Lance and Alberto Sitting in a Tree...

I'm still recovering from this weekend. I didn't get particularly drunk (or rather drunker than usual), but I did eat my body weight in grilled goodies, cookies, and s'mores. So today I basically sat around watching the last bits of Le Tour and refreshing CyclingNews and VeloNews until my F5 button caught fire. At first it seemed like pretty standard affair. Cavendish won. Surprise, surprise. One of the more interesting points of the race was earlier when Columbia-HTC turned nine sets of pedals in anger and blasted away from the peleton taking with them only 20-something other riders. I'm all for violent circular leg movements (you should see my vicious roundhouse kick), but after the stage was over the press yet again went into ludicrous speculation about a budding lover's quarrel between Armstrong and Contador (here, here, and here).

By now everyone should be familiar with the story:
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man wins bike race.
Man retires and becomes old.
Younger man wins bike race.
Younger man wins a bike race that isn't Le Tour.
Younger man wins another bike race that isn't Le Tour.
Younger man and older man meet, shake hands, tell everyone they're friends, and ride bikes.
Press gets bored and makes up ridiculous bullshit about intra-team rivalry.

It's been like this all year. No one seems to get that these cyclists are professionals. They do what they're told because that's what they get paid to do. Furthermore, as professionals, especially the Tour's GC hopefuls, they should know to stay at the front of race. Even Cat 5 racers understand this tactic. In fact they sometimes understand it so well that they'll crash into whatever gets in their way as they make moves to get more "fronter" than the other guys. I don't think it's of any significance that Lance moved ahead of Contador in the GC. If AC made a mistake, it will probably be short-lived. It's still early in the race and the course will sort everything out in time. So stop writing about this shit, Cycling Media.