TT today changed everything on the GC. Schumacher really put in a tremendous performance! Evans looks to be in a commanding position; Kirchen and Schumacher aren’t mountains riders.
I don’t think anyone is really following this thread, so I’m not going to post the results. I assume anyone who cares knows where to find them.
Knorf - Kirchen was seventh last year so he has to at least be considered a minor threat, yes? (I know I’m biased). You wouldn’t happen to know how he fared on the mountain stages last year, would you?
Cunego, Valverde, and Andy Schleck are at 1.26, 1.27, and 1.29. I’m thinking that with about 5k to go up the first mountain stage (Super Besse?) two out of those three are going to make a deal to attack Evans over and over again until he cracks.
I’m interested to see how Devolder does in the mountains. He seems too big to me to really go well, but Quick Step apparently think that he can do something in the overall.
I’m a little surprised that Cancellara couldn’t do more today. I think this was his best shot, I guess I should have seen it coming since he couldn’t pull off his 1k sneak attack on stage 2 that is starting to become his signature move.
I’m still following the thread.
Sure. Kirchen did pretty well (you have to if you want a top 10 finish!) He was a bit inconsistent, sometimes losing 5-7 minutes, sometimes finishing within a minute on the big mountain stages last year, but generally could not consistently stay with the leaders.
I went back to last year’s results to find some details. He didn’t do very well on uphill finishes, such as finishing over 5 minutes down to the stage winner on stage 8 to Tignes, and over 7 minutes down on stage 14, Plateau-de-Beille. He did better if the finish was a long downhill after the last big summit, such as on stage 9 to Briançon and on stage 15, arguably his best day in the mountains last year when he put back some time on the leaders, moving from 14th to 9th. He then finished 6 minutes down to the winner on Stage 16, Col d’Aubisque (actually pulled into 8th position, but still lost time on the top 5). He moved to 7th when Rasmussen was sacked.
The question this year is, is he good enough in the mountains to be a threat to the GC? I doubt it. I do suspect he will ride better in the mountains this year; he seems a lot stronger, and has more experience. Certainly if he can hold steady on the mountain stages with uphill finishes he’ll be a real threat. But in the end, my money would still be on Evans or Valverde (or maybe Menchov, Sastre, Cunego, or even Pereiro) as more likely overall winners.
Ah, I see.
With any luck, not having Contador or Rasmussen there might slow the pace over the mountains and give my boy a chance. Who knows. I can only hope, anyhow.
I do fully expect to see Kirchen hold on to the green points jersey, by the way!
Stage 5, another stage for the sprinters! Mark Cavendish was the fastest, simple as that, not mention his great lead out. They caught the last rider of the break away really at the last possible second, and Cavendish just surged ahead. Quite a sprint, he was really unstoppable today.
Wow! Just caught the repeat this evening - Cav looked imperious there. Really pleased for him - He’s got a lot of stick over here for making some grandiose statements, e.g. ‘give me a clear run, and no one can touch me over the last 200m of a sprint’. On that evidence, he may be right!
I’ll be watching David Millar for tomorrow’s stage - he’s said he fancies a dig at the maillot jeune in the first week and is well placed for it.
Since my cable company converted to all digital last month, I don’t get “VS” anymore. It’s apparently been moved to a tier that I’m not paying for. Argh. I miss the Tour already. I’ll just have to keep checking in here to see how it’s going. (Knorf, like you said, you don’t need to post the daily standings, I know where to find them if I need to.)
The tour heads into France’s Massiv Central, which isn’t mountainous but it is really, really hilly and often hot. Tomorrow’s stage includes a cat. 2 hilltop finish, after a cat. 2 climb with two cat. 4 climbs earlier in the stage. I don’t expect Schumacher to hold onto the yellow jersey.
But certainly it’s great terrain for escapes to succeed. The peloton thus far hasn’t shown tremendous motivation to chase down breaks–there have been several stages where the break was caught close to the line, like today. There should be some significant changes to the GC in the next few days, before we even get to the Pyrenees!
I’d love see some opportunistic rider like Millar “take the bull by the horns” tomorrow. It’s the kind of stage where someone like Greg LeMond used to wreak havoc.
Stage 6! Very exciting stage – no breakaways succeeded today. The peloton relentlessly pulled back every escape–nice weather and good roads helped with that. Riccardo Ricco took the stage, as he predicted! Valvderde and Evans were right behind him. No favorites were far off. Kirchen was 5th … so Kirchen is in yellow!!! He has 6 seconds over Evans. Schumacher rode into Kirchen’s wheel, went down, and lost a lot of time, but is still no. 3 on the GC. Vande Velde is 4th, good performance from him today!
I have this stage recorded but am heading away for the weekend right after work today. I can’t wait to watch all of this on Monday!
I’ll chime in when the conversation gets interesting.
For now, this year’s Tour seems a rather clean affair - and not before time. Team Astana were “uninvited…”, Jan Ulrich’s gone, Ivan Basso, Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Vinokourev, Rasmussen, they’re all gone at long last…
I think young Contador might have been given a rough deal by being in the wrong team at the wrong time on two occasions now. Johan Bruyneel has really tried to clean up Team Astana after all the blood doping crap last year. It’s a shame they had to miss the whole 2008 Tour de France, but at least Bruyneel has implemented Team CSC’s “total anti-doping” policy, but alas, it was a bit too late for this year’s ASO directors to give him a pass.
Racing wise, Evans isn’t the most wicked climber. In the great pantheon of Tour legends, I suspect Cadel would be lucky to crack the Top 10 if they all rode at the same time at the height of their fitness. But he is a very complete rider with excellent Time Trial capacity, and those qualities are more important in Grand Tours than outright sprinting capacity - although I note that Miguel Indurain surprised a lot of people with his bunch sprint victory in 1983 for 2nd place after Armstrong had broken away for the win.
Ouch!
My bad! With hindsight, I meant “when the racing conversation” gets interesting, not my fine fellow thread contributors! Sorry! 
Also, in my last post, I was referring to the 1983 World Road Race Championship by the way…
Yeah, obviously you meant 1993.
Thanks for the clarification, by the way. 
I actually think it’s been a pretty interesting Tour, myself. I love that it’s so wide open, with a handful of possible favorites, no one rider or one team dominating at all. It makes for great sport! And of course I love that to all appearances it’s a “clean” Tour.
Nah, the big 7 hour long stages were the ones where that stuff used to take place - especially back in the day when the Tour was known as “28 days in July”, not just 21.
After 14 days or so, unless you’re regarded as pampered peloton royalty, the day in day out grind becomes emotionally exhausting. On those days, grown men are sometimes reduced to tears as they realise they’ve come so close to elimination. On the big 7 hour stages with 4 or more “Beyond Category” climbs, that’s when guys like Le Mond, or Fignon, you name 'em, any of the greats - those were the days those guys used to really stamp their name on winner’s trophy. Rasmussen last year kind of did it, except he looked like an anorexic freak and he had some very dodgy training regmines he couldn’t explain.
I personally liked the famous 1986 Le Mond/Hinault l’Alpe D’Huez stage where they crossed the line raising each other’s arms. That was an example of what I was talking about.
Well no question LeMond dominated in the mountains. But he also didn’t win a lot of stages…mostly just time trials. (Only two others, as I recall, in '86 and an '89 and no stage wins in '90.)
But hilly stages like today’s can be excellent opportunities for a break away to succeed, and I recall LeMond sometimes shaking things up with relentless attacks in the Massiv Central, and of course in the high mountains as well (or even more so). LeMond didn’t usually go for stage wins, he went to demoralize and exhaust his opponents (sort of Hinault-style*.) 1986 was epic by any standard. I should go find a video of that and watch it again!
*1986 was full of attacking and counter-attacking by those two. I’ve really got to go find a video of it…
And now I’m remembering all those epic battles between Fignon and LeMond (culminating in the last TT into Paris) in '89. Those were the days!