I know there are a few cycling fans out there, so I suppose we should have a thread about this year’s TDF. They hit the road in about 12 hours.
I am not a big cycling fan, but I love Le Tour, despite all the attendant controversies. I look forward to getting up early to slurp my coffee with Phil, Paul, Bobke and the rest of the Versus gang. Those great helicopter shots of the beautiful countrysides take my breath away. It isn’t good form to cheer for Lance, but I’m cheering him on anyway. I suppose Contador must be the favorite, but we know that anything can happen.
So, who else has their eye on the tour this year? Did anyone spring for the $14.99 “official” app? Will you be watching the live feed at work? Vive le Tour!
eta: I see I’m about 4 minutes late in starting this thread. I’ve asked the mods to merge it with the one that drm opened up.
I went ahead and paid for the Versus live streaming coverage. So far it’s been ok. I hate that the audio is only the commentary with no crowd or race noise.
Contador of course has to be the favorite, but I’d be very happy to see someone else.
I was there in Rotterdam, it is really freaky to see these guys coming past you at an arms length going 50+km an hour. The last bunch was lucky though, as the track ha dried up considerably. Cancellara to keep the yellow for a good week and then Contador till Paris.
Blarggh, I hate the OLN coverage but that’s what I get in this country. I will give Paul and Phil credit for trying to include other riders in the conversation. Bob Roll needs to leave though, adds nothing to the conversation.
I think the rider noone talked about is Roman Kreuziger. He had a pretty good prologue and should have tons of support in the mountains with Liquigas. I don’t think Basso will be able to sufficiently peak twice so he’ll end up relinquishing the leadership of the team to Kreuziger (at least for the remainder of the team).
I’m not sure there is as big of a psychological blow from Lance to Contador as OLN would have us believe. If Lance beats him up a mountain by any significant margin then MAYBE we will have our psychological blow, not until then though. From now until then, though, I have a feeling Alberto will follow Lance pretty closely along the flat stages.
The Schlecks are were they always are, a long way back. I’m not convinced of Andy’s form as it has been a tough year but he has said all the right things on his blog and twitter, but we won’t really know his form for a couple weeks. I hope he has it though, because he’s gonna need a few minutes on AC before the last time trial if he has any hope.
A week Sunday is our first day in the high mountains, that should sort some stuff out. Until then, enjoy watching Spartacus wear the yellow.
I ended up getting the TDF mobile app from Versus. I read a lot of complaints from iPad owners, but it works great on my iPod Touch. As Knorf noted, the crowd noise isn’t in the audio mix, which is rather bizarre. I don’t know whether that’s by design or not, but I hope they “fix” it.
15 K to go and Pliuschin and Wynants are holding steady. I’d love to see them pull it out but it looks like the Peloton is getting serious. EEP, they lost 20 seconds during the commercial break so it looks like it’s almost time for Farrar and Cavendish to do battle.
I think it’s incredible that someone take their dog to watch one of the stages and fail to hold on to the leash (or: not have it leashed) even for the few seconds that the peloton race by. I’m glad the dog’s fine but such people ought to be fined for endangering the riders and their own dog!
Those were some wild crashes at the end. It looked like the Daytona race last night. As a Texan from the Austin area, I’ve got to go with Lance. Would it be a surprise to see Cavendish cause a wreck in each stage?
I was going over the course in the paper the other day, and didn’t see a Team Time Trial. Did I miss it, or are they not doing it this year? I like it when they have a TTT.
he and 71 others. 30 people suffered various forms of injury and went to the hospital. Cancellara displayed some leadership and refused to race any further, thus allowing some of the main contenders to catch up with the *peloton *and not lose time prematurely in the TdF - an interesting move, IMHO, which is not something we have seen a lot in recent years, in which the hierarchy in the peloton was all but lost.
