I don’t want to be a jerk. Both Garmin-Slipstream’s vocal anti-doping stance and Wiggins’ readiness to reveal the intimate details of his oxygen transport system are laudable. But guys, you have to do better than this:

First of all, I have no idea when any of these tests occurred. The specified dates on the x-axis have no correlation to the testing dates, and the time scales on each graph (4 months, 5 months, and one month) make them useless for comparison. Was Wiggins only tested 4 times in all of 2008? If so, why did three of those tests come in what appears to be less than a single month?

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When Bonnie Ford leaked news of Lance Armstrong’s new sponsor, many an eyebrow was raised. Radio Shack? It would be like Manchester United getting sponsored by Poundstrecher, noted one British commentator; it just doesn’t make sense.

After all, a surprisingly large number of pixels has been scattered on the notion that cycling is the new golf. Rapha Condor, their stylish wardrobe notwithstanding, is largely irrelevant as far as international cycling teams go— yet they’ve just managed to add a bundle of new, higher-end sponsors, including Sharp Electonics and Malmaison hotels.

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Jens Voigt! Alive and more or less well. There sure isn’t a whole lot that can dampen this guy’s enthusiasm.

Well, other than asking rigged questions about doping, I guess.

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On paper, Astana had one of the best Tours in recent memory. First and third is hard to fault, especially when considering that the squad dominated the critical moments of the race, and met every challenge of a resurgent SaxoBank squad. So I should be recanting everything I said about the team back in June…right?

I’m not so sure. It’s rare to have two prima donnas taking catty swipes at each other so soon after a competition. Even “Kobe how my ass taste?” took a full year to bubble up. You think both Lance and AC would be willing to keep their yaps shut; Contador made some pretty compelling arguments with his legs over the past three weeks, and Lance’s Tour palmares speak for themselves as well.

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Barry Hoban, who’s spent the past two years losing his legacy as England’s Greatest Sprinter to Mark Cavendish, was never a fan of Mario Cipollini.

Aside from the Italian’s inevitable Grand Tour abandons and grandiose showmanship between stages, I think Hoban also took issue with the fact that Cipollini did so little work coming into the line. The red train simply turned out the watts—to record-setting effect—and Cipo’ took over at 300m to go.

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Dude, you’re wearing a hat that has a stylized image of your own salute on it, at the race in which you used that same salute? Don’t be that guy.

Seriously—can you imagine Virenque wearing a baseball cap with a single finger, extended skyward? I’ll tolerate the excessive polka dots; if the race gives you the jersey, you might as well match. But your own trademark salute while still at the race? Simply not done.

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I’ve know you don’t wanna answer those pesky questions about drugs, Alberto, but in all seriousness—are you high right now?

You’d have to be stoned out of your skinny Spanish gourd to simply stonewall some very reasonable questions a day after word broke that DiLuca turned up positive for CERA twice during his Giro campaign this year.

It’s not like the graphics (point of order: Riis was never “caught” doping) are anywhere near definitive. As much as I appreciate and enjoy the effort of the dudes over at The Science of Sports, there are way too many variables at play to effectively compare times between years, or ascending rates between climbs.

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I wouldn’t call it a white flag of surrender, but I feel like today, the road brought something of a resigned armistice between the top two GC squads. Astana sacrificed the potential of a 1-2-3, or even 1-2 podium to all but guarantee a Contador win, and in exchange, SaxoBank got the marketing gold of two affable brothers on the podium beside him.

It’s not like any official accord was reached—though I’m certain Riis and Bruyneel have each other on speed dial—but I couldn’t help feel that, in effect, that’s what happened today. As Contador was seemingly uninterested in waiting for team support, content to sit back for the sprint, and offer a friendly push to his breakaway companions as they came into the line, I don’t really see another logical explanation.

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Because I don’t want to be entirely useless today (see previous post) here’s an audio excerpt from a recent ESPN feature in which Jeremy Schaap claims another year is just what armstrong needs.

[mp3 version]

“…Convetional wisdom among the people who cover the Tour de France and the people who follow Lance Armstrong is that with a full year of training, he would be a contender next year; that the lack of top gear power that he’s shown so far is something that he might be able to recover…”

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It’s sad to see an otherwise exciting stage have an incident like this, especially when it’s a rider like Jens Voigt, who could drastically affect the overall GC outcome (and is just plain awesome—speedy recovery, Jens!). Still, crashes are a part of the sport, and picking apart how they occur can help you learn their causes and avoid them in the future.

(Editor’s note: his hand probably just slipped. Watch his left hand as he first his the bump.)

Original Video – More videos at TinyPic

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