Forgive me for being a grumpy old whiner, and cycling friendly, but since the OTT ritual public de-throning of Lance Armstrong hasn't this event passed into the realm of sheer boring television for fanatics only? Gone are the days of exciting duels between realistic men such as Jan Ullrich, Marco Pantini and Armstrong laying it all on the line for Tour glory, their health their life even. Sure, they were technical, with team and tactics deployed like a precision Swiss watch. Sure they were busy injecting themselves in the thigh and faking urine samples. But they themselves weren't fakes like the presentday "competitors" in the sport, with their total lack of life experience, inability to communicate, failure to inspire. These boring cunts like Froome and Pojacar can't hold a candle (and neither can commentators like chirpy David Millar or dull Chris Boardman, a fucking pair of Coronation Street gossips, compared with the late Paul Sherwen and living legend Phil Leggett with their entertaining and informative banter) to the great cyclists of the past. These were men who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels such as Tarzan and John Carpenter validating Ray Bradbury's assessment that he was the greatest writer of the last century because he inspired a generation of boys to go into the world with the belief they could be special. And now instead of the superhuman battles of the past we have this fucking shitty little creep boring us silly as with the whole fucking set up of the neatly calculated Tour: