Imagine a television show like Lost. You have your favourite characters Kate, Sawyer, Jack and Locke. It’s still an ensemble cast but I think we can all agree that the show would be bereft without those four. Well, imagine that Jack gets off the island. Then, suddenly without warning, Sawyer and Locke are killed off the show. Then Kate falls over a can of peanut butter and goes into a coma. What are you going to do? Still keep watching a bunch of losers stuck on an island? That’s the Tour de France these days.

Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso were set to animate a Tour which promised more suspense and surprise than the seven years before. The back-story of both was promising. Fatty Jan, slightly stupid but endearingly so, was looking to win one final Tour now that Armstrong was gone. Basso, most impressive in the last two years and recent champion of the Giro, was looking to spoil his chances. Both teams were strong and Ullrich looked to be in better form than he had been in years. Alas, twas not to be. Ullrich and Basso were removed from the tour just days before, with the Spanish anti-drug operation Puerto, leaving the Tour empty of its two primary characters. (Both were removed on suspicion, not proof.)

Some people think this is great. Less drugs, more side characters. Well, more characters does not necessarily mean more interesting, X-Men 3 being an ideal example. When you eliminate the main characters you kill the drama. What ensues is a treadmill of smaller heroes and a sideshow of freaks, each elbowing each other out of the way in mediocrity.

L’Alpe d’Huez is one of the most historic stages of the Tour de France. Here, in the interminable hors categorie climb, great champions, like Marco Pantani, Fausto Coppi, Lance Armstrong, are crowned. For this reason, and for the fact no discernible winner has yet to be decided, this stage was important. Who’s the new boss in town? Well, a young Luxembourg boy called Schleck won the climb impressively, trailed a couple of minutes behind by Floyd Landis, the favourite to win the Tour and a man as exciting as boiled bread.

It is especially telling of this year’s Tour that Landis hardly accelerated, attacked or created any suspense at all. Landis’s show of formidable unsportsmanlike behaviour, not taking the relay, and his incredible lack of panache make him a dislikeable champion. At least Armstrong was never a coward. Maybe Mennonites (Landis) don’t like the spotlight, but that’s no excuse to go around attached to Kloden’s ass like a leech.

I prefer seeing some little whelk like Voekler, with his naïve cherub like face, seesawing all over the Pyrenees to save his yellow jersey, than watch a strong cyclist like Landis snore all over the Alps. I prefer seeing Ullrich shit his pants and turn Virenque’s face white, or Basso lead Armstrong up the mountain, or Beloki crash out while Armstrong takes a detour over the wheat fields, I would prefer some sort of drama than this interminable snore-fest. Somehow, I’d prefer if they took drugs if this is what cycling is like without it.

But what we are missing this year is a real leader. After Valverde crashed out, I rinsed my hands of the secondary characters. Landis, Leipheimer, Evans, Menchov and Kloden are better suited as lieutenants, like George Hincapie, rather than leaders. Perhaps today’s winner, young Franck Schleck, will emerge as a future great champion. I don’t know, and I’m very far from caring. All I know is that the Tour de France 2006 deserved a rewrite.