Boy! What a year this has been for the pro peloton! One thing is for sure, all of the excitement that was generated in 2008 will be carried through into 2009 and more so. Is anyone else excited about next year!!?? The 2009 season could not be packed with more drama and anticipation. We have the return of cycling superstar Lance Armstrong (Team Astana) as well as his former rival, Italian Ivan Basso (Team Liquigas) as well as the return of the entire Astana team into ASO races (knock on wood) including the Tour de France. Spain's Alberto Contador will finally get a chance to back up his 2007 yellow jersey, or will he? The return of Armstrong does complicate things which makes it all the better for us fans. I'm not complaining.

And what about the Giro? Will the centennial edition of this race be THE race of the year? Race director Angelo Zomegnan's quest to globalize the Giro and compete against the Tour de France's popularity will finally come to fruition thanks to an all-star cast of cyclists. All of the big names, save for Alberto Contador, will ride the Giro, making it the most greatly anticipated Grand Tour of the season.

Besides the two obvious races, Le Tour and the Giro, to keep tabs on, the other big event I can't wait for is the 2009 Paris Roubaix. Will big George Hincapie (Team Columbia) finally win his elusive cobblestone trophy? We in the states are always on pins and needles every year we watch this race and hope that all of the stars do align for the South Carolinian. He's definitely not getting any younger and his current crop of rivals are just as strong, if not stronger.

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A lot has made the news since my last post. I apologize for the infrequency of these stories as I have been busy with other things. The latest news in the pro peloton is all not good news. Actually, that depends on your own outlook with the sport. There were further confirmations of EPO CERA use, which is a big negative, but if you consider the fight with doping, it's good news...the cheats are being caught and punished.

Now, unlike ever before, the testing and research capabilities involved with potential performance enhancing drugs have followed pace, or even surpassed, that of the dopers. We hope this creates a deterrent that will make some cyclists think twice before they consider using these substances.

It's unfortunate that Team Gerolsteiner has to suffer the bad press involving their 2 riders' positives. Already leaving the sport at the end of this year, the last thing Hans Michael Holzer needed was bad press related to this. German Stefan Schumacher's positive was no big surprise to anyone but nonetheless sad. We desperately wanted to believe Schumacher just stepped up his game and had the form of his life to win both Tour de France time trials. Sure, it was a huge shock to everyone when he easily beat Fabian Cancellara and other known time trial specialists but we all gave him the benefit of the doubt. We were mistaken. Our trust was abused.

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Lance Armstrong formally announced his plans for returning to the pro peloton today. In a news conference given while he was attending the Clinton Global Initiative, Armstrong filled in some of the blanks that were left after he shocked the world in announcing his comeback on September 9th.

Lance confirmed that he will ride with the Astana team of his former director and friend Johan Bruyneel and that his 2009 campaign will begin in the southern hemisphere at the Tour Down Under. The only other confirmation of a race he will ride is the Tour de France. Lance mentioned nothing about the Tour of California nor the Tour de Georgia. Armstrong did mention that his number one goal is to help the cancer community and that mission will probably take him to many places he may not have raced in the past. Lance left open a question about riding the Giro, saying that it would be interesting to race there because it will be the 100th anniversary of the Giro, a race he's never ridden, and that it will give him an opportunity to speak with Prime Minister Berlusconi about cancer awareness in Italy.

Lance did address the issue about Alberto Contador. He acknowledged reading about Contador's recent remarks, saying it would be difficult having Armstrong on the same team, by answering he would like to see Contador stay but that if he decided to leave, it is his right. The Armstrong/Contador issue is the next big drama to come out of this and there is surely more gossip to be produced. Besides Contador, Levi Leipheimer is in a tough situation too. Before Armstrong's return, Leipheimer was second fiddle. Now he will be third fiddle. Will Levi look for a new team now too?

Armstrong did a good job answering some tough questions about the foundation, his comeback and the formation of an under-23 "Livestrong" team to be lead by Axel Merkx (of which the first big signing is young Taylor Phinney). If anyone does question his ability to return to the top of the sport while campaigning for cancer awareness, please listen to what he has to say. He gives a very compelling reason to follow the 2009 season.

Click here for the entire news conference. It's about 40 minutes long so grab a cold one.

Just as everyone has speculated in the last few days, Lance Armstrong confirmed today that he WILL return to professional cycling for the 2009 season. In the much talked about Vanity Fair article, Armstrong sites cancer awareness as one of his main reasons for returning. Of course, there's also that "itch" that is factored into the decision as well.

This is decidedly good news for the world of cycling. A world that has been reeling from a series of doping scandals and a general drop in attention since his retirement. It is extremely important for American cycling as well. He has done more for this sport than any other cyclist and his name will no doubt bring even more attention in 2009. This means more fans, a rise in sponsorship money and hopefully a resurgence for the Tour de Georgia. Once the biggest race in the States, it has now been threatened by the lack of funds and may not return next year. With Armstrong's verbal commitment to participate in 2009, the race organizers have found the fuel needed to find a major sponsor for at least one more year.

It remains to be seen what ASO thinks since it's still no guarantee his team (assuming it's Astana) will be able to ride the Tour. If not, Armstrong has a plan. In published statements, Armstrong has stated that he has already talked to French President Nicolas Sarkozy about this, clearly bringing the same fire that he exhibited while winning 7 straight Tours.

Click here for the Vanity Fair article.

And click here for a personal message from Lance himself.

Could Lance Armstrong be coming out of retirement? The answer is "yes", if you ask Velonews. Their report states that Armstrong has already taken steps needed to return to the pro peloton. Nothing has been confirmed yet but stay tuned. This is surely to be a huge story for cycling (even if a lot of die hard cycling fans roll their eyes). Stay tuned for more. In the meantime, read the Velonews article here or the cyclingnews article here.

The last week or two have been extremely important for cycling. For one, the Olympics presented us with some epic races for both the men and the women. We are all excited to have Levi Leipheimer has a bronze medalist and Kristen Armstrong as Olympic Champion. The other major development was the ongoing dialogue related to the future of the Pro Tour and the battle between the governing body of cycling, the UCI and the owners of the Tour de France, ASO.

It was announced this past Monday that we could possibly be close to a concrete agreement between the UCI and ASO in how the international cycling calendar should be organized. But first, a quick background.

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About a week after the end of this year's Tour de France, I have developed post Tour withdrawal. I'm left wondering what the rest of the cycling season will bring. The spring classics have come and gone, the Giro cemented Alberto Contador (Astana) as the best cyclists living and the Tour has finally confirmed Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) a winner that we had always felt he could be.

Every July brings a culmination to the cycling season. It is the cima coppi, if you will, of the entire sport. Too bad it is right smack in the middle of the season and not at the end. For potential Tour winners, their year effectively ends once they cross the finish line in Paris and any event they may ride in between then and the end of the season may be token. But this year may be different. Carlos Sastre has confirmed that he will ride the Vuelta a España, setting up a potential showdown with last year's Tour winner Contador. Will there even be a match up? Contador has trained exclusively for the Vuelta while it remains to be seen if Sastre can muster the motivation needed to get through another 3 week race. Throw in the defending champ, Denis Menchov (Rabobank), whose participation is not yet confirmed, and Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi) and you have a race!

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Now that the 2008 Tour de France has come to a close, I can honestly say I was dead wrong. Wrong in who I predicted to win and how the race would have panned out. There were a lot of surprises and a few disappointments but it was filled with action! Here's the run down.

Spanish rider Carlos Sastre (Team CSC-Saxo Bank) proved he was the strongest rider throughout the 3 weeks and came away as the undisputed winner of this year's Tour. Sastre kept under the radar until it mattered and showed he was the freshest of all of the contenders when it counted, in the final Stage 20 time trial. At 33 years old, Sastre had always been a podium contender but just missed that little bit of something to put him over the edge. Well, he had that little bit of something this year. But also, he (and whomever would have won) benefited from the absence of Alberto Contador and Levi Leipheimer (Astana) making this Tour as open as the 1999 Tour was. Way to go Carlos!

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As week 2 of this year's Tour comes to a close, it certainly didn't end without causing a lot of controversy. Unfortunately again, the main topic was not what happened on the road but what happened off of it.

We learned this week that in addition to Manuel Beltran (Liquigas) testing positive for dope, two other riders also were caught. Spanish rider Moisés Dueñas (Barloworld) also tested positive for EPO and was kicked out of the Tour but his team decided to continue the race. So far, even with these two riders testing positive, the general consensus was that this is still a successful Tour and that the cheats are now few and far between. But then the big news broke on Thursday. Italian rock star Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott) tested positive for EPO. But this wasn't any old EPO. He was found to have traces of a new generation of EPO called CERA. Apparently some people think that the testing agencies haven't caught up and thought they could sneak by with this new drug. Riccò found out the hard way that this type of action will not be tolerated. Let's hope week 3 will be clear of negative news.

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I am writing this as I watch the Versus evening recap to today's stage 7. If you haven't been in front of the internet today, then you probably will be surprised by the fact that Manuel Beltran (Liquigas) has tested positive for EPO. Yet another black cloud has moved over the Tour de France. Just when we thought the dopers have lost, this news erupts. Here in America, it has always been innocent until proven guilty so I will reserve judgment until Beltran's B sample gets tested. But I am very, very disappointed for all cycling fans and for the rest of the peloton. Now on to the review...

Week 1 of the 2008 Tour has no doubt been one of the most exciting first weeks in recent history. Certainly I can't remember anything that can be compared. The organizers have completely rethought how the first week works in hopes of making the Tour more exciting. They've done that with great success. We no longer have to sit through 7 or 8 days of rather monotonous racing just to get to the first mountain stage.

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First, let me say happy 4th to all of the Americans and happy Friday to the rest of the world! I'm writing from Philadelphia, the birth place of America, today as we're here to visit some friends and just be tourists for the weekend. Of course, I do have the DVR set to record the first 2 stages of this year's Tour and will anxiously follow cyclingnews' live commentary on my phone. (My wife's rolling her eyes now.)

Before I get into the Tour, let's recap the poll that has been running on the right side of this page. The poll asked, "Who do you like better?" between the 3 American winners of the Tour de France. (Yes, Floyd was included.) The winner by only 4% is Greg LeMond. Lance Armstrong followed with Floyd trailing in for 3rd. I was particularly surprised with Greg coming out on top because of his recent spats with Lance and Trek. I think the reason may be because all of us will always remember the first American Tour winner and the dramatics that Greg provided through all of his 3 wins. Sure, Lance won a record 7 times, but bar 2003, it was relatively "routine". So now we have it, unscientific of course. It's time for a new poll. Who will win the Tour? Now on to the preview.

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By now I'm sure you've heard the outcome of the CAS decision in the Floyd Landis case. I'm not going to get into the specifics (you can get all you want here) but just want to say how disappointed I am with the verdict. I still choose to believe in Floyd and hope that something good can come out of this. I also hope that Floyd can come back stronger and once and for all prove everyone wrong. But I am pessimistic about this since the same system that put him in this predicament still exists. As the 2008 Tour begins in a few days, I can't help but imagine what would have been if Floyd, Levi and Alberto could have been in the hunt against the likes of Cadel, Alejandro and Damiano. We can only dream at this point.

Link: http://www.takebackthetour.com/

A new "Take Back The Tour" Versus commercial aired this past Sunday during both the Philadelphia Championships and the Tour de Suisse coverage. The first commercial with Thomas Voeckler was somewhat inspiring and clearly showed that we are moving forward while this one is a bit controversial. It shows some of the great moments in the Tour in rewind including Jan Ullrich and Floyd Landis as well as images of David Millar. What do you think?

I personally disapprove of this commercial because it starts to get into assumptions of not only the guilt or innocence of a cyclist but also what the fans personally think. Yes, there are clearly individuals who have proven to have done something wrong but there are also some riders that have not been proven guilty or are still going through the judicial process. I think Versus, and us as fans, should give some of these people the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, Versus should let us make the judgment. I can keep watching the first commercial but watching this new one makes me sad more than anything.

The 72nd Tour de Suisse ended today and completed the last of the major warm ups for the upcoming Tour de France in July. While the racing was certainly exciting, it was the eventual winner that was the biggest surprise of the tour. 22 year old Czech rider Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas) defeated German Andreas Klöden (Astana) and Spain's Igor Anton (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and won one stage in the process.

The race started with Spain's sure thing, Oscar Freire (Rabobank), winning the stage 1 sprint and the first leader's yellow jersey. The mountains began immediately on stage 2 with the first mountain top finish up the Flumserberg. Igor Anton won over Luxembourger Kim Kirchen (High Road) while major contenders Damiano Cunego (Lampre) and Andreas Klöden all lost some time. Anton also became the leader of the race from here forward. The next 2 stages saw Aussie Robbie McEwen (Silence-Lotto) reclaim his winning ways by taking the field sprints in stages 3 and 4.

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First, let me just say thanks to all who have voted in the poll on the right so far. As I stated in my post here, the Tour de France is the next big race and what better time to gauge how people feel about the 3 American Tour winners than now?

So far, we see the first American winner, Greg LeMond, leading over the last American winner, Floyd Landis. This leaves our all too famous cancer survivor and seven time winner, Lance Armstrong, bringing up the rear. I’m I surprised? Yes and No. Yes that Greg is number 1, no that Lance is last. It’s nice to see Floyd still getting props as we wait for the CAS verdict due any day now. We’re waiting with bated breath.

This poll will be up to just before the Tour so if you haven’t voted, please do. And for those that have, thanks again for participating! Oh, and please don’t try to vote more than once. The program is smarter than that, I think.

So can Greg’s success as the cyclist you like better continue? Stay tuned…

Link: http://www.takebackthetour.com/

This news broke earlier today. Versus, the US cable network, just extended coverage of the Tour de France for an extra 5 years! This is fantastic news for us cycling fans as it was clearly touch and go for the last few years after Lance retired and then the doping scandals hit. They released this promo video and it's very exciting to watch. Take a look:

This past week, we learned that ASO bought into a significant stake of Unipublic (49% to be exact), the organization that controls the Vuelta. This continues the negative trend in pro cycling as we see ASO becoming a monopoly in the sport. With ASO controlling a large number of the major races, they have effectively become the Microsoft of cycling. I see many similarities between ASO vs UCI and Microsoft vs all other software companies. Microsoft uses bullying tactics to get their way; ASO uses bullying tactics to get their way. Microsoft buys their competitors; ASO buys their competitors. But before we totally blame ASO (or Microsoft) for all of this mess, we have to consider how they became the Goliaths of their industries.

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Since Greg is part of the current poll on the right side, I thought you might be interested in this classic video. As a treat to cycling fans back in the late 80s and early 90s, I found this old commercial featuring the man at the time, Greg LeMond. Do you remember this? Are you rolling your eyes when you see this? Well, I can remember thinking, "Geez, that's a big helmet. Why is he wearing that ugly thing?" You'll remember helmets back then consisted of foam strips wrapped in leather, then tied to look like an outfielder's baseball glove and were quite popular for the non-helmet wearing pro peloton. Too bad they couldn't save you from a fall or make you look cooler.

Those of you around back then will remember that Greg was one of the first advocates of helmet wearing in professional races. He and his teammates would be one of the few who would wear helmets in the Tour, at least on the flat stages. A step in the right direction and setting a good example for our young.

Here's the video

We found out today that defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador (Astana) has a slight fracture in his elbow. This diagnosis was made during today's rest day following his crash on Saturday's stage.

Contador promises to continue but admitted that this condition may affect his aerodynamic time trialing position tomorrow. VAI CONTADOR!

Speaking of the time trial stage, Astana's Andreas Klöden will be under more pressure to perform following the announcement of Contador's injury. He has shown he has good form and we hope he'll be able to show his class by outdistancing everyone (except for Levi Leipheimer, of course). Stay tuned...

Link: http://www.letleviride.com/

I received this email today from LetLeviRide.com. It reminded me that I had signed a petition to show my support towards letting Levi ride in this year's Tour de France. While it hasn't worked just yet, Astana's inclusion in this year's Giro is a good start. In my opinion, it will be hard for Astana to get entrance to this year's Tour by the simple fact that those cronies at ASO are just so stubborn. They care more about having a Frenchman win the Tour than having a legitimately competitive Tour that includes all of the contenders. I hate to say this, because I like Cadel Evans and Alejandro Valverde and any other contender in this year's Tour, but their win will forever be marked by an asterisk. The fans will never know how they would have fared against an in form Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer or Andreas Klöden.

With that said, I am a cycling fan. I will watch the Tour. There is nothing like it in the world and it is the cyclists that make the race. I will take nothing away from their efforts and hope the best man at the Tour wins cleanly.