As if the owners and organizers of the Tour de France haven’t done enough stupid stuff in the past few years, they’ve already gone ahead and ruined the 2008 Tour.

How? By not including Team Astana. In other words, 2007 winner Alberto Contador and my main man (who took 3rd last year, by the way) Levi Leipheimer won’t be able to compete.

It’s ridiculous! This could be Levi’s best shot at the win! (And he’s like 35 now, it’s not like he can say “oh well I’ll just try again some other year.”)

So… they’re kicking out the good riders so that we can watch a bunch of mediocre competitors? How exciting… :/ (Note that I’m using “mediocre” in a relative sense.)

That will suck for viewers, but it will be much worse for the riders that are still there. In my experience, winning a race due to the fact that better racers didn’t show up isn’t much of a win.

And here’s the dumbest part of all this - the lame reasoning behind it. Tour director Christian Prudhomme said the Astana team was left out due to their tarnished reputation and the fact that they couldn’t be trusted.

Now that may have had some merit last year, but this is a totally revamped team. Not only does it include two incredible athletes in Contador and Leipheimer, but legendary Team director Johan Bruyneel. All the dopers were thrown out.

So really what’s happening is that Astana is being penalized for reinventing itself into a reputable team. They took a stance against doping and now have a good organization - and they were denied an invitation to the Tour!

But we can fight back! Sign the petition: Let Levi Ride!

Photo credit: Neeta Lind

It was only a matter of time before the fantasy sports leagues emerged for obscure sports like cycling, and that time has arrived for 2006. I first heard about FantasyCycling.com at the very end of June, right before the Tour started. Just in time to put my team together!

I’m not sure how I first found their game, but I’m glad I did! After signing-up free of charge, you got $10,000 or so to put together a nine rider team for the Tour de France. Once you entered, you were eligible for big prizes, so it was well worth it. Plus you get to track your progress against other players!

First I went for Jan Ullrich, but with the tour favorites costing $5000 each, I decided to rethink my plan. I decided to pick up some sprinters who would surely win some stages along with some lesser-known hopefuls.

The strategy paid off as I led the race on GC a few times and ended up in 5th place overall! Yep, when all was said and done, The Maruaders (my team name) beat out all but four teams! That’s pretty cool, considering the game was probably open to at least the entire USA.

My prize was a Ritchey WCS handlebar and stem! I got them in the mail and they’re waiting to go on my bike sometime soon. They’re not carbon, but they are light!

Be sure to sign-up so you can enter the game for the Vuelta!