I Was Going To Post-Mortem TdF
But Rich Karlgaard beat me to it. He calls it "leadership lessons" but it's a very astute take on what happened and what's going to happen. I have no doubt that Alberto Contador is the best cyclist in the world today but he's kind of a dick. No question he was screwed out of the previous year's win but he's not going to win as many as Lance if he treats his team like dirt. Oh well. Read Karlgaard's piece and next year will certainly be interesting.

Cyclist inspired mailbox...oooooooohh...I've ordered mine!!

!!CYCLELICIOUS!!

Can't ... Resist .... Blogging ... Tour
Today's stage saw an almost textbook performance by the Astana team to put Alberto Contador in the yellow jersey. That Lance follows him is not surprising either. I am very saddened that Levi Leipheimer is home in California after breaking a wrist bone in a crash a couple of stages ago. It's conceivable that Astana could have taken all three podium finishes. And, while it's still possible with Andres Klöden, it's not quite as likely.
I'm amazed that Armstrong is just second off the lead but was rather expecting Contador to be in yellow. He is the man I would have bet on prior to this Tour, were I a betting man. He is a superb climber in a race that's decided in the climbing stages of the latter third of the whole race.
Beautiful, beautiful race today. If you get the Versus Network, watch the wrap-up tonight.

Light On The TdF
OK I haven't been bugging you with Tour de France blogging but I want, at the end of Stage 6, to point out that the amazing Lance Armstrong, aged legs and all is 22/100 (edit note - I had an extra 0 in there, hundredths, not thousandths, my apologies) of a second off the lead of Fabian Cancellara who rode an absolutely blazing individual time trial in Stage 1 to capture yellow. There are probably at least a dozen riders who have the talent to win but only about half that number have the team support to actually win.
Which brings us back around to Lance and team Astana. As it stands today, Astana holds four of the top five positions in the tour. Lance at 2, Spain's Alberto Contador (winner of the '07 Tour) at 3, Germany's Andreas Klöden at 4 and American Levi Leipheimer (3rd in the 2007 Tour) at 5. Astana could possibly set a new team record for highest finish of the most team members. I have already mentioned that Astana is run by Johan Bruyneel who will be recognized, when he retires, as the greatest team director in Tour history. A brilliant tactician and a master of the psychology of sport.
What may be the only problem with Astana is that Contador and Armstrong are both serious contenders for the win. At some point, one of the two has to support the other and therein may lie some friction. We'll see who comes out of the climbing stages ahead of the other and the tale will be told. Lance has been a brilliant climber and a brilliant time trialist. Contador is possibly the best climber riding the tour today. He should have won last year but Astana as a team was barred because of the blood doping of former team leader Alexander Vinokourov.
OK, I meant to be brief. But this is a great, great Tour this year. If you get the Versus network, please watch a stage or two. The commentary team is superb and the saturation coverage: helicopter and motorcycle cameras let almost the entire peloton get wall-to-wall coverage. Beautiful. Brilliant.
Also, for you chicks out there who dig the bums of fit men, the pictures should have you in a stage of constant arousal.

I Wanted To Say Something Today
And then thought better of it. The blogosphere might be better off if reflection led to silence sometimes. I can point you to no examples but as a window into the soul, a quiet time can be the gently waving grass in the wind shadow of a tree in a furious storm.
But what the hell, you don't come here to read nothing (Well... Ed.) Shut UP Ed! Instead of quiet reflection, I offer some randomness that trickles like a stalactite-forming drip through the dark caverns of my mind.
1. Add to the stuff I like sambal oelek. Link goes to a Wikiped page on sambal generically. My father in law introduced me to this spicy delight and it was a home-coming on the hottening up front. I have always liked the hot peppers and other types of chemical warfare like wasabi and horseradish but sambal has that wonderful bloom of heat that acts like a taser on each taste bud. Give it a moment to let the initial edge of heat die down and every little papilla is just firing on all levels. Wonderful.
2. Michael Jackson. I'm glad my blogging partner did the main post on that one. I recognize his talent but I own and will not own any of his music. Billy Beck did a nice job of recognizing the good in the music. I will always be more partial to "Human Nature" and "Smooth Criminal" than the other big hits. It may be a blessing to him that his sad freakish life is now over.
3. Farrah. I hope she did not die in pain as her cancer is of a pretty vicious type. But otherwise, she made no dent in my world. Beautiful? Yes, absolutely. The iconic poster which meant so much to others always impressed me not with the obvious (the pokies) but that incandescent smile! I like good teeth and that picture is just dental perfection. Yeah, I know. Consider it a personal failing of mine.
Besides, I was always a Kate Jackson fan.
4. Have you seen the LED on the new Apple wireless keyboard? It's the most elegant thing I've seen in all LED light-dom. The green LED is not sitting exposed but is actually beneath the aluminum skin of the keyboard. The aluminum is then laser-pierced to let the ight through. Here is a 40X picture on Flickr. Better than I can take for sure.
The elegance of it is that when the light is off (on only when powering up and down), you basically can not even tell where it is unless you get the keyboard at an angle where the slight color change of the metal shows. And the laser drilling is at a slight angle so that the light shines toward the user as the keyboard is on, say, a desktop. Just very cool. If you have a friend with one of these, get a demo of it.
5. Wimbledon. I used to care about tennis. I was a huge Bjorn Borg fan (I was assimilated, ar! ar! ar!) back in the day but now ... I'm sorry where was I? Oh yeah. Just. Don't. Care. Anymore. I am, however, looking forward to the Tour de France and hoping that Lance doesn't embarass himself. Not that he would as he has a very good team around him and he is riding under probably the greatest team director in TdF history, Johan Bruyneel. Versus network's coverage of the race really should be recognized for its excellence in providing video and commentators who know whereof they speak. This year I'm going to try to only watch the evening recaps instead of the early morning live coverage.
OK. I have driveled. You go now. No trouble. Have a wonderful Sunday, please.

The TdF Becomes WTF
Michael Rasmussen, Dane, leader of the Rabobank team, holder of the yellow jersey, winner of yesterday's stage in an epic climb and battle with Discovery team riders Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador is out of the race. His team dropped out as well. And the strong French team Cofidis has dropped out too. Rasmussen's sin, as it appears is lying to his team about his training. He said he was in ... well, let me snip a graf from Phil Ligget's report at the Versus site:

His team manager, Theo de Rooy, said that Rasmussen had told him he had been in Mexico with his wife. We all know now that Rasmussen has been seen training in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. The team then withdrew because of the Code of Ethics, which is now agreed within professional teams.

Cofidis withdrew after one of its riders tested positive for synthetic testosterone which is the substance that's thrown Floyd Landis's win last year into limbo.
I have enjoyed watching this Tour but it is becoming a tour of sadness after all these rider DQs and team withdrawals. Astana, Rabobank, Cofidis. These are serious teams. Rabobank has been doing a superb job pulling the peloton for Rasmussen's wins. And his outright win in yesterday's stage after being challenged repeatedly by Contador and Leipheimer on the final climb to the summit of Col d'Aubisque was incredible - a masterpiece of climbing. Of course Rasmussen has been "King of the Mountains" for the last two years so his climbing ability is no surprise. Still, it was a brilliant stage win.
And now all that riding is in ashes. How sad.
What now? Best of luck to Leipheimer and Contador, both are in position for a Tour victory. But it will be well-nigh impossible to call a win in this year's Tour a good win. Let's hope that the riders now really understand that the doping testing will catch them. I think next year we may well see the cleanest ride in modern Tour history. If not, we will see the start of the decline of the TdF as a major event. Tour of Georgia, anyone?

Sad TdF News On A Rest Day
David Millar, a Brit who rides for the Saunier-Duval and one who has been caught up in past doping problems, says something with which I completely and utterly agree: "I just feel like crying right now." The news which brings these feelings is that Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov whom I've mentioned in prior posts, has tested positive for homologous blood in his system or of "blood doping." A blood doping rider has his own blood taken and frozen prior to a race and then has that blood put back into his system during the ride. It increases the amount of hemoglobin in the stream and thus his oxygen carrying capacity. Personally, this is probably the sole "doping" that I have little trouble with. But my feelings are of no moment in this. It's against the rules and can be discovered. Which makes Vino's actions very hard to fathom.
Vinokourov, again as I've mentioned before rides for the Astana team which "has withdrawn at the invitation of the organizers" as the Versus site delicately puts it. Astana was a seriously strong team in this year's Tour. Two riders (Vino and German Andréas Klöden) were serious contenders for the win and Klöden was sitting in fifth place overall at the withdrawal of Astana. Both riders suffered a bad accident in one of the early stages which commentators thought might have taken them out of contention. Instead both fought their way back into the mix. Klöden in fifth place and Vino winning the Stage 13 time trial by nearly a minute and a quarter. Then Vino cracked in Stage 14 and speculation was that he might be done. After all, he is carrying something like 40 stitches from his crash. But then, reminiscent of Floyd Landis last year, blazed out of the starting gate in State 15 and lead nearly the whole stage picking up nearly a minute over the second place finisher.
All this high drama (and I mean that sincerely - this Tour has been wonderfully dramatic) is hurt by this. I still would prefer to see Levi Leipheimer (US - Discovery team) win but the underdog supporter in me was hoping Vino might take an historic win. O tempora, o mores!
But the Tour is not destroyed. There are still great stories: Fabian Cancellara (Swiss - Team CSC) taking the yellow at the start and holding it for several days. He's now over two and a half hours back in 117th place but he held yellow and that's something. The emergence of Spanish rider Alberto Contador (Discovery team) now in second place and holding the white jersey of the best young rider in the tour. He is a brilliant climber and has the charisma (provided he learns English) to be a Lance-like star. It doesn't hurt to be a rider for "the" US team. And finally, the gutty riding of Danish race leader Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) who, having taken the yellow jersey has simply refused to relinquish it. He is not a great time trialist but has fought young Contador to the finish on two Pyreneean stages. He's kind of freaky looking but has ridden a tactically perfect race for a very strong team.
And there are other great happenings, young riders Linus Gerdemann (German, T-Mobile team) winning a stage and taking the yellow jersey for a day (now in 42nd place over an hour back) and Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez (Columbian, BarloWorld Team) coming from nowhere to prove he is a world-class climber and win a stage. Clearly, there is much to look forward to in future Tours.