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.

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.

Armstrong's dirty bed

So, he says he's had enough, he's going to be a martyr, right.  I'll honestly say I've never been an Lance Armstrong fan.  Even when he was attempting to be cordial he always came across as just a bit too aloof for me.  Did he dope to win the Tour de France?  I suspect so.  Sure, a lot of cyclists were caught and penalized, but a lot got away with it.  I first began to believe the charges when Hincapie wasn't picked up by Team Radioshack.   George used to always be watching Armstrong's back and all of sudden he wasn't.  Very, very odd... but maybe not if Lance new George was going to testify against him.  Hhmm.  In fact, I spent some time this afternoon trying to find some sort of support from his other cycling buddies and couldn't find so much as a snippet.  what happened to all of those buddies of his?  Why would they leave him high and dry?  Of course maybe Lance is only the friendliest person around when he wants to be, when there something in it for him.

You made it Lance, you sleep in it

And then there was his retirement.  Superstars do not go quietly into the night, they like to linger and bask in the glory, not Lance.  He retired and began to put as much distance between himself and cycling as he could.  That's odd.  People who are guilty do odd things because they're using some different rational to which you and I have no access.  I do have to laugh at some of the comments people have been making about how he has a family to support.  What bozos.  Do any of these people have an inkling of how much Lance Armstrong is really worth?