we've heard it all before, but still worth a chuckle

http://www.slate.com/id/2121810/?nav/fo/

http://img.slate.msn.com/media/1/122..._050705_01.jpg
http://www.slate.com/

Dead on 100% correct.

Thanks for the link.

Ahh, journalism. I quickly noticed obvious inaccuracies and stopped reading.

He's completely right. This year's Giro and the Finestre were awesome. Definitely shed the radios. He's wrong about Alpe d'Huez being for Heras. I thought of Mayo instead (wasn't to be).

While I may not agree with all of this guy's points, I think he demonstrates at least a working knowledge of pro cycling.

I don't think radios should be banned, mostly for safety reasons. The sport has made huge advances in the last 20 years due in part to improved communication.

Instead of banning the French, let a neutral panel decide on the teams. I think there are lots of more deserving teams than some of the French scrubs they shove into the Tour every year for the sake of national pride.

I strongly disagree with his claim that "Armstrong's long reign has sucked some of the life out of the race." Well, may in France it has :p

Lance himself described pro cycling as a combination of chess and NASCAR. With a combination like that, you'll either love it or hate it :D

I think something can be said for tradition and the race organizers' refusal to depart from it. Drastically changing the race structure would turn it into a circus meant to put on a show and it would cease to be the Tour de France.

The radios need to get the hell out of there.

A change I would like to see is making the route more rounded. I mean making it so many more stages are more likely to have a GC impact, rather than a few extremely important ones. With the way that the sport works now, at that elite level, of course we can say the day the route is announced which few stages will be very important for the GC and can name a number that won't. Wouldn't it be great to make it more attack-friendly? Like long long ago when they had to be on their toes for attacks on almost any stage.

HE's bang on the money- sports is supposed to be about suspense. The tour is ecoming as suspenseful as reruns of Batman. OF course, lance devotees will get all horrified that anyone dares to CRITICIZE.. but he's thinking in terms of sports, not about one person. Would you want to watch a baseball game if you knew how it was going to turn out? DOn't give me 'you never know' crap- with the tour, it's become totally formulaic. We all know what's going to happen and when... it's the Snore de france. The giro is so much more fun. The tour is really only fun if you want lance to win yet again. I'll be so glad when he retires... get lost already.

I'm still not convinced the French deliberately formulate the Tours in hopes of Lance losing. If it's true, the French are out of their minds. Why would they have two time trials in the first four stages? Lance has only lost two (now three) time trials! What a way to go into the mountains with a couple of minutes advantage where he'll be sure to pad his lead all the more. I don't know. Then again, they're the French, hating us publicly, but loving Jerry Lewis, Coke and Levis out of their homes. Where they can smoke! And probably Marlboros. No, Chesterfields.

Although I prefer to see a more exciting race... for the sake of sport, I'd rather ***** about how his competition isn't doing well enough than ***** about Armstrong. I'd rather not see it like WWE, or today's F1

Seeing how he struggled late in the mountains in 2000, but dominated basically every ITT in 1999 and 2000, they made five mountaintop finishes for 2001, and only one long flat TT. In 2003, seeing how he showed signs of time trialing weaker than he was climbing, they made the mountains easier and went back to two long ITTs. Then knowing his team would do so well in the TTT, they changed the rules in 2004 so he wouldn't make as nearly as much time - and moved the mountains to days later, when he always showed his best in the earliest mountain stages.
That TTT rule in particular is an obvious change to disadvantage him.

No no, stinky Gauloises. Smells like Camels and dog ***** mixed together, but given Parisiennes' obsession with dogs and the amount of dog turds on Parisian footpaths, this should come as no surprise.

elaborate please?

"Indurain never attacked..."