There’s plenty of stuff to talk about, and not enough time to do it. Let’s see if I can cram it all in here:

• Poor Stuart O’Grady, his crash yesterday really messed him up. Thank goodness that one wasn’t caught on camera, I don’t think I’d have wanted to see it - especially over and over and over again the way they like to do with injuries.
• Well, well - Jan Ullrich has broken his silence to trash former teammates Rolf Aldag and Erik Zabel after they both admitted to doping in the past. Wow…
• More drug-related suspensions - Michele Scarponi gets banned for 18 months, and Matthias Kessler gets a 2-year ban.
• The recent German phenom, Linus Gerdemann, took his moment in the limelight to say that doping should be made a thing of the past: “We are not at the finish line, but I believe that many teams are changing. The old school way is not the way any more.” I hope you’re right, kid.
• Silly puns in headlines aside, I love this article. The theme: “What makes me dig my heels in is the extraordinary way cycling gets singled out as seemingly the only sport in which cheating and performance-enhancing drugs exist.” Amen, brother.
• Chris of the London Logue was one of the million or so people in London for the Tour’s prologue, and he’s posted his pictures here. Great stuff.
• Need a distraction? Here’s an interview with this year’s podium girls, courtesy of the fine folks at PEZ.
• More people sticking up for cycling - “You can be disappointed in cycling, but don’t get disillusioned.”
• Now that Jean-Marie Leblanc’s reign over the Tour de France is in the past, he’s been honored with a thank-you feast in the northern French town where he was born.
• I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that every cycling fan’s favorite online resource has been, for years, CyclingNews. Well, Cyclingnews has been sold recently, so there’s no telling what’ll happen to them now.
• This article is from before the start of the Tour, but I think it’s interesting how David Millar thinks the asthma-drug control that sidelined both Alessandro Petacchi and Millar’s teammate, Leonardo Piepoli, is “an odd one,” especially when “there are many guys out there” who aren’t getting punished and “they deserve to be.” Go, David.
• Oscar Pereiro for one is sick of the doping questions.
• Cycling might be going through some trouble right now, but comparing cycling to pro wrestling is just nuts.
• Most of this article isn’t really worth quoting, but the line that is is also the title - “The reality is that for the mainstream audience, cycling in the U.S. hasn’t died because it never really lived.” I think that’s pretty accurate. The last line of the article is also dead-on: “And those of us who love it will continue to rabidly consume any coverage, despite the confusion of our peers.”
• If you need a soundtrack for your daily ride, or even your daily commute, you could do worse than Kraftwerk’s ode to the Tour de France.
• And just in case you were curious, this is what the Versus announcers would look like if they were on The Simpsons.