Le Tour Off Topic - Bikes

Just read that the riders had to ride 25km to their hotels last night after finishing stage 7 as none of the team transport buses were allowed to the summit! Just what you need to hear after you have ridden 225km with a mountain finish!

Apparently a few were unhappy about this.
Can't understand why!

Now - some bikes - just because they are sexy.


Bike Porn
I like looking at bikes, kind of an addiction that certainly does not help me when i am driving!

You may have noticed Lance Armstrong rides a different bike than the rest of his Astana team. Well Lance has in his contract that he is allowed a different bike and a different helmet, he is here "in order to raise awareness of the global cancer burden" - and to a lesser extent perhaps prove that he is the greatest athlete to have ever lived. On Lance’s new custom painted Madone you’ll notice two significant numbers — 1274 and 27.5. The former signifies the number of days Armstrong was in retirement. During this time, nearly 27.5 million people died of cancer.

& the TT version.



Then there is Current green Jersey leader Mark Cavendish and his Scott Addict. This bike has an Air force theme going on with a "Sprint Air force" decal, RAF logos, rivetts etc..... ladies wearing little in the fashion of WWII bombers, little air force wings for each win.... you get the picture.

Fabian Cancellaras and his Saxo Bank team mates got a new insane Specialized TT bike. This is one of the more radical looking TT bikes in the peleton, probably one of the most different since the BMC time machine a few years ago - and that was ridden to a few TT victories as well, albiet by Landis and Vinokourov. It has to be pretty funcitonal as they went wel in the Team TT and Fabian crushed everyone in the opening stage. The integrated headtube / steerer (the big bulky bit at the front) is crazy. I reckon it would take a few rides to get used to. But i think other manufacturers will be looking pretty closely at this.

the Schleck brothers have some custom made seats......

Cadel Evans got his Canyon customised with a pain job representing his cause - Free Tibet. There is a southern cross and a kangaroo on there as well. Damn ugly bike if you ask me.

Suitable for a damn ugly bloke.

World Champ Alessandro Ballan has his Willier painted up in the rainbow coulours of a world champ. You may have noticed he wears a different jersey (as do national champs in each dicipline). The decals on Ballans bike look excellent, gold bar tape, fulcrum wheels, nice bike. Just wish i had $20k spare.

More later!

2009 Tour de France - Stage 8

Stage 8 - Andorre-la-Vieille Saint-Girons 176.5 km

Back to France!
In part two of the Pyrenees adventure the riders will have to contend with 3 climbs, two of them are Category 1s.

Km 23.5 - Port d'Envalira - 23.2 km climb to 5.1 % - Category 1
Km 102.0 - Col de Port - 11.4 km climb to 5.5 % - Category 2
Km 132.5 - Col d'Agnès - 12.4 km climb to 6 % - Category 1

These three ascents will offer good climbers the chance to stand out. The decents and the flat finish will mean that gains can be caught if the peleton so wishes and riders in breakaways will have to work quite hard to stay away, especially if they go early. That said, with the larger time gaps that have now developed a breakaway will be allowed some leeway and polka dot point chasing and defending might be on the agenda of a few teams.

Of course there will be some that are waiting for a stage just like this to make a name for themselves as they attack up the road early on. For me, this is a day for the durable climber that perhaps isn’t quite in the GC race, pick a rider 7 - 12 minutes in arrears at the start of the day to get into a breakaway and succeed by 3-5 minutes.

Then again with the game playing at the top of the table who knows?
Those high up in the GC might wish to whittle away the pretenders and have decent push on the final climb - Contador might just want to be in yellow come the end of the day? Doubt it though, with another tough day of climbing tomorrow before a rest, it is one for the breakaways.

No betting on this stage!

Who's the boss?

Frenchman Brice Feillu celebrates his win during stage seven of the 2009 Tour de France


We knew it was a stage for the climbers, but who would have thought a first year pro would reach the summit of Andorra Arcalis before all others? The 9 man breakaway was allowed to get out to 13 minutes at one stage, although with the best placed rider in the breakaway 3 and a half minutes behind Armstonr/Cancellara the peleton eventually got working to bring them under control. Through a calculated tactic (ie. Astana dont want the Yellow jersey yet, as then they have to defend it) or not quite timing their chase Italian Rinaldo Nocentini who was 4th on the stage is now in Yellow - by just 6 seconds. The stage winner was Frenchman Brice Feillu, the brother of Agritubel team mate Romain (i said they had nothing to lose in the preview!). He attacked his 9 breakaway companions 6km from the final summit, beating another frenchman Christophe Kern. It was 4th placed Nocentini who rides for another French team AG2R who finds himself in possession of a yellow jersey. With team mates such as Dessel, Efimkin, Goubert and Roche who are all pretty handy in the hill, they will look to defend it and Astana may well let them.

But who leads Astana? The group that finished behind the breakaways was an elite group.

They raced up the mountain with a bit of cat andmouse and fans of Aussie Cadel Evans were finally treated to some aggression! He attacked a few times and it was good to see. But unfortunately for Cadel he was easily marked, Lance made a point of cycling up to him after one attack as if to say 'is that all you've got' and Contador appeared on his other side sandwiching him. The Schlecks had their heads down and looked to me to be biding their time, there was a very distinct lack of support from Saxo Bank for the brothers and i think the ploy was deliberate. I reckon Bjarne Riis has something special planned for the alps - he is saving the legs of Voigt, O'grady, Larrson, Arveson and Sorrenson (not to mention a rejuvenated Cancellara) for another mission - like last year when his CSC team destroyed everyone on the climb to Alpe d'Huez.

But the real interesting part of the race came 2km from the summit when Contador attacked.

No one in the elite group could match his turn of speed, Lance was not going to mark him - that would be bad manners and might have to wait until the Alps - but certainly he said to the other guys in the group that he is the one to beat. They were all there, however maybe they were happy to see him go knowing that Astana imploding is the only hope for them? Contador gained time on Lance and is second overall, 6 seconds off the lead and 2 seconds ahead of Armstong.

When asked after the race if that effort made him leader, Contador replied "the race will decide who of us is best"

Armstrongs post race interview was interesting as well "That wasn't really to the plan, but I didn't expect him to go by the plan".

Its on.

For me stage 7 showed that Lance stil has his climbing legs. At no point did he struggle, at no point did he attack, but he was easily able to mark the attacks of Evans, Wiggins and Vande Velde. Other like sastre, martin, menchov the schleks and karpets just watched. I reckon Lance knows he has most of them covered. There is a lot of climbing left and maybe Lance is just patiently waiting for the Ventoux in stage 20 for his time. The Schleks and their Saxo Bank colleagues might just be doing the same.


Stage 7 Result.

1 Brice Feillu (Fra) Agritubel 6:11:31
2 Christophe Kern (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne 00:05
3 Johannes Fröhlinger (Ger) Team Milram 00:25
4 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 00:26
5 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 00:45
6 Christophe Riblon (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 01:05
7 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step 02:32
8 José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne 03:14
9 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 03:26
10 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 03:47
11 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank
12 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream
13 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank
14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana
15 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana
16 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC
17 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank
18 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team
19 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Team Katusha
20 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream



General classification after stage 7

1 Rinaldo Nocentini (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale 25:44:32
2 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana 00:06
3 Lance Armstrong (USA) Astana 00:08
4 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 00:39
5 Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Garmin - Slipstream 00:46
6 Andreas Klöden (Ger) Astana 00:54
7 Tony Martin (Ger) Team Columbia - HTC 01:00
8 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Garmin - Slipstream 01:24
9 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 01:49
10 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas 01:54
11 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Quick Step 02:10
12 Maxime Monfort (Bel) Team Columbia - HTC 02:21
13 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank 02:25
14 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) Liquigas 02:40
15 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 02:52
16 Johannes Fröhlinger (Ger) Team Milram 02:54
17 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 03:03
18 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto 03:07
19 Egoi Martinez De Esteban (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 03:10
20 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia - HTC 03:16

2009 Tour de France - Stage 7

Stage 7 - Barcelone Andorre Arcalis 224 km

Here we go.

Time trials aside, this is the first 'big' stage of the 2009 Tour de France.

Real Mountains.

Real Climbing!

Real Pain!

Mountain passes & Hills
Km 32.0 - Côte de Montserrat - 4.1 km climb to 3.8 % - Category 4
Km 97.0 - Port de Solsona - 5.8 km climb to 4.3 % - Category 3
Km 127.0 - Col de Serra-Seca - 7.7 km climb to 7.1 % - Category 1
Km 136.5 - Port del Comte - 3.1 km climb to 5.3 % - Category 3
Km 224.0 - ANDORRE ARCALIS - 10.6 km climb to 7.1 % - Category H

A cat 1 climb of 7.7km and a finish on a Hors Cat of 10.6km!

A summit finish is a special thing, there are only ever a few every year (others this year are stages 15 & 20) and the importance can not be understated. Things change on summit finishes. Time loses can be huge. The Yellow jersey inevitably changes hands. Last year the first mountain finish put Cadel Evans in Yellow after he finished 2 minutes behind a few Saunier - Duval team mates who were later found to be jacked up on drugs (although it was pretty impressive watching Riccardo Ricco climb!). The year before Michael Rassmussen took control of the race on the first summit finish with a big win, he wore yellow until the team booted him for suspect doping practices. In the 2006 edition the first summit finish was where Denis Menchov out sprinted Leipheimer, Landis, Evans and Sastre to claim the win. Landis got his hands on the Yellow. Damn i better stop there. It sounds bad for cycling.

I'm not saying a yet to be discovered drug cheat will win the stage or inherit the yellow jersey.

However what i am trying to say is that summit finishes bring change. Huge time can be gained, or lost. With the overall classification still so tight - usually the first mountain stage is not a summit finish - the big names will fight out the finish here, or at least be within sight of the winner. Astana with 4 of the top 5 in the GC are not going to lay down here, is Contador vs Lance, do they keep their powder dry and wait until later, just mark each other, or does the war start here. Lance is too smart and has done this so many times, whatever he does it will be calculated. The old Lance would have won this stage, but the old Lance never had to beat his own team mates.

CSC hold the yellow and will look to defend as long as possible - they will ramp the pace and get rid of a most of the peleton, they want one of the Schlecks to ride off. Then there is everyone else vying for the prize. Christaian Vandevelde is best placed but will not be able to take time off Contador on a climb. My big tip for the tour was Roman Kreuziger, the young of Liquigas. Yet to prove himself with the big guns, he will be keen for the test, he sits 1:31 behind Cancellara /Armstong. I would love to see him go on the offensive here. His team mate Vincenzo Nibali is at 1:36, he can climb as well and these two look like they could create a headache for Astana - if they want. Andy Schleck is at 1:41 - i believe he is probably the best pure climber in the tour, he is only of the only ones here who might be able to out climb Contador. I say that viewing Armstrongs climbing ability on what he has shown in his comeback, not his old form. Schleck has a strong team, he might bide his time, however he is not going to be taking time off Contador/Armstong in time trials so his options are limited. He has his brother at 2:17 behind, they can form a big one-two punch after their super strong support team has softened a number of the other climbers up on the cat 1.

Then there are a few who simply can not afford to lose any time. Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, Denis Menchov, Kim Kirchen. They can all climb, they all are a few minutes in arrears. They have nothing to lose and must not lose any time - staying with the leaders is the minimum - attacking is their only hope at getting back into this race.

For me though this stage is going to tell us if Lance Armstrong can win the tour for an eighth time. He has a little bit of time on Contador. If he can still climb like he used to, then Contador has got his work cut out, if Contador rides off him tonight and takes the Yellow, then it might be all over for Lance.

The last kilometer looks menacing.

Betting.

Contador to win. $3.90 on betfair - taken.

If he does not win, its worth paying for as it means the tour is only going to get better!

Andy Schleck e.w is the other option at $8 / $2.60.

might take that as well.

Thunder Struck......

The rain came and Thor the mighty God of Thunder claimed stage 6.

The rain in spain fell mainly on the plain etc etc....

The obligatory breakaway came after about 50km and contained three very strong riders in David Millar, Sylvain Chavanel and Stephan Auge, some time later they were joined by Spainard Amets Txurruka who managed to bridge the gap between the leaders and the peleton. They got out to a 3 minute lead which had Millar as the 'virtual' leader on course after starting the day just over a minute behind Cancellara.

Some 30km from Barcelona and back in the peloton, a crash exiting a roundabout saw Hushovds Cervélo team mate Heinrich Haussler , Michael Rogers (Columbia-HTC) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) go down; with a limping Rogers very slow to return to his machine. He lost 13 minutes in the overall classification andhis tour is all but done. Of course we had money on Haussler.

However the peleton easily reeled the breakaway in and the big names got to the front for the final short sharp climbing sprint home in Barcelona. Emerging from the chasing pack Hushovd was too strong and recorded his 7th Tour stage victory and placed himself just 1 point behind Cavendish in the race for the green jersey - Its On! Our tip Oscar Friere was 2nd and almost all of the big names were in the group that crossed the line together.

There were some shuffles at the top end, aside from Mick Rogers dropping out of contention and only a Flloyd Landis like stage win would see him back (omg! did i just say that?) Menchov lost more time (gone!) Astana's Haimar Zubeldia, Garmin-Slipstream's Dave Zabriskie and his teammate David Millar - the stage protagonist who almost lasted but was caught just one kilometre from the line - lost their positions on the leader board's top-10, elevating Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Slipstream), Gustav Larsson (Saxo Bank) and Maxime Monfort (Columbia-HTC) to eighth, ninth and tenth overall.

Stage 7 - mountain finish - the race begins for real!