Armstrong to do the Tour after all

Armstrong plans to race the Tour

Lance Armstrong
announced Monday that he intends to compete in the 2009 Tour de France.
Armstrong let his fans know the news via his “Twitter” feed from the
team Astana training camp on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

from: cyclingnews.com

The ProTour is dead

This is a stunning bit of news from the rest day at the Tour de France.

The UCI’s ProTour series appears to be officially dead after all 17 teams
at the Tour de France decided to leave the series and not renew their
licences next season.

“It has been decided unanimously not to renew the ProTour licences
for the 2009 season,” read a joint statement from the teams.

full story at cyclingnews.

2008 Tour de France is underway, Stage one

The 2008 Tour de France is now underway. This is the 95th edition of the tour. I’ll likely be posting small updates and comments about the race over the next few weeks. Don’t look for extensive in depth analysis, but just quick thoughts, comments and some of the race results if I think there is something notable to point out.

Today’s stage runs from the town of Brest to Plumelec in western France. It is just under 200 Km of racing with an uphill kick right at the finish. It is a sprint type finish, but maybe not for the guys who specialize in a flat sprint finish. A very strong time-trialer or climber could make a solo break and win the stage. Somebody like a Hincapie or a Cancellara.

Of note here at the beginning of the race—there are two American teams in the race this year. Discovery Channel, the former lone American team no longer exists. But now Team Columbia and Team Garmin-Chipotle have stepped up and both have very interesting teams entered into the race.

Final Landis decision

The story appears to be done. It’s a sad ending, but I don’t think any potential outcome would have been exactly “happy.” Now the only question is will he ever return to road racing, or will he even be allowed?

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland announced today its decision regarding ex-Tour de France winner Floyd Landis vs. US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA.) The court ruled against Landis, ending his fight to clear his name and regain his Tour victory. Landis will have to serve the full suspension that is back-dated to 30 January, 2007. Additionally, Landis was ordered to pay $100,000 in costs to the USADA.

Story from cyclingnews.com

A ride with sprinkles on top

I did get out this morning on the bike, but my ride was shortened when it began to rain a bit. It wasn’t raining hard, just a few sprinkles, but I decided to turn around and head towards home rather than pushing onward. I can take a certain degree of cold, but when you add wet to the mix sometimes that changes the game.

As it turned out it still hasn’t begun to pour, but them’s the breaks. I did end up with a little over eleven miles, so at least I can be happy that I crawled out of bed and made the attempt.

I think today I’ll try and take care of some household activities—vacuuming, laundry, stuff like that. Later on I might write up another article or two, and in the late afternoon the Tour of California will begin and I hope to watch some of that on Versus. Mario Cipollini is coming out of retirement and is expected to ride today. That should be fun to see.

So there’s my plan for Sunday in a nutshell. I hope everyone out there has a good day today.