Tour de France '08

[sput·nik]

today's real effort is just beginning..

20km of climbing on the final alp before a quick blast down to the finish, pace just beginning to lift..



the question is who has CSC selected for a leader?

[sput·nik]

headwind sort of ruined the day yesterday,

but i had fun watching today. i don't think CSC really could have done any better in the Alps, and Sastre is a well-deserving man for victory on a stage like this. he did just enough that it will be essential to keep a close eye on Saturday, and surely he'll enjoy the yellow jersey in the meantime.

Andy Schleck is no doubt a huge man of the future.. he could have won the stage easily today and probably a few others this tour, if he hadn't been so useful to his team in playing the rabbit. i believe if CSC had made him the leader after his very reasonable early TT performance, he'd be winning by several minutes at this point.

ultimately i can't get very excited watching Cadel day to day, i just find myself a little disappointed that he was rarely forced to do any pacemaking in the mountain stages. even though Poppo failed him, there've been lots of wheels to follow this year.. so his little rants after the stages about "3against1" have been rather tiresome.
but i have to admit he is extremely tough & always rides smart. all summer, he was pinned the man to beat, and now he has ridden exactly the way he needed to.. so it may have been less than a dominating performance, but will be a massive praiseworthy victory nonetheless, if he secures it as he should.

it will be great that this comes down to small time gaps, but i do hope the GC contention is a bit stiffer next year. hopefully Cadel will face more widespread (and more diverse) competition, and be forced to go on the offensive in order to repeat. seems this year he had a few climbers to worry about, but with manageable losses and assured TT gains it still has mostly felt like a sure thing. thanks to Saunier for some videogame-like entertainment the first week and CSC since, it has still been a really interesting tour overall, in places a stronger team dynamic than ever.

cadel & carlos are both amazingly consistent veterans.. victory for either will be a good moment for the tour.. perhaps a sort of final celebration of the oldguard before the new generation starts to cement the beginnings of the next era.

[Štulic]

I watched this one, sadly I fell asleep and missed the final climb but still it was nice to watch. Beautiful scenery...
What happened to Schumacher and the other guy who broke away early in the race?
I thought he seemed pretty strong at times but I guess he broke down later, missed that part.

[Cerebro]

Seeing Cadel pull back breaks by such primo climbers after the likes of Menchov have fallen away is heroic enough for this patriot.

[Cerebro]

what do you reckon sput?

[sput·nik]

Cadel has got to feel good about the day.
long course will require just ~2seconds per kilometer, which is next to nothing. some slight rises and a bit curvy to break up the tempo, but hardly enough to really take him out of his element. regarding the personal fatigue factor.. he's never shown weakness in the last TT of previous tours.. no doubt one of the smartest riders in the peloton, always comes up consistent with smart energy conservation.


Sastre would need a massively inspired ride, but then you don't get much more motivation than riding in the Maillot Jaune a day from Paris I suppose


but ultimately, Cadel must do it.. he has ridden essentially a perfect tour, given all the circumstances.. I can't see him coming up short now. If he can pull out a great effort and come in under Cancellara's time it'd be just that much cooler, but it looks like the big guy did a pretty good ride today.

I'm hoping VandeVelde is able to rock the podium as well.. should be a lot of mixing up in the top 6 today.


the boys are all getting underway now .. just another hour or so and we'll have truth.

[sput·nik]

schumacher delivers the goods once again,,

almost unbelievable, but maybe it's just another sign things are different this year.

[Cerebro]

this is the most exciting tt i've ever watched

[Cerebro]

Past the second time check.
Cadel doesnt look like he has enough, he'll need a superhuman finish to win from here.

[Štulic]

I don't get it why the "winner takes it all" today, why is not possible to break away tomorrow and grab yellow on the last stage?

[Cerebro]

Traditionally, the yellow jersey only gets attacked if there are a few seconds lead only.
2nd two years in a row.
/sadface.

[sput·nik]

i'm really happy that Sastre was able to come through with it.. i feel like his performance on the Alpe was the dominant (clean) ride of the Tour and so it seems fitting that he will go home the winner.


many fans may have been fooled by Sastre playing the darkhorse, but Evans never was. he still mentioned Carlos & Menchov as the clear threats after Schleck pulled within :01 at Hautacam.. he knew what he'd be facing all along and did everything in his power to stick the right wheels. but the attack at the foot of the Alpe was followed with perfect teamwork.. the Schleck brothers rubberbanding the pace by marking & initiating attacks, averaging out slower than Sastre all the while. the days in the Alps were clear demonstrations of how a strong team can control the race, very reminiscent of the dominant Disco years.

why is not possible to break away tomorrow?

even if you set the traditions of the ride into Paris aside, it is nearly impossible for a GC contender to escape and gain time on a flat stage... this is where teammates really come into play.

You could ask, for a better example, why CSC would not have attacked Evans yesterday on stage 19 to bolster Carlos's lead.. given that Cadel was (at that time) everyones surebet to take back 2'00" or so in the TT today.

well..
Carlos could absolutely not ride off the front of the pack by himself and sustain a higher speed. Evans' entire team would come to the front and rotate pulls until they yanked him back.

A person may want to argue that CSC could take Cancellara and Arvesen and O'Grady and try to breakaway towing Carlos away like a chariot, but the fact is that Evans would be free to tag right along on Carlos's wheel... assuming he is not completely blown out (like he might be at the end of a mountain stage) there would be nothing stopping him from riding along with Carlos all day.

When riders take time on flat stages, it is only because the pack allows them to.. you might see breakaways that succeed even after the pack decides to chase, but this would just be the result of lax efforts coupled with things like cross/headwinds which can sometimes fool with paceline pursuits.
(a terrible example of this sort of thing biting everyone in the ass is Oscar Pereiro gaining 20+ minutes on an insignificant rolling stage in the 2006 Tour to take the yellow.. going on to survive the remaining tough stages to battle it out with Landis, and the rest is history.)
that is not to say an amount like 03" would be insurmountable by someone who is a very powerful flat rider (not many GCs are specialists like this though) by making a smart attack in the last kilometer. Museeuw did it one year.. Vino & Cancellara both tried and almost succeeded. not many could though


it hasn't always been this way.. but mountain stages and time trials decide the tour, that's pretty much just a given in the last 30 years or so.

[Štulic]

Well thanks I got it now, I got pretty surprised by the commentators already proclaiming Sastre as the winner of the tour when there's one more stage left to ride.
God forbid he could get himself into an accident and fall and who knows what not tomorrow, but maybe I'm just used to other sports too much where commentators wont dare to proclaim the winner until the very last second of the game.

[Cerebro]

you're old school like dat.

I'm happy enough, I wish I could leave unspoken doping allegations at the door.
I look forward to being surprised to hear that a GC rider is doping, not accusing Sastre, I just hope he's clean.
CSC won this years TdF, Sastre was just lucky to be team leader. He seems like a nice guy. But Cadel must be hating Spaniards about now.
Sorry for this non intelligible post, quite stoned.

[sput·nik]

rumour is that Cadel may have had some talks with Katyusha (Tinkoff) about next year. they've got plenty of oilmoney to buy out his contract if they want him bad enough, i would suppose.

regards the potential for doping, there will always be skepticism, healthy or otherwise. anyone who has watched the sport for some years has obviously seen enough to make even the most faithful into potential doubters.. what can anything (aside from a whole lot of time) really do to change it?

well,, CSC is under the (supposedly 100% independent) watch of Rasmus Damsgaard, but then so is Astana who everyone loves to doubt. Some folks will always distrust Bruyneel & Riis, and/or anyone associated with them.
interestingly enough, Astana just sacked Vladimir Gusev this week for abnormal blood values.. (ex-Disco guy, wonder what kind of NDA he had to sign )

in reality, almost every rider from the podiums of the last 10 years (including Evans) has had some form of longterm contact with Rominger, Ferrari, Cecchini, and/or Fuentes.

anymorez, i can't much help but prefer to just keep a mostly blind eye to it.. the way it has consumed any&all talk of the sport has finally begun to bore me. this was the first year i really started reading cycling-specific forums, and as you can guess most of them are about as worthwhile reads as debate here in the A&P forums. without fail, there is a Pharmstrong thread that stretches for miles started every other day.


ahh well.. it's finally over. i hardly ever even watch the paris stage.
thanks for the thread mate.. it's been fun.

[Cerebro]

Yeah, cheers mate.
Same time next year.
Ricco was the only big shock, that's heaps better than last year.
I wont need too much time to get over the doping era, the sport is so beautiful I'm happy enough to be ignorant.

[v3d4]

thats one crazy sport.

so my brother with rides a bike and is the one that introduced me to the tour

when he was on his way home from work me and some girls took chalk and wrote his name all over the street

[Cerebro]

That's awesome.
Did he feel special?

[sput·nik]

hahah definitely something i will do for the boys someday.


i'm always bummed that theres no coverage of the Giro, cause i hear there are 5x as many fans and they're 10x as crazy.


hope you watched your guy on the Alpe, V.. he seemed to be quite enjoying himself , might even say he seemed to be teaming up with the smirking schleck bros to work for his fellow countryman.
you should see if your brotha can introduce you to the spring classics.. Valverde always really shines early on in the season.