OFFICIAL Tour de France thread - Page 2 - JP Fitness Forums

Pman · 07-12-2007, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emartin10

I love when they start climbing. Separates the men from the boys!

It sure does. Can't wait for the mountain stages!

Mark57 · 07-13-2007, 09:11 AM

from Velonews this morning:

Quote:

3:51 PM
Erik Zabel is happy to be back in the green jersey. The last time he won it was in 2001, the last of his six consecutive points jerseys. The last time he wore a green jersey was in 2002. He told Eurosport: know that I'm not the fastest anymore but I'm still there and I have a lot of fun in the peloton so that the most important thing for me. "

I knew Zabel was getting pretty old, but holy cow. I had no idea he was that old. Pretty impressive that he's still up there contesting every sprint finish.

Kaiser · 07-13-2007, 11:46 AM

What a free for all today! I thought Boonen was going to take out Freire the way he was all over the road!

Tomorrow - mountains!

Mark57 · 07-13-2007, 01:10 PM

Versus cut off their feed today with about an hour or so left. I followed on Velonews but it's not quite the same.

I'll watch it tonight, but I'd much rather listen to Phil and Paul than Al and Bob. Definitely going to watch the live coverage tomorrow morning, though.

Might have to stay home Tuesday, though. That one's going to be the real killer.

kuri · 07-13-2007, 08:17 PM

Weird, I saw the live feed this morning until the end.

That was some chaotic sprint but nothing comes close to the drama when they hit the climbs. Nothing better.

Kaiser · 07-13-2007, 08:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kuri

Weird, I saw the live feed this morning until the end.

That was some chaotic sprint but nothing comes close to the drama when they hit the climbs. Nothing better.

I also saw the live feed at the end.

Mark57 · 07-13-2007, 09:14 PM

Live on TV? I'm talking about the live stream. I can't find the link right now, Versus made cyclingfans take it down but I was able to find it on another site. Mine cut off and I wasn't able to connect to the server again, maybe it was just busy. But if you read the updates on cyclingfans.com, it sounds like both Versus and ASO are just assholes.

Kaiser · 07-13-2007, 09:25 PM

Oh.... no I was talking about the TV feed. I make it a point to try to work at home these 2 weeks and sneak out of the home office to watch the end of each stage (or the beginning and the middle during crucial mtn stages.

)

Kaiser · 07-13-2007, 11:03 PM

I've been getting Chris Carmichael's CTS stage updates daily, and his insight is really interesting. Here is something from today's stage, about letting a breakaway get away and for how long:

Quote:

Playing With Your Prey
By Chris Carmichael

If you've ever seen a cat bat around a mouse for a while before finally killing it, then you have some idea of what the peloton did to Bradley Wiggins today. The Cofidis rider did a wonderful job of staying out on a solo breakaway for almost 200 kilometers, but for the last hour before he was caught it wasn't so much his extreme power than kept him away from the pack, but their desire to leave him out there.

Why does the peloton toy with the breakaway? Because it can, and because having a rider or a small group out front can make everyone's life easier in the peloton. It's a symbiotic relationship. When a breakaway is up the road, especially during the early and middle portions of the stage, there's no reason for anyone else to attack from the peloton. That means the riders in the pack benefit from a steadier pace and fewer hard, energy-depleting accelerations. In return, the breakaway gets a lot of television coverage for sponsors, and of course the chance to win a stage.

Even late in the stage, when the peloton is closing the gap to the breakaway to setup up a sprint finish, it's good to have a group or rider off the front. If you catch the breakaway too early, other teams launch counterattacks immediately. Now, instead of having a tired Bradley Wiggins out in front of you, there might be a group of four or five riders with fresher legs instead. Since that's a whole lot harder to chase down, you're better off slowing the peloton and leaving Wiggins out there to wilt on the vine.

A solo breakaway is the easiest to toy with, as well. With no one to share the work with for nearly 200 kilometers, there's no way that a lone rider can raise the pace in the final hour of racing to resist the peloton's advance. A day-long breakaway of 4-5 riders has a better chance of being able to dig really deep and make the chase difficult, and there's even a chance that someone in the break held back on their pulls and could actually have the power to go solo for the final 10 kilometers.

With the heat, nearly a week of racing in their legs, the Alps looming on the horizon, and a lot of bruised and battered riders, the peloton was looking to take it easy today and the solo breakaway fit the bill perfectly. With about an hour of racing to go, the peloton took about two minutes out of Wiggins' lead in a very short distance, and then backed off and let the gap stabilize again. That told them they could wipe out the remaining gap with only a short period of hard riding, but they wanted to wait until much closer to the finish line. They continued toying with him when he was only 30 seconds behind him - they just hovered there because they knew that once he was caught, the sprinters' teams would have to increase the pace to keep other riders from attacking.
from http://www.trainright.com/articles.asp?uid=2560

Kaiser · 07-13-2007, 11:14 PM

Oh, too cool! You can watch live power, cadence, speed, and HR measurements from some of the riders right here.

Gotta take my laptop to watch some of the stages now!

Mark57 · 07-14-2007, 10:00 AM

Haha, the view from the top of that last pass made me dizzy.

Kaiser · 07-14-2007, 02:57 PM

Yeah! Did you see the drop off? You couldn't see the road going down! It just disappeared below the peak. HOLY -----!!

Mark57 · 07-14-2007, 07:14 PM

Can't get this to embed, but go to this link and click on the "Gerdemann Reaches Top" video, watch right until the end (it's only 2.5 min) and you'll see the dizzying view that K and I were talking about. It still gives me butterflies when I watch it now.

http://www.versus.com/tdf/article/ca...=true&ss=video

Pman · 07-14-2007, 07:41 PM

Nice to see the first mountain stage. Tomorrow things will get much more interesting. All of the GC contenders pretty much stayed together. Must have been one of those gentleman agreements where they allow each other to get used to the climbs. Tomorrow I expect all of the teams will try to start burying Vino if it is possible. I was quite surprised to see Vino hang as well as he did today.

Mark57 · 07-15-2007, 09:53 AM

Today is what you would call an "interesting stage" I guess. Glad today is Sunday, but I'm thinking more and more that I'm not going to be feeling well enough to be at work on time Tuesday. I should be feeling better by around 10:30 or so.

Kaiser · 07-15-2007, 12:21 PM

LOL Mark - that bug is going around our cycling community too!

Is it me, or does Rasmussen look emaciated to anyone else? Damned if he didn't kick everybody's behinds in the Alps today though.

Mark57 · 07-15-2007, 01:25 PM

They don't call him "The Chicken" for no reason.

I'm really confused about Astana's move today with Kloden and Vinokourov. Kloden is a lot stronger and better positioned in the GC, yet they made him come back and pull Vino on the last climb.

kuri · 07-15-2007, 05:45 PM

I thought it was "chicken legs" but either way I couldn't help thinking someone should hand him one of those Subways with the extra meat (of course while biking home from an oceanside ride today we stopped for a boutique burger and microbrew. hmmm.....).

I guess Astana's director may think that Vino will get stronger as the race goes, and it wouldn't hurt to have a duel threat up there in the GC.

I love stages like today where everyone is attacking all over the road.