Tour Wrap-Up and Pro Cycling Ramblings

I'm going to be honest, I haven't really cared about the Tour de France in recent years. There was the Flandis thing, the Chicken thing, the Ricco thing...it all seemed like a big joke. This year, the drama was finally not doping-related. Whether you love Lance, hate him, or are indifferent, no one can deny that his comeback was a huge boost to the overall appeal of the race.

I think his "team-first" approach endeared him to a lot of fans who had previously seen him as a pompous ass who only cared about himself. Though I would have loved to see him attacking Contador, the fact that he didn't says a lot.

I will be surprised if Contador repeats next year. He proved to be an ungrateful teammate and I think the top domestiques in the sport will look to opposing teams for employement. But, money talks.

Everyone expected Cavendish to dominate the sprints, but I don't think anyone could have foreseen him winning every sprint he contested. He's so much faster than anyone else in the peloton it's ridiculous. I don't know what any of the other sprinters can do, aside from going all Tonya Harding on his ass. Shit, the other teams couldn't even manage to form a lead-out train for their riders. Columbia just burned them off, resulting in every other sprinter vying for Cav's wheel. They tried and tried and tried, but were never able to come around him.

I don't care what anyone says, Cav deserved that green jersey. That he didn't get it is a testament to a flawed scoring system. I mean, come on, a guy who wins 6 stages doesn't get the most points? Really? Fuck that.

L'Equipe is reporting that pretty much the entire Astana team, minus Pistolero, is transferring to Team RadioShack. Armstrong, Leipheimer, Kloden, Zubeldia, Popovych, Rast, and Horner. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that they're in negotiations with Andy Schleck.

I guarantee Lance is not going to put himself in another situation where he's a co-leader on the team, so one can only speculate as to what the agreement will be. Either Lance determined that he's no longer able to be a contender in the Tour and is putting his eggs Schleck's basket or he convinced Schleck to work for him next year. Though neither seems likely.

Some have compared this to when Discovery brought Roberto Heras onboard to work for Lance. This is not the same. Heras was never a legitimate contender for a Grand Tour Tour de France win. Schleck is.

Lance seems like the vindictive type to me, so it's quite possible he sees Schleck as his way of beating Contador. Jumping on the Bruyneel train is a good move for any rider, so it makes sense for Andy. Word on the street is that the only reason this isn't a done deal is because Lance doesn't want Frank (Andy's brother) on the team because he thinks Frank will hold him (Andy) back. He probably has a point.

Which brings up another point. Frank would be an incredible teammate to have in the mountains, so the fact that Lance is concerned about Andy being held back by him leads me to conclude that Lance is not building this team around himself.

This should get interesting.