I'm sure few of you give a hoot but I wanted to say I'm so ****ed I'm
considering not watching the tdf this year.

A little background I feel is appropriate. I'm just a fan, and just a fan of
the tdf and now the Tour of California because it's in the Bay Area where I
live.

I have watched the tdf for the last seven years or so pretty religiously,
even downloading the torrents of every stage last year. Yes, I only started
watching when Lance was winning so I guess I'm a fair weathered fan. But an
emotional one. The heavy tv coverage on cable was amazing - I just could not
stop watching and my dad and enjoy talking about the stages etc.

My dad has always been a bigger fan. He re-married a French woman and I
think he enjoys the sport-bonding with her during July. Last year I watched
and really enjoyed it, too, but I don't think it's because an American won.
I really don't care as long as it's interesting. I wanted to see who was
going to take over the mantle. My real sports heroes have always been
international stars like F1 racers Senna, Mansell, Hakkinen. F1 sucks now
and I've been a bigger MotoGP nut because of Valentino Rossi and but by no
small degree the integrity of the sport.

But I am so ****ed about the doping thing last year, when he asked yesterday
I told my father I can't bear to watch and would not waste my time and get
emotionally involved. Mostly because I do not know who to believe.

From what little I read, my impression is Lance believes the testing system
is flawed. Yet he did not come out to support Floyd, as far as I can tell. I
read in the paper earlier this year that Floyd had that thing to raise money
in the Bay area during the Tour of California and Lance was not there to
support him. I drew my own conclusions, and no one in the papers every
seemed to put that together. I feel, if he thought Floyd was clean, I think
Lance should have been the #1 witness. I think the whole country would have
stood up for Floyd if Lance had gotten on the public bandwagon. So WTF? You
are either passionate about your sport and believe or you don't. Something
stinks here.

It's these mixed signals which has me confused to the point where I feel
like if I watch I'm just going to have my experience and emotions crushed by
crap that happens off the track.

I guess this is kinda how some baseball fans feel, after the strike and
their own doping scandals.