It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times for international cycling as Tour de France sets the stage for the 94^th edition of the world’s most grueling race.

In the run-up to the 2007 Tour de France, a Spanish investigation called Operation Puerto uncovered a cache of 223 blood bags from over 100 top riders, in addition to the coded notes tracking their “treatments.” The US Anti-Doping Agency, meanwhile, is set to decide next month on whether or not to strip Floyd Landis of the 2006 Tour crown. And 1996 Tour winner Bjarne Riis admitting that he had used banned drugs while competing in the ’90s.

Joining Landis under the shadow of the doping scandal are the Tour’s top echelon riders: Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso, and Jan Ullrich. Except for Basso, all of them have been cleared by their respective teams to race. With the Tour’s house clearing on one side and the top pro riders on the other, this year’s Tour de France gets set to climb and sprint harder than it ever did if only to bring back the integrity of the sport.

But I, for one, intend to follow the races all the same, although only in the newspapers I must add. There’s something about the Tour that one doesn’t get to see every day. That time in 1995, say, when Miguel Indurain became the first cyclist to win the Tour five consecutive times, and still said in an interview that he had “never felt superior to any one.” Or that time in 2005 when Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour and replaced Indurain in the all-time best list. They were triumphs of the human spirit. In the same league as that of Armstrong’s victory over cancer.

Probably the London-to-Paris route of the 94^th Tour de France is a very appropriate fortuity. This year’s Tour de France is going to tell the tale of the two Tours: the one peopled by athletes of the Indurain line, and the other Tour that has become ridden by scandal.