Fignon later acknowledged using performance enhancers but shied from connecting doping with his cancer. He died today at age 50.

Historical aside: Fignon’s loss also prevented him from winning a rare double, both the Tour of Italy (Giro d’Italia) and the Tour de France in the same year. Only a handful of cyclists have accomplished the feat, and they rank among the hallowed names of the sport (Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, Indurain among others). So grueling is the double considered today that few riders even try. Tour favorites have stayed away from competing in both since LeMond’s time, and Lance Armstrong never even tried during his 7-Tour victory skein.

Meanwhile, Lance drops the hammer on Greg, implying that LeMond juiced his way to the most thrilling Tour victory of all time, his 8-second triumph in the final time trial into Paris in 1989. LeMond should “tell the truth” about that Tour, Armstrong told French television.

We cannot recall anyone, Tour rider or otherwise, accusing LeMond of cheating. In any case, this seems a new twist in the Doping Wars that surprisingly has generated little followup — perhaps because it seems so far afield.

Slate logs in with another Lance bashup, and that’s all the doping news for today!

In his talk with USA Today, LeMond rightly notes his reputation has taken a hit because of his allegations against Lance Armstrong and the cycling establishment.

But we appreciate his pointing out that jealousy had nothing to do with it.

We consider both LeMond and Armstrong to be American icons — heroes of cycling and professional sports in general. But like fans of all sports, from track to baseball, we’re dismayed at rampant doping, steroid use and other synthetic enhancement.

Jealousy has nothing to do with it, of course, any more than jealousy would motivate our opposition to oil spills based on us not being billionaires.

Our motivation is simply that sports should be all about fair competition. Otherwise you’ve got the moral equivalent of fascism — corporate-based governance over a system designed to support only those who ally with corruption while eliminating those who resist.

An offer like this would imply that authorities have actual evidence in hand. If so, such evidence could prove to be the crack in the “we like our credibility” defense Lance Armstrong has offered so far in response to Landis’ allegations of systematic doping in the early 2000s.

In a larger context, the timing of this scandal raises questions. Coming during the height of publicity for the Tour of California, naming primarily Americans — the most prominent of whom were competing in the race — and putting the focus on Armstrong as he was poised to make a statement in the Tour … all of it raises questions about a backstory based on an investigation further along than has been suggested.

Remember that Landis did not “release” his email — nor, apparently, did he intend for it to be made public.

Something is going on behind the scenes that we the public do not yet know about.

Other links:

Joe Papp on Floyd Landis: Speak No Evil?

Lance ups the ante, releasing emails between Landis and the Tour of California in attempt to show Landis as a grubber.

Greg LeMond believes Floyd, mostly.

Regarding unequal treatment of riders by doping authorities for political and financial reasons, Joe Papp has reposted a fascinating article from the Danish weekly publication Weekendavisen discussing the curious case of Vladimir Gusev, a Russian rider who was fired for apparent political reasons but won vindication in a lawsuit. The article’s typos stem from auto-translation technology.

That would have put Trek under enormous pressure from Lance to keep him out of all this at a time when the Comeback Kid least wants negative publicity.

It’s probably an overstatement to suggest that Trek caved, but put it this way: Had Trek held the upper hand, there probably would be a gag on Greg against discussing any Armstrong connection.

As the VeloNews piece makes clear, there is not.

So we’ll continue to wait for word from LeMond re Lance (memo to @greglemond: Whatever you feel about Lance, the guy knows how to use Twitter!). As we stated earlier, our preference would be a burying of the hatchet so these kings of the road could work together to promote cycling’s future in America.

LeMond believed that Trek had stopped supporting his line in deference to Lance Armstrong, who was out for revenge against LeMond for suggesting that Armstrong was tainted by doping.

But in the “we’re all friends now” coverage of the case settlement, the backstory never made it to press. Does the “friendship” include a reconciliation with Armstrong? Are we finally going to see America’s titans of cycling bury the hatchet and work together for the sport’s future?

We at Bike Intelligencer wish it would happen. There’s much to admire about both of these competitors, including their charitable work.

But we’re not holding our breath. Somehow the media “amnesia” over the lawsuit’s origin suggests that the subject still is sore, or at the very least not closed.

Last fall LeMond told the New York Daily News (whose piece should be required reading for anyone interested in cycling doping):

“This is not just a contract dispute,” LeMond counters. “It’s about defending myself from people that are out to destroy everything I’ve done in cycling… I want to hold John Burke accountable. I want to hold Lance Armstrong accountable.”

Within the coming days and weeks and months, we should get an idea of how successful LeMond was, and how satisfied he really truly is with this settlement.

When the Euro revolution was just starting to sink in, Hoffacker’s Palo Alto Bicycles and Ric and Jon Hjertberg’s Wheelsmith a couple blocks away made Palo Alto one of the coolest places on earth. Palo Alto Bicycles had the classiest mail order catalog anywhere, helping to fuel the bike boom of the ’70s, and its posters of Tour legends and local wheel-building icon Jobst Brandt riding the Swiss Alps still hang in my basement.

Where PA Bikes and Wheelsmith really rocked was during the Tour de France. You have to remember, there was no TV coverage or even mention of the Tour on newscasts. Local newspapers ran nothing, not even results.

The only way to track Tour progress was to swing by Palo Alto Bicycles or Wheelsmith for results, usually posted on a small piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board or wall. And then we’d debate about who was going to win and fantasize what it would be like to be following the peloton through the mountains.

We asked Ric, who runs Wheel Fanatyk in Seattle these days, to refresh our memory on how Wheelsmith got the results.

“Tour results, in the early days, came from the Manchester Guardian we copped at Mac’s Smoke Shop,” Ric noted. “You needed to wait until opening because they only got 3 copies. We rushed it to our store, clipped the results, and posted them. Dozens of riders would come by over the day, or call, to learn the standings.”

By today’s standards, it sounds positively Stone Age.

“Whew,” Ric acknowledged. “Was it really that primitive? Well, actually, it was!”

We never thought we’d get live coverage of the Tour each day, or be able to chatter on our keyboards via blogs and the Internet. (Thank you, Jacques, Greg and Lance!) We were happy just for the names of the stage winners and Top 10 overalls, with respective times. Thanks to Palo Alto Bicycles for feeding the mind, inspiring the soul and supplying the kit over the years. And yes Ric, we miss those days hanging out at Wheelsmith. Computers weren’t the only great things that sprang from garage shops in Silicon Valley!

VeloNews: More on the LeMond—Trek legal spat, this time with backstory of Greg dissing Lance.

The secret is out! Lance and his new Team Radio Shack are training on mountain bikes!

Cyclelicio.us: The Million Car Challenge to allow bikes to use the full right lane.

Happy birthday Jacquie Phelan!

You know, it takes a special kind of hatred to kill a bicycle shop owner.

What happens when clueless fools pass bicycling ordinances? Just ask the riders in Philadelphia

What happens when cyclists clue in the legislative element? Just ask the riders in La Honda Creek

Helicopter airlifts injured 50-year-old mountain biker from Crystal Cove State Park south of Newport CA. It’s a great park that I’ve been riding since my late 40s and someone that age can get into trouble real fast coming down the steeps. But it’s a challenging, fun place to ride, with unearthly views, and this time of year you grab riding where you can. What puzzles me, as always, are the cruel attitudes toward cyclists in the comments queue. Where else would you see someone who’d been seriously hurt get attacked like this? Hey, Happy Holidays to all you spewsters!

Agreeing with the judge, it’d be nice to get the Trek-LeMond nastiness behind us. Subtext not mentioned in this report: Greg hasn’t been happy with Trek since he suspected Trekkie Lance Armstrong of backstabbing after Greg accused Lance of doping. The two greatest American cyclists ever seem to revile one another; it’d sure be nice to get them on the same page and help move the sport forward.

This one’s a puzzler: Australia is ending its elite mountain biking support because of lack of federal funding. This country has produced half a dozen World Cup standouts in recent years, as well as world champions in dual slalom (Caroline Buchanan), downhill (Sam Hill) and road (Cadel Evans, who started out as a mountain biker, and who is none too pleased with the cuts). What’re they thinking Down Under?

So far this Tour has been remarkable in one instance (and one only): No doping violations have been announced. There may be a lag factor here: Samples have to be collected, transported, tested and re-tested. That takes time, so it’s often well into the Tour before riders are implicated.

But moreso than in recent Tours, I keep hearing words like “exhausted,” “tired,” “fatigued” and “worn out” coming from riders and commentators. Those descriptions do not sound like a race full of doping. If that’s the case and indeed riders are staying clean this Tour, it may mark a significant transition for pro cycling.

Greg Lemond has commented on how, once EPO and other drugs came to dominate the ranks, cyclists’ demeanor changed. The sweat pouring off the brow, the heaving lungs, the agonized faces wrenched in pain and suffering — all became a thing of the past. Riders could do huge pulls while barely showing any physical duress. We saw that in Lance. We saw it in Michael Rasmussen (who for the record never was tagged with drug violations, simply suspicion of doping) and Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton and Bernhard Kohl and Floyd Landis (not on the day he bonked, but the following day on his “miracle recovery” ride to supposed victory). We saw it in all the big names accused of doping.

Today we’re hearing more about how trashed riders are feeling. Case in point is Tom Boonen. one of the world’s premier sprinters who got himself caught in a drug scandal with cocaine but reinstated right before the Tour. Boonen has extra incentive to stay clean, and he’s complaining mightily about being tired.

The perennial excuse for doping was that everyone was doing it. Maybe this time around, everyone isn’t.

There are many new faces to the Tour, including younger riders perhaps not so beholden to the drug culture. And the younger set is turning out to be the bright spot of this year’s event — riders like Wenatchee’s Tyler Farrar and Germany’s Tony Martin.

I’m working entirely on speculation here, and it will remain speculation till violations are or are not announced, which could extend well beyond the Tour’s final day 10 days from now. But so far, the signs are encouraging. If it happens that the 2009 Tour marks the turning point of doping in professional cycling, cycling fans everywhere can only be glad.

Note: BikePure.org reported today: “This morning, Italian police arrested failed pro, turned coach, Aleksandar Nikacevic for being the mastermind behind a huge doping ring. Nikacevic, A former head of Serbian cycling was arrested with thirty others, including around a dozen pro cyclists by the Padua police in northern Italy.”

Just another sign that the curtain is coming down…hard.