Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Lance Armstrong was not at the Tour presentation, but he did give his reactions to the 2009 Tour route today.
First off, Lance likes the innovative route of the 2009 course that starts in Monaco with a 15km hilly TT and visits Barcelona and Girona, Spain.

“The route of the 2009 Tour de France strikes me [...]

The 2009 Tour de France route was unveiled today in Paris. Notibly absent was Lance Armstrong who is Twittering from Austin and developing a radical new TT position. The Tour contenders in Paris including Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans liked the course.
The first stage is a 15km hilly TT in Monaco. The Team Time Trial [...]

Lance Armstrong plans on announcing his plans for 2009 over the next two days. First at the Clinton Global Initiative and next at Interbike.

Lance Armstrong will hold a pair of press conferences in the next two days — the first on Wednesday in New York and the second on Thursday at the Interbike trade [...]

REUTERS/Felix Ordonez
Look out Lance, Astana has a multiple Grand Tour winner on the roster. Alberto Contador became one of five people to ever win all three Grand Tours. Contador won the Giro and Vuelta this year after missing out on defending his Tour de France title in July due to some odd reasoning by the [...]

Alberto Contador would support having Lance join the Astana team.

Spaniard Contador said: “It’s good news for cycling. We would be delighted to welcome him with open arms at Astana.
“It’s news that awakes your attention and will create a lot of interest.”

The Contador relationship would be heabily scrutinized since the Astana team was not really hurting [...]

AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati
It’s down to four seconds between the reigning Tour de France champion and the young “Cobra” Ricco going into an epic weekend that features a brutal mountain stage and final time trial in Milan. This Giro could be one of the closest in memory after a week that featured a brutal uphill time [...]

It’s born. The new site letalbertoride.com is live today after reading a couple of blog posts from Bike Snob NYC, Interbike Times and Cyclelicio.us. Levi gets a nice site and a whole campaign to get him to ride the Tour de France, but Alberto Contador is the defending champ, and he gets a poorly [...]

AFP/File/Joe Klamar

2007 Tour de France champ Alberto Contador met with the press accompanied by Discovery Channel Team Director Johan Bruyneel and his family and Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky. Contador basically announced they he never doped and he is not involved in Operation Puerto (OP). He will not stop racing and will in fact give [...]

Ugh, the sinking feeling is starting again. Velonews announced that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador is scheduling a press conference where he will release a statement and not take questions from the press. Discovery Team Manager Johan Bruyneel will be by his side.

Contador issued a release Wednesday notifying media of his plans to [...]

AP Photo/Elsbeth Schouten

Alberto Contador gave Discovery Channel and the Tour de France organization A.S.O. a surprise win today. The 24 year old Spaniard also won the white jersey of best young rider to boot. Hopefully he will avoid the same fate as the last man to wear Yellow and White in Paris, Jan Ullrich. Contador [...]