Now Win Flanders For Me, Sagan, Or I'll Grind You Into Dog Meat!: It's Your Ronde in Preview! #rvv

No Pressure: let's face it: our little Sagz has lost some of his joie de vivre. Whatever tactical sense he had has disappeared like a dirtbag ahead of a drug test, he's got squat in the tank when he needs it most, and the poor kid's been so down he hasn't even had the heart to pop a wheelie onto Contador's head. So you've got *one* day to get your mojo back before your desperate boss Oleg goes completely crazy-!@# on your overpaid overhyped has-been butt--but no pressure!

Oh Tommeke!: and, it goes without saying that a Flanders without Boonen and Cancellara is a party without a cake, so while I dry my maudlin tears and grab a cold one to scream my head off watching everyone else slug it out, I gotta say, I know furry bad-!@# Luca Paolini's justly working for strongman Alexander Kristoff and all, but if *I'd* just won Gent-Wevelgem in total dominating fashion, I'd be sending that guy back to the team car to get me a refreshing lemonade while the rest of squad carried me on my shoulders on a palanquin all the way to the line up at the front of the race tomorrow, which, among other issues like a complete lack of athletic ability, is why I'm a selfish !@#hole and not an incredible gracious cycling champion. So this leaves us with a wide-open race with a slew of guys who've been absolutely blossoming in the absence of Fabs and Tommeke's long shadows, like just-dented John Degenkolb, Van Avermaet, Stybar, gutsy E3 Harelbeke winner Geraint Thomas, and former shock champ Stijn Devolder, as well as, well, realistically, everybody else in the peloton from Belgium. My dark-horse fave? Niki Terpstra. My guilty-pleasure-no-chance-in-hell-but-I-still-love-to-watch-him-anyway? The all-style GQ king Pippo Pozzato. Still, forza grande Luca!

The Forecast: 48 F and sunny. Like even *that's* gonna help you poor bastards!

Ow, !@#$!: finally, your course map is here, and while it's gonna be a bangin' bucket o' excitement from start to finish for us, it is, as always, a study in total !@#$ing bone-jarring suffering for the peloton, including three trips up the Kwaremont, a spin up the Paterberg, and, of course, the fearsome pave of the Koppenberg. Me, I'm hoping someone smashes apart a potential bunch sprint by a daring far-out attack. And to remind you, like you needed it, here, your tribute to Fabs' decisive 2014 victory, as the big guy (get well soon!) brings it in:

So good luck boys--both winning the race, and just plain staying upright in one (especially your collarbones) piece--let the pain and glory begin!

It's The 2012 Tour de France, Baby--Oops!

How Do You Say "You're Fired!" In French Again?: yes, the 2012 Tour de France route has been revealed, which is great--except for the poor bastard who posted it a week before the actual presentation was supposed to take place. Of course, since I assume they're scrambling to scrap the entire route right now so it looks like it was just a completely made-up "prediction" by the rabble-rousers at L'Equipe instead of a humiliating internal ASO woof, this could in fact be *good* news for none other than Baby Schleck, who has recently vowed to improve his dismal time-trialing but must have been horrified to learn today that the Tour organizers planned to completely jack him out of the win in Paris with approximately 5,600 kilometers of the discipline. Oh well, ASO, at least you don't have to agonize over whether multiple Tour winner/potential 2010 Tour strippee Alberto Contador should take the stage with Cadel and Andy at the route-presentation press conference!

Greg Van Avermaet Takes Off (And Takes It Off): and, after what must have been a very frustrating last kilometer for poor Marco Marcato, during which Greg Van Avermaet sat on Marcato's wheel like a lump o' lead only to pull out around him as Marcato's leg seized up in a burnin' ball, Van Avermaet took the win at Paris-Tours, and, in lieu of available video, I bring you a photo of his win instead: . Gee, he didn't even need a bike to do it--impressive!

Suck It, Katusha!: in other news, after a crap season at the grossly unappreciative Team Katusha, Pippo Pozzato finally took his first win o' the year at the GP Beghelli, which means not only is he looking good ahead of next weekend's season-finale Giro di Lombardia, but with this new result on his side he's probably gonna be able to squeegee new squad Farnese Vini into upgrading his next season's lodgings from a standing-room-only berth with the soigneurs in a hotel janitor's closet to an actual above-ground shared hotel room. Things are lookin' up for 2012, Pippo--now don't blow it!

Watch Out for Deer: on a cautionary note, many thanks to cycletard for tweeting this footage of a freak collision during a mountain bike race, which makes me wonder if this, along with the truly humungous number of recent road-race cloven-hoofed disasters, proves the entire worldwide population of prey animals has suddenly pegged cyclists as the mistaken target of their enmity: Very glad to read the boy's okay, and the rest of you--watch out for Bambi!

Hold It Together, Cav!: finally, the incomparable Tom Boonen can breathe a sigh of relief that he's not doomed to be Mark Cavendish's lead-out beeyotch next year, as Cav's rumored deal with Quick Step has fallen through and, bizarrely, he still hasn't inked a deal with anyone else yet, either. Bad timing, Cav, it surely didn't help to have let yourself get so far behind at Paris-Tours this weekend--but it's still not like most DSes wouldn't sell off most of their minor relatives to get you to sign on with 'em anyhow!