Whew! A day of rich drama and intrigue such as seldom graces the cycling world in February—and remarkably, most of it is due to racing.

It all started at the Tour of Oman, which was introduced to the peloton’s pre-season swing through the Persian Gulf presumably to counterbalance the relentless flatness of last week’s Tour of Qatar.

After two sprint finishes (Jimmy Casper and Daniele Bennati, if anyone’s curious) the third stage seemed to unfold no differently, with Team Sky controlling the race and delivering race leader Edvald Boasson-Hagen to a group sprint win.

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There’s nothing like like watching endurance sports covered by a glorified electric company to remind one how miserably people tend to perform when placed outside their sphere of expertise.

Like a French judge ruling on cybercrime, for example. Judicial officials are already notoriously ignorant on matters of technology, and I sincerely doubt that having a shot at the man who embarrassed your national race is going to do anything for the judiciary’s grasp of the subject, or the fairness of its ruling.

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I think I like the difficult ‘cross races best. They reward unflappability and positive mental attitude—good news for Zdenek Stybar, bad news for Jon Page, ten-exclamation-point tweet aside. And is there ever a bad day for Marianne Vos? Mountain Bikers and BMXers should count themselves lucky she doesn’t feel compelled to add some more rainbow jerseys to her ever-expanding collection.

But enough ‘cross—it’s Feburaury! Road season! Check out this huge AFP image of the GP de Marseilles, where Frenchman Jonathan Hivert—wait a minute. That’s a Team Sky rider, losing to some dude from a Continental French squad?! But Sky is the Man U of cycling! I don’t think that’s what Rupert is paying for. He wasn’t even on the podium—I guess Steve Cummings wants to ride for Rapha-Condor next season.

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I realize that 2007 was indeed a very open Tour, but I think Cyclingnews may have been enjoying a joke at our expense when they wrote up this preview:

In fairness, Moreau had indeed been putting down some of his best post-Festina riding in 2007, winning the Dauphine and even hanging with the leaders as they made some uncharacteristically soft attacks in the early TdF climbs.

But Moreau has a long history of needing excuses. When the GC race got tight, the Frenchmen found himself caught out by a field-splitting move from a Vino’-led Astana squad, and it was all downhill from there.

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Ah, you see—I’m not the only one driven to near paralysis by monotony of things this time of year. My advice to all the Internetters who can’t bring themselves to write during the off-season is to step up your skill set—nothing like a few slow weeks to take down a big project or two.

That said, this winter’s given most bloggers plenty to write about. Tom Zirbel’s DHEA positive has certainly ruffled a few feathers; Euro Peloton went so far as to call it a “body blow” for the domestic scene.

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Found this in my Tumblr feed this morning, courtesy of VeloGogo (which, as an aside, would have been a far better candidate for Blog of the Year if Competitive Cyclist actually gave a rip about the criteria it claimed to advance):

My only objection stems from the picture caption, which labels these videos as the “Old Testament”. In the Cycling Church of Cosmo, the dates and titles on those VHS collections (especially “The Greatest Climbs of the Tour de France 1990-1999″) would place them squarely in the center of the Apocrypha.

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Nothing like a little holiday regifting to shake the wintertime rust off things in the cycling world. Today’s gently reheated offering is the Astana transfusion case, courtesy of French daily Le Monde. It’s a story that will sound extremely familiar because since its last incarnation in early October, that facts of the case remain completely unchanged—only the confirmation of a French investigation has returned it to the headlines.

To be honest, I think the story is something of a dog. As plenty of people have pointed out, dumping your doping gear in the trash would be all kinds of idiotic, since anyone with determination and the ability ignore strong odors has access to it; indeed, French journalists have made great sport of dumpster diving in the past.

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Oh yes. After weeks of mind-numbing backroom dealing (Will Contador go to Astana? Will Astana get a UCI license?) the trash talking is finally here.

And who better to kick it off than the psychological master himself, Johan Bruyneel, who recently cast Contador as a superstar unable to come to grips with his meteroic fame—in words that seem more suited to Lindsay Lohan than the TdF champ—in an interview with the Belgian magazine Knack.

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What the hell kind of sales pitch is this? Mr. “it is impossible to win without doping” Bernhard Kohl is now opening a massive bike shop? How are you gonna sell all that gram-saving, wind-cheating schlock to armies of overpaid Masters racers when you’re on record as a member of the Better Living Through Chemistry camp?

Kohl had just better hope that no enterprising competitors—an ex-con, ex-manager, for example—decide to open “rejuvenation clinics” in the neighborhood.

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If there’s one thing keeping American sports journalists employed, it’s the notion of curses. A curse, The Curse, Billygoats, magazines, video games—whatever. It sometimes seems that anything that has nothing to do with on-field performance sells copy.

Apparently—possibly due to social support systems that don’t require pandering to the readers’ basest instincts to boil the pot—European sportswriters do not suffer this affliction. My evidence: this limited edition Alberto Contador cover of Procycling Manager has attracted no attention.

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