team radio shack

Rumors flying around the cycling world that Team Radio Shack will be Lance's new team for next year, proof that being a domestique didn't suit the yellow braceleted dude. It's funny to hear Lance shrug and make insinuations about the performance and motives of his better teammate Alberto Contador when in reality, Lance's role on the team should be to ensure that Contador wears the maillot juane come Sunday and that means Lance should be sacrificing all for the team leader. All that talk about Lance being the team-leader-in-waiting was true, but for different reasons.

One also has to question the loyalty and tactics of Team Astana Director Sportif, Johann Bruyneel, who will join Lance in the new team, during this year's tour. Certainly Bruyneel will earn his 9th Tour Victory as Director Sportif (7 with Armstrong, and then 2 with Contador) but for him to go backwards with the old order, instead of forward with the new, doesn't make much sense - except that Bruyneel understands that Lance is a media machine like no other. The official announcement of the new team is expected today after the finish of today's time trial. If we've learned anything about Lance's comeback it's that, regardless of his love-hate relationship with the media, he still has the biggest ego in the peleton.

lance armstrong continues his not a comeback tour

If your nickname is m.o.i. then July means fireworks, farm fresh fruits and vegetables, and Le Tour. All together that spells fun.


The 2009 edition of Le Tour, which, unless you live in a sandbox, you'll know marks the return of the dude with the yellow bracelet who's trying to stay young and win another maillot jaune is starting to heat up and this just the 3rd day of racing.

An eighth Armstrong victory would be in the pantheon of sports most unreachable achievements - along side of DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak and Cy Young's 511 career victories. Hell, Armstrong's 7 straight wins will likely never be repeated. For him to add an eighth win after a 3-year hiatus would be remarkable. It's possible but improbable.

The biggest obstacle will come from his own teammate Alberto Contador. However, Armstrong's attacking maneuvers on day 3 indicate that the man means business and that Director Sportif, Johann Bruyneel, may not be able to control Team Astana from the backseat of the race car. Armstrong was able to go on a small breakaway that split the field and and left Contador stranded in the peleton fighting a headwind. The move catapulted Armstrong into 3rd place in the GC and will likely garner lots of media attention. That's the primary reason for making such a move. There's still plenty of sun left to shine on this one; don't get too bothered yet. The team time trail (Wednesday) and the big mountains will help to see whether or not Astana can work as a team.

astana to ride 2009 tour of missouri

Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, whose most significant accomplishment in office has been what he's done to elevate professional cycling as a premier event in the state, announced today that Team Astana has committed to the 2009 Tour of Missouri. Astana is the most powerful stage-racing team in the world and includes Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer, and Andreas Kloden among its members.

The Kazakhstan Team Astana joins American teams Charmin-Chilpolte and Columbia High Road, Swiss-based Cervelo Test Team, and Italian Liquidgas as having committed to race come September. Ten more slots will be filled in the coming months but the stage is already set to have some of the best riders in the world competing in the 3rd annual Tour of Missouri.

It will likely be the end of the summer, after the Grand Tours, before Astana announces it's lineup. I'd be surprised to see Lance Armstrong ride this race, but you never know. It just might be the final swansong of his much ballyhooedcomeback training ride.

don't be a dope

Lance Armstrong, the dude with all the yellow braclets and yellow jerseys, is staging a comeback to professional cycling. And in what has all the trappings of a Republican running for office, Armstrong is taking great pains to convince the world that he's clean, going so far as to create his own anti-doping program. For those who don't closely follow the sport, Mr. Armstrong is following in the footsteps of other cycling teams, Garmin-Chilpolte and Team Columbia in developing strict (stricter than WADA, the world anti-doping association) policies to prove to a dismayed public that cyclists are competing clean.

We find Lance's comeback to be stangely as much about clearing his somewhat tarnished name (former teamate Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy Andreu, both testified in a lawsuit that Armstrong admitted to using the blood enhancer EPO and other drugs; however Armstrong disputed these allegations and eventually won the lawsuit against a company that had suggested he cheated and refused to pay his a large cash bonus) as it is about competing to win.

It's not clear yet how Armstrong will compete in next year's Tour de France, for which team he will compete, and in what role. It's likely he'll ride for Team Astana under Johann Bruyneel, the director sportif for all 7 of Lance's Tour wins. However, as of Sunday, Alberto Condator, the current captain of Astana, became only the 3rd cyclist in history, and the youngest ever to capture the 3 Grand Tours: Tour de France, Giro DÍtalia, and Veulta a Espana. For once, we'd like to see Lance work for a teammate during a race.