2011 Tour de France Running, er, Cycling Thread

Time for a new one as the 98th edition starts Saturday with a ceremonial ride across the only-at-low-tide Passage du Gois...



Other than the obvious (will Contador be caught doping again? Will Andy's chain stay on?) some interesting storylines include:

1. Return of the team time trial -- will Sky put Wiggo in Yellow on Day 2, or will HTC get Cav into the "yellow jumper?"

2. New points for the sprinter's jersey means Cav might actually win it this year

3. Is Radio Shack for real -- can one of the two aging "Chemical Brothers" make a podium showing?

4. Will any of the big crop of U23 riders make an impact?

 

I'm going to make chicken for dinner tonight. Hope someone didn't sneak into my freezer and inject it with clenbuterol.

Also, how did the Passage du Gois suddenly become a good idea again? Wasn't the mass chaos from that in 1998 warning enough?

 

New Tour de France slogan -- Only the wheels are spinning this year!

 

Shouldn't it be "rolling thread"?

 

That chaos is why it's a ceremonial ride this year...the race officially starts on the other side.

 

How about if Contador finishes first again this year, then CAS rules he doped and gets stripped of not one, but two Tour titles because he should have not been eligible to ride this year in the first place.

 

or better yet, let's have a kid with a musette wrap the strap around Contador's bars when they go up Luz Ardiden and spike his ass to the ground. Andy attacks and goes "remember my chain, motherfucker!"

 

Floyd Landis Is Sparring With Lance Armstrong Under A Strange Twitter Pseudonym
Jack Dickey —Outside magazine has the story of temporary 2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis and his anti-Lance-Armstrong Tweeting collective. Right now, they're holding court at @GreyManrod.

Grey Manrod would be a silly fake name, but the truth is even stranger than that: Landis set Grey Manrod up as a fake law firm. According to the phony firm's website, Grey Manrod has offices in New York, Baghdad, and Djibouti, and focuses on "Vegetable Rights Abuse Advocacy and Pronunciation Mediation," among other areas of interest. There's a brief mention of Tyler Hamilton's 60 Minutes interview on the site.

Landis says the Grey Manrod persona and Twitter account tries to combat a myth-making mission by Armstrong's people, that it's spreading the good word.

But here's Outside's take on Landis's ostensibly harmless fun:

That's the high-minded explanation, anyway. Down on the low road, it's obvious that @GreyManrod-a handle Landis says he shares with about ten other people-simply likes giving Armstrong a hard time. For example, after Armstrong's recent run-in with Hamilton in an Aspen bistro, Manrod poured fuel on the fire, tweeting and retweeting rapid-fire insults. "He's practicing being in peoples faces to protect his backside to prep for prison," said one of the messages. Another, a retweet, observed: "Soon Jeff Noviztky [sic], a ‘Good Friend' of @Ty_Hamilton is going to toss @lancearmstrong out of the bistro called freedom."

It's tempting to write this stuff off as mere towel-snapping by a disgruntled jock and his online pals, but Landis's cyber-heckling could seriously backfire, particularly if he's called upon to testify in court. Reportedly, Landis is a plaintiff in a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed against Armstrong and his former U.S. Postal teammates, and he's a potential witness for the government should a current grand jury investigation of Armstrong result in fraud or perjury charges. (The inquiry began shortly after Landis accused Armstrong of cheating in 2010, allegations that were made public after The Wall Street Journal obtained a letter Landis had written to cycling's governing body, the International Cycling Union. Armstrong has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing.) Landis also says he's the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into fundraising activities by his Floyd Fairness Fund.

With litigation on the table, leaving a trail of hostile tweets might not be the brightest idea.

http://deadspin.com/5815914/floyd-landis-is-sparring-with-lance-armstrong-under-a-strange-twitter-pseudonym

 

Just four days late with the D_B, D_B.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/3085336/

 

Are any cyclists in the Tour not on EPO?

 

none of them are on EPO. that's so 90s.
It's all about CERA, blood doping, HGH and anything else recently churned out of a lab there isn't a test for yet.

 

You left off "Synthetic Horse Peptide" from your list...

...and yes, we have our first TdF 2011 drug bust:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/omega-pharma-lotto-cuts-ties-to-vansevenant

The "Ultra-Modern doping products" he was caught with?

http://www.tb500.com/