A messy post in Joyce's style:Epiphany of cycling

Reading all the stuff about this year TdF, after 2 weeks I wanted to write down some thoughts. Why no leaders in the bounch, both politically as from the leadership of legs and mind? Maybe doping is the great missing, many riders now can ride fast (or slow) like the best, levels are flat now. The same on the great climbs, fear of not being able to recover scares the best riders, captains have no gregarios ready to help them in any conditions.

I said many times that other sports have experienced big stops and go, strikes and great fights against the system, athletes fed up by managers or federations blocked the games to say: "no athlete no race". It happened in the USA with Hockey, Baseball, I remember (in Milan we got to watch some amazing stars from NHL). An history case about safety is MotoGP with Valentino Rossi after Kato's death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daijiro_Kato, the same happened with Villeneuve jr. Race rings changed a lot, the same happened for cars and now it's safer to race in F1 and MotoGP.

And again about italian riders at TdF, I dont know what I can say, still no responses from the great climbs for the overall, maybe few riders cant make the difference in the break to win a stage for the others. Times are changed, few italian sponsors scared by doping, globalizations and a vocational sickness into young riders to sacrifice and families are not that keen to bring kids to the pro-career because of bad publicity of doping and for sure...riding is really dangerous in our roads. No respect for the riders, too much crowded and few bike lanes...We are loosing a tradition that made Italy the big protagonist of traditional cycling, made by epic stages and fast wheels.