Carlos Sastre-- A big win for clean cycling.

CSC Saxo-Bank's Carlos Sastre has won the Tour de France. The spanish rider won the yellow jersey with the help of his powerful CSC squad with an attack at the base of L' Alpe De Huez, cycling's most fabled climb. Sastre won the stage solo--by more than two minutes-- taking the jersey from teammate Frank Schleck, and putting 1:34 into rival Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) coming into the final time trial. Evans, a superior time trialist, was expected to make up the time and win the race, but Sastre rode away only allowing Evans to cut about 30 seconds out of his time.

Sastre's victory is big for cycling. First, it was clearly a team victory. Sastre's individual effort on L' Alpe and on the stage 20 time trial were incredible, but his very strong team set him up. CSC whittled down GC contenders essentially by taking advantage of the overwhelming team strength, and by creating a plan to put one of the Schleck brothers in yellow to take pressure off Sastre until he could attack late in the race. CSC was by far the strongest team, and each rider gave up individual aspirations of stage wins to fight for Sastre to wear yellow in paris. Essentially, the CSC strategy worked like this in the mountain stages: each alp stage, with the exception of stage 17 had two off category climbs. The team would work together to get everyone over the first climb, including power houses Jens Voight and Fabian Cancellara who are not climbers. After the first decent, CSC would try to blow up the peleton by placing Cancellara-- the world time trial champion and arguably the strongest rider in the world-- on the front to set a blistering pace. This isolated Evans and the rest of the GC contenders, making it hard for them to hang on and hard for them to endure multiple stages. When things went uphill, Jens Voight would take a pull followed by other riders including Andy Schleck-- winner of this year's best young riders' jersey-- and then Frank Schleck or Sastre would attack. It was a masterful team effort. No other team was able to work like this. The consequence was that Cancellara, Voight, and both of the Schlecks failed to win stages, something they all regularly do. But the team won the team classification, and Sastre won the tour. Go teamwork.

Finally Sastre's victory was a victory for cycling. He rides for a "clean team," one of a handful of teams that have strong independent doping controls. After the tour, he said, "i believe in clean cycling because i am clean." It's nice to have a champion who you can have confidence in. Sastre's A sample won't come back positive. That's a victory for the sport.

Stay tuned for info about the Legal Spin Century on August 23 at 7:00 A.M.

Ricco busted!

This does my heart good. By the way, if you want to follow the tour, check velonews.com

Tour Drama

I have quite the love-hate relationship with July. Most of that has to do with the tour and the drama that surrounds it. Already, we have seen a split between the UCI, cycling's governing body, and the ASO, the organizer of the tour. Also, we have seen three riders pulled from the tour as a result of failed doping tests. Most recently, and most shockingly for some was today's announcement that Italian climber, KOM and Best Young Rider jersey leader, Riccardo Ricco tested positive for EPO. The entier Saunier Duval team left the tour as a result, since Ricco is thier GC man. Frankly, i'm not surprised. Ricco was the type of rider that seemed to be able to turn on a stage win whenever he wanted to. At 23, he finished 2nd in this year's Giro and had already won two stages of the Tour. His unbelievable performance was just that: unbelievable. I am saddened by the news, however. Not because i liked Ricco, but because i was really hoping for a quieter tour this year with the attention drawn to the phenomenal rides, the dramatic stage wins, and the new tech. The other two doping cases involved support riders, and were fairly quiet. This one will draw a lot of attention, especially since it caused SD, a team that has won three stages already, to withdraw from the race.

My other beef with this year's tour is the course. The climbs will be phenomenal, but the flat stages look like they are almost intentionally designed to prevent a Cancellara win. First of all, there was no prologue this year. Cancellara has won the prologue twice previously, and is the best rider in the world at short, flat time trials. Last year, he dominated the prologue and actually ran up on a motorcycle frantically trying to get out of the way. He didn't get that chance this year. The early flat stages were not right for him, as all had uphill finishes, which prevent a late attack-- his signature winning move. However, the tour did throw him a stage 4 time trial that was short and relatively flat. It was a homerun ball that he simply didn't hit, only taking 5th. However, he did ride strong, and drove a chase group at a blistering pace three stages ago, splitting the pack and eliminating several GC riders and setting up teammate Frank Schleck to move into second overall.

Riders i've been impressed with: 1)Cavandish. 3 stage wins as of today. He's a phenomenal sprinter, and may be the fastest man in the world right now. 2)Christian Vande Velde. The young American is doing very well for his first time as a team leader. He's sitting in 3rd overall at 30 seconds back. 3) Team Columbia. They are awesome, and have really controlled the race early-- allowing Cavandish to win 3 stages. 4)Garmin. Same goes for this first-time american team. They are surprising. 5)CSC-Saxo Bank. By far the strongest team. Look for another Jens voight-- Fabian Cancellara controlled stage in the Alps, hopefully to set up Schleck and Sastre.

No props for: 1)SD and Ricco. They suck. Period. 2) Robbie McEwen. Where's pocket rocket? not a single stage win? 3)Val Verde. I can't believe he dropped from GC contention so easily. 4) Tom Boonen. He could be here winning stages right and left, but he's not. Crack is wack. 5) Ricco. Again. he sucks. Dopers suck.