Ale-Jet or wholly justified Italian national pride, but you really don't think he's a threat even with that head-as-big-as-his-ego out of whack?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!/

Everywhere You Go: dang, it's not enough that the blizzard conditions are wrangling half the riders into the pavement at Paris-Nice--where at least you *expect* the conditions to be crappy every day--but now even the boys at Tirreno-Adriatico (including Robbie McEwen, who poetically tweeted that he "crashed on my arse") are getting walloped by Mother Nature as the predicted snow turns into miserable slippy sleet instead? Those poor little peloton popsicles--someone, buy those fragile scrawny bodies a hot tub! Hmmm, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to switch the Tour of California to completely destroy any legitimacy or competition by rescheduling it at the same time as the Giro in May after all...

Bruised But Not Beaten: while we're yappin' Paris-Nice, I see Alberto Contador is recovering nicely from a nasty bruise that, thank goodness, wasn't so severe it'll inordinately screw up his Tour de France training, which is great, as Lance Armstrong has, for the second time in as many days, hit the airwaves to reiterate that the Tour is no biggie one way or another and if he doesn't win or even podium, who gives? Um, am I the only one who recalls him (1) stating approximately 85,000 times last season (and pretty damn frequently earlier on this year) that he only came out of retirement to win it in the first place and (2) shrieking like a toddler in full-on meltdown when he didn't? Just makin' sure all that meth hasn't *totally* affected my memory!

Bah(ati), Humbug!: yep, as the Euro peloton continues to welcome the most disgusting miscreants back into its grimy ranks with impressive regularity, 2006 Tour de France champ Floyd Landis joins ex-Rock racer Rahsaan Bahati's new gig, replete with the sort of child-friendly charity photo ops that just last season bought the comely Ivan Basso a big fat ticket to Liquigas. I don't know, Floyd, maybe if you just changed your citizenship to Spain or Italy...what's a little traitorousness to the USA, if it'd score you one last (lucrative) ProTour gig for old times' sake?

Shock and Awe: in UCI news, the billion-dollar bio passport program has now busted its latest high-profile star for doping: that's right, Massimo "Who the !@#$ Is That Guy?" Giunti. Next up, that teenager you always see around your neighborhood riding his BMX bike on the sidewalk while he's texting his buds gets record-breaking narco-sentence for that extra algebra-class Red Bull. Nice to see all your hard work's paying off in locking up the big boys, UCI!

From the Do As I Say, Not As I Do Department: speaking of UCI, as head honcho Pat "Dick" McQuaid--much like the same pain-in-the-!@# ten-year-old who starts meticulously quoting from the rules on the inside of the Monopoly box the second they start thinking they might lose--goes all Inquisition on any sap rider whose sponsor dares to ask the UCI well ahead of time if the new time trial bike they're planning on using gets an A-OK from the playbook fascists, a faithful reader kindly sends me this lively tidbit about our earnest stickler Pat: indeed, while still just a lowly cyclist himself, he deliberately broke the UCI rules and assumed a false name to ride a race in apartheid-era South Africa, thereby being not just a rules-defying naughty-boy and a callous enabler jerkface, but also getting his dirty self kicked out of the Olympics as a result. Sure, *much* worse to have an extra millimeter of carbon fiber on your stem--don't you feel better about being yanked off your bike at the sign-in, Alberto?

We Love Jens Gratuitous Video of the Day: oh, yeah, he's in yellow, baby--and what's more, since he's not defending his 656th consecutive Criterium International crown this year, he sez he's in it to win it:
We love Jens!

Psych-Out or Snake-Out?

Tell Me Lies/Tell Me Sweet Little Lies: okay, I'm not ordinarily one to psychoanalyze Lance Armstrong--unless pointing out that he acted like a whining backstabbing prima donna punk-!@# to Contador last July counts as analysis--but when curious articles start turning up on my legal news sites, even I'm seduced into taking notice, so here's the question: when Lance himself says that cycling is no longer his top priority and boy does he have a lot of other more important stuff going on right now, is he (1) psyching-out Contador by implying he's weak and planning on stealth-crushing him in the Tour instead, or is he (2)snaking-out making excuses in advance if he doesn't beat the child this year either? Recalling Lance's famous punking of Jan Ullrich by faux-bonking in the mountains then tossing him out the back like a drooly tissue, it could well be (1), but for my money, even if it is, it don't mean he ain't got (2) as his back-up plan! Either way, I actually don't see it as simple as Contador being younger'n'stronger'n' Lance (I ain't even gonna argue "smarter," tho' it's true as certain faithful readers have noted that he wasn't *entirely* stupid in the Tour last year) and Lance being a bone-creakin' mummified geezer. The fact is, even with Pereiro, Maxim Iglinsky's throw-down humiliation of the Italians at the Strade Bianche this weekend and psycho Vino's admirable certainty to get his troops in top shape and (unlike some team leaders we can think of) handsomely reward them for their efforts, much as it gacks me to say it RadioSkank is just so exponentially superior in firepower (not to mention more utterly psychologically whipped) that they may well be able to make up for Lance's dessicating body and new-found interest in other endeavors. Aw, rats--if that happens, it's gonna be a miserable craphole July in *my* happy sunshiny world!

I Believe in Miracles/You Schlecksy Thing (You Schlecksy Thing, You): meantime, as Bjarne Riis hits the suck-up circuit begging for a new sponsor, as if he ought to with that roster but then again it's true they don't have we love Carlos Sastre on board any longer so who can blame 'em except for Jens is a god so how they can toss him under the bus is beyond me, rumors are a-swirlin' that Frank'n'Andy are contemplating their own new squad for 2011, with Cancellara already under serious pursuit and, no doubt, a bucket of podiums in store. Frank, however, is coy to the press and dead-quiet on his Twitter feed, merely tossing out a warning to watch out for him at the Tour instead. Go Schlecks--either way, it's not like no-one else is gonna hire you if you bail!

Woo-hoo Jens! (Spoiler Alert): meantime, as Alberto gets ready to avenge his spectacular crack at last season's Paris-Nice, none other than we love Jens Voigt has recovered smashingly from his nasty bone-breaking tumble at the Tour and took an incredible 2nd in the prologue, no doubt a characteristically mellow lead-in to a humongous wad of peloton-pulverizing breakaways and Tour-stage slapdowns later this year. We love Jens!

Tweet o' the Week (alright, 3 weeks ago, who gives?): finally, if Robbie McEwen's frequent dope-smacking press cuss-fests and sporadic intra-sprint violence weren't already enough to make me love him of late, he's sure not holding back on his love affair with coward-weenie Riccardo Ricco', opining he's a "pieceofshit" and imploring him "justdon'tcomeback". Um, considering the Pocket Rocket's known tendencies to dismember his rivals 10 meters from the line, I mightn't get in his face at the pre-race sign-in, Ricco'...if your scumly presence don't get your team disinvited from all the rest of the races this year!

It's Time to Hit the Pave', Baby!

"Hit" is Right: yep, it's been a traditionally beautifully balmy couple o' days in Belgium, as Het Omloop Neiuwsbladt and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne start off the smashing Classics season, as the boys whack the rocks like dominoes, beloved strongman Boonen gets thwapped with mechanicals with almost Hincapian regularity, zonked'n'filthy Tommeke, Nuyens, Posthuma and Pozzato head for the showers early, Robbie "Head-Butt" McEwen crunches his knee before he can whomp anyone upside the head with his helmet, and poor Stijn Devolder even gets smacked over by a flying garbage can in the monsoon. Anyone want to take bets on how long it'll take Contador to flee screaming rather'n take on the pave' with the big boys? Anyhoo, here's Juan Antonio Flecha attacking the field and humiliating the Belgians in the slop at Het Omloop:

A Gentle Reminder to the Fans: okay, fellow tifosi, we've sliced Thor Hushovd's arm off with a promotional cardboard tchotcke, let our dogs crumple the bikes of Tour de France like drooly tissues, thought the direct path of the surging peloton a lovely place to take a meandering summer stroll, and now we've decided that the best and most thoughtful way to get an action shot of Alessandro Petacchi winning a sprint is to clock him right off his bike and capture his bloody writhing form right in front of us instead: Now, can we try not to actually *kill* anyone at least 'til they've gotten their primary objectives for the season under their belts? Most appreciated, I'm sure!

Grey's Anatomy: in early-season body-count news, Rinaldo Nocentini's already out for the season with a couple of snapped leg-bones, Cunego's still in a full-body cast recovering from his traumatic boo-boos, and, even worse, Mark "Jaws" Cavendish's lost the first sprint of his life after an agonizing infection rots out a good dozen of his 8,000 razor-sharp teeth. Oh well, at least we know Stuey O'Grady and Oscar Freire are impermeable enough to survive even nuclear explosions like cochroaches, much less some toddler toothache or silly severed collarbone...that gives us *two* boys who'll make through 'til the end of the season, at least!

Woo-hoo!: all right, as you've surely heard and don't give a rat's tail-end about by now, the world of cycling has finally heeded my four-year-old plea and given we love Joseba Beloki, last heard sighing dejectedly over his hideous dissing, a new gig as a DS at Basque breeding ground Cafe Baque', where he'll presumably nurture the next generation of perfect tiny climbers. For those of you too new, or inexcusably oblivious, to the sport to remember dear Joseba, here's his monstrous Tour de France leg-snap, accompanied incidentally by the single greatest instance of bike handling in all human history at the hands of--yep, I'm givin' credit where it's due--Lance Armstrong: Now can anyone get we still love Roberto Heras another gig besides tottering around embarrassingly in clown-bike races, for heck's sake!?

Miss Manners He Ain't: meantime, as if the Vania Rossi/Riccardo Ricco' saga could get any more sordid with cowardly hightailing and accusations of baby doping,Ricco' manages to take the noble knightship of "wussmaster" to a whole 'nother level as his outraged big bro-in-law shouts that not only has the officious little geek been using training as an excuse to bail on his own son since the scandal broke ('cause we all know that it don't take Ricco' long to "train" a needle into his !@#), but he also had the remarkably fourth-grade lack of class to ditch poor Vania by a text telling her "I'm no longer in love with you, it's over." Am I the only one surmising there's going to be a good two dozen riders looking to shove this crybaby simp off the nearest mountainside on the grounds that he's not only a thieving cheat but a pathetic excuse for a pimply junior-high dork-boy? Damn, I'd rather watch Armstrong coverage than this stupid !@#$! Okay, maybe not Armstrong. Maybe the perpetually whiny St. David Millar could take up some airtime sobbing for the cameras instead?

Tweet O' The Week: finally, welcome to a new feature here on racejunkie, as this week's prize goes to we love Frank Schleck for this pearl in which he remonstrates Jakob Fuglsang for whining about his !@# and suggests a cure as well . Fascinating, but just perhaps a little *too* intimate to send out to even the less gossipmongering amongst the general public?

But You'll Look Sweet/Upon the Seat/Of a Bicycle Bui--What the !#@$ Do You *Mean* I Can't Use It?!

If You Build It, They Will Come (And !@#$% You): y'know, I'm generally not a tech fiend, or a particular apologist for monster conglomerate bike companies, but I gotta say that was a low-rent move by guys who can hardly wallow any lower as Specialized apparently spends hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a bitchin' new time trial bike unofficially okayed by UCI for teams like Astana and we love Jens Vogt's Saxo Bank, only to have it dissed by the authorities when Contador was already settling his rump into the saddle at the Volta a Algarve time trial. Moral of the story: unless Pat "Dick" McQuaid etches his signature on an iron-clad guarantee in your favor in blood, don't expect to come out unscathed. Heck, just ask Iban Mayo. Or Landis. Or Ullrich. Or....

The Alberto Contador Annoyance Reduction Project: okay, I give the boy massive credit for (1) constantly pissing off Lance Armstrong and (2) finally accepting--publicly at least--his Kazakh-goon-at-gunpoint contract misery with grace. And to be fair, every megastar must have his trademark--Cav his chest thump, Boonen his aw-shucks rump-flash for the cameras, Valverde the IV port permanently embedded in his !@#--so one can't begrudge him that. But is anyone else thinking that if that twerp persists in making that !@#damn "pistolero" gunshot motion every five seconds I'm gonna imaginarily grab the butt of his imaginary gun and imaginarily pistol-whip him upside the head with it 'til he actually screams for mercy? Find something else, already, you smirking punk!

Everybody Must Get Stoned: well, now that HGH is apparently (vaguely) detectable--so I guess all those little Italian climber-weasels are gonna stay wee--athletes the world over have a new bestest friend: yep, coming on down the pike, it's gene doping, baby! For my money, this is great. While we're at it, why don't we give the first round of that get caught a reduced ban if they'll agree to grow, say, a human ear on their backs for use in transplants like those freak scientists did to that mouse a ways back? Or goodness knows that hypocrite cheat Riccardo Ricco'd be more useful if we could genetically engineer 'im to produce a cure for the common cold...

Trouble in Paradise: meantime, over at Liquigas, which is having quite the whomping start to the season, sweetly reformed attempted-doper Ivan Basso is humbly noting that both the Giro and the Tour are well-suited to his characteristics and carefully laid-out, wholly pure training regimen, which means that, so far as I can tell, if fellow "Make Me a Supermodel" finalist/squadmate Franco Pellizotti really thinks he's gonna be allowed a crack at either one of 'em, the angel wings are coming off and Basso's gonna beat his Teen Beat bud into sniveling submission with his golden halo. Lookin' forward to May and July--who cares about Cadel or Alberto or Lance, the real drama's gonna be on the team bus!

Here Comes the Sun: finally, as the Italian press wigs out that Damiano Cunego has a boo-boo to the utter disregard of poor Laurens Ten Dam's far less serious crushed pelvis, it's the Volta a Andalucia, baby, as we love Oscar Freire makes it two at the Ruta del Sol: Sprint's around 5:30 in. Allez Oscar, and watch your !@# everybody else all season!

More, More, More/

How Do You Like It, How Do You Like It: well, that's now put a hideous 70s-era soft-porn song in my head, but even more disturbing than both that and Alejandro Valverde's stealthily positioning himself since the Vuelta as a stage-race-winner-without-a-stage-win in a brilliant if entirely hopeless attempt to somehow escape the notice of even the most dimwitted of cycling narcs is a surely very nice Velonews reader's impassioned plea to see more Lance Armstrong coverage in the magazine. With all due respect, ma'am, are you !@#$in' *nuts*? Every sports journalist in this country has already got the One's face tattooed on his !@# and the only TV coverage you're ever gonna see here is of whatever race Lance is using as a nose-picking exercise ahead of the Tour this season and I guarantee you he'll still be getting more air time than not only the actual winner of the race but also if the greatest cyclists of the 20th century simultaneously popped back from the dead climbed onto a bunch of Bianchis and personally beat the crap out of Tom Boonen on the pave'. Please, please don't make this sick slimy orgy any worse, dear lady--can't ya just buy a photo spread of him suckin' on his latest sweetie in People magazine instead?

When Nature Calls: gee whiz, is Team Sky off to a rocky start, as controversy continues over whether the peloton intentionally dope-smacked the squad at the Tour of Oman by leaving poor team leader Edvald Boassen Hagen swinging in the breeze at a nature break by amping up the pace in a gross breach of gentlemanly urinary etiquette. Was it a cold attempt to put these obnoxious upstarts in their neophyte place? Revenge for earlier feed-zone imbroglios? If so, why was Sky putting on the hurt for their own boy as well? These and many other crucial questions can, one hopes, be answered in the future without a bunch more graphic details, or even better, on the road, as Sky's early-season perceived arrogance and the other teams' ongoing retaliation could make it a welcome distraction from the sexier, more profitable, and distinctly more annoying Armstrong/Contador rivalry. Come to think of it, keep wanking about everyone else, Sky--this could really help make this season more bearable!

Sign Simoni !@#dammit!: meantime, as if Damiano Cunego didn't already get on my nerves enough, *two*-time Giro d'Italia champ Gilberto Simoni is *still* waiting for those lazy anal-retentive slugs over at UCI to gack up their inevitable ProTour license to Lampre, which, he promises, is the only thing keeping him from formally inking a deal and riding his final Giro, in which he will, I dearly pray, ride up behind that traitor wussmaster troll Riccardo Ricco' and kick his scrawny needle-pricked posterior off the side of Passo Fedaia for the little weenie's complete taking-for- granted of Simoni's magnanimous mentorship. Dang, UCI, half the teams you already approved are either more incompetent or drugged-up than the boys in bubblegum pink and turquoise, and you're freaking out over some stupid accounting problem? Pony up for heck's sake you hypocrites!

I Guess Fashion Week Ain't Going So Well: finally, despite extremely jazzy graphics and a Who's Who of dope-soaked Euro flotsam, Rock Racing still couldn't score a Continental license over such dubious outfits as Team !@#-End of Nowhere and How Do You Ride This Thing Again?, leaving Floyd Landis, already having what one imagines to be an unpleasant week indefinitely postponing any travel plans to the Land of Effete Bitter Crybabies Actually Pissed About Something Else Entirely, officially hosed. On the plus side, while Rock's jeans remain a disgusting poseur ripoff, those fearsome-yet-dazzling Halloweeny neon skull jerseys are likely to go on big hackin' sale. Back off that clearance rack, beeyotch--$5 sez that team kit's *mine*!

Floyd Landis, International Man of Thievery

Allegedly!: yep, he's officially a man on the lam: a French judge has issued an arrest warrant for disgraced 2006 Tour de France champ Floyd Landis, theoretically because Floyd's coach--they don't even *seem* to be alleging it was actually him--purportedly hacked into the AFLD lab's computers and downloaded a bunch of documents that made, unsurprisingly, the protocol-mangling lab chimps who handled his samples look a huge wad of desperate biased incompetent morons, and Floyd, even more unsurprisingly, didn't feel like dropping into Paris to have a chat about it. Way to go, France--so timely, too! Of course, as a legal ween myself, I admire the judge's insistence on proper procedure, and certainly, it's exceedingly naughty to steal from one's opposing party, so the rule of law must be upheld. But let's cut to the chase, shall we, and the reason we all know perfectly well is *really* behind this--French cycling sucks, and you're just hoping all to hell that no-one who remotely cares about cycling is gonna notice it. Wrong! Look, arrest Landis, throw him in the Bastille with a pack of rats with flea-infested linen for a loincloth and a moldy scrap of baguette for a daily meal if you want--it still ain't gonna change the statistical fact that your boys haven't won a Tour de France since Bernard Hinault in '85, and judging by how he's systematically tackled erstwhile podium protesters the last two years with an athletic finesse even your current occasional stage winners can't halfway muster, he's *still* your next best chance for an actual overall win. But you keep issuing warrants, honey--at least it'll keep you guys occupied for the next good quarter-century it'll take you to put up a local on the top of the final podium in Paris!

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow--Not!

Like a Schoolboy In Summertime--No Class: Yes, in an exceedingly early lock for the prestigious Racejunkie Tool o' the Year Award--and let's face it, in this sport, that can be one hot competition--it's none other than Riccardo "Captain Morality" Ricco', who ran shrieking and crying behind the team kit of his 'cross-rider fiance/baby mama Vania Rossi for succor and, more the point, protection immediately upon his pathetic doping poz at the Tour and has now, in her own CERA-suckin' hour of need, ditched her like a clandestine used-up nut-rank testosterone patch on the roadside. Quoth (roughly) our brave knight, apparently terrified that his fair lady is going to besmirch his unblemished reputation for noble fair play: "I'm disappointed in my partner and there can't be a reconciliation between unless as long as Vania doesn't show her complete noninvolvement in the accusations that were made against her." Classy!

Want Fries With That?: speaking of Ricco', I see his fellow former cheat-weasel Bernhard Kohl has at least decided to make *himself* a late-to-the-party asset to society by the wholly admirable venture of opening a by all appearances very handsome bike shop back at home, from which he plans to watch the Tour de France and, one hopes, provide a serious lesson on true redemption to aspiring racers and carefree tots alike. Ricco', I fear (tho' not without some pleasure, 'cause I'm soulless), will soon be relegated to the less glamorous among the full-time retail gigs by virtue of his sheer odiousness, in which case, rather'n manning the Fryolator in the local McRatEntrails, he might best be suited to scrubbing the bagno. Ah well, Ricco', at least you'll get to wear those cute little paper hats!

Thor Hushovd Is a God (No, Seriously, Bow, You Peon!): meantime, in a rather pointed, if inadvertent, contrast to last season's "How To Eat Your Own Young For Fun and Profit" Astana debacle, we love Thor Hushovd and we're-still-slightly-irked-at Heinrich Haussler have found a happy balance between their competing talents over at Cervelo, with Haussler further attaining coolness by complimenting Hushovd and Sastre for being effective team leaders without also being "!@#holes." All right, Haussler, maaaaaybe we'll all have to forgive you for woofing up the team time trial this week--just don't !@#$ over Thor at Roubaix!

In Memoriam: finally, tomorrow marks 6 years since the great, troubled Marco Pantani's death, and as we join pretty much all of Italian cycling in remembrance, let's recall just how truly fearsome he was on the bike:

The Qarnage in Qatar

Boulevard of Broken Collarbones: holy crap, it's only a half-week into the season on a totally dry course and already these guys are breaking their bodies like it's a sleet-driven day on the cobbles at Paris-Roubaix--can you imagine what's gonna happen when these poor saps *really* hit that !@#$? Except Stuey O'Grady of course, who'll still be blowing across the line 10,000 years from now when he's actually been clinically fossilized and encased in a tar pit like a wooly mammoth. Man, I know these boys are just shakin' the long off-season out of their legs, but please, let *someone* half worth watching still be upright for the races that are *really* worth killing yourself over!

What Is So Freire As a Day In June?: a victory this early in the season, that'w what, baby, as both the fabulous Oscar Freire and the suddenly resurgent Alessandro Petacchi are already taking their first (Freire's) and gazillionth (Petacchi's) sprints o' the year. Since I'm normally deeply annoyed by the other sprinters' constant braggadocio, and last season was particularly lame to watch with Cav just slaughtering everyone (except Thor of course), it's actually nice to see some action this year amongst the same crew who were just clearly utterly psyched out in 2009 by the studmuffin o' speed. Allez Ale--and Oscar and Tyler and Thor, natch!

Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom: meantime, speaking of fast men on the rebound--and let's hope our boy stays that way--here's a lately-glum Tommeke taking his own victory at the Tour of Qatar:

Sky's the Limit: on the subject of Qatar, it was really cool that Sky snagged the team time trial and all (nice work hosing Cervelo, Haussler!), *must* Brad Wiggins have been such a punk-!@# about it to ex-BFF Garmin? Look, normally I really like him--particularly since he's been relentlessly smacking around that unctuous crybaby hypocrite St. David Millar all over--and I'm genuinely rooting for Sky, as it's rather a blast to see a new Brit squad try to take down the usual unbeatables in their first season out. But especially after you did bail on these guys at the last possible moment, was it necessary for you to be such a wench after the stage? Show some class, say you're sorry, and go back to playing nicely on the swings--after all, who's to say your new squad won't need your old pals' help at the front some day?

Product Pimp o' the Week: no, I'm not getting paid for this, tho' for the record (and the wallet) I *do* accept bribes, but Dave Zabriskie's chamois cream for the ladies is out, apparently without the "tingling sensation" that has caused both joy and consternation for the gentlemen. Happy (and chafe-free) riding to all!

Requiescat in Pace Franco Ballerini

Cycling's lost a huge talent: Italian National Coach Franco Ballerini, who led Mario Cipollini, Paolo Bettini and most recently Alessandro Ballan to gold in the world championships, passed away today after a rally car crash in Italy.

He was a great champion in his own right, having won Paris-Roubaix in 1995 and 1998 as well as being a repeat podium finisher.

Condoglianze al ciclismo e Italia!

Here he is on the podium at Roubaix in 1998:

Dave Zabriskie Kicks !@#!

Quote o' The Week: all right, we already know Dave Zabriskie rocks for snagging stages in all 3 Grand Tours and making an eponymous chamois cream that, I've heard tell from reliable sources, works medical wonders on a gentleman's sensitive areas. But what *really* makes Dave Z kick !@#, at least this week, is a smashing interview on team leadership in which he opines of his methods with underlings, "I'm not going to tell them what to do in the fashion of an asshole." Now, I *know* the boy is reputed to be entirely too nice to do this, and perhaps I'm just a raging soulless sleazemeister (shut up!), but please, *please*, let this be a slag at who I think it is! Or at least the second little fascist I can think of. Either way, underhanded, discreet, perfect. You go, Dave!

The Sting: speaking of Armstrong, I see the oddsmakers are already taking massive bets for the Tour de France, as Quick Step Guru Patrick Lefevere, in addition to slagging Cav for being a classless ape, joins Bjarne Riis in proclaiming that, barring mishap to Alberto Contador, there's no way that dessicated mummy can, even with the absolute boot-on-the-neck subservience of his all-star slave squad, take the child out at the Tour. Y'know, I gotta confess, even *I'm* not all that sold on that yet--let's face it, even with that revenge-driven psycho Vinokorouv to set the pace, split the pack, and humiliate the ASO, and the dog-loyal hard work of good-sport Oscar Pereiro, Team Astana this year is still no RadioSkank, and it's not like, given the raw materials the boy's brain has to work with, it's gonna take a lot of mind (Lance) over matter (Contador) to make the dif. Of course, tho' I'll personally be rooting for baby Schleck and Samu' Sanchez to stomp 'em both, I'll be more than happy when my fears are proven unfounded, so allez allez Alberto--it's the only thing that'll make watching the 24/7 Tour de Lance coverage half-bearable!

Jeez Louise, Boonen, Didn't We Cover This in Your Image Rehabilitation Project?: okay, maybe not expressly, but ya shoulda known, ya big doofus, that while Mark Cavendish may *be* a wanker--tho' I admit to being just a little bit besotted with him of late ever since he called Riccardo Ricco a "parasite"--it does *not* help your sorely-needed newly-restored sainthood to call him *out* for being a wanker. !@#$, Tommeke, would he have more "character" you can respect if he jammed a rolled-up dollar bill and a bucket of blow up his nose? I *know* you're pissed it's tough to take him head to head in a flat Grand Tour sprint, but he'll never be half the Classics man *or* half the rakish lovable charmer that you are--you're Belgian anyway, dopus, besides your omnipresent swooning entourage of panty-tossing arm-candy wannabes, what the hell more could you possibly want than eternal pave' god-status? Oh, and if you *or* your boss Lefevere think you're gonna beat out Thor Hushovd for the green jersey come July, keep dreamin', punk--did you even *watch* him at the Tour last year when you were coming off your two-year bender?

And We're Off!: lastly, as Liquigas and a rejuvenated Benna-jet get ready to take on the rest of the speedsters in Qatar, my thoughts turn to something totally irrelevant: what the !@#$ is going on with Lampre and we love Gilberto Simoni? Sign him, already, you twisted freaks, if for no other reason than to give the press something else to yap about in May besides Ivan Basso--you *really* think you're gonna get better sound-bites outta Cunego?

All In the (Cheat-Wanker) Family; And, An Update

Buona CERA: yes, as you've likely heard, Vania Rossi, Italian cyclocross bad-girl and Tour weasel Riccardo Ricco's partner and mom of their munchkin, has tested positive for CERA, and aside from the fact that Ricco' can call his comeback over since clearly somebody's still got a massive stash in his nightstand, the denials are already flying thick 'n' fast and watch out, narcs, 'cuz she's pulling the Mom card: Vania sez no way it's true, because she's breastfeeding. My, starting Junior young, aren't we?--look for this child of paragons to be lighting up the Giro in 2035!

We'll Always Have Paris (-Roubaix): so just as I was eagerly awaiting a largely Lanceless Classics season--which'd've given at least a brief, blessed respite from the gory bloodthirsty piranha-frenzy that is the rump-kissing unbearable laudatory press coverage of the One over here stateside before the inevitably-vomitorious Tour de France adulation kicks in--comes the irksome news that I'll be forced to watch the same retina-scalding orgy in just about every Classic this season, including, dammit, Milano-San Remo. Aw, heck--even the babelicious Tom Boonen could pose in another butt-baring porno-gladiator costume every day and we *still* wouldn't get coverage of any other rider--why don't we just skip the freakin' races no-one in the US is even gonna get to see and just get straight to the 24/7 Armstrongathon and maybe the 2-second money shots of spraying champagne and podium babes? Oh, well, maybe if I move to Italy I'll get to see some actual racing on TV....

A Plea For Team RadioShack (Yeah, You Heard Me): all right, no one else is gonna do it--hell, it sickens even *me* to do it--so here goes: quit !@#$ing over RadioSkank and reschedule the Tour of California the hell away from the Giro! No, I don't give a festering gangrenous saddlesore about Lance--it's his serf-peasant dirt-farmer domestiques I'm talkin' about here! Don't you nimrods realize that, self-negating as some of them inexplicably are, Grand Tour podium finishers like Levi and Klodi still deserve their own, truly supported shots at 3-week glory, and the Giro d'Italia's their only hope? These boys are gonna be exhausted wraith basketcases by the Vuelta after that guy's done suckin' off 'em all July, so for heck's sake let's try to reward 'em with *something*--aaaaiiiiggghhhhh!

And You Thought Boonen on a Bender Was Bad: finally, in cyclist crime news, I see a fearless if dim-witted rider was busted riding with an innovative weapon consisting of a butcher-knife apparently duct-taped to a pool-cue, which, one surmises, comes in awfully handy when you're trying to keep the peloton's greedy filthy mitts off your crack pipe. Damn, is Valverde getting paranoid about the results of his CAS appeal, or what?

And, The Prize For Total Stronzo of the Year Goes To: yep, you guessed it--in an unprecedented early win for the 2010 Racejunkie Awards, the coveted !@#hole of the Year Award goes to Riccardo Ricco', who's not only, as we already knew, a complete tool, but also a coward, a pansy, a fool, a narcissist, *and* a pig , namely for absolutely dissociating himself from the mother of his child in her time of need (after she backed his sorry scrawny little !@#, no less), praising himself of all drug-sucking little freaks for being "honest" for crawling out from behind his mama's skirts and admitting the obvious only under severe duress, hiding away in training like a wuss-baby to emphasize his geographical distance from the guilty hag, and affirming that of course this would never have happened under his watch anyway because he doesn't like his wife cycling because everyone knows women shouldn't bike because it's ouchy. Unlike childbirth, you cretin--but then, you couldn't ride without assistance either, right? Congratulations Ricco', you weakling weasel--only you could beat Raimondo Rumsas' letting his wife go to prison rather than admit the EPO, steroids, and growth hormone she was carrying for him in her car trunk belonged to him and not his "mother-in-law"!

He's Baaaaaa-aaaack; and, Lessons From the Tour Down Under

Wastin' Away Again In Margaritaville: look, you either love him because he was cruelly framed and wrongfully nailed in a disgusting farce of a lab-chimp monkey trial, or you hate him for discrediting a flawless sport without so much as a tearful Valverdean confessional wah-wah (wait a minute....). But either way, he's back on the bike, and with egomaniacal overpriced-jeans poseur Michael Ball having failed to score Rock Racing even a crappy Pro Continental license, and the relentless doper-sucking hypocrites in the Euro peloton having some peculiar issue with re-hiring our own purported miscreants, Floyd Landis is back at the Tour of the Bahamas, taking the time trial while his colleagues make the big bucks and grab the major races in other climes. Ah well, at least you don't have to slog through some sucky Classics sleetstorm or endure the 3-week grind of a Grand Tour--that and your nice new tan are pretty sweet consolation prizes, no?

"It's Good To See Less of Armstrong This Year": Right on, Johan--finally, an assessment from you I can agree with! Oh. You mean "less" in terms of upper-body muscle mass, not "less" in the sense of "if I have to watch one more !@#$ing fawning irrelevant interview with Lance in a race that has nothing whatsoever to do with him my head is going to freaking explode into a lurid pile of brain-guts." Oops, my bad--wait a minute, *your* bad Bruyneel, and the dimwit noncycling press' while we're at it--can we please just get this god!@#$ circus over with already?

The Gert Locker: in other news, after ditching Katusha over some silly anti-doping rule and landing safely, of course, at RadioSkank, I see Johan "Hope You Don't Mind the Wind In Your Face" Bruyneel's issued Champs-Elysees whiz Gert Steegmans an incredibly warm welcome: we're so happy to have you, in fact, that we're entirely stiffing you out of a lead-out. I'm sure Johan's correct that they're not necessary for a *real* sprinter, Gert--I mean, no-one else uses 'em, right?

Lessons From the Tour Down Under: well, it was an exciting Tour Down Under, and while for me of course the best part was watching the fabulous Euskaltel "Holy Crap Samuel Sanchez Is the Olympic Gold Medalist!" Euskadi attack every six seconds so watch your !@# 'Skank in the Tour de France this year, for the rest of you, even more important lessons have no doubt been learned, which for my money are, in no particular order and certainly of no particular use:
1. Luis Leon Sanchez is gonna win a Grand Tour someday. Not yet, not as many as his Liberty Seguros cribmate Contador, but he will.
2. Alejandro Valverde actually makes a generous and helpful domestique. Too bad he ain't gonna be at it much longer.
3. Robbie McEwen still has it. Even if he has to maybe occasionally shove a compatriot into the barriers to do it.
4. Oh my word, I do believe Cadel "the Tick" Evans *really* *has* *changed.* Attacking? Unprovoked? Without the team car jamming a cattle prod into 'im? By George, I think he's got it--he *can't* take the Tour just by wheel-sucking!
5. Team Sky is about two days into their season and they're already making half the ProTour look completely, utterly lame. Unless some of you suckers want to be begging for a gig as their towel boys, you better start picking it up!
6. We love Jens! Sure, it's largely irrelevant, but he did sign in and all, and so long as he's not actively dealing heroin to toddlers (and possibly even if is), the man can do no wrong. Woo-hoo Jens!

Hi-Yo, Silver!: finally, courtesy of tuttobici, I bring you footage of damn near the only racer (besides Thor, of course) who has a rat's chance of beating Mark Cavendish this year: Allez allez Mr. Ed!

Alberto Contador Is Scr*wed!

D'oh!: Okay. It's only the first big race of the season. And heck, Alberto's not even in it. But am I alone in thinking that one day into the Tour Down Under, Alberto Contador this year is already completely !@#$ed? As I see it, there are two problems here: (1) tactical and (2) head-up-your-!@#ical. (1) y'all might remember one rather key day in the Tour de France last year when the peloton split in a crosswind, Contador missed it, and his Lance-beeyotch teammates drove the pace and lost the child valuable GC time. So now Allan Davis' boys do effectively the same thing to him--and that's with a bunch of domestiques who *don't* hate him? Yep, Contador's hosed. (2) you *forgot* the freakin' race radios? Aside from the fact that some poor low-level Kazakh manager/towel-boy stooge is fired and consigned to some unheated gulag, more importantly, with a rider of Contador's, shall we say, less-than-rocket-scientist leanings, Astana, you are going to *need* these things. Helpful hint for the Tour de France--don't forget the bikes! Y'know, they're these sort of triangular carbon-fiber frame thingies, they have two big round "wheels," there's all these funny "chains" and "cables" hanging off 'em, cyclists ride 'em in "bike" races...

Sissy-Boy Slapfight o' the Week: meantime, I see Giro-blaspheming cheat-skank Riccardo Ricco' is hitting back hard at Mark Cavendish for calling him a parasite, challenging Cav to prove his point on the road instead, which, of course, is a moot point luckily for Ricco', as one of 'em's a hulking musclebound testosterone-stuffed sprinter, and the other has the approximate size and physical intimidation factor of one of those sea monkeys you see advertised in the back of Richie Rich comic books. Oh, he's quiverin', Riccardo--good thing that even off the juice, you can still get away from him on a climb!

Rockin' Robin/Tweet, Tweetly-Tweet: speaking of Ricco', and those who aren't exactly feelin' the love for him, belated colossal discretion points to former Saunier Duval teammate/multiple Italian time trial champ Marco Pinotti, who read all about Ricco's incredible remorse and eagerness to return to the Giro and generously tweeted that "it make me puke." Geez, tapeworms, catastrophic gastrointestinal distress...I think I'm starting to see a pattern here Riccardo, it ought to be a warm welcome back to you from the peloton!

The Straight-Talk Express: over on Planet Pissed-Off, Michael Rasmussen is still raging against the Pro Tour's phenomenal hypocrisy for not hiring him even tho' Rabobank and UCI knew perfectly well weeks before the Tour de France they almost let him win that he'd snaked out of a bunch of doping controls, and frankly, I call bull!@#$. There's no hypocrisy in the ProTour, Rasmussen, you're just being over-sensitive--just ask Ivan Basso or David Millar, whydontcha?

Lampre, You Big Tease!: so despite 2x Giro god Gilberto Simoni's manager's constant pimping of Simoni's just-about-finished signing with Team "Damiano Cunego Should Still Grovel On His Bony Knees For Simoni's Magnanimous Forgiveness" Lampre, the team page remains annoyingly coy about the purported deal, showing only comely photos of Cunego and Ale-Jet and announcing in its breaking-news section that Lampre's shoes this season will be--you guessed it--turquoise and fuschia. Dammit you tools, either pay up the exorbitant sum he deserves even if he should just slump in the team bus bitching about other riders all day, or cut it with the on-again-off-again romance already!

WADA Load...Um, Off My Mind: finally, major kudos to the Dudley Do-Rights over at WADA, hard at work with the pharmaceutical industry to develop tests to snag disgusting dopers like Kohl & Schumi, which will ensure, as we all know, that no-one in the noble endeavor of cycling in particular will dare try to fool the cops again. Aw, man, back to autologous blood doping I guess...wait, then you might get nailed by the preset baselines in your biological passport...how about masking agents?...no, look where that got Danilo "Strawberry Shortcake" DiLuca...or they could all just ride clean and quit dishonoring the sport and the non-scumly riders...no....

Do You Come From a Tour Down Under?

And they're off!: yes, fans, it's time to put away your own bikes, ditch that silly training routine, and return your rump to the couch where you rightfully belong, because cycling season's back and it's time for the Tour Down Under, baby! The big news: Lance Armstrong tweeted a "come ride with the insufferable king of the universe" and 5000 adoring fans showed up. Oh, what's happening with the run-up to the actual *race*, you mean--!@#$ if I know, why the hell would the press cover *that*?

You're As Cold As Ice: meantime, our fragile little Contador is back in the saddlestruggling with his cold-weather training in bitter Spain and dreaming of warmer days ahead. First: honey, they're called "snowpants", and I'm sure they're still made in your size--just don't forget the mittens that come with the long string to attach 'em so you don't lose 'em when you go out to play, alright? Second, why don't you just look at the chilly weather as valuable practice for the attitude you're gonna get from Armstrong when you're standing above him on the podium *again* this coming July?

The Stockholm Syndrome: in other Contador news, our hero had a streaming press-conference yesterday in which he lauded his Astana teammates and expressed both confidence and joy in his situation for his upcoming season. Actually, it's kind of sweet watching Alberto speak so pleasantly of his alliance with Astana, particularly since he's spent the last six months actively trying to claw Vinokourov's eyes out with his stumpy little fingernails to get out of it. Oh...I think I'm starting to tear up...our baby's all grown up into a big-boy diplomat!

La Bella Figura: over at better races than the tiresome Tour, I see the 2010 Giro d'Italia has released the new maglia rosa with the help of comely starlets Ivan Basso, Damiano Cunego and Yolanthe Cabau: Now, which one's the podium babe again?

Mother, Jugs and Speed: y'know, much as he tends to irk me, I gotta hand it to Crest Whitestrips spokesman/(almost) unbeatable sprint lord Mark Cavendish: he sure don't hold back when it comes to unrepentant "parasite" Riccardo Ricco', his total lack of need for a sprint lead-out unlike *some* pathetic weakling losers we all know, and his continued obsession with losing the green jersey to Thor Hushovd in 2009 which totally wasn't a big deal to him *at all.* Holy heck, if he keeps insulting Ricco' this big smack-talking lunkhead is gonna start to grow on me--maybe I won't even crow *too* badly when Thor whumps your !@# again this year!

Pigs Fly: in legal news, I see brilliant tactician Alejandro Valverde has offered to pony up his DNA to the narcs in his continued wrangling over his Op Puerto bloodbags, in case claiming that the code name "Valv" is, like, completely unrelated to "Valverde" and his dog "Piti" couldn't have been the source for his other code name, because despite the fact that several witnesses claim to have seen him playing with Piti in 2006 the dog was actually a fetus at the time, don't throw CAS off his trail. Um, Alejandro, not to worry you or nothin', but you realize you can't cover up your DNA with your regular masking agents, right?

An Open Call to Auto-Driving and Pet-Neglecting Assclowns: finally, as one cyclist after another ties up the training season getting whacked by some oblivious moron in a 2,000-lb steel missle o' spindly-cyclist bone-mangling doom or tripped up by some wandering uncontrolled critter--most recently, and seriously, poor Klodi pal Matthias Kessler, now in an induced coma from a collision with some nimrod's cat--may I prevail upon my fellow pet lovers and lazy gas-suckin' smog-spewin' drivers to WATCH THE !@#$ OUT? Yes, I know animals do meander off, and I know it's imperative to Formula 1 race your !@# to the local 7-Eleven for that all-important cup of tar-swill coffee or 87-ounce blue raspberry Slurpee, as well as allow Kitty and Fido their freedom--but ya think ya mightn't try to *kill* anyone over it?