There’s a book that came out in France a couple of weeks ago by English sports journalist David Walsh. In it, he accuses Lance Armstrong of taking the drug EPO, which boosts your red blood cell count and helps you compete better. It’s a banned drug but it’s hard to test for, because athletes only take it during training cycles, not while actually racing. They do test for elevated crit levels, and if found, that’s enough circumstantial evidence to accuse someone of EPO.

Lance has been tested tons and tons of times because every winner of every stage in the Tour, as well as every other cycling race, gets tested. He’s passed every one. I’d like to believe he’s dope-free. I hate accusations like this because they always make you wonder what’s real in the world of sports. Some of Walsh’s “evidence” comes from an ex-member of Lance’s team who says that EPO was used on the team (not mentioning Lance specifically by name), and this same guy says that up to 90% of cyclists use some form of drugs. That makes me sad.

Yesterday on the CBC they had an interview with the editor of Canadian Cyclist, and he said that last year, the biking authorities did over 5000 drug tests, and about 1% came up positive. So he’s pretty sure that claims of rampant drug use in the cycling world are bogus, and also, that Lance is probably clean. Whew.

Speaking of Canadian Cyclist, it’s probably too late for most of you, but they are having a cool contest. You can pick your Tour “dream team” — any 9 cyclists you’d like to have on your team — and then see how you do in the pool from now until the end of the Tour. You have to enter before Stage 3 is over (that’s today’s stage) so you only have until about 11:30am to do so. They are at CanadianCyclist.com.

Sir Monkeypants and I have both entered. I picked Lance, George Hincapie, Jan Ullrich, Ivan Mayo, Roberto Heras, Michael Roberts, Tyler Hamilton, Beltran (on Lance’s team), and Robbie McEwan. Go boys go!