Stage 17 of the Tour de France tomorrow will feature the famous Alpe de Wheeze. You can visit this alpine meadow virtually through Google Streetview.

The Alpe d’Huez, which has hosted a Tour de France stage almost every year since 1976, is probably the most famous mountain climb of the Tour de France, which large and enthusiastic crowds of fans crowding along the hairpin turns that lead to the ski resort in the French Alps.

A Frenchman gets his stage win

French cyclist Cyril Dessel got his stage win today, in Stage 16 that started in Italy.

• KWC: Stage 16 overview and link roundup.
• The FredCast: Stage 16 Results
• TdF Blog: no updates yet!!! (I thought I saw a Tweet from Frank saying he had updates online…)
• Cyclodro.me: Stage 16 robotic links.

Mark Cavendish is pooped after his spectacular 4 stage wins this week, so he took it easy and finished towards the end of the pack on Stage 14 today. Oscar Freire wins the Stage today, Cadel Evans still has the yellow jersey, Garmin-Chipotle/H30’s Christian Vande Velde is on the GC podium, Colubmia’s Kim Kirchen is still in the top 10.

It’s the weekend, I’ve got things to do and people to see, so I’ll point you to KWC’s Stage 14 link robot for more news and commentary.

But quickly before I go:

• “I am God and I am Santa Claus. I own a car.”
• Why no outrage on Wall Street’s recklessness?
• A test of the OHM Cycles electic bicycle, in which the Wall Street Journal asks if electric bikes can take the place of cars.

And don’t forget about the contest!

The boy from Britain can go go go!

For Stage 13 summaries, visit:

• KWC,
• FredCast,
• TdF Blog.
• VeloNews: Cav Crushes.

Speaking of Frank Steele of TdFBlog, hinted at some anti-Americanism by the TdF web team when he tweeted the lack of the American flag on the Tour de France website. In years past, the button for the English version of the site was a split UK/USA flag, while this year it’s a UK flag only. Still, if you look at the English language link URL, the page is listed under “US”, not “UK.”

Is Cavendish clean?

Some of my friends look at the news of Ricco, Beltran and Duenas as proof that pro cycling and the Tour de France is awash in doping. Many people are asking the question of Cavendish: Are you really clean? Can we trust that your wins are real?

Agency for Cycling Ethics PURE Sport

Cavendish’s Team Columbia uses the same “bio passport” system from the Agency for Cycling Ethics (ACE) that Team Garmin-Chipotle uses. While the T-Mobile cycling team had its share of doping scandals when Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla and Patrick Sinkewitz were expelled from the team, Bob Stapleton worked to clean house when he took over management of the team in 2007. Team High Road began the ACE biological passport testing last October.

“Passports” are created for each cyclist participating in the program. Changes in blood and urine chemistry are measured and noted over time. Instead of measuring for specific banned substances or looking at absolute blood chemistry values that can vary greatly between individual like current doping protocols do, the biological passport instead detects the body’s reaction to performance enhancing drugs over time.

Under standard doping tests, some athletes can dope and still remain under the official threshold for that measurement. According to ACE, the biological parameters they measure can vary greatly between individuals, but within an individual these measurements don’t change much over time.

ACE bio passports cannot detect specifically which drug was used to, for example, enhance the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, but they trade this lack of specificity with sensitivity. EPO, for example, can only be detected in the urine for up to four days at the most, but with the passport the effect of EPO can be detected for weeks afterwards.

To detect blood doping, ACE’s PURE Sport program measures Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, Recticulocyte count and MCV as its main biological markers. ACE also measures for various steroid markers in the blood and urine to test for steroid use. When an athelete takes an anabolic androgenic steroid that person immediately alters his body’s steroid profile. LH and FSH are immediately suppressed. This in turn suppresses the body’s own steroid production, altering the biological markers listed above for a substantial time and in a predictable manner. Because of the frequency of testing, ACE claims they can even detect human growth hormone use, which is currently considered undetectable.

I look at Cavendish’s amazing fourth stage win today as evidence that you can ride clean and win.

More on this topic:

• Bicycle.NET: Dopers and cheaters won’t stop Cavendish from winning.
• VeloNews: Doped and duped.
• BBC: Cavendish backs doping crackdown.

Photo: PASCAL PAVANI/AFP/Getty Images.

Don’t read this if you’re waiting for the highlights video later tonight.

First the fun news: Team Columbia’s Mark Cavendish sprinted for his third stage win today in the 105 mile 12th Stage from Lavelanet to Narbonne, showing that a team with a strong bio passport anti-drug program can still win and beat the cheaters. Silence Lotto’s Cadel Evans retains the overall lead in spite of getting hung out to dry by his teammates who couldn’t hang with the peloton towards the end of the stage. Julian Dean of Garmin-Chipotle/H30 — another team with a bio passport program — placed 9th in the field of 158 finishers. Team Columbia, Silence-Lotto, and Garmin-Chipotle are in first, second and third places respectively.

Some more commentary on today’s stage and Ricco’s bust:

• KWC rocks again with his prose:
  

  The big news today was of course the loss of Stupido Ricco, who demonstrated that his poor judgment when he runs his mouth is as bad as his judgment otherwise. Also, it is too much to have two amazing mountain stages in a row. Saunier Duval became the first team to withdraw, which makes me wonder what they caught Ricco with.

  Visit velo.kwc.org for the latest in links to Tour de France news.

• Sara Best’s excitement about Cavendish was pretty fun to read also.
• Cheater’s suck: “Call it a “Mongoose” drug test because the ”Cobra” was caught and taken down.”
• Sprinter della casa: Why I feel good.
• Biking Bis reports on Ricco.
• Velochimp: Doping expert and !@$?.
• The First 100 Miles: It’s so frustrating.
• Even Bike Snob NYC weighs in with his (or her?) opinion on Ricco and doping in pro cycling.

Reminder: Don’t forget the contest!!!