The Schleck Luxembourg Hoax. Riis punked.

Mystery solved.

At last, the intriguing Luxemburger mystery — maybe Team Leopard, maybe Mercedes Trek, maybe Andy & Frank’s Great Cycling Adventure — has been laid to rest.

Now we know why there were never any concrete sponsor details, a name, a budget number, a jersey, logo, custom team bus, signature socks and booties.

It was all a mind-blowing hoax, a massive practical joke on irritating, control freak boss Bjarne Riis. Now the joke is over and everyone is coming back to Saxo Bank with the Danish Riis sufficiently humbled and chastised.

You see, things went South up North in Denmark between the brothers Schleck and Riis. Who knows what really happened but it happened like a weird Henrik Ibsen play. So the two boys decided to play a nasty trick on Riis as payback.

They convinced practically the whole team to play along: Cancellara, O’Grady, Fulsang and company. Even nice guy Jens Voigt agreed to do his theater scene. Pretend they were leaving, starting a whole new team, show Riis he was out of line, a pain in the ass, a bald headed kill joy.

{For the rest of the story, please jump to the Versus Cycling website. Thanks, TS pals.}