The "Real" Tour begins today!

[chattanoogamocs]

It is not the Alpes...but this is where the race will begin to really separate the contenders from the prentenders, the men from the boys, insert your cliche here.

Km 6.5 - Col de Grosse Pierre - 3.1 km climb to 6.4 % - 3 Category
Km 22 - Col des Feignes - 9.0 km climb to 2.9 % - 3 Category
Km 32.5 - Col de Bramont - 3.4 km climb to 6.5 % - 3 Category
Km 64 - Le Grand Ballon - 21.9 km climb to 3.6 % - 2 Category
Km 98 - Col de Bussang - 6.2 km climb to 4.5 % - 3 Category
Km 115 - Le Ballon d'Alsace - 9.1 km climb to 6.8 % - 1 Category

Le Ballon d'Alsace will be a burner. It is not the length of the climb, it's the 6.8% grade that will have the weaker riders legs screaming...Arret, Arret, Arret!!! (stop)

Total accumulated climbing on the day...about 7,500 feet.

...and this is just an appetizer of what will come during the week.

http://www.letour.fr/PHOTOS/TDF/2005/900/POSITION.gif

[TexasTerror]

So, if we have a showing like last stage by the Discos, this could be the end for Lance?

[ISUMatt]

And Rasmussen leads all but 4 K of the 171 K 9th stage!!! What a dominant performance today...Lance falls back to 3rd +2:18 behind Jans Voigt and in 2nd is Christophe Moreau +1:50 to Voigt.

[buckp]

"Don't sell the bear's skin before you've killed the bear." - Christophe Moreau talking about Armstrong.

There's a lot of racing left....:nod:

[chattanoogamocs]

If Lance does win his 7th, and last, Tour de France...I wonder if t-Mobile, especially if it is close, will be kicking themselves when they had 3 very strong riders in a break and Lance was all by himself...that they shouldn't have really put the hammer down and put some time into Lance...or least put him into more difficulty.

Pretty smart move really...CSC is one of the three strongest teams in the peloton (with the Discos and the T-Mob)...now they get to take on the responsibility of the maillot jaune.

All the little bikers had the day off...now time to earn their pay...

Two Cat 1 climbs (Cormet-de-Roseland and Courchevel)
...a combined 9,300 feet of elevation
(in comparison, last Sunday morning had 6 climbs that only combined for 7,400 feet)

...and for the first time so far this Tour...the stage ends at the top of the mountain!!!
...(hopefully) just the thing that Lance and the Disco's have been waiting for.

If you think this looks tough...just wait til Wednesday when they take on three of the most famous climb in Tour lore...the Madeleine, the Telegraphe, and Galibier

OLN will be on live at 8:30 tomorrow morning...right about the time the ride start the ascent of the Roseland.

http://www.letour.fr/PHOTOS/TDF/2005/1000/POSITION.gif

[TexasTerror]

Crazy start to the Tour today, with all those protest concerns, moving the "official start". Riders stopping. Riders starting. Official start will be at this place, now at that place...

[buckp]

Man, I wish I was there!

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/spo/med/2005/07/ipt/1121108275.jpg

[TexasTerror]

Best part about this stage is all the people who fall off the back of the peleton. All the sprinters are falling fast. McEwen. O'Grady. Boonen. Etc, etc, etc...

[ISUMatt]

This is great watching Lance push these guys to the max, this Rasmussen guy looks like a horse, hes tough!!!

[TexasTerror]

Julich. Basso. Mayo. Heras Vinokourov. All dropped!

Lance's Disco team is riding strong. This is great to see..

[ISUMatt]

Voigt is 11 minutes back of Lance right now... what a surge

[TexasTerror]

Too bad Lance didn't get the stage win, but he has better things to win...

[AmsterBison]

All I can say is, "Wow!"

[chattanoogamocs]

top 25 for stage 10...

1 038 VALVERDE Alejandro IBA ESP
2 001 ARMSTRONG Lance DSC USA 00' 00"
3 057 RASMUSSEN Mickael RAB DEN 00' 09"
4 031 MANCEBO Francisco IBA ESP 00' 09"
5 021 BASSO Ivan CSC ITA 01' 02"
6 164 LEIPHEIMER Levi GST USA 01' 15"
7 151 MAZZOLENI Eddy LAM ITA 02' 14"
8 044 EVANS Cadel DVL AUS 02' 14"
9 014 KLÖDEN Andréas TMO GER 02' 14"
10 108 KASHECHKIN Andrey C.A KAZ 02' 14"
11 066 LANDIS Floyd PHO USA 02' 14"
12 087 PIEPOLI Leonardo SDV ITA 02' 14"
13 011 ULLRICH Jan TMO GER 02' 14"
14 096 JAKSCHE Jorg LSW GER 02' 19"
15 061 BOTERO Santiago PHO COL 02' 50"
16 101 MOREAU Christophe C.A FRA 02' 58"
17 111 GARZELLI Stefano LIQ ITA 03' 44"
18 079 KIRCHEN Kim FAS LUX 03' 59"
19 007 POPOVYCH Yaroslav DSC UKR 03' 59"
20 086 HORNER Christopher SDV USA 03' 59"
21 199 ZUBELDIA Haimar EUS ESP 04' 04"
22 135 ROGERS Michael QST AUS 04' 27"
23 026 SASTRE Carlos CSC ESP 04' 49"
24 019 VINOKOUROV Alexandre TMO KAZ 05' 18"
25 023 JULICH Bobby CSC USA 05' 18"

[chattanoogamocs]

new overall top 10...

1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance DSC USA
2 057 RASMUSSEN Mickael RAB DEN 00' 38"
3 021 BASSO Ivan CSC ITA 02' 40"
4 101 MOREAU Christophe C.A FRA 02' 42"
5 038 VALVERDE Alejandro IBA ESP 03' 16"
6 164 LEIPHEIMER Levi GST USA 03' 58"
7 031 MANCEBO Francisco IBA ESP 04' 00"
8 011 ULLRICH Jan TMO GER 04' 02"
9 014 KLÖDEN Andréas TMO GER 04' 16"
10 066 LANDIS Floyd PHO USA 04' 16"

Great day for Lance, but still a long way to go to Paris...it just takes one bad day in the saddle to lose it all.

Tomorrow is a lot tougher. Will be interesting to see what happens (now all Lance and Disco does is cover Rasmussen and Basso up the Galibier. Then go on from there.

[ISUMatt]

30 minutes passed no signs of Voigt yet!!


There he is...31:28 back

[buckp]

Lance is in his element......the mountains. ;)

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050712/i/r3796955409.jpg

Jan Ullrich of Germany (L) and Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan (R)

[blukeys]

Lance is in his element......the mountains. ;)

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050712/i/r3796955409.jpg

Jan Ullrich of Germany (L) and Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan (R)

As one who has done some road biking my respect for Armstrong's ability to tackle the mountains is enormous. I'm fortunate to have a lot of Amish country near my house so I have great conditions for riding, that is very little traffic. Most of the landscape is very flat so I have no ability to train for hills. I have gone out of state and tackled the non flat roads and it tore me up. One thing you have to do to stay mountain proficient is to keep your weight down. Dragging an extra 15 lbs. up an incline that is a mile long will kill you.

[FightinBluHen51]

where's hincampiey (sp?) and why am I not surprised to see ullrich right there either.

[chattanoogamocs]

Hincapie is doing what he is supposed to do now that they are in the mountains...work hard for Lance early in the day (like on the first climb up Roseland today)...then he falls back and just tries to save energy for tomorrow...he is a great lieutenant for Lance...the only one on the team for all six of his titles (he is rewarded pretty handsomely for his loyalty).

Ullrich does not surprise me, Basso is about where he should be...what surprised me is that Vino (Vinokourov) fell off so badly today (in case anyone is wondering why he is not wearing the same jersey as Ullrich, he is the national champion of Kazakhstan and is wearing the national jersey)

Here is a great little write up on the official TdF site...
(truncated)



There was a lot of anticipation surrounding Alejandro Valverde’s debut in the Tour de France. On the day that the race arrived in the high mountains of the French Alps he proved he was worthy of the hype. Only a rare breed can beat Lance Armstrong on the crucial days but that’s just what the young Spaniard did at Courchevel. The 25-year-old was one of three riders capable of matching the surges of the Texan who is back in the yellow jersey after a dramatic day that saw the collapse of many pre-race favorites.
Forget about the one-two-three punch that the T-Mobile team insisted would help them win the title of the 92nd edition of the French event. Alexandre Vinokourov, Andreas Kloden and Jan Ullrich may have shown what was possible on the final climb of stage eight. But they didn’t win that stage and their taunting only encouraged Armstrong to ensure his Discovery Channel troops were better organized for the first mountain-top finish of this year’s race.
Instead of seeing the German team’s trio of champions attack the six-time Tour winner on the category-one climb to the ski station in the Savoie we saw the Discovery crew eliminate ‘Vino’, ‘Klodi’ and ‘Ulle’ with 10km to go. The scene was reminiscent of what has happened on the major mountains since the beginning of the Armstrong Era. It’s a formula which requires phenomenal legs and perfect timing.
The policy is simple: ignore the early escapes, don’t panic on the first mountain, get to the final challenge with a complete team setting a pace that’s high enough to ward off any dangerous attacks, let the ‘domestique’s go into overdrive to sort the pretenders from the contenders, and then give Lance the chance to dance.
That’s what happened again today but Armstrong didn’t have it all his way. His team had already destroyed the T-Mobile trio before the business end of the stage. And okay, Lance did drop his main rival from the mountains of last year, Ivan Basso with eight kilometers of climbing still ahead. But he tried everything to take the King of the Mountains Mickael Rasmussen and a strong Illes Balears duo out of the equation, but they matched him all the way to the summit.
Jens Voigt knew that his time in yellow was going to end but he expected Basso, Bobby Julich or Carlos Sastre would be the heirs. Sastre tried an early attack on the final rise but he only inspired Armstrong’s young Ukranian colleague Yaroslav Popovych to prove that he wasn’t injured in a crash on the descent from the Cormet-de-Roseland. The new Discovery Channel recruit was the last man in line before his boss took over. ‘Popo’ put every ounce of energy into his pedal strokes 11km before the summit and then peeled off ready to limp home to 19th place almost four minutes behind Valverde.

[FightinBluHen51]

Hincapie is doing what he is supposed to do now that they are in the mountains...work hard for Lance early in the day (like on the first climb up Roseland today)...then he falls back and just tries to save energy for tomorrow...he is a great lieutenant for Lance...the only one on the team for all six of his titles (he is rewarded pretty handsomely for his loyalty).

Ullrich does not surprise me, Basso is about where he should be...what surprised me is that Vino (Vinokourov) fell off so badly today (in case anyone is wondering why he is not wearing the same jersey as Ullrich, he is the national champion of Kazakhstan and is wearing the national jersey)

Here is a great little write up on the official TdF site...
(truncated)


Yeah, I know Hincapie (thanks for the spelling btw) is there to ride support for Lance. Just was cool seeing them 1-2. Guess no real way to have them finish there though is there?

[TexasTerror]

Valverde is having such a solid Tour. Too bad Poppy can't get that white jersey with Valverde looking so good on this Tour. With Lance on his way out, perhaps Valverde, if he finishes strong this year, could be an early favorite to emerge next year.

[chattanoogamocs]

Yeah, I know Hincapie (thanks for the spelling btw) is there to ride support for Lance. Just was cool seeing them 1-2. Guess no real way to have them finish there though is there?

Unfortunately, Georgie just doesn't quite have the extra needed to be competitive in the mountains...but he is "the man" for Discovery when they are doing all the Classic races in the spring (especially Paris-Roubaix...I really think to him, that is just as good as the Tour).

Disco did try to get Hincapie in the Yellow that first day in the mountains...when he was only a minute back, he took off in a breakaway and was the "virtual" leader for a while...but the break didn't survive...that would have been awesome for him to be in the MJ...if only for a day or two.

Georgie is one of my all time faves.

http://www.hincapiesports.com/

Actually, you can read about his "attempt" at Yellow on his website...

http://www.georgehincapie.com/news.php

Paris-Roubaix, the toughest one day race in the world!
(mud and cobblestones)
http://grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/images/05roubaix/$file/17.jpg

...even the motorcycles have trouble staying upright...
http://grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/images/04parrou/$file/2.jpg