Lance Armstrong booted from Tour de France....

[laughingwillow]

French race officials have suspected Lance of using banned substances through out his six consecutive tour victories. They even singled him out for a second drug test the day after he and the 188 other riders took the official pre-race test. (They said it was random hehe) Anyway, it has just been reported that Lance Armstrong has been kicked out of the tour de france for being in possession of three substances banned in France: toothpaste, deoderant and mouthwash........

More on this breaking story as it develops...

lw

[winder]

STOP SCARING ME!

I was intrigued to read that he maintains are relatively narrow bodyweight between racing season and offseason - like only a 9 pound spread.  This makes leaning out for the racing easier.

If he does get kicked out, he can go back to Cheryl Crowe - yowza!

[TroutMask]

It's hard to believe a guy that old, who went to the moon and stuff, could still be able to drive one of those newfangled double-wheeled whatchamagiglettes.

-TM

[laughingwillow]

I must confess to being a tour head. Its 5:30 am and I'm up  for the start of the first day in the big mountains. hehe

lw

[laughingwillow]

LOL The OLN announcers have been predicting the winners of each stage, with points being awarded for guessing correctly. Poor Bob Roll is in last place. This morning they awarded him with a biking jersey adorned with a greatful dead motif of a skeleton and roses and told him the award was for coming in dead last. hehe

le lw

[GhostPipe : )]

Good one LW it was a shock and glad it was a joke hehe

GP

[Jupe]

yeah.....check it out this week  wow!!!  Maybe it WAS the toothpaste. He should be called Lance Legstrong, not Armstrong.......( all those guys have aerodynamically designed skinny arms)haha

[laughingwillow]

LOL No shite, jupe. I've noticed the anorexic arm syndrome of those guys, too. hehe

lw

[dendro]

that's one reason I limit the mountainbiking to 60mi a week, and make sure I paddle the board. Gotta keep the arm strength up.

[winder]

In actuality, Lance has booted himslef from the Tour de France, now with 7 title safely in hand.

He seems to be the gentlemanly athlete, somewhat a rarity nowadays.

[laughingwillow]

I'm not going to know what to to with me early mornings now.

Viva le Tour de Lance!

lw

[judih]

yeah, lw, there's nothing to watch on TV without those bikes gliding by the landscape of landscapes.

What a great ending. Riders smiling at one another, shaking hands, all in the rain.
Had tears in my eyes with the excitement of Lance's final ride.

We had coverage in french, hebrew & a multitude of accents cultivated in the United Kingdom.

Back to regular life, now

[laughingwillow]

Ain't it the truth, sistah-j.

Live coverage of the race started as early as 5:30 am some mornings here on the prairie. This is an event that's chock full of nuance; a team event with an individual winner covering thousands of km's and almost a month's time. Some days are mellow almost to the finish line. Others see attacks right off the bat. But the finish is almost always a spectacle to behold. Whether its a day of the sprinters or mountain climbers. And talk about percision. The managers of these teams are able to calculate a rival breakaway's expected time of finish and stoke the fires of the main peloton at the right time to catch the attackers JUST before the finish line. Too soon and another attack has the time to organize before the finish. Too late and the breakaway could stay away till the finish. Some breakaways had up to 15 minute leads on the peloton, staying away for over 200 km before being caught with around 2-3km to go and buried by the sprinters, many finishing out of the top ten in a race they lead until the last half mile or so.

And then there's the french countryside... A finer virtual tour by tv there has never been, eh sistah-j?

lw

[judih]

how true. The menfolk round here kept talking about the genius of Lance's leadership and the rhythm of his legs, the cohesiveness of Discovery team.

My kid was checking out //http://earth.google.com to look at the countryside and the layout of Paris, but a tip of the site doesn't give a hint of the Eiffel Tower or L'Arc de Triomphe.

Breathless. Now, i hop on my bike to go down the road and i carry on the spirit of the Tour. All for one!

ah, one more thing! those fuckers in the crowd throwing stuff at the riders. Who was it who got a bottle in the nose and needed the First Aid truck to absorb the blood while keeping pace?
And those who threw water at the bikers. The fools who stood right in front playing chicken with the teams.

Rasmaussen's timed disaster. Those falls and the bad luck with his bike. Yet there he stood at the closing ceremony with his polka dots holding high his trophy. It's bloody amazing.

What a collection of superb athletes.

[laughingwillow]

Teh tight quarters with rabid fans has been a gripe of Lance's with race officials for years.

The german fans have seemed to bother him the most. He once commented on a day that saw a german rider passing him at the very end of a stage. Lance said he remembered back to earlier in the day and a couple of particularly nasty lugies spat in his face by german fans and decided to chase the guy down and deny the victory out of spite. hehe

I was reading the results on the net above denver on the day the guy was hit in the face and needed repeated medical treatment. I'm willing ot bet things would change if'n it was a french rider to be affected by bad fan behavior, btw.

Viva la diferance

lw