Tour De France Chatter
guv001
Posts: 227
in General Chat
What a good opening TT, if the suspence at the end of the prologue is anything to go by its going to be a good year. Excellent coverage on ITV3, with highlights tonight on ITV4.
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Just reading about a stage which had a climb of 5k at 7%, 1k flatish, then 5k at an ave of 13%. can you imagine 5k of that hill after Morebath on the 70.3?????
My outside bet is for Jose Azevedo to eclipse Hincape when it all gets a bit lumpy
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=lance+armstrong+2005+stage+1&search_type=search_videos&search=Search
gets me well in the mood to give the bike a damned hard thrashing
mad [:D]
Haven't heard much about Floyd Landis, and David Millar seems to have gone a bit quiet too.
Shame about Valverde, though. And cycling those distances in the heat must be a real killer.
Is anybody else irratated by McEwan??
Although I do remember he had a go at O'Grady last year without too much reason!
Nice to see my Azevedo prophecy coming up trumps eh? Good job I don't bet!
What about Knees? What was he playing at yesterday? Those three could have taken a win if he hadn't p!ssed around.
Bring on the Pyrenees!
Completely missed the ITV show last night & will tonight & tomorrow due to training, but fortunately I have TV on my mobile which carries Eurosport - Wont be doing too much this afternoon again then!!
Don't understand what happened with the breakaway yesterday, very strange. but trying to understand a pro bike riders brain.......hmmmm
have the live running at work and can tell anyone who cares that they are about a 1/3 the way up the hors cat climb after 90km...
Just watching it now, worked like a dog to clear the backlog of quotes on my desk a.m. Now I'm on the beach!!
I've got mobile TV with vodafone, costs £10 a month & gives Eurosport, ch4, sky one, news & sky sports news amongst others. very useful for whiling away traffic jams in the mornings!
Added bonus, I get all the England cricket matches too :-)
9.99 for 19 channels and nowt worth watching - i'll hold off signing up for a while...
How about that descent through the clouds at 50km/h - awesome, these hills are making me feel bad about my near 4hr bike at 70.3!
Caught this thread and thought i would give the tour a watch. Only trouble is i haven't got the foggiest what is going on - can someone enlighten me. and are these guys really doing those distances up mountains!? are they racing as a team etc.
Cheers
Ian
Anyone doing the esfrs sprint in brighton 23rd?
Another quick - one does anyone know of any open water swimming in the sussex area? if not any websites to have a look possibly book on - looking at next years races really but info would be good.
Regards
The ITV shows will explain this better than i, but here goes.
The Teams are made up of different types of riders, including sprinters, climbers, time trial specialists, domestiques & the team leader, some teams will have all but most have a selection.
Throughout the tour the team will try to look after it's leader by covering breakaways hiding him in the pack for an easier ride on the flatter sections & fetching & carrying drink etc, you'll see that if a team leader gets a punture he will often jump on a team mates bike & leave the domestique to wait for the team car & assistance.
Curiously, since the retirement of Armstrong (discovery) and the suspension of Ullrich (t-mobile) these two teams seem to have potentially 2 or 3 leaders and are riding as units, although I think that by the time the Alps are over it will all be a lot clearer.
Throughout ther tour there are various competitions taking place, some of which suit different types of riders.
Yellow jersey, worn by the race leader & ultimatley the overall winner (The gut whos aggregate time is lower than everybody else)
Green Jersey - Points competition, this is the sprinters domain, during each stage there are intermediate sprints where points can be gained & also at each stage end
Polka dot - King of the mountains, there are ponts available at the summit of each climb during the tour
White Jersey - Highest place young rider, I'm not sure what the ager limit is for this, hopefully somebody can confirm.
For 180 guys on bikes it is incredibly tactical with teams / riders not wanting to show their hands too early, Armstrong was a master of this, not taking the Yellow jersey until almost 1/2 way through and knowing at tis point he wasn't going to be caught.
Anyway, happy viewing. It's addictive
many thanks for that - how tactical is all that! I bet the sprinters love those climbs. So in theory the 'leader' of the team is the best rider? and if the team do their job well he should win or be in there.
I saw the time trialling that looked amazing - shame about the crappy bikes they are all on!
Thanks again i will look forward to it tomorrow.
Have a look further up this thread, Madnurse put a link on to last years Individual time trial & it shows Armstrong at his best, absolutley awesome footage.
Maybe see you there
David
Is Kloden emerging as the tour favourite, especially as the lead group dropped my man Azevedo?
There's some stunning climbing going on today!
It's the mountain top finish at Alp d'huez, you'll see some of the worlds finest athletes taking it beyond the max.
What is going on? This is the most open Tour I can remember. Is Kloden going to try & win it on just 1 mountain stage & a time trial? Although I though T-Mob tripped themselves up a little yesterday when they chased down that breakaway on the final climb which included Rogers!
Saturdays TT should be an absolute nail-biter