I'll be nice and cryptic today.
- Word to Astana: stop holding press conferences. Journalists have to ask certain questions even if there's no logic to them, and one of those is, "hey, you work with Ferrari, are you doping?" The idea of Vinokourov seeking out Ferrari to dope is too obvious and stupid to be true. But the question must be raised, right? Right?
- Nice generic Levi Leipheimer preview in VN today. I mention this because I got totally sick of the "Focus on the Favorites" thing before I got to Levi, about whom I have nothing intelligent to add to an otherwise well-worn topic. He's good, and I'll smile if he wins. I hope he rides aggressively, that'd be nice to see.
- Pez is into full-on preview mode, with its course review and Jered's GC pix is chockablock with real live, neck-stuck-out predictions. Well done!! If he's right, my VDS team is looking awfully sharp right now.
- Alessandro Petacchi will get his sentence on July 24. Oy, this is disgraceful... though it's possible something needed to be done about TUE abuse.
- If you weren't sure how Cycling explains world history, go here.
- Speaking of CyclingRevealed, they should be running their usual daily details, so detailed that I may just link to them for our stage previews.
- Bjarne Riis will be sidelined for the Tour, although unless chains are involved it's hard to picture him not being present in some way.