Tour de France '09

The Game Room
1

So who’s watching?

Up first we have the ITT around Monaco. Does anyone stand a chance outside of Cancellara? Is Bradley Wiggins gonna take one finally?

As for the race as a whole (GC)…

I suppose one has to start with Lance Armstrong as much as I’m sick of him already. Does he have the stuff to win an eighth tour? I’m not sure he has the legs to keep up with A or F Schleck, Sastre, or Contador on the Mountains and isn’t that much (or any) better on the ITT than guys like Menchov, Evans, or Contador. Can Linus Gerdemann from Milram live up to his big ars mouth? Is Kreuziger ready to make a run? How about Kirchen or Rogers. How about Pellizotti? Anybody have a sleeper…who am I forgetting?

Sprinters: How about Cavendish, is he unstoppable this year? Will Tom Boonen be racing? How about Bennati - will he be able to sneak a few stage wins or does Cavendish win 'em all?

Alright, I’m curious about everyone’s thoughts. I’ve been paying A LOT (and the girlfriend would say far too much…) of attention to cycling this year and am very excited about the tour.

Lastly: Over under on stages won by the mighty Columbia…I put it at 10!

2

Lance is ancient, but I wouldn’t bet against him. Firmin Lambot, at the age of 36 in 1922, was the oldest dude to win Le Tour. Lance was born on September 18, 1971, which makes him 37, right? That’s even more motivation for the senior citizen. And what the hell, Lance is going to pull in a bunch more casual American fans, so if he’s in the running, it’ll help advertising revenue. I saw him win it in Paris in 2001.

Yeah, OK, he’s not the favorite, but I’ll cheer for him.

3

Lance was either foxing in the Giro (and much better than he was showing) or he’s put in a stunningly effective training effort since, or he’s going to be lucky to make it into the top ten, is my take on it. Lance’s style way back when wasn’t to fox: it was to blast people off the road and psych them into believing he was unbeatable, if anything. I could be wrong (I think any of the possibilities I outline are real possibilities) but my guess is he is not in the hunt.

I think Contador will take it, barring happenstance (an accident etc). He is freakishly good in the mountains, and his former (slight) achilles heel which was TT seems to be gone now: he’s been not merely competitive but often winning TT’s lately.

I don’t think Menchov will do it: on paper having won the Giro you’d rate him high, but the Tour is different. Time and again I’ve seen people tip Giro winners’ chances in the Tour, and then they just turn out to be not in the hunt at all. I don’t know why.

Evans I will be cheering for, but I don’t think he’s more than an outside chance. He doesn’t quite have it up the hills: he’s superb and always in the top few, but there always seems to be someone who is faster, and while Evans tends to TT faster than those who beat him up the hills, the margin never seems to be enough. I think also he has head problems. Not that he’s insane or stupid, I just mean he seems to feel the pressure and not react well.

The Schlecks are great (and very funny, laid back and likeable guys) but they don’t have it in the TT’s, and there are just too many others who can do hills and TT for them to be up there.

The others: Sastre? Who the hell knows. He can ride away from the pack up hills sometimes like he’s got a rocket under his seat. But mostly not. Outside chance. Rogers I would love to see do well, of course, and when he was virtual leader of the tour and then crashed out in 2007 I was just sick with disappointment, but he hasn’t really done outstandingly well in the last year. My nomination for underrated is Levi Leipheimer. He’s never quite got there but he’s always looked a real threat. I don’t think he’s the favourite, but I think he could do suprisingly well.

My question for others. What do you think the effect of the TTT will be on the GC? I think it’s a real problem for GC contenders who don’t have a strong team (sadly, I’m looking at you, Cadel).

4

You have to expect Columbia to win the thing. They have the strongest overall team and won the TTT in the Giro, but I’m not sure how serious Mick Rogers and Kim Kirchen really are. Winning the TTT can’t hurt them though.

Astana is obviously a strong team too and should place top 3. This will really help AC as this may give him as much as 2 minutes on Cadel (extrapolating from the Giro Results). This may be the TdF, who knows? By the way, Cadel losing Dekker this close to the tour? Ouch.

Astana could also put a minute to both Schleck brothers and Menchov. That said, Saxo should be better than they were in Italy. They have the horses.

The thing Andy has going for him is that he has shown various times this season (Liege, Nationals) that he can Attack from along way out and hold on for the win. That Liege victory was something else…really impressive stuff. You’re right about the Time Trialing though, but he is decidedly better than his brother Frank. To win he’d have to take a couple minutes from Contador in the mountains? Doesn’t really seem possible. I DO think he can ride away from everyone else in the mountains though.

The one wild card right now are the rumors that 5 to 9 more positives will be announced right before the tour (presumably so the teams can’t replace the riders). I hope it isn’t the case, but seeing as it’s cycling, who knows…

5

Andy Schleck blog - pretty amusing read

It doesn’t provide any real insight but is a fun read and a nice change from doping talk.

6

They have a TTT this year?

Huzzah! I missed the Blue Train (and all the other colors of varying amounts of coordination)

7

I think Andy Schleck will win the Tour one day, superb rider. He has a serene strength to him in the mountains. It’s maybe a year or two away for him though - he’s probably the main guy I’ll be watching. I thought Menchov would win it last year but he didn’t make it, that was probably the best chance of the Tour he’ll ever have.

It’ll be interesting to see if Cav finishes the tour. He said recently that the green jersey was a ‘possibility’ this year, whereas in the future it is a ‘probability’. He’s a terrible arsehole but a lot of fun, and exhilirating to watch. His success is actually realy important for cycling coverage and interest here in the UK, so I’m hoping he’ll do well.

8

TdF is a freakin’ awful thing to be interested in over here. The coverage starts at like 10pm and the stages finish in the early hours of the morning, local time. So my options are to stay up and watch the early parts and then (inevitably) get hooked and end up staying up waaaay too late and then only find the result in the morning, or alternatively go to bed early and set the alarm to wake up in the early hours to see the closing part of each stage (and it’s midwinter here). I both look forward to, and dread, July because I am like a zombie the whole month.

9

I’m certainly looking forward to le Tour this year. Lance doesn’t have a hope of winning, does he? Phil Liggett thinks that Armstrong may well be on the podium–but I suspect that’s an emotional assessment more than anything.

Then again, even Bobke thinks his chances are “slightly better than anyone else”. Speaking of the droll Mr. Roll, I love the way he closes his latest report, “If you miss this year’s Tour De France I am sure there is a nearby insane asylum where you must check in posthaste.”

10

Lance is apparently a few Kg’s lighter than he was on the Giro, so who knows. As I said, though, I really don’t think he has the horses to compete with Contador, Sastre, or the Schleck brothers on the hills. Contador and Sastre aren’t rookies either, and know how the race is won. Sure they don’t have seven wins, but still…

There also isn’t much Time Trialing this year (40 Km individually, 39 Team) so he won’t be able to carve too much time from the Schlecks or Sastre. Also, we have wild cards like Menchov and Cadel who is definitely in pretty good form (Dauphine - he even attacked there. I believe he was second by 16 seconds or something. The rumour is that Contador worked for Valverde in the Dauphine so that Valverde would work for Contador at the Tour…who knows though). I’m really curious about Menchov’s form as well.

Long and Short is that I don’t think Lance will win and I wouldn’t put money on a Podium (I don’t think Liggett and Roll are all that neutral) but if he won the whole damn thing it wouldn’t really shock me either.

Incidentally, on Yahoo Sports I saw an interview with Lance himself and he thinks Sastre has as good of a chance as anyone. As Lance rightfully says, Sastre is always good in the final week (to be fair, he wasn’t including his own chances or those of his team).

Just for fun, here are my final standings:

  1. Contador
    –>I doubt it’ll be a 20 second victory either
  2. A. Schleck
    –>He’ll attack from a long way out once or twice - and probably succeed - but won’t be able to make up the lost TT time.
  3. Cadel Evans
  4. Sastre
  5. Menchov

I think Lance will be in the 6 to 8 range which is pretty darn good for taking 3 years off. Take all of this with a grain of salt, I’m no expert by any stretch and I don’t mean to come across as one.

11

The Time Trial has been interesting. I can’t watch the whole thing unfortunately, but I have to go cycling.

Tony Martin looks pretty good and as I type David Millar seems to be moving pretty well.

Ahhh, July.

12

How much does going early affect a rider’s TT to be an early starter (like Lance) as opposed to a late starter (like Contador)? I think I saw that Lance went 15th, and the top times mostly were late. I think it’s set up for the best riders to go last, so naturally, they should finish faster, but do the radios giving stats and just that extra motivation to cut a second here, a second there do much? I’m hoping for Lance to win, by the way. He’s the reason I own a road bike.

13

The best riders go last which is why the later riders put in better times. LA went early because he thought the weather might turn bad later and he didn’t want to risk it.

Outstanding features of the first TT: Contador and Menchov.

Menchov’s time is real bad: over a minute back on the key GC contenders on a 15.5km course? Maybe I’ll eat my words, but in my mind you just can’t win GC while doing that.

Contador’s form is amazing. For a lightweight climber to come second in a short TT that you would think would be best suited to the strongmen like Cancellara is stunning. I stick with my early prediction.

14

Also, he lost Bernhard Kohl to doping almost as soon as Kohl had signed-up.
It isn’t as though Silence-Lotto haven’t tried to get Cadel Evans some support, but the fact is that he has none. Which is a shame.

15

To add to all of that, Lotto signed Popovych last year who seemed to have no interest whatsoever in riding for Cadel Evans and then went back to Lance.

16

Nice win by Cavendish today. That was an interesting last kilometer with the roundabout splitting the field and some people not making the turn at the end.

17

Hope Tyler Farrar finds the line first at some point, but I can’t imagine how that’ll happen unless Cavendish falls off his bike. Looking forward to the TTT on Tuesday and carefully avoiding spoilers at work for the next three weeks…

18

I’m not sure Farrar gets one. Cavendish didn’t just beat Farrar, he was pulling away towards the line and won by about 3 bike lengths. Plus he’ll usually have guys like Freire, Boonen, Hushovd, Ciolek, and others to contend with even if he Cavendish does make a wrong turn at some point.

With that said, Columbia is the best cycling team in the world when it comes to stage wins and are so well trained that I don’t see any sprinter having a shot other than him. Maybe Boonen, but I don’t know his form. Cavendish could win 6 or 8 stages this year.

19

I think Johann has to much going on in Astana. Armstrong, Contador, Leipheimer… It just isn’t going to work, I don’t think. Any two of those three are not going to be domestiques. So none of those will win. That’s as far as I can go right now.

20

How do you see the problem unfolding? As I see it Leipheimer will do what he has done in previous years which is accept his role as lieutenant. I have never heard of any suggestion from him that he is rebelling from that role. He will take what he can get and if the others have a bad day leaving him with a real shot, then he’ll go for it.

As to Armstrong and Contador, neither needs the other as domestique, so even if they compete against each other it doesn’t matter.