Before today, my only knowledge of the Shrine Circus is that they put out buy-one-get-one-free coupons at every local grocery store, charge you five dollars to park, reveal at the gate that each individual ticket is forty dollars and you can’t get a refund on parking.

Thankfully, this video of cyclist Josh Headford crashing 30 feet to the ground at The Dow Event Center during a jump on Sunday has given me a new talking point: how funny it is when a circus ringmaster has to say “this is serious, get help” but can’t stop talking in his ringmaster voice. Some-bod-ay SCREEEEEAM!

According to Bob’s Blitz, Hedford broke his shoulder blade, femur, wrist and elbow. His son is already in the process of becoming the new Robin.

On Saturday, Dutch cyclist Laurens ten Dam became the latest Tour de France rider to earn semi-household name status for crashing, after he took a face-first dive in Stage 14 and finished the day’s effort with a mangled grill. He not only finished the stage but he was able to bounce back and start Stage 15 the next day with no problems other than a mild inability to eat food. Unfortunately, whereas Johnny Hoogerland’s barbed wire tangle last week earned him intermediate “that’s pretty metal” status, we can’t yet afford ten Dam the same luxury.

It turns out that ten Dam has a bit of a reputation for accidents. In addition to this weekend’s spill, ten Dam missed last year’s Tour de France because of a serious accident at the 2010 Tour de Suisse, in which he broke two vertebrae, fractured his wrist and chin, and suffered a severe concussion. Only a few months before that, ten Dam crashed and injured his hip and head in the final stage of the Ruta del Sol. In 2009, ten Dam was part of a big crash at the the Vuelta a Espana race, as he injured his back but was able to continue on.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you see Laurens ten Dam riding a bike, cross the street.

Pics of ten Dam’s injuries from this weekend after the jump, as well as his storied love affair with gravity. (Banner image via Buzzfeed via Reddit)

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That’s ten Dam on the right in the orange jersey, sitting down in the middle of all those cyclists.

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Ever since Lance Armstrong decided to retire from Tour de France competition, nobody in America has cared much about the biggest event in cycling, with the exception of Tom Danielson and Christian Vande Velde, but 17th and 19th place ain’t going to cut it, fellas. However, this weekend gave us a few crashes to tickle our appetites for destruction.

Yesterday, a crash in the race’s 9th stage seemingly ended the career of Alexandre Vinokourov, above, who was famously banned after testing positive for PEDs at the 2007 Tour de France. He retired shortly after that ban, but then decided in 2009 that he didn’t want his career to end that way. Instead, it has apparently ended with a broken femur. But that’s arguably better than Jurgen Van Den Broeck of Belgium, as he was also involved in yesterday’s crash and is currently in the ICU with a shattered shoulder, collapsed lung and three broken ribs.

“Jurgen needs to stay two or three more days in intensive care,” team doctor Els Lemmens told Belgian television. “We have to make sure that his breathing problems don’t get any worse. We were worried about his abdominal pain because we feared a ruptured spleen or liver but that has turned out not to be the case. Everything is under control now.” (Via Cycling News)

Meanwhile, Spain’s Juan Antonio Flecha was sideswiped by a TV car during yesterday’s stage, causing him to collide with Dutch racer Johnny Hoogerland (new favorite name – Ed.), who in turn crashed into a barbed wire fence and suffered a series of lacerations.

Images after the jump, might be a little unsafe for the easily squeamish.

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Despite his injuries, Van Den Broeck actually got back on his bike and tried to continue before collapsing again from the pain.

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Van Den Broeck’s teammate Frederik Williams was also involved in the crash and was unable to continue.

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That’s Juan Antonio Flecha being taken out by the black car, with Hoogerland flying into the barbed wire fence right behind him. I’m guessing the driver was texting. The Jonas Brothers will be upset.

Despite crashing into a barbed wire fence and suffering a series of cuts, Hoogerland still managed to become the new leader of the King of the Mountains competition and wear the polka dot jersey. Metal.

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This actually has nothing to do with an accident, but this is the leg of cyclist Georgie Hincapie, who was Lance Armstrong’s wing man for all 7 of his Tour de France victories. This is apparently what your leg looks like after riding for 15 years. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m having some spaghetti.

(Via Cycling News/Reddit/Buzzfeed)

At this point, even Lance Armstrong thinks he did drugs. It’s like the cop who scared Chris Rock into thinking he’d stolen his own car. Lance just sort of sits there in his tightest yellow shirt, sipping a cup of hot water, wondering whether or not that cough drop he sucked on back in 1995 was a performance enhancing drug (by definition, yes, it was).

Armstrong’s lawyers are still pretty mad about the whole thing, and sent a letter of protest to CBS News Chairman and 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager in regard to the latest 60 Minutes investigation. This is following last week’s quotes from the head of Switzerland’s anti-doping laboratory, who denied that Armstrong had failed a doping test (as opposed to a “dope” test, which would be open-book) during the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

“In the cold light of morning your story was either extraordinarily shoddy, to the point of being reckless and unprofessional, or a vicious hit-and-run job,” lawyer Elliot Peters wrote. “In either case, a categorical on-air apology is required.”

Peters added that the show ignored evidence from Armstrong’s camp prior to the broadcast that the Swiss-related claims were false.

“What is particularly disturbing is that ’60 Minutes’ had access to the true facts, could easily have verified them, and apparently chose instead to broadcast untruths and then layer innuendo on top of the falsehoods,” Peters said.

CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco said Wednesday he was unable comment on the letter, but added about the “60 Minutes” report: “We consider this the most thorough investigation into doping in the sport of cycling ever done.”

Demanding an apology from CBS? Good luck. I’ve been waiting like 17 years for an apology for “The Golden Palace”.

I hate the word “doping.” It makes it sound like they rounded up a bunch of bean bag chairs and listened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while they got lit with my uncle. But yeah, Lance is getting dangerously close to Roger Clemens territory, where he’s either going to stand on top of the Empire State Building and make shame fingers at us for the rest of our lives or jump his bike off the side of a cliff. There needs to be a definitive conclusion to this. A big “yes” box and a big “no” box, and if “no” is checked, every cyclist worse than Armstrong should legally have to shut the f**k up for eternity.

And if they check yes, we should get a new famous cyclist.

[via LA Times]

To call this anything short of a tragedy would be wrong, but when nine people on bikes were injured by an automobile in Brazil, one has to ask, critically, “How did this happen?” Fortunately, there were no fatalities.

It would take nine people getting plowed by a Volkswagen before I would ever hear of Critical Mass, the subversive worldwide bike network that organizes monthly rallies. But now I have, and I was surprised to learn that these were not “bikers,” but cyclists on bicycles. Their Wikipedia entry suggests that their intentions are more social than political, but even those participating in the monthly rides admit that the groups’ own social courtesies, such as sharing the road, become lost concepts.

Critical Mass has a different flavor from city to city — there’s a big variety in size, respect of traffic laws (or lack thereof), interaction with motorists, and intervention by police. So if you want to know more about Critical Mass, you’ll really need to find out what your local ride is like.

–Michael Bluejay/Critical-Mass.Info.

And if you give that site a gander, you can see that even the guy running it got tired of the tactics of some of their groups. The driver reportedly had his 15-year-old son in the car with him, and one would doubt that the father set out to teach his kid how to mow down a pack of Brazilian hippies. Richard Neis, 47, would abandon his vehicle before giving himself up to authorities.

But yeah, running over people is bad, but this is what cycling will have to do to get back into the news without Lance Armstrong. Am I right, America?

–via Deadspin.

While I don’t think I even need to remind you, the Track Cycling World Cup took place over the weekend at the Manchester Velodrome in England, as international teams competed in what was one of the first true tests for track cycling before the 2012 Summer Olympics. But the highlight of the event came during the Keirin Final – whatever that was – as four cyclists crashed on the final bend of the race. One of those cyclists, Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia, got back up and finished the race, earning a bronze medal. While it’s already an impressive enough feat to crash and recover to still win a medal, Awang’s finish had a bit more style. He had a 9-inch wooden splinter jammed through his leg.

And if that wasn’t cool enough, Awang’s bronze medal finish earned him the overall Track Cycling World Cup title. Early word is that he plans to compete in the London Olympics after sawing off his feet and lighting himself on fire. Meanwhile, I was raking the trap after a bunker shot on Saturday and I got a 2mm splinter in my hand. I still finished the back 9 without a problem, so I totally know how Azizulhasni feels. We’re the real heroes.

Video after the jump…

(Video via Buzzfeed)

That one bicycle race in France is happening right now. It’s the one where they literally tour the country, oh, what’s it called again? Anyway, our not-quite-fallen hero Lance Armstrong hasn’t been doing so hot. He’s not even the fastest rider on his team, and the one that is, Levi Leipheimer, is more than five minutes off the pace.

His entire team, in fact, is riding in a way that indicates they are primarily focused not on sheltering Leipheimer but on winning the team classification — a ranking based on the times of the first three riders of each team who finish each day. If RadioShack maintains its 4:10 gap over Caisse d’Epargne in this category, they will get to stand in front of the crowd during the awards ceremony in Paris and earn 50,000 euro. –MSNBC.

I really don’t know what any of that means, other than “no eighth Tour de France win for Lance Armstrong.” But if there’s a silver lining to mediocrity, it’s that people stop accusing you of cheating. Of course, there’s a better way–just don’t go to France. The French don’t really know what it means to work at anything. Just think of all the caffeine that they waste in a given day.

Alberto Contador won the Tour de France for the second time today, capping a dominating three-week performance.  His Astana teammate, some guy named Lance Armstrong, finished third.

Over nearly 3,500 kilometers and 21 stages of races over three weeks, Contador repelled many challenges in the mountains, excelled in the two time-trials — winning a pivotal race against the clock in the 18th stage — and won the first Alpine stage.

Contador, the 2007 champion, also had to battle a rearguard action [hee hee! - Ed.] within his Astana team, where the comeback of Armstrong to the Tour after 3 1/2 years of retirement raised questions about who would be the team leader. [source]

This concludes With Leather’s cycling coverage until next year, unless Armstrong bangs Megan Fox or someone tries to have sex with a bicycle.  Hey, don’t scoff.  It’s happened before.

Tragedy struck the Tour de France this morning when a woman was hIt and killed by a police motorcycle.

French police say she was struck Saturday while trying to cross the road in Alsace in eastern France during the 14th stage…. [T]he motorcycle driver was from a unit of the Republican Guard and could not avoid hitting the woman. The driver was helping supervise the race.

The driver fell off his bike, which then hit and injured two other people. Their lives are not in danger. One of the injured was a mother with a child in her arms, but the youngster was not hurt.

Yeesh.  A sad day for the Tour, and a bad way to start the sports weekend.  And it’s not helping that the banner image is riddled with factual errors.  For starters, there was no bicycle involved in the accident.  And the vehicle that struck the woman was a motorcycle, not a car.  And the driver of the motorcycle was a police officer, not a cat.  Although that last point can be kind of confusing, since the French are pussies.

Somebody sent this to me yesterday; I always thought riding a bike and going really fast was easy. And then I saw this guy just ride over the edge of a cliff, and I thought, “Wow, maybe this cycling thing is tougher than I would have expected.” I’m guessing he just saw a graham cracker on the edge of that barricade and wanted to make a play for it. It’s so much harder to squeeze the brakes on a bike when facing temptation from such delicious cinnamon-y treats.