First off, I love cycling’s unwritten rules, they’re part of what makes the sport so great. But they are also somewhat irrelevant. I mean, nobody ever bothered to even write them down! So riders have the option to ignore them and if we think they exist to instill some sort of honor and nobility into the sport, then surely it should be coming from within the rider to follow them, not imposed from the outside (or whatever other baloney high-minded concept you want to insert here).

Next up, what does the unwritten rule say anyway? That’s pretty tough to figure out, thanks to this pesky “unwritten” bit. But as I see it, cycling is a mechanical sport and mechanical problems are an integral part of the outcome. A flat tire may be considered bad luck, but there are also plenty of people who think you can influence it by hanging your tubulars for seven years in a dark, Belgian room and sprinkling them twice weekly with Westmalle Triple beer.

So should the rider who religiously goes through this rigmarole have to wait for the opponent who just wraps any cheap tire around his wheels? I don’t think so. Should the teams who pick suppliers based on product quality have to wait for teams who pick suppliers solely based on the maximum sponsorship fee? Again I don’t think so. Lastly, should the rider who studiously avoids crossing his chain from smallest ring to smallest cog in order to avoid chain suck have to wait for the guy who doesn’t pay attention to that sort of detail? Once more I don’t think so. Contador certainly doesn’t HAVE TO attack, but he doesn’t HAVE TO wait either.

How about “not atacking the yellow”? What’s so special about him anyway? Why not treat everybody with the same level of respect? Surely you can attack him at some point. If he’s taken down by a spectator, I would agree it’s really bad form (but even then, still allowed). But if he plays a real part in his own demise as was the case here, then maybe it’s not great form but it’s not really that bad either. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere in order to get a bit of racing squeezed into these three weeks.

Wait a second, I hear you think, didn’t you tweet that Contador should have waited? Actually no, I didn’t, I tweeted that he “gained a great chance to win, but lost a chance to win greatly”. And I think that brings us to the purpose of the unwritten rules. We have already established you don’t have to follow them, you won’t be DQ’d for ignoring them. But you can give your victories some extra shine by winning them in grand style, and by appearing magnanimous towards your opponents. So if you can win while waiting for your opponents a few times, so much the better. Of course there is some technique on how to best exploit this, but maybe that’s food for a later thought.

That said, I don’t think there are many riders who would give up a chance to win the Tour in order to appear magnanimous. Contador had no problem waiting for Schleck on stage 2, as he was probably 100% convinced he would drop him in the mountains later on anyway. Now that this didn’t happen, he’s probably feeling he may actually lose this Tour, so the “winning in grand style” concept had to be sacrificed in order to win for sure, regardless of style. And the way the written rules of the sport are, there’s nothing wrong with that. For us spectators, it probably means fireworks tomorrow, seeing an angry Schleck against a Contador who is not so sure of himself anymore.

It happens every year, without fail. We’re in the second week of the Tour, and the number of candidates for the final yellow jersey has whittled to a few. More likely than not, none of these candidates will have ridden the Giro. And so the pundits proclaim you cannot win the Giro and Tour in the same year anymore, in “modern cycling”. Frankly, that conclusion makes no sense to me because they are looking at it the wrong way round.

Let’s flip it around. Think back to January 2010 and ask yourself who you thought would win the Tour. Chances are you thought it would be Contador, Schleck or Armstrong. Guess what? None of them participated in the Giro. So while it is true that Basso, Evans and cohorts rode the Giro and now won’t win the Tour, truth is they wouldn’t have won the Tour if they hadn’t ridden the Giro either. It’s not because of the Giro that they won’t win, it’s because they don’t have what it takes to beat Contador, Schleck and Armstrong (at least not what it takes to beat all three of them).

I love the “remember how strong Basso was on the climbs in the Giro, and now look at him” argument. Last time I checked, he wasn’t dropping Schleck and Contador on the Mortirolo. He was climbing strongly, as he is at the Tour, but the riders around him are different. “How about Menchov then?”, I hear people protest. He won the Giro last year, then finished 51st in the Tour. Yes, but he spent more time on the pavement than on the saddle in the first week of that Tour, he was out of it before he got in. And don’t forget he finished 5th in the Giro and then 3rd in the Tour in 2008.

No doubt the Giro has an effect on a rider’s performance at the Tour, but to make a general statement that the effect is negative goes too far. Depending on how tough the Giro is (obviously this year’s was VERY tough, as is this Tour), on the weather and on the rider, I am convinced the effect can be both positive and negative. If we want to see a double, all it takes is to see Contador at the start of both. If he wants to, he can win both. The question is does he want to? I hope he does, this sport needs riders with the ambition to become legends, not “just” Tour de France winners.

Lots of debate on the Renshaw DQ. But a lot of it is missing the point. I made some comments about it on Twitter that I won’t all repeat in this blog so check them out here. But 140 characters is too few to tell the whole story. Here is how I see it:

1. Headbutting doesn’t belong in sports, never.
2. The explanation on the second part (closing the door on Farrar) is insulting to the fans. Everybody sees him look back and in the next instance close the door, to say he didn’t see Farrar is difficult to believe.
3. How did Dean escape any scrutiny? I don’t know. Of course an elbow move is not quite as obvious as a headbutt. I’d like to look at this again but can’t find the footage right now.
4.  I have nothing against Cavendish, I think those who follow me onTwitter know that I was quite positive about him when he was down earlier in this Tour and everybody was kicking him.

BUT HERE IS THE BIG POINT:
We have a new style of sprinting here. We have riders like Martin and Renshaw tangling up not just with the other lead-out trains but also with the designated sprinters of other teams. And the result is that we have rules that don’t work anymore. Standard penalty for a sprinting violation is relegation. But a relegation is no penalty for the leadout guys,, they don’t care if they come 20th or are relegated to 180th. So taken to the extreme, we would have lead-out guys doing everything the cycling Gods have forbidden, hindering the other team’s designated sprinters and happily taking the relegation while their lead sprinter goes on to win races uncontested. That would be the extreme case, the sprinter goes for the win, his teammates crash all the opponents and get relegated while their sprinter keeps the win. Is that fair?

That cannot be the intent of the rules. And so I think that’s why the jury took Renshaw out of the race, because the standard penalty would be no penalty at all. I am sure that if Cav had done himself what Renshaw did today, he would just have been relegated – because that WOULD have been a real penalty for him. Some find this unfair, and maybe it is, but a lesser penalty is also unfair. What we need is penalties that fit the crime, or even better (though more utopian), more awareness among riders to do the correct and respectful thing (Maarten Ducrot is starting to affect me).

So is the punishment too harsh for Renshaw, or is it correct and is it wrong that if he had been a lead sprinter he would have gotten a more lenient penalty? Or is a headbutt simply worse than the other infractions a sprinter can be guilty of? Personally, I don’t mind the tough calls, we shouldn’t wait for a really bad accident before we act. That means I am OK with the Renshaw call, but I also think there have been several other instances in this Tour where penalty would have been in order. And of course that shouldn’t make Renshaw a pariah either. Next race, we start from zero.

That leaves us with the other incidents in this Tour; obviously that clown hitting his colleague on the head with a wheel should have been sent home too. But I presume they’ve kept him in the race purely for entertainment value.

Cycling couldn’t have hoped for a better set-up then a boring Worldcup final leading into the most exciting Tour de France for years. Maybe it’s not quite the Giro-level craziness yet, but certainly the course and the riders have delivered a spectacle so far. Now let’s hope cycling can take these Worldcup fans with time on their hands and show them why cycling is the best sport in the world.

On the other hand, let’s hope sports reporters around the world don’t make the mistake the Dutch are making. Maybe out of compensation for the lost Worldcup final, they are now proclaiming a podium finish for Robert Gesink (most of the world now goes: “Who?” while some will wonder if this is the guy who won heavyweight judo gold at the 1964 Olympics (he isn’t, certainly not in the heavyweight category)). He may or may not finish on the podium, but that’s not the point. The point is that he is just a young kid, who should be allowed to race his best Tour without the weight of a frustrated nation on his shoulder. For crying out loud, he’s not even Rabobank’s team leader, Menchov is. He also isn’t the team’s best placed rider, again Menchov is.

But he’s ridden well in one mountain stage and now he’s the big Dutch hope. Never mind that there are 15 guys still vying for the podium, that the third week will be insanely tough, that if he has learned anything from Menchov he will surely fade in that last week, that it is really only his second Grand Tour where he is in this position (and the other one was last year’s Giro, where 12 out of those 15 didn’t even start).

Of course the Dutch are not alone in that, US TV must be scrambling to find a way to still push a “Lance comes back” storyline or find another reason to keep Lance as the “Ride of the Day” and Radioshack as the “Team of the week” for the remainder of this Tour. Or will they find it in their infinite wisdom to cover another hero (unlikely)? Maybe they’ll stop the broadcast altogether, they’ve already proven in Lance’s first retirement that life’s hardly worth living without Lance.

In Germany, TV coverage has been increased, but people seem unsure why. The broadcasters’ mantra of supporting a “Don’t test, don’t tell” policy by cutting coverage when cycling had positive tests and coming back now that they don’t has really killed the momentum for the sport there, and it is about to lose its only remaining ProTour team.

The only exception seems to be Spain. They can lean back and enjoy their Tennis and Soccer success and hope that Contador completes the triple (for him and his country). Only cloud in the sky is Caisse d’Epargne, where they fear they won’t have a sponsor for next year. I tweeted about this already, but it is worth repeating as it may go down as the funniest thing to happen in cycling this year. They blame the damaged reputation of cycling due to doping for their inability to find a new sponsor. Coming from the home of Valvpiti and after four years of dragging out his case, that’s precious.

This Friday before the Tour start was definitely not my favorite. As you will have read elsewhere, Florencio won’t start the race for us. An easy and difficult decision at the same time. Easy in that it was a clear violation of our internal policies, difficult because it was heartbreaking to have to tell him that the team would withdraw him from the race.

I do have to say, I am proud of how the whole team – riders, staff and Florencio himself – responded. They all understood immediately that this was the only correct decision. And so it is that we start the Tour with 8 riders instead of 9. But I am certain that those 8 will make themselves be noticed.