Well, well, our old friend, Podium Girl Gone Bad is now on Twitter. Guess she just can't keep her nose (a-hem) out of the 2009 Tour.

So Lance is going to hold a press conference tomorrow in NY about his Global Cancer Initiative, and then at another press conference on Thursday at Interbike, he will announce his plans for his return to cycling. Bummer that I can’t be at Interbike this year, but like everybody else, I had to tighten up on the spending....

A long-time reader, Burt, gave me a heads-up on an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that rumors about a “possible buyout” by Lance of the Tour de France from ASO, calling it an “audacious plan”. Huh? Is this April 1st or what? However, you can read it for yourself if you follow the link.

And then there’s the thing with Alberto Contador and Lance on the same team. Alberto has been tearing up the road with his wins since he was aced out of the 2008 Tour. He said that he welcomed Lance back to the cycling world, but more recently sounds like he is wondering if there is room for them both at Astana. Alberto feels that he has rightly won the title of team leader for 2009, especially at the TdF. However, he is wondering how that will work if Lance has that same goal... Don’t think Alberto would have any trouble finding another team, but sure hope we don't lose him... Stay tuned...

Floyd gets flicked by CAS and is ordered to pay USADA $100k. Disgusting that CAS took so long to just follow the party line, which is what everybody expected them to do... ASO's tentacles are reaching everywhere. Now even to the Amgen Tour of California...

Speaking of ASO, the Tour de Farce starts on the 5th, without Astana and their top riders. I wish all the American riders well, but without Astana, it's going to be pretty bland...

Guess it took this appalling decision to shake me into posting after such a long absence...

From Chris Brewer at the Paceline: Team Discovery Channel's 2007 Tour de France Victory Celebration Video...

Levi Leipheimer Post Tour 2007 Interview... My good buddy, Mark Shimahara, flew over for the final stage on the Champs Elysees at Odessa Gunn's invitation. Here is Mark's exclusive interview with Levi.

Awesome Time Trial - Levi was just outstanding - this guy has the horsepower, plus he has so much class.... Evans and Contador put in the ride of their lives, and so did Popovych. I'm sure that Lance being in the follow car sure gave wings to Alberto. And that Popo is gonna blossom into a great rider as he matures. Tomorrow will be a Discovery Podium. Hope that Johan can hold onto Contador, Popo and Levi for the next few seasons...Huge cheers for Joahn, Dirk and all the guys on the DC support team....

Vino is my hero... Yes, I think Alberto Contador is awesome, and I agree with Johan that his talent will likely be as close to the next Lance Armstrong that any rider could be. But Vino has suffered so much and has risen from the ashes in such a fierce, undying way that he deserves hero status in my book.. I so totally admire his courage, perseverance, and just plain guts. I swear, anyone else but Lance would have called it quits with all those stitches and pain. What a guy - he has really pulled off the impossible.

Wait, hasn’t that happened to another rider in the past year? Another rider at the Tour de France? Didn’t another rider came back from the arms of defeat to win a stage in the Tour last year? And didn’t I hear braying voices saying that it absolutely proved that he had taken testosterone the night before? Are any of these voices now saying, “Golly gee whiz, maybe it is possible after all that a rider can come back from total depletion and injury and win a spectacular mountain stage”. And a spectacular Time Trial...

Does this give any of the nay-sayers food for thought that the human spirit, unbelievable courage and the ability to endure suffering can bring an injured rider to the winner’s circle? Could any of these folks (and you know who you are) maybe say that it could be true that Floyd won that stage last year clean. Yes, clean riders do perform miracles and do the impossible... Ask Vino, and ask Lance, and believe Floyd...

Bravo Vino and, as I watched you on the Podium this morning, I couldn’t help but think that, in a way, you were standing there and standing up for Floyd, too...

Rasmussen rocks on Stage 8 - Rogers is robbed by a crash. It was awesome to see Rasmussen take off like he did. His victory is well-deserved, but so very sad to see Michael Rogers abandon. One minute a potential stage victor and maillot jaune - the next he is crashing into a guard rail and DNF. He struggled so valiently and suffered so much to try to finish the stage and have a chance to recover tomorrow. But it was clear how much pain he had and that he was injured, in spite of what the race doctor said.

And Contador was a pretty sight, flying up the hill after his ill-timed mechanical with his back wheel - Mavic was there with one of theirs. If not for that time loss, Contador might have given Rasmussen a run for his money. And Popo worked hard, then pooped out on the last climb. George worked hard, and Levi continued to save himself for bigger things later in the race... Like the Pyrenees...

Bummer for Stuart O'Grady to have another crash and head for the hospital in an ambulance. This Tour is full of crashes and mishaps...

Without a real Patron this year, so that everyone knows where their place is, and to keep everyone in line, this Tour is chaotic, nervous nd dangerous to all riders...

The real heroes today were Vino and Noval, who both courageously started the stage and suffered so much through to the finish. Vino was in the back with his team supporting him the entire stage. Right near the end, the cameras caught Vino pulling the side of his hand across his throat, making that universal sign that usually means the end. I hope he was only commenting on his order in the stage, and not meaning that he was done...Bravo to both Vino and Noval, and also Kloden for riding through their injuries.

Disorganized, chaotic sprint in the finish today of Stage 6. Boonen powered through from way on the side. Then Friere and then Zabel. I really like Zabel, as we all do, but I’m still trying to figure out why Erik Zabel is welcome at the Tour and Bjarne Riis is not, given they both had similar disclosures about their past Tour history.

Have to miss watching the Tour tomorrow morning , as I’ll be out on a photo shoot, but you can bet that I am catching this first bit of climbing on my DVR...

No joyride today in Stage 4. They really were moving along. A super exciting finish, although the sprinter's teams seemed a bit disorganized. A fantastic leadout by Julian Dean for Thor Hushovd - Julian is quite a sprinter, himself...Robbie Hunter was visibly swearing away at himself in second spot. Boonen couldn't get into sprint position, but still stayed in Green. Tom was very gracious about his team in the interview - said it wasn't the team's fault that they couldn't get organized.

Tomorrow will be the start for the climbers, and the sprinters will start hanging on for dear life until the next flat stage,...

Was that an awesome finish for Stage 3 this morning or what? Cancellara surprised everyone with his long sprint. He blew past those guys who had been in front for almost the entire race, and out-sprinted the sprinters for the win. Fabian's grin on the podium was one of delight, for sure. Interesting that Zabel, the guy who caused the big crash yesterday, took second.

Most of the race was just a joyride for the guys, with everyone chatting and joking - looked like a mellow club ride until they finally decided to get serious. And almost too late with the chase. And Auge hung in to take the polka dot jersey away from Millar, who appeared a bit disinterested, or without energy, to try to keep it...

I think the Tour is a lot more exciting than some of the naysayers have predicted, and the mountains should be good. It will be a real challenge for Discovery with only eight guys. Good luck for a speedy recovery to Thomas Vaitkus. I think it was him I saw yesterday coming in with one arm on the bars instead of George...

Horrible, huge crash at the front of the peloton in the last 3 km of Stage 2 today. Saw George Hincapie not using one of his arms as he finished, neither was Freddie Rodriguez nor Fabian Cancellara. Hope it's not bad, we'll have to wait to hear, but all three guys looked to me to be injured.

Exciting finish, with huge joy for Belgium - Boonen's lead-out guy, Steegmans, takes the sprint, with Boonen second... Well done...

Keeping my fingers crossed for those guys who went down when a Millram rider swerved to the right and started the chain reaction of crashes...

Here we go again with the usual Tour frenzy, however, it seems rather subdued, in spite of the media’s attempts to infuse everything and everyone with doping crap. And, as usual, press writers who don’t know their arse from a hole in the ground write about the Tour without doing their homework.

My favorite stupid headline, written after the Prologue, was: “ Hincapie Disappointed, But Not Defeated”. I received so many Google Alerts for that headline that I don’t know who was the original author. Yeah, a real Tour expert journalist wrote that one. It was the Prologue, dummy! Jeeze, “not defeated” - Like this was a major telling incident of the Tour, and an ominous indicator of the outcome for George Hincapie.

The other headline was from a newspaper, I think maybe it was in Charleston, and the writer called it La Tour...

So the Discovery guys look great in the new Go Green theme jerseys. Sure makes it easier to spot them in the peloton. Of course, there is the to-be-expected buzz that the green color may be an indicator of the 2008 sponsor. And the AMD logo is the prime candidate, but that is a whole lotta bucks for the sponsorship for that Silicon Valley company. It would be great to have the hub here, but I don’t know... The other speculation is a sponsor in China, and the team is scheduled to race there for the first time... Fuyu Li, the pride of China, could be bringing more to the team than his racing skills.

In Stage 1 today, Robbie McEwen hauled A at the last minute to take the sprint. That guy came out of nowhere and was flying. I don’t think he was carbon neutral in that sprint - He was smokin’. Was especially surprising since he had just been knocked arse-over-teakettle by another rider as he was standing by his bike with a mechanical. He seemed to be having a bit of trouble with his wrist afterwards. He’ll need it for his sprint tomorrow after a totally, pancake-flat stage.