Tour de France - Caution, spoilers!

[Owlman]

Surprised no one has started an official, unofficial TDF thread, so here goes. Check in carefully as the results will be posted. If you are like me, and watch it taped, not fun to see results posted before you've actually viewed.

Well, today did not disappoint. With 10K to go, Robbie McEwan was off the back, apparently from a crash or other mishap. His team sent back 3-4 riders to help him rejoin the peloton. With 2-3K to go, he was still not back on. At less than 1K he was not in sight. At 200-300 meters, his specter appeared hidden behind about 10-12 riders with Robbie Hunter launching the initial sprint. Robbie pops out and accelerates like a Banshee to take the win. The overhead shot was unreal. It looked closer from the front view. From above, he took it by more than one bike length. His acceleration was easily over 1MPh above the other sprinters. Boonen had no chance, even though his team and Lampre were the principal lead-out. Unreal sprint finish. That guy is phenomenal. 178 career wins . . . wow, that's more than 'Zilla!

[G$]

Surprised no one has started an official, unofficial TDF thread, so here goes. Check in carefully as the results will be posted. If you are like me, and watch it taped, not fun to see results posted before you've actually viewed.

Well, today did not disappoint. With 10K to go, Robbie McEwan was off the back, apparently from a crash or other mishap. His team sent back 3-4 riders to help him rejoin the peloton. With 2-3K to go, he was still not back on. At less than 1K he was not in sight. At 200-300 meters, his specter appeared hidden behind about 10-12 riders with Robbie Hunter launching the initial sprint. Robbie pops out and accelerates like a Banshee to take the win. The overhead shot was unreal. It looked closer from the front view. From above, he took it by more than one bike length. His acceleration was easily over 1MPh above the other sprinters. Boonen had no chance, even though his team and Lampre were the principal lead-out. Unreal sprint finish. That guy is phenomenal. 178 career wins . . . wow, that's more than 'Zilla!

Unreal show of force by his team (Predictor-Lotto) to get him back to the pack, then by Robbie to take the win out of nowhere. Absolutely amazing as you said! His acceleration is hands down the fastest there is........

Two exciting days in a row......I only hope that I can get this on the ship I will be on in the Baltic Sea. Oh, to be in Europe, so close to the Tour, but not to see it.......

Laterz,

[D_Rx]

Big deal. He hasn't won any (B)askin Tuesday night races at Lake Louisa. Just a wanna be until then.

[TimGalvin]

The overhead video of the finish shows what an amazing burst of energy McEwen put out there. He essentially had no lead-out and no one had any answer for him. He spanked the crap out of Boonen.

[Dan]

Heard McEwan describe the process in an interview last year as "he swims through the peloton from fast wheel to fast wheel". Amazing the way he came out of no where at the last minute.

[JD]

Injury Update: Caught in the peloton spill at 3K remaining in Monday's stage, George Hincapie sustained a slight right-knee contusion & will start Tuesday. Tomas Vaitkus suffered unstable fractures of the right thumb, which will require surgery including a plate. Vaitkus will undergo surgery this evening and will not start TDF Stage 3. All other DC riders OK. More news as available.

[TimGalvin]

Wow. That sucks about Vaitkus and George. That could really hurt Levi's chances. Plus, if he doesn't do well, that hurts their chances of getting new sponsors, I imagine.

I wonder if Boonen has it in him this year. He couldn't answer McEwen yesterday and today he couldn't get around his lead out.

Is my math off or is tomorrow 140+ miles? 236KM

[BEASTERLING]

MANNY,

Start a forum section under "Gerneral" so we can make daily stage postings and not clog up the Roadie Talk.

Bunnyman

[G$]

Wow. That sucks about Vaitkus and George. That could really hurt Levi's chances. Plus, if he doesn't do well, that hurts their chances of getting new sponsors, I imagine.

I wonder if Boonen has it in him this year. He couldn't answer McEwen yesterday and today he couldn't get around his lead out.

Is my math off or is tomorrow 140+ miles? 236KM

Does suck about Vaitkus. Did you see the slow mo replay? Look to the right of the screen. He gets his thumb/hand caught in the barrier & pivots 180 degrees as he's falling off the bike. Absolutely disgusting to watch. Ouch!

236 kilometers = 146.643601 miles

[REB]

What website are you using for the TDF?
Thanks

[Guest]

What website are you using for the TDF?
Thanks

http://www.letour.com

and remember to click on the english version..

[Manny]

http://www.letour.com

and remember to click on the english version..

Hmmm. Then why not just give him the direct link to the English website?

http://www.letour.com/2007/TDF/LIVE/us/200/index.html

=)

[Guest]

Hmmm. Then why not just give him the direct link to the English website?

http://www.letour.com/2007/TDF/LIVE/us/200/index.html

Because they asked for the website; not a link. Don't get me started Hand.

[TimGalvin]

We haven't heard many bets so far.

I'm thinking Kloden. Two podium finishes. Vinokourov is too much of a Lone Wolf (not that there's anything WRONG with that....). Don't know enough about Kashecken.

I think Levi just took a body blow.

[Manny]

MANNY,

Start a forum section under "Gerneral" so we can make daily stage postings and not clog up the Roadie Talk.

Bunnyman

Mike, in the past I did that, but I feel now we can just post any TdF stuff here on Roadie Talk. Just please be sure to mark any spoilers so people that are recording the race don't read the outcome if they don't want to.

[TimGalvin]

WOW!

While I didn't see this, it still even READS like a monumental achievement:

18:38 - Cancellara Wins The Day
What an amazing scene at the finish: the escapees were caught in the final 500m. Cancellara bolted to the lead and held off the sprinters to salute while wearing the yellow jersey!

18:36 - Cancellara Racing To The Lead
Cancellara is leading the pursuit of the four escapees and may take the stage win...!

18:36 - Four Together... Again!
Auge, Willems, Vogondy and Ladagnous are all together again. They are less than 1km from the finish of the stage and it seems that the peloton won’t be able to catch them... but it’s sure trying.

[Manny]

That had to hurt.......


http://youtube.com/watch?v=lmIJjR1kdYw

[Corbett]

DVR is a wonder of technology.... I saw this and had flashbacks from the State RR in Ocala. Yeah... it hurts!

[kduf70]

The 3rd stage was AMAZING. Two guys escape at 5K and stay away for 5+hours. Pace was slow, 20-21 mph, long ride and lots of guys hurt from yesterday so no hurry to catch the break. Two more jump off and join them and build a 3 minute lead with 30K to go. In the break is a guy who can take over the polka-dot jersey from David Miller so the peloton wants his team to make the pace and defend his jersey. They decline to do so and with 10K to go the break still has 1:20. The peloton is now at 30+ mph and the gap starts dropping as the teams of the sprinters make tempo. The heart rates of the guys on the front are in excess of 170bpm. The guys in the break are suffering like dogs at this point as they start to think they might pull it off. .... a Belgian and three French. The Belgian launches several attacks, but each time they drag him back. Even so, his efforts raise the pace enough to hold off the peloton and at 2K they still have 20 seconds. At 1K the road makes two sharp bends over cobblestones and the peloton stretches out making it difficult for the sprinter's teams to mass at the front and build lead-out trains. The break shoud have succeeded except the four of them sit up and start looking at each other to see who will lead out the sprint and in the background of the picture you can see the peloton racing onto the road behind them. At this point Phil Sherwin says, "They've started fooling around and this will cost them." It would. Suddenly the screen goes dark for a second as they switch cameras and when it comes back you see the Yellow Jersey explode out of the pack at 40 mph up the right side of the road with 700m to go. It doesn't suck to be the world time trial champion. The four guys in the break see him coming and try to accelerate to catch his wheel as he blows by them. No chance. At 200m Cancellara looks back sees all hell breaking loose as the sprinters launch out of the peloton. He comes out of the saddle in a full sprint for a few seconds and then falls back into his TT position driving for the line. Behind him spread across the road are Zabel, Boonen and McEwen. The camera angle is head on, but you can see the pursuit closing rapidly. At the last moment he looks back and throws his arms in the air as he realizes they won't catch him. 10 more meters and they would have. What an awesome thing to see the Yellow Jersey attack and ride the entire peloton off his wheel.

[TimGalvin]

Quote from Cancellara today:
"It was a really long day but because of the wind we couldn't go faster. We are not machines," said Cancellara, who was caught in a group crash Monday and slightly injured his left hand.

F in' liar. You are too a machine.

[Elvis]

Cool... we get to see an Astana Time trial today with 7 of 8 dropping back to bring Vinny back after a crash with about 20K to go.

guess it says who is this teams Boss.

[JD]

The Astana boys are hurtin' today.

[Manny]

Have you guys seen this yet?

It's the Tour de France Live Tracker 2007. It displays GPS-tracked riders on a Google Map with live-updating position, heartbeat, speed and altitude information. Cool stuff. Obviously, at the time of this posting the race is over so no information is being displayed. Wait till tomorrow. =)

[BB]

The Astana boys are hurtin' today.

With cuts on both knees and on his right buttock, Vinokourov tried to catch up to the main pack under an escort from six Astana teammates, but the peloton sped ahead to exploit his delay.

"I'm sorry, because when I knew that Vinokourov had fallen, I was tempted to ask my team to slow down and wait for him," Pozzato said. "Maybe there is less respect for the big riders than there once was.

"When I started in cycling there was a very clear hierarchy, and I was afraid to get too close to (Lance) Armstrong. ... I always stayed 3 meters back and never got too close. Maybe there's no more of that."

[e l v i s]

I heard at the start of this tour that this was the youngest (as in age of riders) in years.

Damn Youth...

[kduf70]

I agree with JD...."Astana boys are hurtin' today". But I thought their pursuit was so weird. Here's Vino (injured from a crash) 3 minutes off the back with 6 guys to pull him back to the peloton. I watched the coverage live and I could not understand their tactics. They showed his group quite a bit and they put one guy on the front who pulled hard til he cracked and then pulled off. Then there were 5. The next guy pulled til he cracked. Then there were 4. And so on til Vino dropped his last man as he went over the crest of the last hill by himself. On the 9K downhill to the finish he got a little help from Boonen, but he basically rode solo and pulled 25 guys across the line since no other team would help a guy who is a big GC threat. Here's my question: why didn't they ride a rotating paceline that would keep guys fresh and give him help all the way to the finish? Instead they blew up one rider after another till Vino was alone. I never saw a single Astana rider pull off and get back in the paceline to recover and pull again. Each man just pulled hard while everyone else sat in and when he blew up, he was gone. WTF? I'm certainly not a racer, but this tactic made no sense to me. Any comments from guys with racing experience? Seems to me he wasted his teammates and at the end he wasted himself.

[colinkingofkings]

They showed his group quite a bit and they put one guy on the front who pulled hard til he cracked and then pulled off. Then there were 5. The next guy pulled til he cracked. Then there were 4. And so on til Vino dropped his last man as he went over the crest of the last hill by himself. On the 9K downhill to the finish he got a little help from Boonen, but he basically rode solo and pulled 25 guys across the line since no other team would help a guy who is a big GC threat. Here's my question: why didn't they ride a rotating paceline that would keep guys fresh and give him help all the way to the finish? Instead they blew up one rider after another till Vino was alone. I never saw a single Astana rider pull off and get back in the paceline to recover and pull again. Each man just pulled hard while everyone else sat in and when he blew up, he was gone.

I totally watched the live coverage...and then I watched it about two more times( I don't have a job...). I saw, at least three times, astana riders pull off of the front and then get back in line right in front of Vino and then pull through again. I didn't really notice it until the third time, but I definitely saw them rotate at least a few times. I think that when the climb kicked up, his teammates were just too tired to do any more work for him. But they were rotating a bit in their mini team time trial....I just hope vino or kloden can recover from their crashes....two favorites on the same team on the same day crash? what are the chances of that? I guess all that we can say now is GO LEVI!!!!!!

[Owlman]

Vino is a stud! Sad to see such a tough, gifted competitor hampered so badly before the fun even starts. Today is his day of truth - first day in the Alps.

[Kate]

And now, in the I hate when that happens category...

A tough, tough day for T-Mobile - By Ben Delaney
Team loses two yellow jerseys, some teeth and three riders
Less than 24 hours after celebrating Linus Gerdemann's Tour de France stage win and capture of the yellow jersey, T-Mobile found itself down three riders, including team captain Michael Rogers, who crashed and dislocated his shoulder while riding as the virtual yellow jersey on a stage-8 descent. Mark Cavendish's abandonment had been planned for today to prevent exhausting the young sprinter in his first Tour. The likely abandonment of Patrik Sinkewitz, however, was anything but foreseen.

After the Tour's first summit finish atop the Cat. 1 climb in the resort town of Tignes, Sinkewitz was one of many riders who chose to descend directly back down to their nearby hotels after the finish instead of waiting for a ride in the team busses, which had to wait for the entire peloton to arrive before beginning the slow, single-file procession back down the mountain. On the high-speed descent, Sinkewitz collided with a spectator, knocking the man unconscious, while suffering facial injuries himself, reportedly including a broken nose and broken teeth. [More]

[Gisclair]

Spoilers! I'll bet anyone $50 the winner doesn't come out of the current first three placed riders. The real GC men are bidding time. Tues stage will be a monster and the picture will be more clear. The last 10K up the Galibier will show mass carnage! However, if you think that shows much, look out for the twin stages of TT followed by the Plateau D'Beille. This will see a true implosion, as this climb is brutal at the bottom such that you go red line and never recover, even though the climb softens at the top (much like Alp D'Huez). The next two stages up Loudonville and Col D'Aubisque will certainly finish the sorting out process, but I doubt anyone who has been charging in the past two days will have the ability to stay on in the forthcoming critical stages.

Aside from Vinos crash, his team still looks tired from the Dauphne. Remember, several members of the team were going for stage wins with Vino building good will. I think they may now be paying the price. I can't imagine anyone riding aggressively in the heat of Ventoux and being able to recover for the Tour.....only Lance and a few of the best ever could do that and barely. My nod right now for tactics and measuring effort for the three weeks goes to Schleck, Sastre, and Levi. Contador is great, but was a marker in that escape yesterday. He's an explosive climber and great to watch covering all those moves while trying not to assist Cadel. Can't tell if Vino is racing smart or is hurting, or both. As usual, he is the wild card, but I think his team is not good right now, so even if he recovers he'll have to win on a suicide ride. Only this time he won't be given the same freedom as in past tours because he is now a marked rider. Unless he's really blushing, I only give him 50/50 chance of podium. Winning will have to come from time trialing and one super day in the mountains.

This is a great tour with a tight field in the 3-5 minute mark off Rasmussen which will make for some serious fireworks on Tuesday!

Cheers!