The name says it all. The Yankee Stadium of cycling, the Orange Bowl of cycling, l’Alpe d’Huez. Franke Shleck takes it at the pinnacle.
Landis makes it back into yellow.
This is just the beginning of a good final week. Two more days in the Alps and a penultimate individual time trial will decide things. Who knows if Landis can keep it especially with the next two days in the mountains.
What a day of racing! An American sandwich of Landis and Leipheimer surrounding the eventual stage winner Menchov. He outsprints Leipheimer to get the stage win, but Landis gets the maillot jaune.
I mistakenly thought that yesterday the GC contenders let it slip away, but they waited until today to, once again, shake things up. It was 6 hours of hard racing, up 5 mountains, and finishing on an uphill climb. The main group destroyed by the hard charging of team T-Mobile, up the Col de Portillon, but they couldn’t maintain the pace which was picked up by Rabobank (I fly their team colors on my helmet!). Team Rabobank lead out the eventual winner of the day. And the race is once again on.
Unfortunately, it looks as if team Discovery Channel have come crashing back to earth. George Hincapie getting dropped early on the Portillon and finishing well back. Popovych finishes later as well. The team that was so good with Lance Armstrong as the leader has broken asundered and will now have to settle for stage wins. Armstrong was their motivator and without him they are struggling. They have regressed back to being spectators in this race. Perhaps, a stage win later, but they are not the monster team like years past.
It always amazes me that men on bikes can average 19mph up mountain passes. I can’t even maintain that for 10 miles on flat land with a tail wind. These dudes are amazing.
That’s it for the Pyranees. Some flatter stages ahead and next week, the Alps. It has been a surprising Tour.
Stage 10 was the first mountain stage of this year’s Tour. And what a Tour it has become.
There are no clear favorites, yet, and today’s stage produced a long breakaway with the finishers climbing right up the podium and into contention for the maillot jaune.
I think the main contenders (Landis, Hincapie, Kloden) let today’s break gain too much time. They are minutes off the lead. It may be too much to regain that and today we may have seen the winner of the Tour.
Tomorrow more climbing!
Tomorrow’s stage is the first individual time trial of the Tour. It is expected that the main contenders for the Maillot Jaune are to make their moves. They’ll try to gain as much time tomorrow and then hold off and onto that time during next week’s mountain stages in the Pyrannees and the Alps. Good luck to them.
Yet, it has been interesting so far. The most surprising is the fact that a world chanpion, Tom Boonen, is in yellow. This hasn’t been done since Greg Lemond did it a long time ago. Booned is a sprinter. He’s in yellow. He has not won a stage yet. Today should’ve been it, but he lost again to the mad Austrailian sprinter, Robbie McEwan. McEwan leads in the green jersey race on points. He’s already won a stage at this year’s tour in a big bunch sprint. He looks and moves phenomally fast. Sprinters are the scariest mothers in the peleton. No fear just go fast. Anyway, Boonen missed being a yellow jersey stage winner, and tomorrow he may just lose the yellow. He’ll just have to settle for working to get the green off of McEwan.
The rest of the tour is going as planned. The days are flat, there’s a breakaway, it’s chased down and then the sprint to the finish. Except for stage 3, Esch-sur-Alzette to Valkenburg. This “flat” stage had a cat 3 hill at the end of 200 km of riding. The Caulberg is only 800 meters, but has a 7% grade. Steep. And it probably hurt the sprinters, because a surprise winner of the stage was Matthias Kessler.
It’s been amazing so far. A tour without Lance. It’s been interesting and hopefully the next two weeks will be awesome.
Not much to say about the first stage of this year’s tour. George Hincapie, an American, from Team Discovery Channel, a team mate of Lance’s during his 7 year reign is in yellow at the end of the day. I liked how Phil Liggett put it as Hincapie gains a few seconds in an intermediate sprint to claim the maillot jaune, “Cheeky.”
Anyway, the big news is that yestarday’s proluge winner who started out in yellow goes down with a bad laceration after the bunch sprint. It looked nasty on tape as there was a lot of bleeding for Thor Hushovd. I hope he’s okay and can continue with the race tomorrow and contend in the next three weeks.
Here’s some links to some blog commentary for those who need it:
Velo Gal’s blog
Caroline Yang Photography
Oh and if you can find it, pictures of the podium girls are well worth it. They are some hot french babes. My favorites are the girls that present the stage winners, because they wear white tops, navy skirts and nice heels. MMMM. Podium girls, I salivate over.
It’s the Friday before the Tour de France prologue and news is not good. The top two contenders, Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso have been suspended from their teams for being included in the Spanish doping scandal. This is unfortunate and makes this year’s Tour even more uncertain. Jan is old in cycling years and this would’ve been his best chance to win a second yellow jersey since before the Armstrong era. Basso would’ve been trying for a Giro-Tour double which hasn’t been done in awhile. This is unfortunate news and is a dark mark on the sport of
cycling.
Short title, becuase I am sick and tired at how the recent links look. All cluttered and all.
It’s been slow trying to slog through my Quixotic Quest, but I did read 23 Days in July: Inside Lance Armstrong’s Battle to Win a Record Sixth Tour de France. Good read. I could not put it down, and afterwards I wanted to ride. Yet, I am so lazy that I didn’t. There are no excuses, but I seem to find one any way.
I liked the book. I love the Tour de France. Even if Lance Armstrong wasn’t in it, I would still watch. I was a fan of bicycle racing since I was a little kid. And I have watched the Tour on TV even before there was a Lance Armstrong to root for. Actually, my favorite is Jan Ullrich. Always the perennial bridesmaid.
Anyway the book was pleasant. It gave me more insight into the team strategies involved in racing. I was only disappointed in the fact that the author did not focus on the French rider, Thomas Voekler, much. For me, he embodied the spirit of the 2004 Tour when he defended his yellow jersey in the 15th stage finishing at the top of the Plateau de Beille. He rode the race of his life and just maintained his lead over the unstoppable Lance Armstrong at 0:22 seconds. Incredible! What gusto! He would lose the yellow jersey the next day, but it was amazing.
B+.
Sometimes it is hard to keep a blog. The dog days of summer seem to be best to keep me from posting an entry here at browsermetrics. Anyway, I want to keep the channel up and have a few posts before the end of August so that this month in the archive won’t look so bare.
Some time soon (or as quick as I can get my lazy ass to do) I will post my 2005 vaction journal. I liked the way I did the first one and it was a nice way to keep this blog interesting.
I would also like to tell you about my starting to excercise again. I am going to the gym so that when I ride my road bike, I can climb the small hills we have here. I need to be able to power through and climb a 4% grade for at least a mile. Or maybe go to a more modern triple chainring and 10 gear combo. At least then I can spin over the hills. I think I will go to the gym to build some strength in these legs first before forking money for a new road bike.
I haven’t watched a movie lately. They all seem to truly suck right now. Hollywood’s box office receipts are in a slump this summer. The quality of blockbusters they are pumping out contribute the slack numbers.
I am attempting, again, to read Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell. I have gotten through the first three chapters, again. And again I haven’t picked up the book in 12 days. I did finish Inside the Postal Bus. That was good. Not great. The writer, Micheal Barry, is a professional cyclist from Canada riding on the US Postal, now Team Discovery Channel, as a teammate of Lance Armstrong. While it was a fascinating look at inside the great team, he did not ride in any of Le Tour with Lance. It was disappointing when he talked about watching his teammates on TV. He did go throught the Vuelta a Espana. B-
It’s July! Happy Tour de France month! Lance Armstrong looks to win it a seventh time. I think that it is a sucker’s bet to bet against the best tour rider this century. Allez, Lance!
Only thing though, I can’t find an audio feed so that I can listen in at work. Do you know where I can find a link?
It is July and once again it is time for the sporting spectacle known as Le Tour de France. I like reading this blog for tour updates. They are getting better and better each year.
My prediction is Lance again. Of course that is the safe bet, but after the first stage today. It seems more likely to come true than not.
