That all changed today — America’s Independence Day, appropriately enough — when the 27-year-old sprint specialist bested the field in the Tour’s third stage, a flat 198-kilometer run from Olonne Sur Mer to Redon.

Farrar has played second fiddle in sprints to Mark the Mouth Cavendish, the Manx Missile. He’s had some tough luck against Cav along the way as well. But today his Garmin-Cervelo mates positioned Tyler perfectly, and it was Cavendish who had to bang his bars in frustration as his HTC leadout train fell apart in the closing seconds.

Farrar is a real gentleman and credit to the sport. His win could help draw mainstream Americans back to the Tour in the absence this year of legendary Lance Armstrong. In any case, it is a well-deserved triumph for a guy who has waited a long time and worked tirelessly to improve — all the unlikely way from quiet Columbia River roots.

The Sports Illustrated investigation may not have turned up particularly new information, but it did pull together a powerful narrative based on repeated authoritative events and accusations over the years. And remember: Any journalistic investigation prints only a portion of what it actually knows. For legal and other reasons, a certain percentage remains in the bank, awaiting further official action. Depending on what happens hence, we expect more from SI on the Armstrong case.

Our wish remains that Lance would simply fess up, use the “everybody did it” defense and move on: “Our hope is that Lance will make a clean breast of it and move on, so that his foundation and his worthy work all over the globe for fighting cancer and bringing fans and attention to cycling can continue without a morbid cloud hanging over it.”

In the meantime, a move that could eventually impact Lance’s case, assuming it goes to trial: A San Francisco judge will allow testimony of other players linked to steroids use in the perjury trial of baseball slugger Barry Bonds. A similar ruling in the Lance case would open up a real hornets nest for the Texas legend.

Meanwhile, Lance’s former mechanic minces few words on Armstrong’s culpability in an an interview with a New Zealand newspaper. Mike Anderson believes Lance could become a permanent “symbol for decades of corruption” in the sport.

Contador says the doping agent clenbuterol turned up in his urine sample because he ate contaminated Spanish beef (which the whiny Spnaish beef industry doubts is true). Floyd Landis says clenbuterol is a commonly used performance enhancer well-known among the peloton.

The dour Spaniard says he hopes for a speedy resolution of his case, as long as it’s “not guilty.” If that doesn’t happen, the whiny Spaniard says he may quit cycling.

VeloNews’ Andrew Hood enlightens us on the four lawyers now reviewing Contador’s case.

Now you have a situation where a leading Spanish cyclist accuses a Spanish beef producer of disseminating beef contaminated with a muscle-building drug used to fatten cattle quickly. And in the middle, Spain’s doping authorities have to sort it all out.

So here’s where we stand. Contador, winner of the Tour de France, has been accused of using clenbuterol after trace amounts were found in his urine samples taken during last July’s Tour. Contador says he unknowingly ingested the drug by eating contaminated meat from a butcher in northern Spain.

The World Anti-doping Agency said after visiting the butcher and his slaughterhouse that it could find no evidence to support Contador’s claim.

So now Spain’s beef producers are calling for an investigation into Contador’s allegations.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg ace and our man Andy Schleck, the Tour’s runner-up who stands to take the 2010 yellow jersey away from Contador if the latter is found culpable, says he believes Contador is telling the truth and doesn’t want the crown sloppy seconds. Like Matt Damon in “Rounders,” he wants to win the Tour straight up — not “via a desk.” That’s why we love Andy.

Armstrong Doping Investigation JRA — Just Rolling Along

American investigators were in France to review evidence in their grand jury investigation into allegations of systematic doping by the American champion Lance Armstrong.

A week ago the Americans met with French police at the headquarters of the international law enforcement agency Interpol, in Lyon. That meeting, according to sources cited by the AP, focused largely on a police investigation of medical equipment retrieved from a trash container during the 2009 Tour.

Of course, it’s not the purpose of the movie to burnish mountain-biking’s image. But we didn’t want to let its portrayal pass without defending mtb either.

It may be that Aron Ralston, the climber who got himself into a mess in Bluejohn Canyon west of Moab by simply neglecting to tell anyone where he was going, is the kind of guy who:

1. Rides without a helmet. In the movie, James Franco (who by all accounts gives a tour de force performance) is shown cruising across the desert in a baseball-type cap. It may well be that Ralston chose not to wear a helmet. But it’s something almost no mountain biker would do, simply because the risks are so great.

We’ve spent a lot of time riding the hard rock of Utah and can’t remember any time we saw a mountain biker out on the trails without a helmet.

2. Rides an outdated bike. The kind of Rocky Mountain hardtail shown in the film was a decent ride in the 1990s, but mountain bikers in the past decade went almost exclusively to dual suspension. Especially around Canyonlands, where suspension really shines in rugged trail slickrock country.

You do find hardtail holdouts from time to time, and maybe Ralston was one. (The argument for a hardtail is fewer things to go wrong, break down, etc.) The incident took place in 2003, when hardtails still popped up now and then. But we’ve been riding in Moab and vicinity since the early 1990s and by 2000 the scene was mostly full suss.

3. Rides with a backpack better suited to 50-mile hikes than mountain biking. Ralston’s orientation was to rock climbing, so his pack probably reflected that more than biking. No mtber is going to want the big, bulky thing that “127 Hours” shows on his or her back in the southern Utah desert.

4. Rides without gloves and other bike equipment. Again, maybe Ralston did so and the movie is accurate in that regard. But it doesn’t make for a very astute rider in the perilous back country.

5. The header Franco/Ralston takes could’ve been more realistically staged. We’ve seen lots of mountain biking crashes, and been in more than a few ourselves, and this one — where Franco flies off the bike for no apparent reason, having struck nothing or otherwise forced out of control — looks dumb. Franco, or his stunt double, lands neatly on his back. It’s a great way to crash, but hey, you don’t get to select technique when you go off the bars. That’s why all the broken ribs and separated shoulders.

Is any of this really germane to a film which is actually about getting stuck while rock scrambling? Probably not. It also may be the case that the trailer oversimplifies the film itself.

But if you’re a mountain biker watching the film, you may find yourself wincing at its characterization.

To the film’s credit, if everyone comes away from it with greater resolve to tell loved ones where they’re headed the next time they go out on a long ride — well, our other points are just nitpicking.

So Jonathan’s comments to VeloNews‘ Andrew Hood on the hoopla surrounding Alberto Contador’s provisional suspension for doping bear thoughtful consideration:

“At end of day, it’s one very high-profile problem. The sad part is it detracts from the general and global progress that’s been made against doping,” he continued. “The meaning of the data is incredibly positive. It’s disappointing (to see negative headlines) because so much progress has been made.”

Vaughters is right in one sense. This year’s Giro d’Italia — a once drug-besotted event — concluded with no positive dope tests. And the Tour de France’s only black mark so far is the cloud over Contador, which the dour Spaniard still claims is misguided.

Moreover, most of the top riders are saying they’ve gotten the message and joined in calling for clean Grand Tours. The prevailing ethic seems to be to put the past behind them and stay straight up for the duration.

Check out Andrew’s whole story.

Meanwhile, former Lance teammate Yaroslav Popovych, a Ukrainian rider known as an Amrstrong loyalist, testified in the federal probe into allegations against Armstrong.

And Floyd Landis, whose “coming clean” included charges against Armstrong, has been ordered to stand trial for computer hacking related to his own doping past.

The brothers added a French climbing master and Tour stage winner, Brice Feillu, came aboard the team — called the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project — to assist in mountain stages. Australia’s Will Clarke and Austrian Stefan Denifl also made the switch.

Team Luxembourg also snagged name star Stuart O’Grady this week, joining Jens Voigt on the roster of riders known as supreme team players as well as individual standouts. Both O’Grady and Voigt also have the respect of the peloton, especially Voigt after his stirring comeback from a devastating (and some thought career-ending) face plant on a screaming downhill in the 2009 Tour.

And there’s more: Italian sprint specialist Daniele Bennati gives the team added dimension on flat stages, which will be given an additional huge boost when the locomotive-like Fabian Cancellara meets expectations of joining the Schleck enterprise.

Andy Schleck finished second in this year’s Tour by a mere 38 seconds and may be awarded the crown if winner Alberto Contador’s provisional suspension for doping is made permanent.

More from BicycleNet.

The next day it was time to think about heading back to Seattle. But not before we got in a rollicking tour of Sun Mountain — the Sun Mountain Race Course.

Sun Mountain reverie: A standout 2010 season.

Time was when Winthrop was a prime Washington State race destination, with spring and fall events on the calendar year in and out. Not so much any more. The cross-country race scene is pretty anemic, and in the fall at least the early winters kept infringing on rider comfort. The annual Methow Valley Mountain Bike Festival, now the Bike and Film Festival, has dropped racing from its calendar.

But the course is still in fine fettle. You follow the signs from Winthrop up to Sun Mountain — there’s a famous lodge right on top by the same name — and park at the Chickadee Parking Lot. (You can park at the Lodge higher up if you like, but the riding to and from the lodge is nothing special.) From there you’ve got lots of options all around the mountain on really nice, flowy trails. We decided to head up Thompson Road, a medium-steep fire road that rises all the way to the top of the ridge. After a short leg burner we turned right onto Overland Trail and were on our way.

Usually in late September and early October the trails around Sun Mountain have been pummeled to baking flour, but not so this time out. Rains the week before, and an unusually wet summer overall, had left the trails tacky and packed. We zipped down Overland, crossed over to Rodeo, hooked up with Black Bear all the way around the north side of the mountain, did a short stint on Patterson Lake Trail, doubled back via Rader Creek (the wrong way to go on Rader, the fastest trail on the mountain, but what the heck, we were just out for a ride), climbed up Thompson to the top and then came down some gnarly unmarked trails to the Inside Passage and back to the car.

From above: It felt as good as it looked. (Generated by MotionX-GPS and iPhone.)

It’d been at least a decade since I’d ridden Sun Mountain, and I’d forgotten what a hoot the trail network is. It was especially fun tailing Jim, who’s done countless races there and knows the trails like the veins on the back of his hand. Jim literally rides like he’s on a rail, flying around corners, ripping down G-outs and flitting up switchbacks. Most of the time I was happy just to keep him in sight.

You can pretty much ride the whole network in two to three hours. It’s a lot of fun and is a great workout. It’s not high-altitude, above-the-earth’s-curvature type stuff, but you get bucolic views of the valley and can easily navigate around occasional foot traffic. Winthrop is such a cornucopia of monster rides that it’s easy to forget the more modest Sun Mountain in the equation. But our romp was perfect capper to a great weekend — as well as the 2010 high-country riding season. Already we’re making plans for next year — Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Oregon. But always, always, Winthrop will be there, right in the middle of the mix.

[Distance: 15.6 miles / Elevation gain: 2,101 feet / Maximum grade: 10.4 percent / Time, including pondering Year 2010: 1 hr, 45 mins]

Meanwhile, banned Italian cyclist Pietrio Caucchioli has decided to challenge the validity of the “biological passport” test used in his case. This comes just days after fellow countryman Franco Pellizotti was cleared of doping charges on the basis of insufficient evidence from biological passport data. Pellizotti’s lawyers argued the biological passport is not a reliable mechanism. If Caucchioli succeeds it could further cloud use of the bio passport for dope detection — in and of itself, at least. It still may find utility for casting suspicion on a rider’s performance — which then followup blood testing could confirm.