Before today I always though that lakes were calm, peaceful, 4 ft deep and filled with snapper turtles. But apparently that’s not the case with Lake Michigan, which wreaked havoc on a few people yesterday in Chicago. Watch the full clip below:

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Just leave it to France to F up everything. You would think it was an Asian driver in that French television car that managed to knock into Juan Antonio Flecha and Johnny Hoogerlan.

I love how he didn’t even bother to stop. Just kept on driving like nothing happened.

Alberto Contador has won 3 of the last 4 Tours of France, and the only reason he didn’t win in 2008 is because his team was barred from entering. Lance’s disdain for Alberto is well documented. Clearly he realizes that Alberto is the new superstar of the peloton and well positioned to break Lance’s record 7 tour wins.

When Armstrong began dominating the tour in 1999 he was 27 years old. Contador is 27 years old today and already has three tour wins under his belt — making seven tour wins look like a slam dunk.

No wonder Lance hates this guy! Soon we’ll all be wearing Contadorstrong wrist bands and Lance will just be a footnote in the annals of cycling.

Tom Cruise was in attendance, along with his pal Cameron Diaz today, as the tour went through the Bordeaux region of France. They were apparently traveling together to promote Knight and Day, a movie that I promise I’ll never see.

I wonder if Arod is jealous that Alberto Contador went in for an open mouth kiss after donning the yellow jersey today?

It’s been a frustrating tour of France for the man who had won it seven consecutive times. Today Lance was knocked off his bike on three separate occasions, putting him 10+ minutes behind the tour leaders and far out of contention for the podium in Paris.

The one man who has benefited from Lance’s mishaps is Alberto Contador, last year’s tour winner, and Lance’s nemesis. This photo on the left is from an earlier stage last week — and Lance claimed that he didn’t exchange words with Contador. But that’s incredibly hard to believe and we can only imagine what niceties he had to share with the top contender in this year’s race.

With over 12 stages left, Lance will likely shift gears and pursue two goals. First, help his teammate Levi Leipheimer, who is only 2 minutes back, to take the yellow jersey in Paris. And second, the last thing Lance wants to see in his final tour is for Contador to win, so let’s see what he can do to stop the Spaniard from popping bottles on the Champs-Élysées.

The two biggest sporting events we’re looking forward to tomorrow are the first stage of the Tour de France and the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest (unless you consider a William’s sisters Wimbledon final a noteworthy event).

What better soundtrack to this day of American independence, endurance cycling, competitive eating, and Serena’s big booty dominating in London than Queen’s 1978 classics: Bicycle Race and Fat Bottomed Girls. If you’ve been afraid to publicly profess your love of Queen for fear of your friends questioning your sexuality, tomorrow is your day to bump some classic Freddy Mercury. It’s perfect for a bbq, listening to in the car on your road trip, or whatever it is you’ll be doing this 4th of July.

Lance crashed today while racing at the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon in Spain, breaking his collarbone and putting him out of the racing circuit for at least 4-6 weeks.

Armstrong’s Twitter account has been silent for almost 24 hours, which leads to one of two possibilities: (1) he was trying to send a twitter message as he crashed (and lost his blackberry in the process), or (2) his right arm is in a sling and he can’t type lefty.

This photo of him leaving the hospital leads me to believe the second scenario is most probable — but I still like to think that he was trying to send a twitter update as he crashed.

Lance Armstrong woke up today ready for stage 1 of the Tour of California, only to find out that someone stole his time trial bike last night.

I had this same experience in 5th grade when I woke up for school only to find that my neighbor stole my bike.

If you see anyone riding this alien-like machine in your neighborhood, please contact Lance. He’s offering a handsome reward.

This week Jimmy Fallon from SNL-fame joined the growing number of celebrities and athletes, such as Shaq and Lance Armstrong, who are using Twitter for self-promotion. If there’s anything that I’ve learned from following these guys, it’s that Shaq is in love with himself (and can’t spell) and that Lance Armstrong has found that Intimdation = Twitter + Cameraphone.

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Today the Tour de of California route was announced. Stage 2 of the race will start in the seaside town of Sausalito, sending Lance Armstrong and the peloton over the Golden Gate bridge on their way to the hippy commune otherwise known as Santa Cruz.

His yellow bracelet wearing Livestrong cult fans will have to call in sick to work on February 15th in order to catch a glimpse as Armstrong pedals by — so it’s safe for the Department of Commerce to expect about a 10% drop in productivity at San Francisco high tech and biotech firms that day.

This will be Armstrong’s fist Tour of California, but obviously not the first time he’s ridden the California roads. He used to call Santa Barbara home when he was an item with singer/songwriter Sheryl Crowe. So as long as Lance’s surfing doesn’t impact his training regimen, he will be the hands down favorite to win.