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OGDEN -- Was it a friendly group bicycle ride through downtown Ogden or a confrontational melee that included obstructing traffic, assault, obscenities and alcohol? Depends on who you talk to. Numbers vary from 35 to 70, but a large group of cyclists, referred to as Critical Mass, was taking a monthly ride to celebrate cycling and assert their rights to the road on Friday when Ogden police say things got out of hand. Four individuals were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and public intoxication. Matt Hasenyager, owner of Skyline Cycle and one of the bicyclists, said...

SEATTLE -- An Everett mother says she's outraged over a weekend protest full of naked cyclists. The group was riding along the Seattle waterfront Friday night wearing nothing but smiles to expose some of the dangers they face. But not everyone was smiling. "I looked and there were naked men with their genitals hanging out," said Marcy Hayes, who was there with her 6-year-old daughter Ashland. "I'm yelling at my daughter to look away." Hayes says she and her daughter walked out of the Seattle Aquarium and right into the path of a pack of cyclists and all their nakedness....

This updated story corrects an earlier mistranslation of a key quote. - Editor Tour de France winner Alberto Contador on Monday launched a stinging attack on teammate Lance Armstrong, saying relations between the two were tense throughout the race. "My relationship with Lance is zero. He is a great champion and has done a great Tour, but on a personal level I have never had a great admiration for him and I never will," the Spaniard told a news conference in Madrid. Contador won the Tour on Sunday with a comfortable lead over his rivals. His Astana teammate Armstrong, a...

(CNN) -- Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has launched a stinging attack on Astana teammate Lance Armstrong after returning as a hero to his native town of Pinto near Madrid. Lance Armstrong (right) looks on after Alberto Contador is handed the Tour de France trophy in Paris. Contador told a news conference that relations between the two riders were tense throughout the race, making the atmosphere very difficult for the team as a whole. Although not giving specific reasons why, Contador admitted the situation has affected his relationship with the American. "My relationship with Lance Armstrong is non-existent. Even...

ARIS — With the Arc de Triomphe in the distance and a sea of fans along the roadside, Lance Armstrong stood on the podium at the Tour de France on Sunday, two spots below what he was used to. From 1999 to 2005, Armstrong won this race, the most prestigious event in cycling. This time, he was third, behind the winner Alberto Contador of Spain and Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. But for the 37-year-old Armstrong — and for many in the cycling community — it was a victory, even though Armstrong fell short of crossing the finish line first. “I...

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent story today on the return of Lance Armstrong to the Tour de France, cycling’s most prestigious race. At this moment he is in second place, only a fraction of a second behind. At 37, ancient by cycling standards... The story is about the French warming up to him. It’s about time!... "[M]any of the locals saw him as cold, arrogant and overly competitive." If they watched him race, they couldn't feel that way. When Lance's arch rival, Jan Uhlrich, took a spill on a hill climb, Lance doubled back to wait for him...

Lance Armstrong moved level with Fabian Cancellara at the head of the overall standings after helping Astana to a team time-trial success on stage four of the Tour de France. Cancellara, of Saxo Bank, retains the yellow jersey going into tomorrow's fifth stage but Armstrong, the seven-time winner of the Tour, was able to wipe out a 40-second deficit on the roads of Montpellier. Astana posted a time of 46 minutes and 29 seconds to win the 39km stage, with Garmin-Slipstream finishing second 18 seconds back and Saxo Bank third, a further 22 seconds behind. Alberto Contador, Armstrong's team-mate, moves...

MONTPELLIER, France (AP) — Lance Armstrong surged within a second of the Tour de France lead after his Astana squad won Tuesday's team time trial in a dramatic finish. Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara of the Saxo Bank team narrowly kept the yellow jersey lead following the fourth stage, a 24.2-mile ride in and around Montpellier. Astana needed to beat Saxo Bank by more than 40 seconds for Armstrong to take the yellow jersey. The seven-time champion started the stage in third place, and Astana exactly matched that 40-second deficit. Cancellara's team finished third. "That's Swiss timing," Cancellara said, laughing. "Time is...

Lance Armstrong jumped from 10th to third place at the Tour de France on Monday, positioning himself for a shot at the yellow jersey after evading trouble on a windy ride along the Mediterranean. Britain's Mark Cavendish won his second straight stage. He and Armstrong and overall leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland kept up with a breakaway group that bolted from the pack with 18 miles left in the 122-mile third stage. Armstrong, a seven-time champion coming out of retirement, is 40 seconds behind. He was able to make his big jump because riders in front of him at the...

Today is day one! Armstrong riding. Astana is back! Predictions? Other comments? Does someone have the ping list from last year?

PARIS -- France's anti-doping agency said Friday it will not seek sanctions against cyclist Lance Armstrong over a dispute with a drug tester, ending speculation that he could be barred from the Tour de France. The AFLD agency said in a statement that it "decided to take into consideration the athlete's written explanations" and will not open disciplinary procedures. The anti-doping agency has said the American cyclist did not fully cooperate with a drug tester who showed up at Armstrong's home in France to collect blood, urine and hair samples on March 17. Armstrong had said he feared the agency...

The actual Tour de France ended yesterday. A gutsy little Spaniard, Carlos Sastre, hung on to win, after his best performance ever in the final time trial. The experts said he didn’t have the strength and stamina to hold his lead against a stronger, and favored competitor in that trial. But he ultimately won by 58 seconds, which is a decent margin in the Tour. Like most Americans, I root for the underdog. But that’s not the Tour de France I came to talk about, today. The day before the Tour ended, Barack Obama had the second-to-last leg of his...

♦ RACE PREVIEW ♦Ciao Italia! Tour organizers were forced to get out their atlases & scramble to come up with a detour when the original route they had planned for today out of Digne-les-Bains over the Col de Larche was deemed too risky for the riders after a recent avalanche created the hazard of ongoing rockslides. So this morning's starting line has been moved north to the charming town of Embrun, considered by many to be an architectural gem, perched on the shores of lovely Lac de Serre-Ponçon. The good news for the riders is that the revised route for...

♦ ♦ ♦ RACE PREVIEW Stage 14 would appear to be yet another one of those ostensibly flat transitional days which may nonetheless conceal a few challenges within the route. The first 50km out of Nîmes stretches across the flat Rhône delta before threading through some gentle Provençal hills along the way to the Durance Valley. It's only in the final 50 km the riders start meeting some real foothills of any consequence, including two moderate CAT 4 climbs, but the whole course from start to end will have taken the peloton from nearly sea-level at Nîmes to alt.735m...

♦ ♦ ♦ Although today's stage is billed as a flat transitional route through the Languedoc-Roussillon which could have been tailor-made for sprinters (and for back-of-the-pack team sponsors who expect to get their money's worth in the form of publicity during breakaways on stages like this), it won't exactly be a midi vacation for the cyclists. There'll be three CAT 4 climbs as the tour wends its way over to the Alps by skirting both the Mediterranean coast and the hot, craggy foothills & parched plateaus of the Massif Central in the very heart of ancient Roman France. And in...

~~~<>~~~ Covering 104 miles on a mostly downhill route (there's an altitude loss of 500 metres from start to finish) from Lavelanet to Narbonne, stage 12 should be a good day day for the sprinters, however the first intermediate sprint is not until well into the stage - after 76 kilometers. Everybody else should get another day to recover from the Pyrenees in preparation for the Alps which loom ahead. Cadel gets another day to defend the yellow & everybody else gets to try their luck at a breakaway if they're up for it. From Bicycling Magazine: "The escapees...

~~~<>~~~ Stage 11 of the Tour takes the riders on a hilly, twisting 167.5km route from Lannemezan to Foix. Skirting the foothills of the Pyrenees along a picturesque route the Tour has never taken before, there's only one notable climb today - the first-category Col de Portel after 97.5km - so the stage should favor a breakaway rather than a sprint finish as Australia's Cadel Evans tries to defend his yellow jersey. ~~~<>~~~ LANNEMEZANFOIX

Bagneres-de-Bigorre, France - The Cobra strikes on the first real mountain stage of the 2008 Tour de France - Vande Velde moves into third overall Riccardo Ricco (Saunier Duval-Scott) won the ninth stage of the Tour de France on Sunday in a bold solo assault, while Kim Kirchen (Team Columbia) finished safely with the bunch to retain the overall lead. It was the second stage win of the 95th Tour for the young Italian, who leapt away from the bunch on the Col d’Aspin and held a slim lead on the 26km run in to the finish. His first came...

Mark Cavendish takes a second stage win while teammate Kim Kirchen retains the overall. Toulouse, France - You might call it greed or an addiction to victory. Team Columbia — simultaneously eager to protect Kim Kirchen's overall lead and set up sprinter Mark Cavendish for a stage win — controlled the peloton for most of Saturday's eighth stage of the Tour de France. The U.S.-based team kept an early break's lead to a manageable gap and then put the hammer down in the last 10k to reel it in and deliver its young British fast man to his second Tour...

Britain's Mark Cavendish claimed his first Tour de France stage victory after a thrilling sprint finish. The 23-year-old beat Spaniard Oscar Freire and German Erik Zabel in a bunch sprint to become the first Briton since David Millar in 2002 to win a stage. Stefan Schumacher retained the overall leader's yellow jersey, while Millar remains in third, 12 seconds behind. "It's the biggest thing to have happened to me and to do it so young, it's a massive thing," said Cavendish.

The Caisse d'Epargne rider caught Luxembourg's Kim Kirchen to finish ahead of Belgium's Philippe Gilbert, with Jerome Pineau of France in third. Valverde, 28, is one of the favourites to win the Tour, along with Australian Cadel Evans, who finished sixth. Britain's David Millar came home in 11th while Mark Cavendish finished two minutes back in 120th place. Local boy Lilian Jegou and Spaniard David De La Fuente spent 185km of the 197.5km race from Brest to Pulmelac in front but were caught by the peloton with 7km remaining.

Tour de France Winner’s Team Will Disband By IAN AUSTEN The cycling team of Lance Armstrong and this year's Tour de France winner Alberto Contador said Friday that it will disband after failing to replace the Discovery Channel as its sponsor. The announcement came at roughly the same that Contador held a news conference in Spain to deny the doping allegations that plagued him even before his victory last month. In normal circumstances, a Tour de France win should have assured the continuation of the Discovery Channel squad which is owned by Tailwind Sports, a company based in Austin, Texas,...

German authorities said yesterday they have received documents from doping expert Werner Franke which he claims show the Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, was involved in doping. Franke said he has documents from last year's Operation Puerto investigation in Spain which show that the Spaniard, who won the drug-marred race on Sunday, had taken HMG-Lepori as a testosterone booster and an asthma product called TGN. "We can confirm we have received the documents, and they will be incorporated into procedures of the district attorney's office," said Christian Brockert, a spokesman for Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office. Brockert said the...

The likely winner of the most controversial Tour de France in history, Spain's Alberto Contador, will step off the victory podium in Paris this afternoon and walk straight into an investigation into alleged links with a doping doctor which could ultimately cost him his title. That prospect would be a catastrophe both for cycling and for the organisers of the Tour de France, who had hoped the man wearing the yellow jersey on today's final sprint down the Champs-Élysées would help to redeem an event that has seemingly been heading for oblivion. Scroll down to read more: Sadly for those...

After 10 days in the yellow jersey, Michael Rasmussen appeared to have beaten back all challengers in his pursuit of the top spot on the Tour de France's final podium in Paris this coming Sunday. On Wednesday, he handily dispatched his nearest challenger - Discovery Channel's Alberto Contador - winning the Tour's most difficult stage and adding to his already-formidable lead as the race made its final trip into the mountains. But Rasmussen was apparently unable to defeat the growing skepticism surrounding his performance and his behavior over the past few months. On Wednesday evening, when the Dane should have...

Leader Rasmussen kicked off Tour Rasmussen has held the yellow jersey for 10 days Race leader Michael Rasmussen has been kicked out of the Tour de France and sacked by his Rabobank team. The 33-year-old Dane has been at the centre of controversy during the Tour since it was revealed he missed out-of-competition drugs tests. But Rabobank have learnt he lied to them about his whereabouts in June. Rasmussen looked odds-on to win the Tour on Sunday after taking Wednesday's stage, which increased his lead over second-placed rider Alberto Contador. News conference: Michael Rasmussen But young Spaniard Contador will now...

GOURETTE, France — Another Tour de France rider — Italian Cristian Moreni — failed a doping test and was led away by police at the end of Wednesday's 16th stage. "He accepted his wrongdoing and did not ask for a B sample," said Eric Boyer, manager of Moreni's Cofidis team. Athletes who fail a doping test are entitled to ask for a follow-up "B" sample test to confirm — and in rare cases refute — the results of the initial "A" sample. Police were seen leading Moreni away from the Cofidis team bus. It was unclear where they were taking...

Rest day today.

Four million people lined the streets to watch the British leg of the Tour de France and a further two billion watched on television, organisers said tonight. England's first time hosting the first stage of the elite race has been declared a "phenomenal success" by those involved. The 203km ride saw the 189 cyclists leave London before blazing into Canterbury in under five hours led by the Australian winner Robbie McEwen. Organisers said a total of two million people were on the streets of the capital watching yesterday's Prologue and today's departure from Greenwich. A further two million were estimated...

See for example this thread first. The beginning of the Tour de France Now forgive me if I look askance Cause although Landis won just last year it's no fun if I cannot be rooting for Lance!

After the thwarted terror attacks last week, British police have stepped up security measures in London as the city prepares to host the first leg of the Tour de France on Saturday. The day also marks the 2nd anniversary of the July 7 bombings. On Saturday the Tour de France is to start on British soil for the first time, and in light of last week's thwarted terror attacks, police have taken steps to tighten security. The cycling world, which has been hopelessly mired in doping scandals for the past few years, will be hoping that everything goes without a...

The tour is about to begin.

Excerpts translated from Swedish: Eleven years ago Bjarne Riis was the hero of all of Denmark when he won the Tour de France bicycling event. This Friday Riis admitted that he had cheated using blood doping. [Actually not - but he used epo. SB] ..... The Dane said he was not a worthy winner of the Tour in 1996. He also said that he had used doping preparations between 1993 - 1998. This is just the last in a row of recent admissions by former top cyclists that they have used performance enhancing drugs. On Thursady Riis's former team-mate Erik...

MALIBU, Calif. (AP) -A tip for all potential arbitration witnesses out there: Never take the mike after Greg LeMond. The three-time Tour de France winner stole the show at the Floyd Landis hearing Thursday during a short, explosive bit of testimony filled with talk of sexual abuse, blackmail and backstabbing that led to the on-the-spot firing of Landis' business manager. It was Landis who asked for this hearing to be public, though he couldn't have expected a scene like this to break out. And though it's hard to know what impact these blockbusters had on the arbitrators, it will be...

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Floyd Landis claims the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's lead attorney approached his lawyer offering "the shortest suspension they'd ever given an athlete" if Landis provided information that implicated Lance Armstrong for doping. At a news conference Thursday to preview his upcoming arbitration hearing, Landis said he made the Armstrong allegations public not because he planned to use it as evidence when testimony begins Monday, but to show the lengths USADA will go to in prosecuting athletes. "It was offensive at best," Landis said. "It speaks to the character of the prosecution." The 2006 Tour de France champion...

Report: Lab in Landis case made 'administrative error' on 'B' sample Nov 15 10:49 AM US/Eastern Report: Lab in Landis case made 'administrative error' on 'B' sample PARIS (AP) - The French anti-doping lab that tested American cyclist Floyd Landis' urine samples made an "administrative error" when reporting its findings on his backup "B" sample, the French newspaper Le Monde reported Wednesday. The newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory gave the wrong number in its report about Landis' second sample. Tests on the rider's two samples indicated that Landis had elevated levels of testosterone in his system...

After two trying months marked by doping allegations, an assault on his reputation and his father-in-law's suicide, Floyd Landis doesn't wish for a stirring comeback so much as the simpler things in life. At this point, he will settle for a good night's sleep, free of pain. To help reach that goal, Landis had hip-replacement surgery last week. With his rehab under way, the 30-year-old American who won this year's Tour de France won't rule out a return to competitive cycling. "Things have been up and down for me," Landis said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'll...

NEW YORK Two of Lance Armstrong's eight teammates from the 1999 Tour de France have admitted for the first time that they used the banned endurance-boosting drug EPO in preparing for the race that year, when they helped Armstrong capture the first of his record seven titles. Their disclosures, in interviews with The New York Times, are rare examples of candor in a sport protected by a powerful code of silence. Their confessions come as cycling is reeling from doping scandals, including Floyd Landis's fall in July from Tour champion to suspected cheater. One of the two teammates who admitted...

September 12, 2006 NEW YORK (AP) -- Two of Lance Armstrong's former teammates said they used a performance-enhancing drug when they were getting ready for the 1999 Tour de France, according to a newspaper report. Frankie Andreu, a 39-year-old former team captain, and another teammate who requested anonymity because he still works in cycling, told The New York Times they used EPO in preparation for the 1999 race, when Armstrong won the first of his seven titles in cycling's biggest race.

By Debbi Farr Baker UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM 1:46 p.m. August 16, 2006 SAN DIEGO – David Witt, the 57-year-old father-in-law of embattled Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has died, authorities said Wednesday. Witt was found dead in his car Tuesday afternoon in a North Park parking garage, according to his friends. An investigator with the San Diego County Medical Examiner's office confirmed Witt's death but said the cause was still under investigation. San Diego police reported that a man had committed suicide Tuesday afternoon in a parking garage in North Park. The man was found at 3:14 p.m....

The controversy surrounding Floyd Landis is actually different then other controversies over illegal steroid use for one major reason: Both his blood and urine has been tested eight times (three blood tests) throughout the French de Tour. These other tests combined are more significant and telling then the single sample test found with an abnormal T/E ratio. As it stands, Landis' single positive test is just a distraction that sheds little light on the truth of any illegal drug activity on his part. To get any benefit out of an anabolic agent it must be used over weeks, not hours...

Posted on Sat, Aug. 05, 2006 In Armstrong's cycling world, paranoia and fear reign The Dallas Morning News By Michael Grabell and Cathy Harasta DALLAS - Lance Armstrong rose to sporting power in a world where paranoia ruled. He had his meals delivered in a blue cooler during his final Tour de France for fear of sabotage. His team drove miles to dump its trash, knowing that the moment it threw something away, someone else would pick through it. And former cyclists still active in the sport were so worried about the power the seven-time tour winner wielded that they...