With Lance Armstrong finally confessing the way we advised him all along …

The question now is: Besides confessing, will Lance apologize?

For us at BikeIntelligencer, an apology would be the final nail in the Lance Armstrong image reconstruction project.

The doping we always understood. Lance led cycling into professional sport’s most endemic doping era and was its best and highest practitioner — or worst and lowest, depending on how you look at it.

To win, Lance had to dope. But so did virtually every other cyclist at Tour de France levels. The ones who didn’t dope, didn’t win. Simple as that.

That’s why we always argued that Lance should just come clean, with the “Everybody did it” excuse. Then we could all move on.

With a confession, the issue becomes Lance’s behavior to his fans, the media and his fellow cyclists over the years. Armstrong not only bullied other cyclists into doping, he bullied anyone who challenged his honesty.

A confession won’t fully make amends. Only a full, heartfelt, believable apology will provide closure and allow us all to go forward with peace of mind.

With an apology, we can get back to focusing on Lance’s amazing athletic accomplishments and the admirable work his foundation has done and is doing. With an apology, we can close the door on all the bad karma Lance fomented over the years.

With an apology, maybe Lance can become a hero again.

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.

After getting beat up in Tour, why push it?

A Lance spokesperson cites “lingering effects” of hip injuries suffered in this year’s Tour de France. But if we had mounting legal problems from a widening federal doping investigation, if every time we appeared in public we would have to answer doping allegations, and if the media were hounding us for comment on doping charges … well, our hip would hurt too!

Key indicator: No tweets from Lance. Usually he’s pretty up front about something as big as withdrawing from Leadville, yet the Lance Twitter has gone dark.

Much of his public interfacing these days is being done through spokespersons, a sign of lawyerly caution.

Normally we’d give the nod to Mr. Clean, Dave Wiens, in this year’s race, since he won it six straight times before Lance’s victory last year.

But Wiens said last fall he wasn’t going to follow intense training for this year’s race. And Lance’s Tour de France teammate, Levi Leipheimer, is looking fit and ready (although doping allegations are descending on him as well).

Should be a good race. You can follow it real time here.

The allegations against Armstrong have received wide publicity, but only recently have similar charges against Leipheimer gotten similar notoriety.

Wiens will be back in the mix this year, and Lance’s lackluster showing at the Tour may provide Dave some glimmer of hope. The only problem will be Levi’s coming off a strong Tour performance.

Should be a good show, this Saturday in Colorado.

One point Joe eloquently addresses that we’ve raised repeatedly has to do with institutional barriers to exposing doping. While doping does indeed come down to individual corruption — whether it be the riders, their team managers, corporate sponsors or regulatory officials — the real motivator here is money. The doping culture isn’t based on any innate joys that come from cheating a fellow cyclist or team out of winning. It’s based on the amount of dollars at stake.

That point is well worth remembering when the urge to point fingers strikes. Big Money calls the shots in professional cycling, and all culpability ultimately resides at the door of the almighty dollar.

To the surprise of no one, former Lance teammates are implicating him in a culture of doping.

To the surprise of no one, Lance’s attorney is trying to cast Armstrong as the victim. But — no surprise here either — Joe Papp is having none of it.

To the surprise of no one, Lance himself continues to stonewall. But when he puts forward syllogisms like, “You can’t prosecute somebody for something they didn’t do — normally,” you have to wonder if he wasn’t just doping but smokin’ something as well. We repeat — fess up, Lance, and we can all move on.

A useful public service from Cozy Beehive, preserving the Floyd Landis — ABC Nightline interview before the links disappear.

And the crackdown continues on the little guys, this time Brit Dan Staite.

Good question, but Daly can sit back and relax. It’s going to be awhile. Because until all possible evidence and testimony is gathered, there’s no real answer.

This has been a punishing Tour all right, with the result that at least two otherwise tantalizing mountain stages (including today’s) have been busts as far as the lead pack goes.

It was a docile run, enlivened only by an 8-rider breakaway that included ageless — well, aged maybe is more accurate — Lance Armstrong and even more senior French champion Christophe Moreau. In the end a Frenchman, Pierrick Fedrigo, did win — the sixth stage for the host country in this edition of the Tour — and Moreau closed to within 15 points of the polka-dot mountain jersey. In a surprise, Thor Hushovd regained the green jersey from Alessandro Petacchi, who entered the stage with a new doping cloud over his head.

Otherwise the general category stayed the same at the top, with Alberto Contador maintaining an 8-second edge over Andy Schleck following yesterday’s controversial 39-second win. We fantasized a sportsmanlike finish today where Contador rode to within 5 feet of the finish, then stopped for 39 seconds before crossing the line. But it was not to be.

It’s unfortunate not one of the Top 10 riders chose to press any kind of attack, because Stage 16 is one of the toughest in this year’s Tour and by rights should’ve provided some fireworks. World champion Cadel Evans, who fell from the back of the peloton, tweeted @cadelofficial, “All suffered here today. I rode in with a group that indicates my level…can’t remember a time I came in after the preso was done ( “

Putting this stage up against tomorrow’s rest day was probably a strategic mistake by the organizers. The riders obviously held back with the thought of focusing on Thursday’s climactic Pyrenees stage as the ultimate decider of this year’s race, the penultimate time trial notwithstanding.

Full report from VeloNews.

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!

After a tough mountains stage Tuesday, the Tour took an unofficial rest day Wednesday.

Regrettably, the peloton’s leisurely sashay through the last Alps stage came on Bastille Day. French cycling fans will have to wait till this evening for any fireworks.

No significant changes in the leader board, with our man Andy Schleck holding onto the yellow jersey in a bunch finish.

We don’t mean to be harsh. It’s been a thrash of a Tour so far. The riders that haven’t crashed or aren’t hurt have to be riding on the edge of exhaustion.

But we call ‘em like we see ‘em. And we were hoping for a better show in the final Alps day.

The single saving grace may have been the first stage win for Team Radio Shack, although it wasn’t Lance Armstrong or Levi Leipheimer who pulled it off. In a two-man sprint after a long 7-rider breakaway, otherwise little-heralded Portuguese rider Sergio Paulinho bested Vasili Kiryienka (Caisse d’Epargne) to take the stage.

The pack rolled in some 14 minutes later, undoubtedly relieved at a lackluster day in the saddle.

Full results from CyclingNews.com.

Tomorrow’s stage returns to the flatlands with only an early Category 3 climb interrupting a laid-back profile. We hope at least the final sprint provides some drama.

Random notes:

Following the lead of the mountain-biking community, Tour riders are experimenting with tubeless tires.

Much has been made of Lance Armstrong’s misfortunes in this Tour, but he can’t hold a candle to the career bad-luck leader, Cadel Evans. Evans lost the yellow jersey Tuesday, then revealed he was riding with a broken elbow suffered on Stage 8. We’ve often observed that Evans can’t seem to get a break in the Grand Tours — maybe we should revise that to “positive break.”