Froome vs Wiggins, a tale of character

Later this afternoon Chris Froome is going to win the 100th Tour de France.  As he rides down the Champs Elysees, I'm wondering if he's going to be anticipating the win or reflecting back on last year's Tour.  Why would he reflect?  Because this year he is winning by such a substantial margin, over 5 minutes.  And I also remember how Paul and Phil practically swooned over his cycling  during the 99th Tour.  Sure, they bragged about Wiggins, which was normal since they're all Brits, but Froome seemed to get special attention from them.  What I'm saying is he could have won last year's Tour but gave it to Wiggins.  I think from this year that's pretty apparent.

So, wouldn't you be reflective if you could have had two Tour wins under you belt rather then just one.    And think about next year.  What if he wins that Tour.  In fact, what if he could end up being the greatest Tour de France of all time... if last year had counted.  Imagine possibly sacrificing a record of achievement so Wiggins could win one Tour de France.  In my book, that takes a lot of character.  I also think it says quite a lot about the character of the cyclist who wins basically by default.  In that person's case it's all about the winning and not about the cycling.  I suspect that in Chris Froome we see someone who is all about they cycling.

Those Crazy Gods of the Tour de France are at it again!

For years the Tour de France seemed to be peddling along just fine, except for those little things called doping scandals which circled around it like flies do shit.  I think because the Gods of the Tour, for the most part, had grown a little weary of the event.  To them doping was just stupidity on wheels, and maybe they thought it was 'one of those mortal things' and was really none of their business; the race was still rolling after all.  But then, sometime around the Floyd Landis bit, they seemed to begin to wake up.  Teams started cleaning up and perhaps the Gods realized that those mortal cyclists actually ride better when they're not all doped up.  Look what they did to Lance Armstrong, flicked him away like a bugger from their finger.  And today, on the 1st stage of the 100th Tour de France, those crazy Gods decided to have a little fun.  I mean, everything started off okay and the first two Acts went swell.  Then Act 3 arrive on a bus.

Is there a finger in that sign, somewhere?

Had I been that bus driver, I would have jumped out and looked up at the sign I'd hit and shouted "Holy Shit!"  Not this driver, he sat there and covered his face with his hands.  Oops.  Then they changed the finish line to the 3 kilometer mark which would have worked except this stage was to have a sprint ending.  Just past the 3 kilometer mark the road bends to the right.  Sherwin said it best,   "they can't end it there, there's a bend in the road, there's a bend in the road."  You do know, sprinters don't stop at the finish line, they're going fast so they tend to hit their brakes until after they've passed it, about where the road bends.  But then the bus was moved and the finish line returned to where it had once been.  But then one of the Gods stuck his finger down into the Peleton and gave it a little swirl and there was a crash and another one stuck a finger in Greipel's gears.  Couldn't you hear them laughing?  I could.  They said "we're going to make this the most interesting race ever!"  Of course, Cavendish wants to blame the crash on those mortal officials, he doesn't understand that those crazy Gods of the Tour de France are at it again.  They are alive and well, and, I think fully awake.

Stupid NBC Sports craps on both the Tour de France and Amgen

When NBC Sports decides to drop a turd on the American cyclists, they drop a big one.  I checked out their sports network to see if they were broadcasting at least a highlight show of the Paris-Nice race and saw they weren't.  Their coverage of the race begins at midnight, Eastern Standard time.  Hey, dumb shits at NBC Sports, I don't own a DVR.  Back when the network used to be Versus they broadcast a lot of cycling, but since it became NBC Sports those moments are becoming few far between.  Maybe some moron executive believes cycling to be slightly un-American.  Most likely, however, it's simply a ratings issue.  I suspect that of all the sports networks, non of which are ratings giants, NBC Sports pulls in an average amount of viewers, and they do have to pay Dan Patrick; that guy seems to be all over the place.  This means there might be a few thousand more people watching college basketball then there would be watching Paris-Nice.

Of course their stupidity goes beyond that, it becomes incredulously dumb.  This is how they note times for the races they will be broadcasting (my highlight).

"This TV schedule is subject to change and all times are considered ET. All events are same day delay or next day delay except for Amgen Tour de France, Tour of California, USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and Paris Roubaix."

Holy Shit!  Amgen is now sponsoring the Tour de France! Someone must have their head up their ass at NBC Sports.  Not only do they insult the Tour de France, they insult Amgen.  Of course, maybe they believe I'm the only one out here who looks at their cycling website, which would be fricking stupid.  Of course, for all I know this copy was written by Dan Patrick.

Karma, meet Lance, Lance, meet Karma

So, I guess Monday is the day when Lance officially finds out if he's being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.  Personally, I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion, so does he, I suspect.  Is his view on reality going to change much?  I don't think so.  Do a simple search and you'll find all of his number one fans are in the same boat.  They are creating a mild roar with inanities such as "everybody else was doing it."  But everybody else didn't pose themselves off as a cancer survivor who became an honest to God superior athlete.  Everybody else didn't rake in millions through endorsements or date rock stars.  Sure, he started Livestrong, but even while his foundation was doing good, Armstrong was still cheating to win.

When I was young I was taught lots of rules on behavior, rules I remember and live by today.  One of those is "Cheaters never win and winners never cheat."  Armstrong cheated and thought he had won, now he's going to find out he didn't.  That's really bad Karma, and it's really going to bite him in his ass.    Perhaps he thought the good of Livestrong would balance out his appalling behavior.  Or perhaps another sad reality is that the foundation was just another way to feed his ego.  Now he's no longer on the board and they are going to have the unpleasant task dealing with what, ten, twelve, thirteen years of his lies.  And don't think it isn't going to be unpleasant.  He has tainted that organization.  Bad, bad Karma.

You do know what Karma is, don't you?  What goes around comes around.  I began to suspect this day would arrive when he came out of retirement to form Team Radioshack.  While all the Lanclings were cheering rah, rah, rah and I was scratching my head wondering why Hincapie wasn't on the team.  They'd seemed to have been buds for years.  Then, during the Tour, Armstrong led an attack which kept  Hincapie from winning the stage.  Even Paul Sherwin was wondering about Armstrong's actions.  Armstrong went on to blame Garmin.  Hincapie didn't see it that way.   While being interviewed he let loose his outrage at Armstrong.  When I heard that I knew the shit was just starting to hit the fan.  The way I understand it, George was one of the twenty-six who gave eyewitness testimony about Armstrong and doping.  What went around once is coming back around again with Lance Armstrong in it's sights.  That man has really bad, bad Karma.