f13.net

Anyone else enjoy watching pro cycling? It's a good season with lots of strong contenders for the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong's comeback, interesting team politics, and the increasing use of Twitter to link riders and fans.

Yes there is the drug issue, but this many riders being caught means they're at least trying to police it. I'd rather not spend a thread discussing whether "they're all on drugs", just hope that some aren't and cheer for them.

Riders I follow on Twitter:
George Hincapie http://twitter.com/ghincapie
Lance Armstrong http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong
Michael Rogers http://twitter.com/mickrogers
Cadel Evans http://twitter.com/CadelOfficial
Robbie McEwen http://twitter.com/mcewenrobbie
Allan Davis http://twitter.com/allandavis27
Also the Astana coach Johan Bruyneel: http://twitter.com/johanbruyneel

I'm currently following the Giro d'Italia (http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/event/past/20/Giro%20d%20Italia). Got daily highlights on free-to-air TV in Australia. And I had an awesome time at the Tour Down Under (http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/2009/Tour Down Under) in January - the atmosphere was up there with the Sydney Olympics among the sporting events I've attended.

So, the Tour de France website has launched, with the Tour de France course revealed.

http://www.letour.fr/us/homepage_horscourseTDF.html

Key point is the second-last stage (before the largely ceremonial stage to Paris) is Mont Ventoux. They've never had a mountain stage at the end for over 100 years.

I like the Mont Ventoux change, it could make for an upset and is a nice change from final against the clock stage that has had such a decisive role in the last decades.

Yesterday Paris-Roubaix winner and former green jersey and champs Elysees stage winner Tom Boonen was officially denied starting rights by organiser ASO after cocaine traces were found in his hair for the third time. Last year he was barred from competing for the exact same reason (after being caught the first time). He can still appeal the decision with the French Olympic committee. While his cocaine using was purely recreational and didn't enhance his performance, the ASO and the UCI feel he damaged the reputation of the sport hence can be punished.

I would have loved to see him compete against Marc Cavendish in the Tour, I hope he gets in one way or another. There is a chance his team manager will start a civic case because of the monetary loss based on the fact he never was caught with performance enhancing drugs only recreational ones (which aren't on the illegal substances list of the UCI).

On the face of it I don't like the change. Without having studied the rest of the course it seems like they've shifted things to favoring the mountain climbing teams now and you lose the individual one-on-one drama of the final TT stage. If this was the setup during the Miguel Indurain years I doubt he would've had so many victories as his winning strategy was to hang on as best he could during the mountain finishes and then blow everybody way during the TTs. I don't think it would've made much difference during the Lance years Part Deux (post-Cancer, pre-retirement) since Lance could do both back then and for most of those years he had the strongest team for protecting him on the mountain stages.

They kept the final 40km individual time trial, its now two days earlier in the final week compared to previous years.

The final week now consists of a resting day, two days of mountains, the individual time trial on thursday, a plains stage on friday and then the mont Ventoux on saturday as the last real stage before they do the show rounds on the Champs Elysees.

I'm hoping the final mountain stage will encourage an attacking attitude as its the last shot for glory because in the last years we've seen a lot of potential interesting mountain stages end with the almost complete group of favorites climbing together and playing it safe.

It's going to be hard, though, for individual climbers to break away during the penultimate stage. The strongest teams with the contending riders are going to stack their teams with "super domestique" mountain climbers like Lance's old US Postal and Discovery teams and they'll do the work of chasing down any break away attempts. Any weaker team with a rider in contention is not going to have the man power to get their person in front far enough to make up any time deficit.

The nice thing about having the individual TT being that last important stage is that the teams no longer matter, it's just rider vs. rider against the clock.

We'll have to see of course, but I'd very much doubt we'll see much helpers in the final km's. It's at least a one hour climb averaging over 7% after a stage of almost 200km on the second to last day of a 3 week Tour.

I did a small check and the five times a stage ended on top of the Ventoux each time the top riders were spread out over multiple minutes.

In 2002, the first 20 to finish were spread out over 7,5 minutes coming in alone or in groups of two. There was 3,5 minute difference between the winner Virenque and number 5.
In 2000 when Armstrong, sure to win the Tour, let Pantani win, the differences between the first riders were smaller but again the riders came in solo or two's.
Of course, it was a very different age of cycling back then.

You might be right, but I hope not, it would make for a rather boring climax to the Tour.

The Giro d'Italia was the Menchov vs di Luca show, but on the climb finishes the standout rider was Sastre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Gt2-uLb6Y  And his teammate Gerrans won the steepest climb finish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfhWCypz1g

Contador and Evans are probably the biggest favourites for the TdF but neither of them raced Italy. They did the Tour of Switzerland (edit, oops meant the ...) Dauphine last week, but it was impossible to tell who is strongest - Contador just sat on Evans' tail all the time to psych him out for France.

Armstrong came 12th in Italy, spending the first half of the race as a domestique for Levi Leipheimer. But Levi fucked up one stage and Lance was free to try for stage wins - he was on a couple of good breaks, but never good enough for a win. Lance is a dark horse for the TdF because he'll be riding to help Contador win, but his knowledge of the race is better than anybody's.

The best all round team this year is Columbia High Road (Cavendish, Hincapie, etc). They have their shit together and will probably win the team classification, but it's hard to see them having the overall winning rider.

The only results from that stage that mattered, though, was how Lance finished compared to his closest rivals (Beloki and Rumsas in this case). He did put some time between himself and his top rivals in this stage (1:16 and 1:45)  but he did the same thing in the individual TT (0:52, 2:11) because, well, he's Lance Armstrong.

Boonen's team Quickstep just announced they are suing. I'm not sure if it will do much good, the French being French and all...

While Columbia is a great team, I wouldn't be surprised if Astana took home the team classification. If I'm not mistaken, the times of the first three riders in every stage iq what determines this ranking and Astana seems to be a pretty solid overall block if you're talking rankings.

Belgian media is quoting experts saying (http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/news/1741/Boonen-didn-t-ingest-cocaine-say-experts) Boonen's test results suggest he was only in indirect contact with cocaine and did not use it himself.

You might be right about Astana. But they're Team Drama - they weren't paid for a few months due to their Khazak backers running out of money, and they only still exist because Khazakstan's government came to the rescue at the last minute. They rubbed the sponsors' names off their shirts in Italy in protest.

Armstrong (racing without pay this year, while making a movie about his comeback) was hinting at taking over the team with new sponsors. Contador, who supposedly hates Armstrong and wouldn't want to work for him, was said to be arranging a place on another team. And now everything's suddenly all right again? On paper they're great talent and maybe they'll be so focused on Le Tour that it will all come together.

This might be geoblocked, but hopefully you can view it. It's an awesome look back at the 2008 Tour de France: http://player.sbs.com.au/cycling#/cycling_08/extras/extras/playlist/Best-of-the-Tour-de-France-2008/

Yup blocked. Fuckers.

That was a really odd story, apparently Quickstep (indirectly) contacted Kintz, a French toxicologist who says its perfectly possible to end up with traces of cocaine in your hair despite never using any. Kintz was in the news some time ago because he used his theory to defend tennis player Gasquet who got caught doing coke at Wimbledon. He bases his theory on a Spanish study that shows you can pick up trace elements of cocaine through the environment. While that might be true to some extend, every toxicologist who commented on this story called it BS, such minute traces would never show up on a cocaine test. Especially not on 3 different occasions as was the case with Boonen who has used the 'they put something in my drink' and the 'I have a blackout and can't remember' defenses so far, this seems to be his (or at least Quicksteps) newest excuse...
It looks like Quickstep is grasping at straws to get Boonen to start in the Tour.

It's good to see Fabian Cancellara win the Tour of Switserland. After a horrible first half of the season, he's coming back strong.
When I saw his unlucky exit in the Tour of Flanders (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnUj_ZV-ghM#t=4m20s) in early April, it looked like this would be a lost year for him (he comes in at 4:20, should the video not start there). He had personal problems and was unmotivated. He seems to have shaken off this patch of bad luck and is once again considered to be the man to beat in the first time trial of the Tour de France.

Yeah I like Cancellara. In the Olympic road race last year, there was a lead group, then a group of two, then the peloton. The cameras stayed with the group of two as they caught the leaders. This combined group was about to race each other for the finish line, and out of nowhere comes Cancellara by himself, all the way from the peloton, catches the leaders and almost wins it (just ran out of steam after catching them). Balls of steel.

News story today about exactly this: Lance's team in turmoil (http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2009/06/23/lances-team-in-turmoil/)

Also, most bizarre news of the day - Simon Gerrans of Cervelo Test Team, who won a TdF stage last year and won a Giro d'Italia stage a few weeks ago, has been omitted from their TdF team. He's upset on Twitter: http://twitter.com/simongerrans and other cyclists are adding their own WTF comments. Nobody saw that coming. The only thing I can think of is, he was in Aspen Colorado last week training with Lance and Levi from Astana, which was a little weird - he pops up in Armstrong's training videos on the Livestrong site. Maybe he was supposed to be somewhere else for CTT.

I always thought Bruneel, Astana's manager, used the 'Lance might win the Tour' line to keep Contador on edge but otherwise had an understanding with Armstrong that he was mostly in it to promote his Lifestrong venture and he and Lance both knew that while he might still be a very good rider, he probably isn't strong enough to win another Tour.

Of course, the cards have changed now with Astana dissolving after this season and the past financial woes causing all parties involved to explore their options.

Before the Astana financial meltdown I was convinced that despite the verbal jousting Bruneel would build his Tour team around Contador, simply because he's a pro and he knows what needs to be done to take the yellow to Paris.
Now I'm not so sure, if the Lifestrong/Nike team is what Bruneel will be doing next year, and he is convinced Contador won't be part of that, it makes more economical sense to get the guys he'll take with him to the new team to the Tour and leave Contador's lieutenants at home.

It looks like the exclusion of Gerrans might be born out of the same economic logic.

And Valverde isn't starting. Good thing. He had this one coming for a long time now. Stay, Piti, stay. (Piti is his dog's name and was one of the labels used on EPO laden bags of blood in Dr Fuentes lab).

In a final effort to supermotivate Lance Armstrong, French minister of health, Roselyne Bachelot said today they'll keep a very, very close eye on him. You'd almost wish he'd win just to cheese off the French.

Bad news for Cadel Evans, who loses his lieutenant Thomas Dekker. A reexamination of an urine sample from 2007 showed traces of dynepo. Earlier this year Cadel already lost last year's Tour revelation Bernard Kohl, leaving him with a seriously weakened team at the start tomorrow.

edit: much to his owns suprise the tribunal of the French olympic comittee allowed Tom Boonen to start. This should make for some make for some great Cavendish/Boonen sprints.

Boonen may be on cocaine, but the French Olympic Committee is on crack.

Not sure I really agree with what I just said, but obvious comment was obvious :-)

Best line I've heard today: Boonen will do well, he just needs to follow the white line.

You should have seen the jokes when he was dating that 16 year old. :awesome_for_real:

Anyway, I had a good time watching the time trial today. Aside from Menchov being crap, every other top ten candidate made a good showing (Sastre wasn't great either but this really wasn't his cup of tea). Astana as a whole was amazing, it will be interesting to see how they will hold up as a team. The stage on friday to Arcalis should be great to watch as it will probably be the first test to determine the picking order both in Astana and between the rest of the riders aiming for the top ten.

Cadell Evans was really, really solid. It's a shame he, again, didn't get the team to support him he deserves this year but then again he doesn't seem to be bothered all that much by it. A pity his finish was smothered by Cancellara's tour de force a few minutes before. I'd love to see Cancellara take on the world hour record, as best time trial athlete of his generation, it would be a great accolade for him and put some glory on what used to be greatly regarded discipline before screwed over by high tech bikes.

I wonder if that time trial suited Contador a bit more than others will, or if he has just improved that much.

Probably a bit of both, he's looking sharp and seems very motivated.

Woah. Nice effort today!

Absolutely, when I left work it looked like it was going to be one of those boring group bunch sprint stages and then it turned into this. Great fun to watch.

Now to see if Contador can bear working for Armstrong.

BTW a few days ago I put money on Cancellara at odds of 150:1. He's an outside chance due to not being a tiny climbing guy, but those odds had already come down to 60:1 yesterday and will probably halve again today.

It'll be interesting to see if Astana can get more time in the TTT, or if Cancellara can get more of a gap. I enjoy watching Cancellara, so here's hoping for a worse than expected TTT from Astana and for some friction to open up in their camp.

Andy Schleck     1:41
Carlos Sastre      2:32
Cadel Evans       2:59
Denis Menchov   3:52

And Contador who probably doesn't take being Armstrong's bitch too well.

4 Stages into this Tour the France and everything is shaping up for a really exciting 2.5 weeks more.

I quite frankly cannot believe he is doing it again.  I know it's early, but fuck.  I wonder if Cantador prefers his ass-raping with or without the lube.

Lance doesn't normally like the grab the Yellow so early (yes I know he's still a fraction of a second behind) since it's more work to defend, but I'm guessing he wanted to establish himself over Contador. I just hope he has enough left at the end for the final mountain climb.

Contador's only 19 seconds behind Lance, and Contador should be a better climber than Lance, so I don't think Alberto would be too upset with Lance currently being ahead of him.

BTW check this out: Four of the top five general classification riders are Astana. The next four Astana riders are in positions 7, 11, 18 and 29. Despite benefiting from all the TTT time gained, their ninth rider, token Kazakh Dmitriy Muravyev, is still 15 minutes behind the field, 177th of 178 riders - second-last in the GC! Someone joked on another forum that Astana is going for yellow AND red (red being the lanterne rouge, awarded for finishing last).

The first mountain stage (Friday IIRC) will be interesting. I think Contador is still looking good, Armstrong so far has to prove he can climb better if he wants to lead the team, and Contador has a bit of time on pretty much everyone else. Will be interesting to see how the Schlecks, Cadel and co run it, and how Astana sets up.

I'm hoping there's a nice TV in my room up at the snow to watch it.

If not, the SBS tracker is awesome for watching it online in Australia: http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2009/tour-tracker

That was a bit disappointing, at least Contador took his first opportunity to show the boss who's boss. I just hope this doesn't turn into the big 'Astana controls every mountain stage in the Tour' show while the others can only hang on while taking the occasional potshot.

Sad to see Cancellara have a bad end to the stage - he kept up with the climbers almost the whole way despite two punctures, then dropped off at the end and lost a whole 5 minutes. Other than that, I think the main rivals were just feeling each other out. Contador seems to have a lot in reserve - I think he could have accelerated much earlier. Poor bloody Cadel Evans rode well, fought hard, gained 10 places or so, but still lost time to Contador.

It's great to see Cancellara buckle. It means he is for real and no cheater. He's just the best rider at what he does but he met his limit on a terrain that wasn't his. He simply doesn't have the physique to finish a stage like this with the top riders, especially not after all the work he put in this week.
Same thing with Cadel, when he attacks you don't see a rocket depart, you see a trained athlete upping the tempo, giving it all he's got. It isn't spectacular, it's a genuine effort only top riders can follow.

I can only hope that the blood samples collected today don't show, ten years from now, that honest riders like these two were robbed.

So Cadel breaks away, other riders tag onto his wheel, they get a minute on the peloton and suddenly the other riders are yelling "we don't want you in our breakaway, Cadel, they'll chase us down". Bit rough when it was his breakaway in the first place!

Meanwhile Nocentini is Astana's yellow puppet. Keep him 6 seconds ahead and the pressure stays off Astana.

Lots of whinging about the radio-less days. Wonder if we'll see anything interesting on them.

Looks like the team leaders have agreed to make this stage as boring as humanly possible. Guess they didn't like getting their arm twisted like that.

Yeah, it's so dull. Pleeeease give them the radios back!

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/3720617944_f6b94625ea_o.jpg)

Two riders shot at Tour de France

http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2009/news/article/13237/Air-gunman-hits-Tour-riders-Dean-and-Freire

Unconfirmed rumours have Contador yelling 'This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps' towards Armstrong as he was taking off yesterday. In retort, Armstrong would have mumbled something which sounded vaguely like 'the dude abides' but sources differ on that one.

Anyway, with Armstrong looking vulnerable like that yesterday, the hunt for places two and three should be open. Let's hope for an entertaining last week.

If Contador doesn't crack he's got it I'd say.

Sastre is still the dark horse for my money. In the Tour of Italy he climbed well enough to challenge Contador (who wasn't there).

I wonder if anyone can pull something out of the hat. I would like to see Schleck, Sastre, or Evans do something, hell even Armstrong. But I don't know...

Schleck would have to do something astounding, considering he'll probably lose mroe time in the TT, but I've certainly seen him climb better than he did on Sunday.

Cadel supposedly struggled on Sunday but can bounce back, and unlike last year he doesn't seem to be carrying injuries, so maybe he'll perform better in the final week than others.

Sastre is probably about the same as Cadel for me, he can do something be he needs to start soon.

Tonight and tomorrow strike me as the times when they have to get time back though, I can't see anyone picking up enough from Contador on stage 20 unless they're already really close, so they need to hit him hard now. Very interested to see how tonight plays out.

That was a fun little stage. If Saxo bank shakes the tree tomorrow the same way they've done these last two stages in the Alps we might see more casualties in the top ten.

Amazing to see Lance climbing like the Lance of old.

It sure was. I wonder why he waited until they had 30secs on him to make the jump. Did he wait for a less steep bit, was he a bit winded when Schleck went or was his first instinct to conserve energy for the big stage tomorrow?

He also didn't want to carry Sastre or Cadel over the gap. But once it became clear they were blown...

Sastre caught up afterwards - finished in the Armstrong group, didn't lose any time. As for Cadel, I think he's fallen out with his team/sponsor/teammates. Needs a new direction.

Yeah I was surprised at that one, Sastre must have hammered down to catch up as he was only a min (?) ahead of Cadel over the top.

Cadel needs to give in the dream and ride next year in support of someone else. He can't win the tour himself, he missed his chances, and I don't think he has the personality of a leader anyway. He'd be an excellent support rider though given his climbing skill and TT prowess.

Next Thursday there should be an announcement about the new Armstrong/Bruneel team for next season. Not Nike but Google is rumoured to be the new sponsor.

edit: The new sponsor is actually Radio Shack

I hate to say it, but that climb showed Lance's age.  I think that gap close in stage 16 is a sign that Lance realizes he's past his prime. 

If he's not strong today, I think he will resign himself to a support role. 

I still think he was plenty strong enough to go with the Contador/Schleck break today. But it was a Schleck breakaway (no need for Astana to start anything), and it just so happened that Kloden was nearest Contador to help at the time. Lance got stuck with the "block Wiggins" role, which he did quite aggressively by braking in front of him as the others peeled off! So Lance then had to hang back to mark Wiggins, because any move to catch up would have let the Brit tag along. Lance lost 2 minutes taking one for the team. When Wiggins finally got dropped, Lance took off but there wasn't enough hill left to catch up.

He did get stuck in the blocking role but I don't believe it was by choice. He is no longer the climber he was in 2001, 2004 or 2005. According to himself his VAM (average climbing speed measuring system as taught by Italian doctor Ferrari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Ferrari)) dropped a 100 points from a world class 1800 to something around 1700, still decent but not enough to go head to head with Contador or Andy Schleck on a steep coll.

Pretty impressive and shows Lance is a team player.  Too bad I hate Contador.  Go Schlecks!

Some good racing. Wonder if Lance will hang on to a podium.

Astana is really imploding. Apart from Bruyneel and Armstrong confirming they will quit to start their own team, they are now sniping at Contador.

Bruyneel has called Contador "incompatible" with Armstrong and also revealed that in stage 17, Contador disobeyed an order not to attack, resulting in Armstrong and Kloden falling further back and the Schlecks gaining more time.

http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2009/news/article/16971/I-told-him-not-to-go,-says-Bruyneel
http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2009/news/article/15906/Armstrong-and-Contador-%27incompatible%27---Bruyneel

Hehe. This reminds me of the LeMond - Hinault days.

Looks like the Ventoux will be all about the battle for third place. Armstrong will need a very good day to defend his third spot from F. Schleck, Wiggings and even Kloden. Should be good fun to watch.

Armstrong's new team will be Team Radio Shack btw.

Cadel "oh my throat, oh my leg" FAIL: http://player.sbs.com.au/tdf#/tdf_08/interviews/interviews/playlist/Cadel-discontent/

If he wasn't Australian he'd probably piss me off quite a bit eh? Eh, I guess he does anyway.

He's 32. Needs to stop acting like he's 20.

He's always been a bit whiny and sulky when things didn't go his way. Remember him headbutting the camera (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrpL6BA6PBQ) last year.

On top of his performance woes, his team is in talks to attract an extra big sponsor to build the team for next year (Cadel still has a contract for one more season) around both him and Jurgen Van den Broeck. As its a Belgian team, and Van den Broeck looks like he might be the first Belgian GT talent in decades, their focus is shifting more and more towards the young talent.

Van den Broeck lost 6 minutes during the team time trial after a fall early on because Cadel ordered the team not to wait (which made sense at the time but doesn't score him any brownie points with his bosses now). Despite spending energy trying to win a mountain stage by attacking early in three or four stages, Van den Broeck is now ranked 17th on 20 minutes while Cadel is (I think) 30th on 40 minutes.
Cadel's days as the only head honcho of Silence-Lotto seem to be numbered.

Here's the profile of today's climb, the mythical mont Ventoux.

Yawn. It turned into a boring, defensive group ride to the summit. I was wishing someone would do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXPXHK7I1iQ

BTW check out Bradley Wiggins' new body - remember this is a guy who previously had a track sprinter's physique.

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2657/3754198969_ae6b11cdfa_o.jpg)

Today's race was all foreplay no finale. Kudos to Armstrong for that, he was good or at least as good as Frank Schleck and that was all he needed to put a lock on this final stage. Third place for the old man after three years of inactivity, no mean feat indeed. You just have to respect the man's cycling smarts.

As to Wiggins physique, he lost 7 kilo's before the Tour in order to climb better and, well, just did the Tour. I hope he gets himself a good steak, poor soul looks like he can use it.
Still, he never had Cavendish style thighs. This is him a little over a year ago (march 2008), I'd say a good ten kilo's more of a man than today.
(http://imgur.com/FrMNr.jpg)

I would have love ot See Andy and Contador really go at it, as they seemed a class above, but they just didn't have any reason to do so and a fair bit of reason to hang back. Alas.

Yeah it seemed like there was a point halfway up, where they realised "Andy wants to bring along Frank, and Contador wants to bring along Armstrong, so what are we doing up here on our own?". They slowed down, let the others catch up, and Ventoux turned into a tactical yawn.

It's been the tragedy of the Tour for the last two decades, every year the economic stakes become a little higher and every year riders and team leaders become a little more conservative. The Tour is the only event of the season where a sixth place can make a career. Logically somebody placed sixth won't make a daring move to end up third when there is a chance he'll fail and drop out of the top ten. Not in the most important event of the season. So every year after the first few mountain stages where the picking orders is cautiously established you'll see the teams and riders in the top ten go out of their way to play it as defensively as possible.

This year we saw the first tries of the organiser to spice things up a bit with the addition of the bald killer of the Provence, the Mont Ventoux, on the second to last day and the concession to the French television to do a couple of stages without modern communication. Both attempts failed miserably in creating interesting TV, good drama or world class cycling.

It does get a bit scary when you start going back in history to find those last heroic cycling moments in the Tour, you know the last few times that had everybody hopping on the edge of their couch.
It were the times of Ricoh, Rasmussen or Landis, all so very sexy but all so very wrong.

Still in these days of whereabouts, biological passports and samples preserved and retested for ten or more years, cycling is evolving and so is the format of the races and the mindset of the riders. While I don't see much change coming to the GT's anytime soon, the classics seem to have recovered from the craziness that were the 90's and are attractive to watch.

Jens Voigt speaks from his hospital bed: http://player.sbs.com.au/tdf#/tdf_08/interviews/interviews/playlist/Jens-Voigt-update/

(http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/races09/tdf09/tdf09st21-fumy.jpg)

"My precious ..."

(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46117000/jpg/_46117135_cont282.jpg)

That's a funny picture.  I really hope Armstrong doesn't get Lemond type pathetic now.

Contador: My contact with Armstrong was nonexistent and he has a lousy personality.

Armstrong:
(http://imgur.com/g6DiW.jpg)

Anyway, Vinokourov has called Contador and offered him his services as a Lieutenant if he would stay another year with Astana.

It looks like the rest of the Astana Tour team will join Armstrong and Bruneel's team Radioshack (Popovytch, Rast, Zubeilia, Kloden, more to be announced).

Andy Schleck's contract with team Radioshack is ready to be signed but there are still problems with his brother's contract. Armstrong doesn't see much use for Frank in his new team but Andy doesn't want to change teams without him and is asking for guarantees that they'll be able to start together in certain races. The whole deal may still come down around this.