Having served his penalty for doping in the 2006 Tour de France, Floyd Landis now aims to get back into Euro stage racing. What team will he join? Expect the rumor mill to churn back up as trial balloons get sent … Team Radio Shack anyone? Lance & Floyd, reunited?

Bicycle.net: Davide Rebellin will be stripped of his 2008 Olympic silver medal after testing positive for EPO. Another indication that even if you dodge detection the first time or two around, technological advances will eventually nab ya.

He'll always have Paris. Again.

Floyd will be back in the Tour de France. He does need a game plan, though.

Floyd himself admitted it aint going to be easy. But it’s not as challenging as going into Mennonite country to score some crack or to cast a porno film. That would be difficult not to mention highly inappropriate. Still….

Floyd Landis is going back to the Tour de France and we at Twisted Spoke will give him the blueprint, or as the French say, le print de blue. The following steps are simple, tried and true and bullet-proof ways to bring those gallic race organizers around. They can be had because the French have their weak-points.

Light up.

Start smoking Gauloise cigarettes like the great stars of the 6o’s and 70’s — whoever they are. Jean Gabin, you know. Yes, this is bad for training in the short term but good in the long term. Don’t inhale, for god-sakes.

Read up on French existentialist novels, a little Andre Gide, Albert Camus. Be able to quote a few lines from de Maupassant, Flaubert and Baudelaire. Crap like that.

Camus. Use him.

Buy the complete Rosetta Stone learning French DVD’s. Take a freaking page from Lance Armstrong, will ya? A few honestly mangled statements in French will go a long way to erase the Hawthorne-ish red D for blood Doping etched on your forehead. Just a thought.

Get yourself a classy French actress girlfriend. Amber is long gone, we miss her and she stood by you thru thick and thin but a highly public fling or two with Virginie Ledoyen, Emilie Dequenne or Laetitia Casta will get you on the start list in Rotterdam. And if not, well, you had fun, right?

Your Tour invite?

Use your weapons! There were French Mennonites. This is basic stuff. Google a few scholars on the subject in France and start reeling yourself in. You could have dual citizenship before you can say sacre blue. No one denies a French citizen the right to ride Le Tour, mes amis.

Wear a beret. Yes, it’s embarrassing but just do it. Work the whole suffering artist on a bike thing. Ask Giro to whip you up a retro beret helmet. Everyone will laugh except the French who will find it simply adorable.

Name check Humphrey Bogart at every possible occasion. The French are suckers for that rumpled, hound-dog look in their actors. It’s just their thing. You don’t have to do the whole “leeches on the body” thing or recite Casablanca. Just stop shaving so often.

Buy a little pied a terre in Aix en Provence. Whatever — some little charming stone shack and an acre of olive trees or grapes. Get yourself a pair of blue overalls and a wheel barrow. Say you’re going to retire there. You want to get back in the Tour? Then just pretend.

Tour dress code

Get a scarf and wear it. That’s just the way it is in France. You’re no longer the ugly American with the blood bag, you’re a stylish euro-hipster with the new hip. (Note: see beret.)

Drop the Obama card. They love the man over there in stinky cheese land. Make sure you let slip how thrilled you are that “zee bullshit president Bush is now bye-bye.”

Become an expert on truffles. Yes, some famous French chef once called truffles the “diamond in the kitchen.” Embrace it, study it, consume it. Buy some truffle oil to put on your hot dogs. You want to be the go-to rider, the peloton’s expert on this magic mushroom.

This is a tough one, we’ll admit — maybe the toughest. Embrace Johnny Hallyday, the vapid, aging, horrifically embarrassing French rock ‘n’ roller. The French are essentially and fundamentally clueless on all things rock. Sacrifices, Floyd — it’s not as painful as riding on that damaged hip was.

Hallyday a help?

We, meaning me, at Twisted Spoke have a degree in French literature and language. We’re telling you in all honestly they will let you back in. They just need a few grand bisous on the cheek, baby.

Finally, if all else fails, run over to Radio Shack and ask to speak to Lance. Beg forgiveness and get on the team and forget everything what we said about all that French pandering stuff. Armstrong will make one call, you’ll be in the tour.

But you know, just in case, be ready.

Doping scandals aplenty, Velo News reports. They’re taking another look at 2008 Giro d’Italia samples for CERA, undetectable previously but now testable. The same may happen for the 2009 Giro and Tour as testing catches up with ever newer, previously undetectable substances.

“The report also outlined a new blood doping practice which evaded current testing protocol which monitor blood parameters. About 200ml of blood is extracted, mixed with an anti-coagulant, and re-injected. The practice does not alter blood values and is all but undetectable, the report said.”

And the UCI, whose efficacy anti-doping authorities continue to question, emerges with another black eye:

“Earlier efforts to back-test Giro samples for CERA were squashed by the UCI, but now Italian officials in Padua have taken up the case.”

The Chicken is back! Michael Rasmussen, who was on track to win the 2007 Tour de France before his team suspended him for deceiving it re his whereabouts before the race began, has picked up a new team following his two-year ban.

Rasmussen’s case bears some investigation, because he essentially beat the doping system. He never actually tested positive. He was put on ice simply out of suspicion of cheating.

Which means the system must be pretty easily beatable, because they suspected Rasmussen well before the Tour began and one would assume must have tested him rigorously during the race. So what went wrong? How could this happen? They’re so convinced he doped that they barred him, but nothing in their vast array of testing procedures could prove it?

Euskaltel-Euskadi on the comeback trail from doping scandals? Can they stay clean? And with this kind of money involved, will they get reported if they aren’t clean?

“As part of continued 1 million euro commitment to the team’s total 6.5 million euro budget, the government has included a clause in the sponsorship contract that would end the deal if more doping cases pop up. Reports in Basque Country media also point to an early exodus of title sponsor Euskaltel – the regional telephone operator – if there’s another doping case.”

Floyd Landis got caught and paid the price. Now he’s saying “politics” will keep him from ever competing in the Tour again.

Here’s an idea: Floyd and the Chicken and Tyler Hamilton and Bernhard Kohl and Vinokourov and a bunch of other banned cyclists get together and form a Tour team sponsored by BigPharma companies that make methadone. They could call it Team LiveClean.

World Champion Cadel Evans now wants to finally win the Tour, a prime motivator for his move from Silence to BMC Racing. We wish him luck. Cadel is one of the few pros who proactively says he does not dope. We trust he’s telling the truth and admire him for taking a stand. We also like him because he’s a former mountain biking champion. (So is Rasmussen, but we don’t admire him because, as with a lot of big names in cycling, there’s too much evidence he’s a cheat, even though he never actually got caught.)

Floyd Landis - Post Stage 17 Interview, 2006 TDF

This ride was a cumulative effort of anger resulting from Floyd’s S16 bonk, frustration from losing the Jersey and 15+ years of training and racing. He absolutely killed it in front of the world like no one else has ever done.

A Landis Lion from the 2006 Tour De France

Cost of a Lion: 15-20k miles training per year for 15+ years, complete & total dedication to the sport, extreme analytical analysis of training and performance data with the goal of never-ending continuous improvement, 300+ sleepless nights in a homemade altitude tent, a total life commitment to the single goal of mastering the toughest race on the planet.

I was able to catch two stages of the 2009 Tour of Utah last week. Stage 3 was an individual time trial held at Miller Motorsports Park, and Stage 4 was a brutal 96 mile cross country ride ending at Snowbird ski resort. Here are some pictures…

Tour de France alumnus Floyd Landis warming up for the Stage 3 time trial:

A local rider representing Canyon Bicycles finishing the Stage 3 time trial:

Lance Armstrong?… No, but a rider for the Trek team with a very cool looking outfit:

Yellow Jersey holder Francisco Mancebo looking relieved to finish the brutal 10 mile climb up to Snowbird at the end of Stage 4:

Floyd Landis finishes Stage 4:

Dave Zabriskie, fresh off of the 2009 Tour de France, finishes Stage 4:

The winners of Stage 4 on the podium:

Francisco Mancebo, who went on to win the Tour of Utah, with the Yellow Jersey at the end of Stage 4:

Attending these races was a lot of fun! I had never been to a bike race before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. The atmosphere was very casual and open, and spectators were free to walk around and visit with the teams. There were some incredible bikes, and lots of excitement in the air. I look forward to next year.

Floyd Landis, the pre-ouch days.

Poor Floyd Landis.

Once on top of the cycling world, Tour de France Champion, Landis was the wild and quirky guy, the escaped Mennonite farm boy, the only rider cranking ZZ Top in the team bus, the heir apparent to Armstrong, the one hip wonder, with a pain threshold off the scream scale. The man was quotable, a throwback, a backwoods man in the stuck -up Euro-peleton.

And by golly, Floyd beat them all,  the best riders in the world, doped or un-doped. He famously said in the best gunslinger, Joe Namath, Babe Ruth way, “I didn’t come to race for second place.” There was a movie in the making. He made American bike fans do the impossible: forget Lance Armstrong.

And then the free-fall into darkness and despair. A two year suspension for blood doping, a failed legal defense that bankrupted him, a divorce, bitterness, fast food. Just another bad Hollywood reality show on two wheels.

And now this, Landis taking on NBA start Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz in a free-throw shooting contest and time trial. Should we laugh, cry, call 911, clowns, a hearse? Hard to say. No longer a big name tour rider with a salary to match, Landis toils in relative obscurity for the OUCH Presented by Maxxis team. Ouch is right. Floyd is five thousand miles from where he belongs: the Tour de France.

We miss the hell out of Floyd Landis. He was a rare duck, a blender mix of contradictions and he rode with unmatched style. With all the speculation surrounding what riders will join Armstrong in the new Radio Shack team, his name is never mentioned. Fairness for Floyd? Yes, he belongs back in europe with Lance. Not in Utah hyping a race by shooting buckets.

The Bissel Pro Cycling team canned Kirk O’Bee this weekend for violating their internal doping policy.  You can read about it here, but I have to express a little bit of admiration for a pro team that is willing to terminate one of their own before they fail a test and trash the team’s reputation or cause them to lose their sponsorship.

O’Bee was a repeat offender – in 2001 he had wacky testosterone/epitestosterone levels but, he claimed that it was due to some food supplements that he had been given.  That’s exactly the kind of talk that we heard from Floyd a few years ago.  Landis blamed it on beer.  O’Bee blamed it on food.  Gee, I’d really like to know what kind of stuff these guys are eating and drinking.

This victorious scene is unlikely to be repeated on Sunday, but disappointed fans have plenty of books about Lance Armstrong to read.

The Tour de France ends tomorrow and, like much else he has done in his life, Lance Armstrong has dominated headlines, if not the race.

The driven Texan who survived cancer and came back to win a record-shattering seven consecutive Tours from 1999 to 2005 will, barring injury or a disastrous fall, not ride into Paris with the maillot jaune on his back.  

Instead, Armstong’s not having raced competitively for more than three years, a collarbone injury in an earlier race and running into Tour leader Alberto Contador in his prime have combined to make Armstrong’s presence on the podium far from a given.

Today’s tortuous climb to the Mont Ventoux will provide the answer as to whether he claims his place as one of the top three racers in biking’s premiere event.  

During the race Armstrong has alternately sparked derisive commentary from Tour legend and five-time winner Bernard Hinault and praise from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.   After a key stage in the Alps where Contador dropped Armstrong and made his victory highly likely, Hinault said: 

“I couldn’t care less about Armstrong. If he’s at the Tour or not, it changes nothing. We have nothing in common. There’s also the language barrier, so we’ve never been able to speak man to man.  He would have impressed me if at the height of his career, he raced the Giro (d’Italia), the classics. He is the champion of the Tour, nothing more.”

Sarkozy had a more generous take: 

“Armstrong has won seven Tours and he is coming back at 37 with the state of mind of a young man.  He is coming back to make a good result, to enjoy it—and to fight for his foundation. And God knows how much we need to fight against cancer. It’s giving hope to all the ill people.”

Whether one agrees with the French president or biking legend, those hungry to learn more about Armstrong after tomorrow’s largely ceremonial stage can read the following books: 

1. It’s Not About the Bike and Every Second Counts, by Lance Armstrong.  Although published separately, these two memoirs are essentially a single book-the story of Armstrong’s life.  The first work covers the period from Armstrong’s birth to his discovering a passion for biking to his battle with cancer, recovery and the beginning of his string of Tour victories.   Every Second Counts picks up the story where the first one ends and talks about how the accompanying attention surrounding his biking triumph strained his marriage and contributed to his divorce from Kristen, his first wife and mother of his first three children. 

2. Lance Armstrong’s War: One Man’s Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal , and a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France, by Daniel Coyle.  Coyle moved his family to Gerona, Spain during the winter before Armstrong’s ultimately successful attempt to win his sixth consecutive Tour in 2004.  The book is engagingly written and chockful of entertaining details, whether it’s how the bikers pinch each other to gauge their rivals’ fitness to Armstrong’s “Dead Elvis grin” when his body is showing the effects of being supremely tested or Coyle’s comparison of the bikers to two-year-olds who eat, move and sleep.  Coyle also has well developed profiles of individual riders like Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton, both of whom subsequently were banned for drug use, as well as the likable George Hincapie, Armstrong’s wing man for all seven of his Tour victories who found love and built a family with a French podium guy.

3. The Lance Armstrong Performance Program: Seven Weeks to the Perfect Ride, by Chris Carmichael.

Armstrong’s trainer Carmichael reveals his program with the Texan.  Among the key points: athletes can operate at peak performance for four, maybe five weeks.  All that Carmichael would do with Armstrong would be to have him hit that zone during the weeks of the Tour.  Carmichael also talks about the importance of assessing and learning from defeat, rather than charging directly into the next race.

In my previous post, I referenced BikeSnobNYC’s post on the Velonews-Mavic situation.  In that post was a very interesting video of a speech by Greg Lemond at a Play the Game anti-doping conference.  In it, Greg blasts cycling, UCI, Lance, America and everybody else he can think of other than the French.  He now loves the French.  It was unbelievable.

He first talks about how he is simply the greatest cyclist ever solely because of genetics and that everybody since him that has been successful was doping.  Except Pantani.  He then goes on to talk about how he invented the hard shell helmet, power meter training, and aerodynamics.  Now, we do know he played a role in the development of those things, but come on. 

He trashes UCI for being corrupt, the riders for all being dopers and the directors and media for allowing it.  But claims that nobody doped in his day.  Again, come on.  Just read Joe Parkin’s book about his 7 years in Europe.  He was on ADR’s B-team the year Greg won with ADR.  Joe sure doesn’t deny that there was rampant amphetamine use during those days.  Does that not count Greg?  And what about Pantani? Do you really think that guy wasn’t doping?  Greg has claimed in the past and in this speech that everybody who has beat Pantani or his times must be doping. But not Pantani.  Really?  Pantani OD’d in a hotel.  And how can you say that it could only be drugs when you claim your own success was due to genetics?  Are you, Greg Lemond, the zenith of human evolution?  Are you the greatest genetics can ever give us in cycling? How arrogant! 

And lets not forget the technology you have created.  Even though you recognize that monitoring power and the use of aeroequipment certainly helped you, do you not think that 20 years later it can do a hell of a lot more than it did in your day?  The first day I rode a 15lb carbon S-Works I thought I was in bike heaven!!  I finished my ride faster and with much more energy than I had ever even come close to on a top-end aluminum bike.  Do you really think that faster times don’t have anything to do with these rocketship bikes that weigh half of what yours did and are torsionally stiffer several times over?

He also accuses Dr. Ferrari of not knowing what Greg’s SRM was in 1986 when they met.  According to SRM, that was the year they were founded, and Greg was one of the very first to ever use that sort of thing.  How would Ferrari know what it was?  Nobody but Greg and SRM knew what it was, and how does that prove that Lance doped?  Come on!! 

Then he goes off on how everybody blindly defends the all the American riders and that we all blame the French for anti-American sentiment causing everybody’s doping problems. He claims that they all cheat and there is no transparency.  Really?  What about Team Columbia?  What about Garmin-Chipotle?  What about the fact that Lance took his 31st unannounced out-of-competition doping control just yesterday, only to have UCI and USADA show up at his house again today for #32 and #33?  And he has passed every one.  He publishes his blood data for the world to see. 

He then praises the French and ASO and talks about how great and fair they are and how he has always loved the French.  Really?  What about your special you did a few years ago for OLN (now Versus) where you talked about how the French hated you and you and your family feared for your safety?  What about when you talked about how careful you were in doping controls to make sure your urine was not tampered with? 

Then, and most offensive to me as a prosecutor, he announces that WADA and USADA labs have higher standards than criminal courts in the US.  U-N-B-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E.  I am proud as a prosecutor that I have the highest burden there is in the law.  Anywhere.  And from what I have seen, WADA, USADA, CAS, and UCI come nowhere close.  I believe their testing procedures are accurate, but even you, Greg Lemond, will agree that there are break downs in the chain of custody. 

The fact is, Greg Lemond thinks he is the greatest cyclist that ever lived.  Even said it in his OLN special.  He stated that he beat the best (Bernard Hinault) at his best, thereby implying that Greg must be the best cyclist in history.  He thinks that it would be impossible for anybody to ever be better than him without cheating.  Thus, every cyclist that can accomplish something that Greg never did, must be cheating.  That is the most arrogant thing anybody could possibly think.  Get over it, Greg.  They are better than you.  There will be some one day who are better than today’s best.  Get over yourself.  Its not about you any more.  Your day is done. 

Here’s the link to the speech for your viewing pleasure/disgust.

http://www.playthegame.org/conferences/play-the-game-2009/on-demand-streaming/presentation-by-three-time-tour-de-france-winner-greg-lemond.html

As an addendum, I must admit that he does make some valid points.  It is very clear that cycling needs a rider’s union to stick up for their rights to ensure that the labs, UCI and WADA are keeping up to standards and are transparent as well.  Also, I want to be clear that I believe DOPERS SUCK.  They ruin sport. See my other posts.  But Greg is still an arrogant punk.

After a two year hiatus as a professional pariah, Floyd Landis has returned to competitive cycling with a new team and a new hip.

Read about it HERE.

Get up close at The Uptown Criterium this Friday.

I’ll be with the boys from Handsome Cycles at the start/finish line, showcasing the new whip.

All Star outfielder Manny Ramirez was suspended by Major League Baseball for 50 games from the Los Angeles Dodgers for using Human chorionic gonadotropin or HCG.

Talk about killing the momentum of the first place Dodgers and making fantasy baseball owners cry! Now we have one more great athlete, in this case a wouldbe Hall of Famer, guilty of using performance enhancing drugs.

MLB is not the only sport dealing with this issue as American Floyd Landis lost his 2006 Tour de France title after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled his positive doping test from the race was valid. American Marian Jones got six months in jail and lost 5 Olympic medals from Sydney in 2000 for doping and lying to federal investigators in the BALCO case.

For “The Top 5 Reasons Manny Ramirez Used HCG” follow the link to my blog site and enjoy! ThePhatGuyKnows.com

additional sources: voanews.com and foxnews.com

Just got back from a weekend rubbing elbows with the likes of Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, Floyd Landis, Kristin Armstrong, Allison Powers, and more…will post pics and a blog later, but I have an exam on Tuesday and must get some sleep in at some point.

You have no idea what you're incapable of.

You’re a man.

The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is scratch your balls, then pee standing up. You may or may not shower after that.

You consume a breakfast that is primarily composed of last week’s steak dinner, yesterday’s chicken wing fiesta, and a Twinkie, just so you can get one of your daily servings of the bread/grain food group. You drink orange juice….okay, orange drink, with added sugar and carbonation. But it’s 5% juice, so that counts.

You get dressed. You leave. You work. You play. You return home. You poop. You sit down and watch TV, play XBox, eat, sleep, and repeat.

You are a man. Your day is done, your life is complete.

********************************************

You’re a cyclist.

The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is grab your syringe and inject yourself with Winstrol. You try to scratch your balls, but they’re nowhere to be found, a result of the aforementioned steroids and the fact that you spend hours a day slamming those jewels against your banana seat.

You shower for posterity, then shave your entire body for speed. No hair means faster to the finish line. You look like a skinner, dorkier, less-endowed version of a male pornstar, but you’re okay with that.

You pick out your favorite spandex suit and cram yourself into it. The world can see the outline of your penis, and that’s the way you like. It’s not just camel toe. It’s a cyclist’s camel toe.

You head to the kitchen and carbo load: trail mix, a granola bar, and a glass of fiber to keep you regular. You drink a mixture of raw egg and fish oil because you read about it in a magazine. You fill all eight of your water bottles and prepare for a day in which you’ll piss off hundreds, if not thousands, of pedestrians and commuters who actually have real places to go.

You grab your Schwinn and embark. You don’t know exactly where you’re going, but you’re going, and that’s all that matters.

Tyler Hamilton, latest disgrace in a sport full of doping.

You will ride for no less than eight hours, wherever the wind takes you. On trails, and side streets, thoroughfares and boulevards, even the occasional highway.

On average, you will cause three vehicular accidents during the typical training day. At one point, you will run over a squirrel that has a family and three children with a wonderful lady squirrel.

You will see the sign that says “45 MPH” and ignore it. Twenty-five is as fast as your motorless two-wheeler can go, and that should be good enough for anyone.

You will hear the honking from the car behind you and respond with a hand signal. You’re adept at hand signals.

After a full day of training in which you’ve contributed absolutely nothing to society, you will return home and empty your spandex of your own excrement; stopping while riding is blasphemous.

You will return to the kitchen and refuel with a dozen-egg omelette. Not only have you been a detriment to the working world today, but now you’re hijacking more than your fair share of food, too.

You will grab your syringe and reinject the Winstrol. Your muscles are under there somewhere, they just have yet to emerge.

You will study film footage of cycling legends, such as disgraced fellow dopers Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton. You will scour and re-scour video tapes to better learn the tricks of the trade. You will eventually fall asleep thinking you’ve done good in the world today.

You are a cyclist. Your day is done, your life is complete.