If you’d told me last week that there’d be cycling news unrelated to the phantom stories of Operacion Puerto or the race organizer/ProTour schism, I would have told you I’d be psyched to report on it. Then, it turns out to be this. Isaac Galvez, multiple-time World Champion on the track, is now dead, following a crash during the Gent six-day.

Galvez was, by all accounts, a true competitor and a genuinely nice guy, and after a number of high profile podium finishes last year, including several at the Tour de France, the Spaniard seemed poised on the brink of a breakthrough that would eliminate his previous footnote as the man who inadvertantly capped Cipollini’s Giro stage win record at 42.

Today’s Yahoo! Cycling headline: “Hackers Steal Data at French anti-Doping Lab”. No points for guessing which French anti-doping lab, especially if you’re Paola Pezzo or Lance Armstrong. (By the way, it just so happens the “scientist” who leaked the Armstrong case to L’Equipe participated recently in the super-secret meeting on DNA testing. I sure hope the canary still remembers how to sing…) Anyway, the hacker apparently sent fake emails rife with errors from the lab’s email server. Velonews says the suspect is a “Landis associate”, but as per usual doesn’t cite sources. Fortunately for us, Cyclingnews does; it’s from L’Equipe, which I think puts the odds of it being correct at about 50/50.

No rants today, folks, and none for a while, I promise. Just a return to the good old fashioned news updates, primarily because my ethical indignation glands have been going full bore since July 1, and are now completely tapped out. First news item of the day is old: Operacion Puerto has been shelved. No charges, and no penalties. Ok, fine: you can punish Jan Ullrich. But no one else. What? Still not satisfied? Ok, ok, geez. We’ll dig up some two-year old charges on a recently unsuspended rider, and for good measure, kick around some new accusations. Happy?