My Thoughts On This Year’s Tour de France

Admit it.  We’re triathletes and we ride bikes.  We all have opinions on this drama, one way or the other, and I’m no different.  If the title of this post isn’t clear enough, these will be my opinions written on my blog.  If you see things differently, that’s fine.  Try not to be offended.  Not that I think I’ll be saying anything offensive, but hey, you never know.  If you see things similarly, that’s fine too.  Feel free to comment.  If you disagree, you can comment too, but don’t expect to talk me into changing my mind.  With me, you’re better off finding a topic that I haven’t formed any firm opinions on yet if that kind of thing is important to you.

Now on to the Tour.

First and foremost, I feel that those folks that chose to “give up” on the tour and not watch it because of last year’s scandals are really missing out.  This Tour is an epic drama even when you remove the recent doping shockers.  The racing has been outstanding.  Even the stage where they went so slow for most of it that I could have easily remained attached finished up in an exciting fight for the line.  This year’s Tour has been well worth the time spent in front of the TV.

It’s been a crazy past few days of damage on the start list.  I will say that now my three favorites are in the top three spots, so that makes me happy.  Regardless of the outcome after the coming individual time trial, it will be a fine day on the podium as far as I’m concerned.  Hopefully, there will be no more untimely exits, but I suppose there are no guarantees. 

Next, I’ll touch on Vino, that selfish bastard.  He should have never been the team lead man in the first place.  I mean, I feel bad about him missing the Tour last year because of his team being wiped out from the Operation Puerto deal, but since when has he ever been consistent enough to be a GC guy?  I’ll tell you when– never– and this year is no different.  In typical fashion, he does great one day then craps out the next.  It’s like he has to get morally irate or emotionally invested in order to pull out a great day, loses focus the next, then gets mad at his sucky performance and follows up with another zinger.  All while they have a solid guy named Kloden that has podiumed at the Tour before going back and baby-sitting Vino on one of his bad days.  As it turns out, those great days appear to be in part due to blood doping, discovered hot on the heels of the Astana sponsors proclaiming another 10 years of support. I guess this won’t be happening after all.  Nice one, Vino.  While this announcement did shock me, I was glad to see him go.  Never really been a fan of the man.

I hear there was a French guy named Moreni that got nailed for testosterone too.  Not sure who he was, but that was stupid.  This news was easily overshadowed by the Rabobank people finally caving to pressure about the Rasmussen’s weasely avoidance of out of competition drug tests and intentionally misleading key people regarding his whereabouts in the final leadup to the tour.  The Chicken should never have even started the race, but at least this was taken care of before Paris.  He’s kind of a jerk and has been quoted using the approach of personal attacks on his detractors, which to me is a glowing neon sign reading “I’m a liar and I’m hiding something.”  I’m glad he’s gone too.

I’m also glad about the crack down.  I do think there are a lot of clean riders in the Tour, which is a different opinion than some cynics out there.  I also think this is a great step in the right direction.  I just want to watch great racing and all the better if it’s a true test of talent, preparation and guts. 

Vive le Tour.

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