-> I read that also. I think both guys are great for the sport, and neither of them is perfect. For AC, I think he’s doing a pretty good job of keeping his gob shut most of the time — especially for a young guy who could be awfully sanctimonious about how he beat Lance, won the Tour, etc.. However, I sort of expect more from Lance because he’s so media-savvy and has done a stellar job of “managing the message” and avoiding looking petty. Tweeting your gripes, no matter when or why you do it, isn’t fitting for the grand champion he is and always will be.

Wasn’t it after that comment that Lance went on the tweeter attack ? I might have had a few words to say after that. How about you ?

-> Before/after, whatever. Johan should rescind Lance’s twitter priveleges during the race and the world would be a better place.

I think we admire Lance because he went to Europe and he beat everyone for 7 years, the young ones, the old ones, the boy-scouts and the non-boy-scouts. He beat them on their home court in grueling 3 week races over huge mountains and torturous races.

We also like him because he works tirelessly, bring support and huge financial donations to sick people with cancer.

-> Agree.

The Peloton has had many arrogant Patrons but none of them have done one-hundredth the work for needy people that Lance has.

Apply whatever motive you want to that but the next day Lance Armstrong will get up, get on another plane, go to another city and pull harder for his ( all our ) charity than anyone else.

-> You said it well.

I’ve heard that tweeter criticism before but you tell me, didn’t Contador come out right after he won the Tour by a very comfortable margin, and say that he had never had respect/admiration for Armstrong and that he never would ?

Wasn’t it after that comment that Lance went on the tweeter attack ? I might have had a few words to say after that. How about you ?

I think we admire Lance because he went to Europe and he beat everyone for 7 years, the young ones, the old ones, the boy-scouts and the non-boy-scouts. He beat them on their home court in grueling 3 week races over huge mountains and torturous races.

We also like him because he works tirelessly, bring support and huge financial donations to sick people with cancer.

The Peloton has had many arrogant Patrons but none of them have done one-hundredth the work for needy people that Lance has.

Apply whatever motive you want to that but the next day Lance Armstrong will get up, get on another plane, go to another city and pull harder for his ( all our ) charity than anyone else.

We don’t blame you for sharing the populist view of Sir Lance. It’s hard not be swept up by his charisma and force of presence. And once you have been, it’s hard to find fault in anything he does or says.

As to your suggestion that we dislike Lance, we’d say you’re actually partially right. On the one hand, you could hardly find anyone else who believes more strongly that Lance has been great for the sport and is an admirable role model for young and old athletes alike. And we have more than a couple Livestrong garments just to show that we’re anything but Anti-Lance.

On the other hand, we’re disappointed when it appears that he stoops to bullying, politics, and such myopic and petty contrivances as dishing on his teammates via Twitter. We’d expect that behavior perhaps within a juniors squad, but the fact is that adolescents disproportionately disdain Twitter as a tool for lonely narcissists. For once, they seem to be on to something we adults haven’t yet wrapped our minds around.

As for Lance riding in service of Contador, or anyone else, that, dear friend, falls somewhere between a wishful airy tale and outright delusion. Lance rides for one man only.

As a final note, we’d like to go on the record and say that few things we could have imagined would have stacked up as exciting as Lance vs. Alberto in 2009. Sure, it may have sucked for Alberto, but it made the 09 Tour a wonderful event for us fans. For 2010, there’s the distinct risk that having them on opposing teams will actually prove somewhat less captivating — but if either Lance or Alberto weren’t going to be there next year, it’d be a much, much less interesting race.

In any case, we’ll watch every stage, both live in the early morning hours, and on tape delay later in the day, and inevitably we’ll buy the DVDs to spin to during those dreaded indoor trainer sessions.

Thanks for commenting, and we’ll see you out there.

Your dislike of Lance Armstrong, not slightly disguised by your sarcastic compliments has completely distorted reality. The only controversial incident that Lance was a part of was the when Columbia ( Columbia ! ) split the field and Lance was lucky enough to happen to have made the front split. The directory of Astana has said that when the time gap was dropping and it appeared the split was going to be caught, they put Popovish and Zubeldia working to help the split. This may not have made Contador happy but that is normal race stratey when one of your leaders is in the break and I believe JB thought that Contador was so strong that he was going to win the tour easily despite the 40 seconds he was giving Lance.
( and that is what happened by over 4 minutes )

The rest of the TDF, Lance and Astana rode in the service of Contador. When the opportunity presented itself Lance bridged up to Contador and offered his wheel for him to follow. Their were not many of those moments but not because Kloden and Armstrong were not supporting Contador. It was just that Contador was so strong that after the elite group was away he attacked Andy Shleck leaving Armstrong and Kloden and everyone else behind ).

The rest of the Astana team spent 3 weeks chasing down breaks and establishing a high temp so that Contador could beat his rivals. That is what happened and someone should take your pencil away for writing fiction and selling at as something else.