Jens Voigt and Ben King on a GEO caching programme earlier in 2012

The infusing of enthusiasm had been placed on the WADA banned list in 2006, and it is known that the UCI has a strict policy of enforcing their zero tolerance of joviality. Voigt has openly boasted of his pursuit of GEO, seeking out ‘farmercuetical-grade’ microdoses at hidden locations across the countryside – which few individuals have ever previously discovered. It remains to be seen how long the caches of GEO can extend the tenacious German’s career, but rumour suggests that his outstanding solo win in the Tour of California had been enabled by a dose of happiness contained within a hollow tree trunk Jens had visited near Sacramento. (See video below for details.)

Team Sky wizard David Brailsford was recently spotted in a ditch near Glossop, allegedly attempting to get a sample of GEO-induced mirth from an old biscuit tin, and it was rumoured that micro-dosing with happiness would be incorporated into the Team Sky 35-year plan, along with having the Team Sky Death Star buses retro-fitted with a new ventilation system, which is alleged to release wry smiles and the occasional chuckle into team briefings.

Whilst we were unable to locate Mr Voigt, sources confirmed that Jens was pretty happy about the level of pleasure in his life and would reveal all about his next GEO regime on Twitter sometime soon. Travis Tygart was unavailable for comment.

Tyler Hamilton’s tell-all book, The Secret Race, identifies Maire as the shadowy individual Phillipe the ” Motoman,”  who acted as an EPO mule for Armstrong and select members of his USPS team during their 1999 bid to win the Tour de France.

“Philou has been a great friend to Lance and the boys, but I truly haven’t seen him in 18 months. He hasn’t been around our team at all this year. I’m not sure why all of these past occurrences are relevant today. We are in a new era. A clean era. And I still maintain that Lance never had a positive test,” stated soon-to-be-ex team-management consultant Johan Bruyneel.

However, when photos surfaced on Twitter today showing Fränk Schleck and Jens Voigt posing in 2012 with the mysterious figure from Hamilton’s soon-to-be-#1 New York Times Best Seller, Bruyneel had only two words that he was willing to share with this reporter before he promptly hung up the phone.

“Motoman” poses between Jens Voigt and Frank Schleck in a photo discovered on “Motoman’s” facebook profile by Martijn Hendriks (@hendriksmj)

Fan-favorite Voigt took to Twitter to render his opinion of the Hamilton confessional, and made several simplistic comments asserting that he refused to read Hamilton’s book, ostensibly in the hopes that by not reading the book, none of it could harm him, nor be rendered as true.

Why not?! ?! Because i was racing when he took drugs and cheated on lied to all of us. He lied to you, to me to the whe world.

— Jens Voigt (@thejensie) September 13, 2012

When contacted for the details of the relationship between himself and the nefarious Motoman, Voigt put his fingers in his ears, sang “Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala” and walked away.

However, Fränk Schleck was more than happy to discuss Maire.

“I was forced to work with ‘Motoman’ by Johan Bruyneel. I refused and refused and refused to use what Motoman dropped off to me at the behest of Johan. I firmly believe Motoman was the one who spiked my bottles with that unpronounceable diuretic as payback for wasting Johan’s money. I want out of this team! Let me go back to Bjarne! Where’s Andy? Where’s Kim?” cried Schleck hysterically when called for comment.

Noted cycling pundits around the world were reeling from the shock of their cash cows continuing to disappear from the cycling landscape, like cows being sucked off the range by bloodthirsty aliens. A gobsmacked Ned Boulting managed to eke out a few words:

“My world has changed. Journalists are breaking the omertá. People are picking on me and ITV on Twitter. I just don’t know what to do any more. I want the Armstrong era back. At least that period was predictable and safe for us to profit from mass-produced cycling fiction on a large scale. Now? I actually have to work for a living. It’s a stunning turn of events,” stated Boulting.

The remainder of the professional peloton are on pins and needles to see who will be the next rider fingered in MotomanGate. Rumor is swirling that several ex-Discovery Channel and Astana riders are undertaking their retirements as of press time. Cyclismas will be following the developing story closely.

This is my throne. This is my sport.

The efforts that I have personally made in order to give the fans of the sport the illusion that the peloton is clean came to a beautiful climax on Thursday, where the ingredients to our recipe coagulated on the highest conclusion of any Tour stage on the legendary slopes of Galibier.

The face French housewives dream to see

Voeckler, the reluctant champion, choice of housewives all over France, gasping for air at the finish, channeling the spirit of Jean Francois Bernard on Ventoux, or Stephen Roche at the conclusion of any stage was the image of the day. The sight of Cadel Evans at the base of the climb throwing down the gauntlet to the pretenders to the Tour throne only needed a Pantani bandana to be tossed off his melon as he accelerated out of the saddle. There was Andy, who silently prayed for the finish line with 200 metres to go, while Frank took advantage of a tired Evans, and showed a clever hand by SmartOPard™ (thank you @Vaughters).

Yes, we saw glimmers of these performances in the last two editions of the Giro, but none featured the face of Contador saying “No mas.”

We in Aigle are in our glory. The scourge of the cheats has given way to glorious pain and suffering. Finally. Our plans, in conjunction with the ASO, have given us the sporting spectacle we have wished for since Verbruggen and Armstrong went out to pasture, thank Jaysus Christ.

This has been all due to the fact that the ASO does an amazing job of administering terristrial video rights for the Tour. They manage them better than most entities on the planet, hence the sporting event is viewed by more people around the world than any other. Yes, we tried to get our hand in that cookie jar a couple of years back, which almost precipitated a cycling civil war of decimating proportions. Alright, alright, I went about empire building the wrong way.

"Not happy with Vaughters Comments" Cold Blue Steel Look.

Rule #1 about dealing with the ASO –DON’T TRY TO FOOK WITH THEIR TV EMPIRE.  They will bitch slap any takers harder than China has spanked Obama economically.

It took me relocating Verbruggen from the management committee to his SportAccord ivory tower to atone for that rookie blunder of mine. Thankfully, after I truly realized how much reach these Frenchy Frenchies have in the world of cycling, I thought it best to make the peace and build events for them to run. Worked like clockwork so far.

However, while on this subject, lo and behold, what do I read Tuesday via our friends at www.cyclingnews.com? Vaughters on Revenue Sharing. And to quote our illustrious and well-read friend, who spoke with Cyclingnews.com:

Cycling is one of a few professional sports where the athletes aren’t part of the revenue sharing of television rights. The business model for teams has got to change in order for the sport to change and become successful in the long term and that means the teams becoming partners with the race organiser and not necessarily just their minions.

There is a certain responsibility required when you are in a position of authority that states unless you are drunk on Guinness or Whiskey, throwing around glib socialistic-style quotes (even though you are in France and really feeling that Voltairian leftist influence) isn’t necessarily the best career choice by a team owner.

Does that article make the sponsors backing the WorldTour Teams warm and fuzzy? No! It says to me as a big shot, “Hey thanks for giving me millions of euros and believing my pitch on the long-term viability of my venture to bring a public relations windfall to your firm, but hey, unless I get a 10 million euro cash ejection Hail Mary from the Lords of the Tour, you just wasted your fooking money.”

The Good Old Days.

You see, while you would THINK that those quotes would be soothing to your sponsors, it’s not. It just makes them think that you’re a crack whore with a methadone addiction who’s looking for another hit, and blames the system for the addiction while failing to take responsibility for the fact that you caused yourself to be a crack whore.

Still not seeing it? Pretend that you go to the bank saying that you need a loan to buy a house. In the process of acquiring that loan, the bank asks your income, and then asks you to estimate the utilities for the home. In an effort to confirm your loan, you fudge a little on the income part, and you outright lowball the utilities. Then once you’re in the home, your salary goes down and the utilities go up. So you go to the bank looking for help to pay the utilities, and they (the bank) look at you like your a fooking two-headed alien love child, and you can’t understand why.

Everyone has tried to compare models in the sporting world to cycling, but my beloved sport defies that comparison, as major team sports and their models have evolved in a very different manner from professional cycling. What everyone forgets is that the nature of the sport is very nomadic and unstable. It has been this way since the beginning of time in cycling.

In fact, riders ARE the minions of the ASO, and have been since 1905. They are interchangeable, the are replaceable. The beauty of cycling is no one really cares how fast these blokes finish the stage, they are more interested in the battles and the spectacles that occur between the stage start and finish. Anyone actually care how fast it takes them to a finish a stage? I certainly don’t give two shites. Or three. So, we could throw some amateur French lads in there to duke it out, and many will just not give a flying crap that Contador isn’t there (well they’d probably be pretty fooking happy at this point).

The Good Old Minion Days

The prime example of this is the French housewife hysteria around Thomas Voeckler. Best. Thing. For. The. Tour. In. A. Very. Long. Time.  You see, the Professional Cycling business probably most closely models that of the entertainment industry. Think of the professional cyclists as the ensemble cast of a television program. Think of the producer of the show as the equivalent of a team owner, and the network purchasing the show as the ASO. Producers can browbeat the talent to conform to the wishes of the network, the network can offer up concessions or pay raises to those working in the cast, but unless the talent collectively rises up to say “fook off” to the network, it ain’t happening, no matter how hard the producer may try.

I like to use US television programmes as this benchmark, because they’re all fooking crazy. Like Charlie Sheen. Good Example of a “talent” failing to understand the reality of his situation, and finding himself outside the “team” and also outside the “network.”

Or an example of a positive effort to force revenue sharing upon a network was the collective work of the ensemble cast of Friends. They determined their entire careers, agreeing to be paid the same throughout the years, standing by Matthew Perry and his drug issues, and ultimately deciding when they were done, in spite of the network’s pleas for one more year. This means that I’m coming back to the same conclusion I always do: the “producer” (i.e., Vaughters) can whinge as much as he likes about what the “network” (ASO) is doing, but until the “talent” (pro peloton) gets off their arses and collectively barks, we will have the status quo.

So what am I trying to say? The ASO taint going to fooking share their money unless they are given a very fooking good reason to do so. Don’t look at me to fight that battle, because it got me absolutely nowhere.

@theJensie modeling the big fussy fuss – the little radio.

Speaking of the ASO and the UCI, did you like how we outmaneuvered the AIGCP on the race radio walk-out/protest/pout for the Tour of Beijing? Do you like how I brought in Verbruggen to stall off Vaughters long enough so I could finish my negotiations with the ASO and hand them the Tour of Beijing on a silver platter? Sorry JV, best of luck trying to line up the ASO on anything, and you should always know that I have an endgame and a long-game that is being played, and our two organizations are pretty much thick as thieves now.

Speaking of thick as thieves, anyone cast any money on a Basso/Evans alliance for Alpe d’Huez? Anyone? Evans still has several cards to play, so be careful jumping on that Schleck bandwagon, lest you forget what happened to Laurent Fignon in Paris back in ’89. Vive Le Tour.

A joint special Task Force formed by ASO & UCI officials undertook a massive overnight operation to find and rectify the cause of the problem that resulted in so many big-name riders being involved in unscheduled tarmac interface events during Wednesday’s Stage 5 of the Tour de France.

A source close to the operation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that an extensive search had been conducted to locate the problem and that the task force had located and isolated the cause shortly before breakfast time this morning.

“We realised that the only explanation for so many unscheduled tarmac interface events was if gravity was somehow being interfered with” said our source, “…obviously, it would take something incredibly powerful to disrupt gravity in such a manner and for a few hours there, we were at a complete loss to explain it.”

The operation originally centred around the possibility that an outside agent was interfering with the riders and at one point a number of Task Force operatives supported the theory that Ricardo Ricco was behind the crashes. However, extensive review of video footage ultimately discredited this idea leaving investigators no closer to finding the cause.

It was shortly after 6am this morning that the Task Force operatives finally got the break they needed, when a French scientist attached to the investigation picked up intense local fluctuations in the gravity field which were eventually traced to a small hotel near Dinan, the Grand Depart of today’s stage.

Using highly sensitive and expensive UCI-accredited equipment, the Task Force Operatives closed in on the source of the disruption and were shocked to discover it was emanating from the LeOpard-Trek restaurant on wheels, parked in the grounds of the Hotel.

“It was a complete surprise,” said our source, “not once had we considered that a team would be responsible for the disturbance. We entered the trailer to find them all sitting down to breakfast surrounded by life-sized hero shots of each rider watching over them from the walls.” Pausing for a moment to compose himself before continuing, he said “It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Task Force operatives quietly took Kim Andersen, Leopard-Trek DS, aside to explain the situation to him and were shocked by his response. Said our source, “He explained to us that Leopard-Trek had been experimenting with various techniques to give the Schlecks a mental advantage over the rest of the peloton but that none of the regular methods had worked. In the end, faced with repeated failures and a pair of despondent Schlecks, Andersen felt they had no option but to turn to experimental science.”

The 2011 edition of the Tour de France has seen a number of teams embracing ‘controversial’ science to give their riders any advantage they can. AG2R la Mondiale, for example, are experimenting with cryotherapy, placing each rider in a super-chilled chamber for 3 minutes to purge waste material from the muscles and naturally stimulate the production of testosterone. Andersen, it seems, was willing to experiment even further.

“It turns out that Leopard-Trek have invested heavily in an experimental Reality Distortion Field Generator, the goal of which is to isolate the Schlecks from the crushing reality that neither of them are going to win the Tour de France without a disqualification / promotion scenario.”

According to information from Task Force scientists, the amount of Reality Distortion required to convince the Schlecks they had a chance of overall victory was so immense and required so much power that it was “almost inevitable” that we would experience and see gravitational disturbances such as we did yesterday.

Thankfully, Kim Andersen was willing to negotiate with the Task Force to ensure the safety of the peloton. Our source didn’t want to go into specifics about the nature of the negotiations but did confirm that a ‘pretty pony’ was to be provided for Andy Schleck; Fabian Cancellara will receive a handlebar mounted mirror to allow him to check his hair while racing; and Jens Voigt, who frequently complains about the quality of hotel beds, has been given a roll-out bed of nails to prevent him having to endure too-soft mattresses in the future.

Shortly before the start of today’s stage from Dinan to Lisieux, a Task Force spokesperson released this brief statement: “After extensive investigation and research the joint ASO / UCI Task Force has isolated the cause of yesterday’s unscheduled tarmac interface events. As a result of this we are fully satisfied that the situation has been dealt with and that any further crashes will be solely the fault of the rider involved.”

Kim Andersen was unavailable for comment as we went to press.