Woo hoo for the US Postal Service Team!!! Kickin’ butt and takin’ names …
In case you’ve missed it try this, this, this, or this.
Congrats to Peña for being the first Colombian to wear the yellow jersey!! And for everyone else, just wait a few days, my man Lance’ll take over … (USA! USA!)
From what I’ve heard, this course appears to favour the field in holding off Lance. He usually catches up and extends his lead in grueling uphill climbs where his unrivaled leg power and endurance can take over and propel him to the front of the pack.
However, this year’s tour seems to have less long climbs which could be to Lance’s detriment. he’s going for 5 in a row. I think only 2 others have ever done it.
Yes indeed. Fingers crossed for Lance. But then, Jan Ullrich is still in the mix and he is the one guy that Lance admited to being a real threat to him in this year’s tour.
Still plenty of room for victory and defeat. It’s still almost anybody’s race.
Four men have won it five times, but only one of them did it five times in a row - Miquel Indurain 91-95. The tour this year has fewer climbs, but as usual it favors an all-around rider who can climb and time trial well. Armstrong has proven to be the best so far, and the has arguably the strongest team.
And I agree with Greg Lemond’s comment on the 2003 Tour - I always look at the course as kind of irrelevant. The strongest usually wins, on a hard course or an easy course. You have you be at your best in July.
I always thought it was the same course. Or is it more or less the same course in terms of where it goes, but with minor differences?
Similar in geographic terms… but most of the non-city stages use different routes from year to year…
And IMHO, Indurain is still the greatest.
I looked over the stages at CyclingNews.com
It seems to me to be flatter overall than usual. Not so many stages in the Pyrenees. Sunday’s stage - L’alpe de Huez - is certainly the hairiest stage - 211 km - with an Unclassified 2600 Meter climb up Col du Galibier.
I dunno if US Postal reckoned they’d win today’s team time trial - they’ve not done too well in the past. Yet I thought it was extremely generous and considerate of Lance to have Victor Hugo Pena one second ahead of him before today’s time trial (all the individual riders get the time of the ninth rider). That’s the first time in all 100 years a Columbian wears the Yellow Jersey.
Luckily, I held off on reading this thread until after I had watched the Tour for the day (even though I had my suspicions from the title). :rolleyes:
In the US, the Tour is being shown at 8 pm (East Coast) on OLN for those who can’t watch it at 9 am. If this is an ongoing thread, you might want to add “spoilers” to the title? (Just a thought from someone who doesn’t get to watch until evening.)
The course is different every year. Sometimes it goes anti-clockwise and sometimes clockwise. It always finishes in Paris, but varies before that and will not always just stay in France (it does this year) - has started in Luxembourg Berlin and Dublin before and regularly visits Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain and came to Britain for 2 days a few years ago. Some cities get more visits than others (think Bordeaux has had most stage finishes after Paris and the Alps and Pyrenees are always visited these days, where certain climbs crop up regularly (eg Alpe D’Huez in the Alps, the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees).
I believe New York is interested in staging the start of the 2005 Tour, as is London.
I heard about London - not NY. I’m not really in favour of large geographical disconnects. I guess if they can do London, NYC and Austin (Lance) and Australia (Robbie McEwan) may happen.
Maybe this thread can be ‘le thread’ for the duration?
Props to Tyler Hamilton. I fractured my clavicle (collar bone) in a bike crash. I couldn’t use my right arm for weeks! I hope he finishes! - close to Lance.
There’s another Le Thread, too.
I think they might try to have 2005 tour start in Belgie for Eddy Merckx’s 60th birthday or something. . . A rumour I heard, likely totally unfounded.
Speaking of Lance, in today’s New York Times crossword one of the clues was something like: “Prediction: Lance Armstrong will be this at the end of the 2003 Tour de France”. And I’m quite sure the answer was “First Time Champ”. If I’m right, and this was indeed the correct answer, then what the hell does this mean? I know he’s won it before, right? Right?
Well… I don’t know if I would call it generous, since Pena got the one second in the prologue, and it’s doubtful that Armstrong gave less than 100% on the off chance that they would win the TTT and Pena could get the yellow jersey afterwards.
It is cool that a Colombian has the overall lead. It’s a big step up from the early days of the only Colombians in the tour coming from the Cafe de Colombia team.
Fifth Time Champ would make sense and also has the same numebr of letters…Does that work for ya?
Whether it works or not, it’s a pretty clever response, LOTV.
May I invite you to read this thread?
At the risk of being immodest, it seems that there are more “long term” cycling fans who’ve been posting in that thread if you wanna learn a bit more about the sport.