So the circus that is the Tour de France has been rolling into towns across Holland, Belgium and France for the past week with all the thrills and excitement you’d expect and, as with any circus, a couple of shifty looking travelling folks:

This year’s race got off to a predictable start with Fabian Cancellara winning his 5th prologue in imperious style. Camcellara had hoped that this win and subsequent x-raying of his bike would finally kill the rumours about his *mechanical doping* (the asterisk is the blog sarcastic air quote) at this year’s Flanders and Roubaix:

Sadly for Fabian, the results proved inconclusive:

In a further attempt to dispel “the rumours” Cancellara quipped to journalists: “After they checked my bike, I said, ‘You should also check the motor: Me!’”. Despite this evidence to the contrary, Cancellara has had to develop a pretty decent sense of humour in recent months as surely as his years of hard work have developed his *bionic* legs. And any sane person believes that to be true – Cancellara’s victories are thanks solely to his physical abilities and hard work. Although some – those nearer the Gazza end of the sanity continuum – might suggest his similarity to the Six Million Dollar Man doesn’t stop at bionic limbs. For this Tour has revealed that he switches his team radio to “transmit” by tweaking his right nipple:

The simple act of squeezing together his index finger and thumb enables him to both send updates to the team car and a frisson of excitement to himself. By all accounts by twisting his left nipple, Fabian can control the speed of his Gruber electric assist.

His motor was put to good use over the cobbles of the Ardennes as he successfully guided Andy Schleck through the treacherous cobbles (insofar as cobbles are capable of treachery) in the final 30kms of stage 3. Of course, Fabian’s guidance of Frank was less successful but 1 out of 2′s not bad. That stage also produced the shock of the week if most commentators are to be believed. They all professed that feather weight Contador would cross the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix with all the grace, and ultimately success, of a drunk clown crossing a tight-rope. I can only guess at the number of complementary croissants were spat onto keyboards as Contador crossed the line just behind the lead group.

Crash! Bang! Wallop!

As with every Tour there’s been no shortage of crashes in this opening week. Stage 2 in particular, as the riders descended the Stockeu, turned into a decidedly disastrous dress rehearsal of “Le Tour on Ice”. La Grosse Chute – in which every rider was obliged to fall off at least once – put an end to Christian Vande Velde Tour with broken ribs and Frank Schleckt’s was over the next day with a broken collar bone but the “Bad Luck of the Week” award has to go to Armstrong. His legendary bike handling skills appear to have deserted him to such an extent that Denny Menchov has been giving him some tips on staying upright. In fact, so far in this Tour Armstrong’s been on the floor more times than an MP waiting to vote. For someone with GC aspirations that’s bad enough but let’s not forget that Armstrong’s approaching an age where having a “nasty fall” could leave him hospitalised for months. Finally on stage 8 to Morzine-Avoriaz, Armstrong’s bad luck put an end to his challenge for an eighth title – he came off his bike 3 times and lost nearly 12 minutes to the day’s winner Schleck. It was sad to see that the days when Armstrong was able to make his own luck are well and truly gone but at least he can use the bad luck as an excuse as a crutch for his failure to win. And if he keeps falling off at this rate, it’s crutches that he’ll need.

Just as Armstrong’s luck seems to have gone, so too has the dignity of QuickStep’s Carlos Barredo and Caisse d’Epargne’s Rui Alberto Costa. For there are few more pathetic sights than that of a grown man dressed in lycra scrabbling around on the floor with another grown man also dressed in lycra:

The fight reached its climax at the end of stage 6 as Costa removed his front wheel and set about Barredo’s head and neck. As bicycle sourced weapons go, a front wheel isn’t going to do much harm to your opponent – unless you throw it like Odd Job’s bowler hat – but I suppose, save an empty bidon, it was all he could removed while he was still in a rage. Costa must be cursing the day bike manufacturers introduced the integrated seat post.

Responding to the Tourmalet-sized cynicism that’s developed in all of us since it was decided drug taking was bad for bike racing (despite the fact that everyone – inlcuding the soigneurs – were apparently doing it) and manifests itself as an endless moan, Bradley Wiggins was forced to release his blood test values.

Garmin-Slipstream put out his blood values for both haemoglobin count – the concentration of oxygen carrying protein in red blood cells – as well as, what’s becoming the de facto measure of cheating, his “Off Score”.

Now calling it the “Off Score” makes it sound a little more Terry Thomas – “Your Off Score’s really not on, you absoulte scoundral!” – than it probably is. Here’s how Garmin explain it:

The Off Score, which takes into account the relationship between haemoglobin and reticulocyte concentration is currently used as the reference point for assessing an athlete’s blood profile. Since reticulocytes tend to decrease when haemoglobin is artificially high, the combination of a high haemoglobin and a low reticulocyte raises the Off Score.

Not quite as funny as it first sounded, I think you’ll agree. Maybe closer to some of Thomas’ later work but certainly not up there with Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or Monte Carlo or Bust.

Anyway, much was also made of Bradley’s weight loss in the build up to the Tour – in the 9 months prior to the Tour he lost 7 kilos. Which although might not win him the crown of “Weight Watchers Slimmer of the Year” it’s no men feat for someone who’s not actually a fatso. Of course, for the anti-doping cynics out there this is a hard fact to believe – and Bradley’s partly responisble for this. Judging by the account in his autobiogrphy Bradley used to be an almost Flintoff standard drinker and his cake consumption is estimated to be the same as that of a single woman in her early 40′s.

Which is why Garmin have been forced to release Bradley’s cake and beer intake levels for this year’s Tour:

At first glance, you might think that this is simply a pathetic attempt at humour, very badly done in Microsoft Paint – you’d be wrong, though. It was actually done using Adobe Photoshop.

As you can see, during the whole of the Tour both his beer and cake intake were very low. There’s only a slight blip plotted on the cake line when Bradley accidentally ate half a croissant. No-one is quite sure how this happened, although it’s currently believed that a member of Saxo-Bank may have spiked his porridge with it. His consumption levels stayed constant until he hit Paris and, as clearly shown above, beer imbibment rose markedly and he Katona’d it on the cake front before returning to a more normal level.

There we have it, categoric proof to support Wiggins’ weight loss based performance increases. We can only hope this will be enough to satisfy the doubters or, at the very least, stop them moaning on and on and on for a couple of weeks.

It’s fair to say that in recent years French cycling has gone down this:

Or more to the point, down one of these:

The effect of this is there for all the world to see, the French haven’t won their own race at their own sport since Laurent Fignon and his pony tail did it back in 1984.

And in those 25 years, and 25 Tours, many a French riders and their carzy terrible hair have lined up on the start line, their hearts full of hope only to cross the finishing line in Paris wearing only their tear-stained jerseys – and matching shorts, of course. Oh, and after 2003, helmets. And shoes and socks, yes, shoes and socks. And gloves, don’t forget gloves. Most of them wear glasses now too, don’t they? Really, what I meant is, no Frenchman has won the Tour in 25 years and it upsets them.

France 6 – Britain 9

Well, this year things have got a little bit worse for them – they’re only able to select 6 riders for the World Championships.

But before we laugh too heartily, we should spare a little sympathy for them. Because cycling is to the French what cricket is to the English – despite each inventing our respective sports but neither of us can beat the Dutch at it.

And it’s this belief that the sport is in some way “ours” that raises the level of expectation, and with it pressure, for success and makes it so much more disappointing when the Australians inevitably win.

To be fair, the French more likely than not couldn’t give a flying fromage about success in the velodrome – it’s their singular lack of anything remotely resembling a “result” in the Classics and the Grand Tours that’s got their French knickers all in a knot.

All of which means that despite taking 3 stages at this years Tour, French riders have performed so badly in the last 12 months, that they will only be able to select 6 riders for the World Championships. Frances disappointment at this abject failure was surely only compounded when they discovered that the British qualified for the full 9 riders.

Which leaves me feeling a little sorry for, the French National Team Manager, Laurent Jalabert. Jalabert has many claims to fame:

• He’s the subject of the most famous Tour de France photos ever taken,
• He’s the  second best French rider to never win the Tour (after Pou Pou)
• He’s the third most famous person with a name that sounds like JaJa (after Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jar Jar Binks)

To which he can now “Managing the biggest bunch of sadsacks that France has produced in many a year”. Despite the gloom he seems in philosophical mood, telling French sports daily L’Equipe:

“It’s very disturbing,” Jalabert told French sports dailyL’Equipe. “This does not mean that we are already beaten, but it says a lot about the true position of France in international cycling. I hope this will at least provoke some thought.”

We can only hope that as disturbed as he is, during his period of thought, Jalabert is still sane enough to not listen to Bernard Hinault. As in his pre-Tour interview, you know the one that made Lance Armstrong type the word “Wanker”, Hinault’s take on the situation in French cycling was as follows:

“There are champions who become like civil servants when they turn pro. You have to put a knife to their throats to get any results,” Hinault said. “The French earn too much money and don’t make enough effort.”

Presumably Hinault is speaking from experience here, as aparrently during the height of his career, The Badger wasregularly threatened with being hit over the head by a spade then dumping by the side of the road to make it look like a car had hit him. And remember, these were the pre-2003 days, before compulsory helmet wearing in Pro races. A much more severe threat.

Even so, threatening to kill your riders if they don’t perform seems a little extreme to say the least. Here in the UK we like to leave that job to other road users. But then, it doesn’t seem to have done our riders any harm, so maybe Hinault does have a point.

So hot on the heels of the first drug revelations from this year’s Tour comes the first drugs use denial.

Mikel Astarloza is reported in the Guardian as saying:

“…he had no idea how he tested positive for the endurance-booster EPO in a sample taken before the race.”

Obviously, just as performance enhancing drugs have no place in pro-cycling, so casual racism made popular by 1970′s comic creations have no place in cycle blogging but am I the only one who thinks that Astarloza is trying to channel Fawlty Towers’ Manuel by essentially claiming “I know nothing” possibly in the hope that we’ll see him as a hard done by idiot ignorant of his crimes rather than a filthy drugs cheat. Initial reports that Astraloza also claimed the rat he’s keeping as a pet was in fact a hamster were later revealed as nonesense.

I didn’t do it!

Just like a child with chocolate round his mouth denying he ate the last biscuit, the motto of the doper is “I didn’t do it”. In the most high profile of recent cases, Floyd Landis, took his “I didn’t do it” as far as the CAS. In claiming he’d no idea how he’d become “super spunky” over night, he rather disturbingly added that his high testosterone levels were “produced by my own organism” despite those levels being more than twice those of the 1980 East German Women’s Olympic Shot Put team combined.

So despite his denial, it’s not looking good for Astraloza.

He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty so the anti-doping vultures circling above the ailing Astraloza will have to wait for the results from his B sample before the can descend and peck his eyes out. Even if his B test does come back negative to clear him of these charges there’s still a 50:50 chance he doped. And let’s not forget that when the US sprinter Marion Jones was cleared of EPO use thanks to a negative B sample back in 2006, it turned out to be the dope smoke from the fire that eventually ended her career.

And it seems that Astraloza has been around enough to realise this:

“The damage has been done, I’m innocent and I’m being accused of something I haven’t done. This is a very serious situation.”

I bloody well knew it!

Most worryingly for me, the Astarloza affair has revealed a side effect of the witch hunt against the dopers that’s far worse than doping itself: it’s turned me into a cynic of near Kimmage proportions. When I heard a rider had been suspended for doping my first thought was “I knew it was too good to be true” and on reading Astarloza’s denial all I could think was “Well, you would say that.”

Having said that, I’m not quite at the bitter, forgotten, old Lemond level of showering Contador’s parade with “VO2 Max” flavoured piss – we should celebrate the class of his win with out putting our hands over our mouths and muttering to ourselves “unless you’re a drugs cheat”.

Becuase if we suspect everyone who achieves anything in cycling of cheating, what future will there be in the sport at all?