I give my saddle sores hGH injections.

It’s a golden jersey!

After stomping everyone on the “AngryLoo” Alberto Contador (Astana) completes the treble of Grand Tours by winning the Vuelta A España. Imagine this 5-6 years ago and how absolutely crazy everyone would be from the accomplishment. Now we’re all waiting for some Frenchies in lab coats to shoot down our collective dreams for a so fresh, so clean cycling champion.

My name-a Johan

Astana, the Johan Bruyneel for Make Benefit Cycle Team of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan powered by Trek, has proven again that with JB at the helm a team simply dominates stage races. So much so that they also nabbed the 2nd spot on the podium with the new eternal bridesmaid, Levi Leipheimer. Unfortunately their glorious GC leader feels that Levi shouldn’t have been that close in the first place. Calling Levi a wheelsucker (another word for non-doper) sorta sends a message of martial displeasure doesn’t it?

PRE-UPDATE: LANCE JOINS ASTANA! (9/24) I’M TOO DAMN LATE FOR MY POST…

The Crusader returns

Which brings me to my next part of the post. Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement. My predictions:

• Johan is the only manager that Lance will ride for.
• Lance will not ride for the Glorious Nation of Kasakhstan.
• Contador will either stay with Astana sans JB, LA, and LL, or go to another team.
• Contador will test positive the moment he signs with another team.
• Lance will place second in the Tour behind a resplendent Leipheimer and in front of Christian Vande Velde making a USA 1-2-3. France responds by storming the Opéra Bastille.
• Bjarne Riis will reveal that a sign of heavy EPO use is male pattern baldness.
• Levi in turn is disqualified and banned making Armstrong the Oscar Pereiro of 2009.
• VDV is now second with Tyler Hamilton stepping onto the third tier after Michael Ball sued the ASO giving Rock Racing a forced invite into the TDF.

I love cycling!

Image courtesy of Cyclingnews.

I posted some images on my flickr account from this past weekends’ race in DC.  I want to write some about the race, but for one I’m spreading myself WAY to thin with web-work, and two, most of my recollection of the race was watching my 6 month old daughter react to all the cow-bells!  This was her second race already.  She’s a pro!

It looks as though Spain doesn’t seem to realize that Levi and Alberto are on the same pro team. They don’t also realize that Contador beat Leipheimer in last year’s TDF claiming the yellow jersey. They claim that Levi’s extensions were at too great of an angle so that gave him an unfair advantage to win the Bronze ahead of Contador.

Really? Maybe you should claim that Levi’s legs, lungs, and overall riding skill gave him an unfair advantage as well. Hell, why not just shit over the whole thing and claim that Levi’s BRONZE MEDAL winning ride was “other-worldly” and that you may have seen him having drinks with Michele Ferrari! You could even say that you found a code-name in a Puerto report referring to a rider named “pantalones azul!”

Didn’t one of your top riders just test positive?

It was a good race, but I was never pulled in.  I guess the dynamics of a top-fuel race are a thing of the past.  Maybe we should let doping back in…

Some quick thoughts on Le Tour:

• Still wish that Cadel won, but Sastre also deserved a hard earned victory
• VandeVelde burst from the shadows of domestiqueness to blossom as a team leader
• Schumacher is a douche and he looks weird
• Where the hell did Bernhard (Jay-Z) Kohl come from?
• Guess this is the podium and race you get when there’s not a lot of doping
• Riccó and Piepoli will go on the road as ventriloquist act with Leonardo as the dummy
• Oscar won’t even register on Spain’s radar
• Garmin-Chipotlé are undeniably Pro-Tour caliber
• But there’s no Pro-Tour
• Team Columbia can celebrate their incredible Tour by going camping
• It’s becoming increasingly obvious that incredible performances are gained by artificial means
• Maybe we needed Beloki to throw himself onto the ground again

Taking up the eternally futile efforts a la Jacky Durand by continually finding himself in breaks, Sylvain Chavanel finally got one that stuck!  Even sweeter still is the fact that he set the record for most kilometers spent in breakaways - 415, or 258 miles!

The French have had a great Tour.  Although still not a threat for the GC, they’re definitely a threat to put a hurting into the peloton by jumping off the front from the gun.

Tomorrow we find out who was great on the day, and who sucked.  Unfortunately I have so much other things to do that I’m not as excited by the race like I used to be.  Damn, am I so transparent that my interest has waned simply because an American isn’t dominating it any longer?  No, I’ll admit that 6 and 7 were pretty boring from the Armstrong era.  I’m chalking it up to not riding this summer, and all my attention is focused on my daughter!

I’ll still watch tomorrow, but she’ll be in my lap rooting Christian to a podium place!