Cycling: Grand Tours, Classics, UCI ProTour, etc

[Tale]

Anyone else enjoy watching pro cycling? It's a good season with lots of strong contenders for the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong's comeback, interesting team politics, and the increasing use of Twitter to link riders and fans.

Yes there is the drug issue, but this many riders being caught means they're at least trying to police it. I'd rather not spend a thread discussing whether "they're all on drugs", just hope that some aren't and cheer for them.

Riders I follow on Twitter:
George Hincapie http://twitter.com/ghincapie
Lance Armstrong http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong
Michael Rogers http://twitter.com/mickrogers
Cadel Evans http://twitter.com/CadelOfficial
Robbie McEwen http://twitter.com/mcewenrobbie
Allan Davis http://twitter.com/allandavis27
Also the Astana coach Johan Bruyneel: http://twitter.com/johanbruyneel

I'm currently following the Giro d'Italia. Got daily highlights on free-to-air TV in Australia. And I had an awesome time at the Tour Down Under in January - the atmosphere was up there with the Sydney Olympics among the sporting events I've attended.

[Tale]

So, the Tour de France website has launched, with the Tour de France course revealed.

http://www.letour.fr/us/homepage_horscourseTDF.html

Key point is the second-last stage (before the largely ceremonial stage to Paris) is Mont Ventoux. They've never had a mountain stage at the end for over 100 years.

[lac]

I like the Mont Ventoux change, it could make for an upset and is a nice change from final against the clock stage that has had such a decisive role in the last decades.

Yesterday Paris-Roubaix winner and former green jersey and champs Elysees stage winner Tom Boonen was officially denied starting rights by organiser ASO after cocaine traces were found in his hair for the third time. Last year he was barred from competing for the exact same reason (after being caught the first time). He can still appeal the decision with the French Olympic committee. While his cocaine using was purely recreational and didn't enhance his performance, the ASO and the UCI feel he damaged the reputation of the sport hence can be punished.

I would have loved to see him compete against Marc Cavendish in the Tour, I hope he gets in one way or another. There is a chance his team manager will start a civic case because of the monetary loss based on the fact he never was caught with performance enhancing drugs only recreational ones (which aren't on the illegal substances list of the UCI).

[Trippy]

Key point is the second-last stage (before the largely ceremonial stage to Paris) is Mont Ventoux. They've never had a mountain stage at the end for over 100 years.

On the face of it I don't like the change. Without having studied the rest of the course it seems like they've shifted things to favoring the mountain climbing teams now and you lose the individual one-on-one drama of the final TT stage. If this was the setup during the Miguel Indurain years I doubt he would've had so many victories as his winning strategy was to hang on as best he could during the mountain finishes and then blow everybody way during the TTs. I don't think it would've made much difference during the Lance years Part Deux (post-Cancer, pre-retirement) since Lance could do both back then and for most of those years he had the strongest team for protecting him on the mountain stages.

[lac]

They kept the final 40km individual time trial, its now two days earlier in the final week compared to previous years.

The final week now consists of a resting day, two days of mountains, the individual time trial on thursday, a plains stage on friday and then the mont Ventoux on saturday as the last real stage before they do the show rounds on the Champs Elysees.

I'm hoping the final mountain stage will encourage an attacking attitude as its the last shot for glory because in the last years we've seen a lot of potential interesting mountain stages end with the almost complete group of favorites climbing together and playing it safe.

[Trippy]

They kept the final 40km individual time trial, its now two days earlier in the final week compared to previous years.

The final week now consists of a resting day, two days of mountains, the individual time trial on thursday, a plains stage on friday and then the mont Ventoux on saturday as the last real stage before they do the show rounds on the Champs Elysees.

I'm hoping the final mountain stage will encourage an attacking attitude as its the last shot for glory because in the last years we've seen a lot of potential interesting mountain stages end with the almost complete group of favorites climbing together and playing it safe.

It's going to be hard, though, for individual climbers to break away during the penultimate stage. The strongest teams with the contending riders are going to stack their teams with "super domestique" mountain climbers like Lance's old US Postal and Discovery teams and they'll do the work of chasing down any break away attempts. Any weaker team with a rider in contention is not going to have the man power to get their person in front far enough to make up any time deficit.

The nice thing about having the individual TT being that last important stage is that the teams no longer matter, it's just rider vs. rider against the clock.

[lac]

It's going to be hard, though, for individual climbers to break away during the penultimate stage. The strongest teams with the contending riders are going to stack their teams with "super domestique" mountain climbers like Lance's old US Postal and Discovery teams and they'll do the work of chasing down any break away attempts. Any weaker team with a rider in contention is not going to have the man power to get their person in front far enough to make up any time deficit.

We'll have to see of course, but I'd very much doubt we'll see much helpers in the final km's. It's at least a one hour climb averaging over 7% after a stage of almost 200km on the second to last day of a 3 week Tour.

I did a small check and the five times a stage ended on top of the Ventoux each time the top riders were spread out over multiple minutes.

In 2002, the first 20 to finish were spread out over 7,5 minutes coming in alone or in groups of two. There was 3,5 minute difference between the winner Virenque and number 5.
In 2000 when Armstrong, sure to win the Tour, let Pantani win, the differences between the first riders were smaller but again the riders came in solo or two's.
Of course, it was a very different age of cycling back then.

You might be right, but I hope not, it would make for a rather boring climax to the Tour.

[Tale]

The Giro d'Italia was the Menchov vs di Luca show, but on the climb finishes the standout rider was Sastre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Gt2-uLb6Y  And his teammate Gerrans won the steepest climb finish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKfhWCypz1g

Contador and Evans are probably the biggest favourites for the TdF but neither of them raced Italy. They did the Tour of Switzerland (edit, oops meant the ...) Dauphine last week, but it was impossible to tell who is strongest - Contador just sat on Evans' tail all the time to psych him out for France.

Armstrong came 12th in Italy, spending the first half of the race as a domestique for Levi Leipheimer. But Levi fucked up one stage and Lance was free to try for stage wins - he was on a couple of good breaks, but never good enough for a win. Lance is a dark horse for the TdF because he'll be riding to help Contador win, but his knowledge of the race is better than anybody's.

The best all round team this year is Columbia High Road (Cavendish, Hincapie, etc). They have their shit together and will probably win the team classification, but it's hard to see them having the overall winning rider.

[Trippy]

In 2002, the first 20 to finish were spread out over 7,5 minutes coming in alone or in groups of two. There was 3,5 minute difference between the winner Virenque and number 5.

The only results from that stage that mattered, though, was how Lance finished compared to his closest rivals (Beloki and Rumsas in this case). He did put some time between himself and his top rivals in this stage (1:16 and 1:45)  but he did the same thing in the individual TT (0:52, 2:11) because, well, he's Lance Armstrong.

[lac]

Boonen's team Quickstep just announced they are suing. I'm not sure if it will do much good, the French being French and all...

While Columbia is a great team, I wouldn't be surprised if Astana took home the team classification. If I'm not mistaken, the times of the first three riders in every stage iq what determines this ranking and Astana seems to be a pretty solid overall block if you're talking rankings.

[Tale]

Boonen's team Quickstep just announced they are suing. I'm not sure if it will do much good, the French being French and all...

While Columbia is a great team, I wouldn't be surprised if Astana took home the team classification. If I'm not mistaken, the times of the first three riders in every stage iq what determines this ranking and Astana seems to be a pretty solid overall block if you're talking rankings.

Belgian media is quoting experts saying Boonen's test results suggest he was only in indirect contact with cocaine and did not use it himself.

You might be right about Astana. But they're Team Drama - they weren't paid for a few months due to their Khazak backers running out of money, and they only still exist because Khazakstan's government came to the rescue at the last minute. They rubbed the sponsors' names off their shirts in Italy in protest.

Armstrong (racing without pay this year, while making a movie about his comeback) was hinting at taking over the team with new sponsors. Contador, who supposedly hates Armstrong and wouldn't want to work for him, was said to be arranging a place on another team. And now everything's suddenly all right again? On paper they're great talent and maybe they'll be so focused on Le Tour that it will all come together.

[Tale]

This might be geoblocked, but hopefully you can view it. It's an awesome look back at the 2008 Tour de France: http://player.sbs.com.au/cycling#/cycling_08/extras/extras/playlist/Best-of-the-Tour-de-France-2008/

[Trippy]

Yup blocked. Fuckers.

[lac]

Belgian media is quoting experts saying Boonen's test results suggest he was only in indirect contact with cocaine and did not use it himself.

That was a really odd story, apparently Quickstep (indirectly) contacted Kintz, a French toxicologist who says its perfectly possible to end up with traces of cocaine in your hair despite never using any. Kintz was in the news some time ago because he used his theory to defend tennis player Gasquet who got caught doing coke at Wimbledon. He bases his theory on a Spanish study that shows you can pick up trace elements of cocaine through the environment. While that might be true to some extend, every toxicologist who commented on this story called it BS, such minute traces would never show up on a cocaine test. Especially not on 3 different occasions as was the case with Boonen who has used the 'they put something in my drink' and the 'I have a blackout and can't remember' defenses so far, this seems to be his (or at least Quicksteps) newest excuse...
It looks like Quickstep is grasping at straws to get Boonen to start in the Tour.

[lac]

It's good to see Fabian Cancellara win the Tour of Switserland. After a horrible first half of the season, he's coming back strong.
When I saw his unlucky exit in the Tour of Flanders in early April, it looked like this would be a lost year for him (he comes in at 4:20, should the video not start there). He had personal problems and was unmotivated. He seems to have shaken off this patch of bad luck and is once again considered to be the man to beat in the first time trial of the Tour de France.

[Tale]

Yeah I like Cancellara. In the Olympic road race last year, there was a lead group, then a group of two, then the peloton. The cameras stayed with the group of two as they caught the leaders. This combined group was about to race each other for the finish line, and out of nowhere comes Cancellara by himself, all the way from the peloton, catches the leaders and almost wins it (just ran out of steam after catching them). Balls of steel.

[Tale]

While Columbia is a great team, I wouldn't be surprised if Astana took home the team classification. If I'm not mistaken, the times of the first three riders in every stage iq what determines this ranking and Astana seems to be a pretty solid overall block if you're talking rankings.

You might be right about Astana. But they're Team Drama - they weren't paid for a few months due to their Khazak backers running out of money, and they only still exist because Khazakstan's government came to the rescue at the last minute. They rubbed the sponsors' names off their shirts in Italy in protest.

Armstrong (racing without pay this year, while making a movie about his comeback) was hinting at taking over the team with new sponsors. Contador, who supposedly hates Armstrong and wouldn't want to work for him, was said to be arranging a place on another team. And now everything's suddenly all right again? On paper they're great talent and maybe they'll be so focused on Le Tour that it will all come together.

News story today about exactly this: Lance's team in turmoil

Also, most bizarre news of the day - Simon Gerrans of Cervelo Test Team, who won a TdF stage last year and won a Giro d'Italia stage a few weeks ago, has been omitted from their TdF team. He's upset on Twitter: http://twitter.com/simongerrans and other cyclists are adding their own WTF comments. Nobody saw that coming. The only thing I can think of is, he was in Aspen Colorado last week training with Lance and Levi from Astana, which was a little weird - he pops up in Armstrong's training videos on the Livestrong site. Maybe he was supposed to be somewhere else for CTT.

[lac]

I always thought Bruneel, Astana's manager, used the 'Lance might win the Tour' line to keep Contador on edge but otherwise had an understanding with Armstrong that he was mostly in it to promote his Lifestrong venture and he and Lance both knew that while he might still be a very good rider, he probably isn't strong enough to win another Tour.

Of course, the cards have changed now with Astana dissolving after this season and the past financial woes causing all parties involved to explore their options.

Before the Astana financial meltdown I was convinced that despite the verbal jousting Bruneel would build his Tour team around Contador, simply because he's a pro and he knows what needs to be done to take the yellow to Paris.
Now I'm not so sure, if the Lifestrong/Nike team is what Bruneel will be doing next year, and he is convinced Contador won't be part of that, it makes more economical sense to get the guys he'll take with him to the new team to the Tour and leave Contador's lieutenants at home.

It looks like the exclusion of Gerrans might be born out of the same economic logic.

And Valverde isn't starting. Good thing. He had this one coming for a long time now. Stay, Piti, stay. (Piti is his dog's name and was one of the labels used on EPO laden bags of blood in Dr Fuentes lab).

[lac]

In a final effort to supermotivate Lance Armstrong, French minister of health, Roselyne Bachelot said today they'll keep a very, very close eye on him. You'd almost wish he'd win just to cheese off the French.

Bad news for Cadel Evans, who loses his lieutenant Thomas Dekker. A reexamination of an urine sample from 2007 showed traces of dynepo. Earlier this year Cadel already lost last year's Tour revelation Bernard Kohl, leaving him with a seriously weakened team at the start tomorrow.

edit: much to his owns suprise the tribunal of the French olympic comittee allowed Tom Boonen to start. This should make for some make for some great Cavendish/Boonen sprints.

[Tale]

Boonen may be on cocaine, but the French Olympic Committee is on crack.

Not sure I really agree with what I just said, but obvious comment was obvious

[Tale]

Best line I've heard today: Boonen will do well, he just needs to follow the white line.

[lac]

You should have seen the jokes when he was dating that 16 year old.

Anyway, I had a good time watching the time trial today. Aside from Menchov being crap, every other top ten candidate made a good showing (Sastre wasn't great either but this really wasn't his cup of tea). Astana as a whole was amazing, it will be interesting to see how they will hold up as a team. The stage on friday to Arcalis should be great to watch as it will probably be the first test to determine the picking order both in Astana and between the rest of the riders aiming for the top ten.

Cadell Evans was really, really solid. It's a shame he, again, didn't get the team to support him he deserves this year but then again he doesn't seem to be bothered all that much by it. A pity his finish was smothered by Cancellara's tour de force a few minutes before. I'd love to see Cancellara take on the world hour record, as best time trial athlete of his generation, it would be a great accolade for him and put some glory on what used to be greatly regarded discipline before screwed over by high tech bikes.

[lamaros]

I wonder if that time trial suited Contador a bit more than others will, or if he has just improved that much.

[lac]

Probably a bit of both, he's looking sharp and seems very motivated.

[lamaros]

Woah. Nice effort today!

[lac]

Absolutely, when I left work it looked like it was going to be one of those boring group bunch sprint stages and then it turned into this. Great fun to watch.

[Tale]

Now to see if Contador can bear working for Armstrong.

BTW a few days ago I put money on Cancellara at odds of 150:1. He's an outside chance due to not being a tiny climbing guy, but those odds had already come down to 60:1 yesterday and will probably halve again today.

[lamaros]

It'll be interesting to see if Astana can get more time in the TTT, or if Cancellara can get more of a gap. I enjoy watching Cancellara, so here's hoping for a worse than expected TTT from Astana and for some friction to open up in their camp.

[lac]

Andy Schleck     1:41
Carlos Sastre      2:32
Cadel Evans       2:59
Denis Menchov   3:52

And Contador who probably doesn't take being Armstrong's bitch too well.

4 Stages into this Tour the France and everything is shaping up for a really exciting 2.5 weeks more.

[Cyrrex]

I quite frankly cannot believe he is doing it again.  I know it's early, but fuck.  I wonder if Cantador prefers his ass-raping with or without the lube.

[Trippy]

Lance doesn't normally like the grab the Yellow so early (yes I know he's still a fraction of a second behind) since it's more work to defend, but I'm guessing he wanted to establish himself over Contador. I just hope he has enough left at the end for the final mountain climb.

[Tale]

Contador's only 19 seconds behind Lance, and Contador should be a better climber than Lance, so I don't think Alberto would be too upset with Lance currently being ahead of him.

BTW check this out: Four of the top five general classification riders are Astana. The next four Astana riders are in positions 7, 11, 18 and 29. Despite benefiting from all the TTT time gained, their ninth rider, token Kazakh Dmitriy Muravyev, is still 15 minutes behind the field, 177th of 178 riders - second-last in the GC! Someone joked on another forum that Astana is going for yellow AND red (red being the lanterne rouge, awarded for finishing last).

[lamaros]

The first mountain stage (Friday IIRC) will be interesting. I think Contador is still looking good, Armstrong so far has to prove he can climb better if he wants to lead the team, and Contador has a bit of time on pretty much everyone else. Will be interesting to see how the Schlecks, Cadel and co run it, and how Astana sets up.

I'm hoping there's a nice TV in my room up at the snow to watch it.

[Tale]

If not, the SBS tracker is awesome for watching it online in Australia: http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2009/tour-tracker

[lac]

That was a bit disappointing, at least Contador took his first opportunity to show the boss who's boss. I just hope this doesn't turn into the big 'Astana controls every mountain stage in the Tour' show while the others can only hang on while taking the occasional potshot.