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Location

Well the Tour de France route for 2009 has come out, and there's some new old stuff, like the Team Time Trial is back. Some say this makes Lance Armstrong more likely to show up, some say less, and he seems to want some assurances from the organizers about respectful treatment or some such.

Meanwhile Contador sounded welcoming at first, but lately perhaps less so, and Vino's name has surfaced as well. Nothing solid here from me...just some impressions.

Location

Just when you thought it was all over... 

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=3611019 

Floyd Landis is back, this time taking his case to the US courts.  The article points our that this is probably pointless, since the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) is a Swiss body...  As far as I know, our courts don't have any jurisdiction there...  Not yet, anyway...  ;-)

So apparently the Discovery Pro Cycling Team will be no more after the end of this season. But meanwhile things are looking pretty good for Slipstream, the US's newest international team.

Today promises to be a big day for announcements in pro cycling. Apparently the team to be formerly known as Discovery Channel has not found a replacement sponsor for next year. It seems Hincapie may be in magenta for T-Mobile, other USAmericans are in doubt, Slipstream may be the only USA team, and we have to wonder if they'll get an invite for the tour (anyone know about this yet?). Something more ominous than espresso seems brewing from Contador and Bruyneel regarding Operación Puerto and any connection with the footlose man Eufemiano Fuentes.

Good vibes all around from London, England and the UK from hosting the Tour de France, or so it seems. I thought it was interesting and fun, and especially since the weather was so great for those days. The English really came out to look and seemed to be enthusiastic. I'm glad they're not piling on as there are enough piles to go around already. Mo' bettah testin' throughout the ranks I say and careful living for the riders it seems. It's a job many of us would gladly take!

As timv has noted, David Millar can spin a yarn nicely in his TdF Diaries. As a doper who had done his time, he's uniquely qualified to share several perspectives. And he was there for his own "Say it ain't so, Joe" moment when Vino's non-negative was first announced. I'll leave most of the piece for you to read on the Bicycling site, but here's a brief sample of that moment:

During the rest day, I've been speed-reading through various reports and blog entries for the first nine days of this year's Tour. My favorite story so far comes from David Millar's Stage 5 diary account of rookie British sprinter Mark Cavendish on his first-ever hilly TdF stage:

Just a quick note to say that on today's stage of the Tour de France, some inline skaters made the video coverage and were even commented upon favorably by Phil Liggett (and maybe by Paul Sherwen too).

The first view was of the solo race leader with a solo skater in a low race position making good time on a road parallel to the TdF course.

The second view a few minutes later was of four skaters on the parallel road, behind the full peloton, with fields of sunflowers in the foreground and between the two roads.

For those who don't have cable television but do have high-speed internet, here are some links that may (or may not) work for you to watch some worldwide television. Currently, of course, this is of interest because of the Tour de France. Look below for some links to the live data for GPS (location), power, heartrate and more. It's amazing to watch the video as the riders pass through a town and make a turn and to see this happen on the Google map while viewing HRM data.

 I've been knocking these rather trivial, large-scale thoughts around my head for some years now and wanted to write something about them. Last night, whilst watching 20/20, was the final straw! This post might complement KJG's questions in Monotony of Training.