By Christophe Cudowerth, Famouse French Cycling Journaliste

Well, we knew it had to happen. Lance Armstrong is making yet another comeback in time for the 2013 Tour de France.

If you haven’t heard about the comeback, it’s because Lance has been in stealth training mode, living like the Sylvester Stallone character in Rocky IV when the mythical Italian Stallion retreated to a cold, Spartan existence in the Russian wilderness, using old-time training methods to get in shape to beat the world.

Secret training methods

Lance Armstrong trains in the high Rockies pulling a sled with Chris Carmichael on board.

Inside sources say Armstrong hid in the northwest Rocky Mountains (get the pun?) riding steep ascents up and down while carrying burlap sacks of Colorado red rocks on his back to strengthen his already massive thighs and get him ready for what promises to be a mountainous Tour de France this year.

Watch out Bradley Wiggins. Lance is back. Tell your teammate Chris Froome to watch out for Lance too. He’s back. He’s pissed. And there’s no telling what the Too Tested Texan will do this time around.

How he got in

Armstrong gained a rare solo entry to this year’s tour by enacting a long-ago provision included in a contract with the UCI in which the cyclist and his lawyers inserted a provision that stated if he was ever banned from the sport for any reason, he would get a Mulligan, much like you get in casual golf games.

Recently Armstrong cashed in that Mulligan, written as it was on the back of a napkin from a French Hotel.

The stained napkin on which Lance Armstrong wrote the legal agreement that got him back into the Tour de France 2013

To the shock and dismay of the UCI and the Tour de France organizers, Armstrong showed up at a lunchtime meeting between the two cycling powerhouses holding that coffee-stained napkin on which the Mulligan agreement was scrawled. There were signs of bicycle grease on the napkin, and actual fingerprints from the parties involved who signed the unusual provisional agreement that will gain access for Armstrong to this year’s Tour. Those fingerprints were what gave the semi-legal document its credence with cycling’s top tier management.

No team? No problem

Of course Armstrong needs a team to actually compete in the Tour, and he knew that it might come to this some day, so he planned ahead.

Lance was wise enough to put a little asterisk at the bottom of the handwritten napkin that said his solo ride could be multiplied by 5 in the event of a team time trial event in the year of his Mulligan comeback.

Lance Armstrong Power Peanuts. Marshmallow laced with Protein and who knows what else.

Yet there are competing rumors that says former teammate and confessed doper Floyd Landis signed up to ride for Armstrong, who, lacking team sponsors, has been selling special edition boxes of Protein-Laced Power Peanuts to pay for his travel and hotel. Reportedly the product is selling well enough to set Lance up with a bright orange Trek Bike with the logo Power Peanuts on the tube. It looks pretty cool.

Armstrong may have signed up legendary American cyclist Alexi Grewal as well, who last year attempted a comeback of his own at the age of 50.

“It’s fun riding with Alexi,” Armstrong said in a Tweet sent round the world. “He makes me feel young again.”

Hatred a powerful engine

Tyler Hamilton: “I still hate Lance.”

The final cog in the Tour of American Legends is Tyler Hamilton, who has come out of his owned forced retirement to ride on Armstrong’s team. “We need a little hate on the squad to motivate us,” Armstrong admits. “Tyler brings that vital component to the Tour squad, if we ride.”

As for the lifetime doping ban that would have kept Lance Armstrong from competing in the Tour or any other bike race for the rest of his life, apparently there is enough pending television revenue riding on the return of Armstrong that the UCI and other governing organizations have agreed to just look the other way, just this once.

“C’mon,” admitted Pat McQuaid, President of the Union Cyclistes Internationals (UCI), “Aren’t you just a little curious to see what he can do? Especially after riding up and down the Rockies with those bags of rocks on his back?

Killing it on Colbert?

Others are not so enthusiastic. Many in the cycling world remain disgusted by the facts behind Armstrong’s doping confession. Some are petulantly angry that he chose to talk to Oprah and get half weepy about it rather than go on Stephen Colbert and get skewered for being a shallow, stupid lousy liar. But at least that would have been funny. Watching Armstrong squeeze his tight face to keep from farting under all that pressure spilling his guts on Oprah was less than comfortable for everybody watching.

So how will Lance compete in the Tour, given that his team will likely be nothing more than a loose coalition of ad hoc riders, all reformed dopers on other teams,  perhaps willing to pull for Lance when the going gets tough?

Should make for some interesting commentary, to say the least, from the likes of Phil Liggett, who is rumored to have Alzheimer’s disease and has been announcing this year’s race nearly six months in advance of the start of the actual event.

At least he can rave about the French Chateaus. Those are timeless.

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