It’s a pretty simple system. I can teach you it. You ready?
“Place hand in centre of steering wheel. Press. Check for tootling sound. Wait till things in front of you are no longer in front of you. Proceed.”
It takes years of practice to learn to do this with style, of course 
Haw, currently watching white jersey give yellow jersey a run for his money. This is fun.
Wow, another great ride by Vino! Today he showed that he still has the guts to beat everyone out there. Bravo! Bobke thinks he’s the “odds on favorite to win” after today’s race. I don’t know about that, but it will be fun to watch.
No way. I don’t know Bobke, but I suspect s/he doesn’t know how these grand tours work. It would take a miracle. Guys who are *6 or 7 minutes * behind the leaders at this stage of the tour can basically kiss all chances of a win goodbye. Vino is about 28 minutes behind. The only way he could make that up would be with a hidden motor.
You have to understand that the GC contenders let Vino win by a few minutes yesterday precisely because he’s so far behind they don’t care: he’s out for the count.
I’d go even further than that…seeing as how good Ras and Contador are climbing, I dont’ know if anyone else really has a shot. Cadel has Klodin and Levi beat in the time trial so they’re both out. Cadel also has to decimate both of the people ahead of him and they both seem in pretty good form (or in at least good enough form not to hemorrhage 4minutes and 1minute 37 in the ITT).
I suppose it’s possible for Discovery or Rabobank to make a mistake in the last mountain stage that allows someone in the top ten to break away, but I highly doubt it. Those two teams have been rock solid, plus they have a days rest on their side.
So…much to the chagrin of the UCI, this one is Ras’ to lose.
To expand on that, as matters currently stand (and of course leaving aside crashes, illness and other happenstance) the only people who are likely to win are Rasmussen or Contador. Just conceivably, if the GC contenders are able to hold onto Rasmussen and Contador tomorrow (being the last day in the Pyrenees) and lose no more time (which they haven’t been able to do to date) and then one of the GC contenders rides the most amazing TT in history on Saturday and/or Rasmussen or Contador have an off day, they might be knocked down a peg, but it’s unlikely.
More realistically, Rasmussen and Contador are showing form sufficient to match it with or even gap all GC contenders in the mountains tomorrow. Evans and other TT’ers will gain time on Rasmussen and Contador on Saturday. However, Rasmussen had a good TT at Albi and it seems unlikely that he’ll lose 4 minutes to Evans to be passed by him. Contador has less of an advantage, but he doesn’t seem too bad of a TT’er, if Albi is anything to go by. All other stages are flat, and Rasmussen and Contador both have good teams to prevent any effective breakaway by any GC contender.
The only real questions left, I think, are whether Contador can get close enough to Rasmussen to pass him in the TT, and whether Evans can TT well enough to get third.
Sorry drm I posted that without seeing your post.
Agreed. Although I don’t think you can say with certainty that Evans will hold off Kloden. Don’t forget he beat him at Albi, but Kloden rode while it was wetter and he crashed, and still only gave away 90 seconds. He was back on his bike pretty quick but still, it wasn’t a fair fight.
Too true; I forgot about weather. But Kloden is 1m34 behind Evans? That’s a whole bunch of time for two people who are both pretty good at time trials.
As an aside, I feel a bit bad for Kloden. You could see straight from the accident that he was in much better shape than Vino but received no help from the team because Vino still felt he had a shot - I guess. When Vino won the time trial, I knew it was over for Kloden because everyone was giddy about the resurgence of Vino and that left Kloden essentially without a team again. On the day Contador won and Vino lost the race, Kloden didn’t have any help at all and was forced to ride at a pace set entirely by Rabobank and suffered because of it (as I recall, Discovery might have done some pace making as well but I can’t specifically recall) and by the time Vino was effectively out of the race, Astana was scattered all over the damn place and in no position to help Kloden. If I were him, I find a new damn team next year because you know the minute Vino retires, Kashechkin becomes the man.
I think that Rasmussen is going to win this Tour and we are going to get another Floyd Landis situation afterwards. That first TT is highly suspicious and the same can be said of Rasmussen’s performance in the mountains. Look at his race results this year leading up to the Tour. He has basically been a lead weight until this month.
How can a skinny pure climber get such a good result in the TT? Especially since he has sucked in that discipline for his entire career. It’s reminiscent of what Roberto Heras did on the final TT of the 2005 Vuelta for which he got 2nd and was caught doping. Heras was also a skinny pure climber.
I bet you that Rasmussen is going to get Top 15 in the final TT, even though his past performances would have him finish closer to 80th.
Kloden beat Evans by 2 min 20 sec in the second ITT last year. The first TT this year featured a few climbs which I think suits Evans. Much as I’m an Evans supporter, I’m not assuming anything (it hurts less if you assume the worst and can only be pleasantly surprised:)).
As to the lack of support for Kloden, see my post #56 above. He has a lot in common with Evans.
I don’t really understand doping but is there really any system of doping that will help you for one specific stage? I suppose this is where blood doping comes in, yes?
I’m reasonably confident that Ras dopes, but I read an article a while back that alleges he’s been doing it since 2002 (here) but does anything affect one specific stage? This is why I’ve always thought that Landis probably doped the entire race but his ‘doctor’ messed up at some point and it just happened to be the stage that he won.
I’m sorry to say I’m thinking the same. Of course, you are all free to say that I’m just sore because he’s beating my favourite. But. He’s giving excuses about missing four location reports, but (a) nobody else seems to have to offer such excuses (b) he’s missed 2 for each of two controlling bodies, and if he hits 3 for either he’s out. Coincidence or careful finessing of the rules? Seems a bit too carefully close the line while not going over it, to me.
drm if you search on my username, and “Landis” for last year you’ll find a thread where we discussed this. I found a cite that quoted a sports doctor who said that a boost of testesterone could act as a recovery agent and instant booster.
Frankly, I’d love either one of them to win - and maybe Contador as well. As long as Levi doesn’t freakin’ win, I do not like him.
Anyone have a video of Contador accelerating on the mountains? I hear that he is quite something.
Cool! will do.
On the subject of doping, I’m one of those people who really like to see the best in people (read: sucker), but it was nice hearing Gerdemann talk about how much he hates doping. It was nice to see and I hope he has a solid future in the sport.
Vino’s busted for a banned blood transfusion
I’m really getting sick and tired of this.
Sorry for all the posts in a row, but according to this Astana is pulling itself from the tour. The bright side for Princhester is that Kloden can’t catch Cadel Evans now.
I can’t decide whether or not this is good news or bad news for Kloden…
This is a sad state of affairs for cycling. A lot of sponsors are going to pull out.
Why the hell would Vino inject someone else’s blood into himself before racing when we all know what happened to Tyler Hamilton and his “chimera”?
Also, I’m smelling fried chicken that will be cooked soon.
Kloden probably also dopes given his past relationship with Vino on Team T-Mobile.