Rants and Revelations

If I can wax poetical for a moment, I’d have to say that today the Pyrenees are littered with the broken dreams of the riders who thought they had a chance to win this year. It was a killer stage - an HC (Hors Categorie) climb, then 4 Categorie 1 climbs, the last summitting 2km from the finish line. A killer, but evidently not the “Queen Stage”, which is what the announcers call the hardest stage of the race - they’re probably reserving that designation for next Wednesday’s stage, which has two HCs and then finishes on a Cat 1.

Mayo was the first to go - he was dragging his way up the first mountain well behind the pack, yelling at the camera motorbike to stop following him, although the motorbike was there because they could tell he was going to abandon. He eventually did in the feed zone between the second and third mountains.

On the first mountain, Leiphiemer, Cunego, Simoni and many others were getting left behind. But those three at least regrouped enough that on the second last mountain, Cunego was actually able to attack off the front for a while, although he cracked badly. But Leipheimer stuck with the group that was about 18 strong on the second last mountain, containing Landis and a bunch of other GC hopefuls. On the final climb, that group went down to 5, including Leiphiemer and Landis, and then Leiphiemer attacked and suddenly it was just him, Floyd Landis, and Denis Menchov. There is a string of little groups trailing behind them, then the “peleton” with AG2R trying to protect their yellow jersey, and some of the former GC hopefuls. But strung out behind them, some more GC hopefuls cracking hard.

Landis lost the sprint to the finish to Menchov and Leipheimer, but his time bonus for third place puts him 8 seconds up on Dessel and into the yellow.

Surprises today:
Euskatel is leaderless with Mayo abandoning. Since the finish is in Spain, near the Basque region, this is a huge disappointment for the fans.

Discovery totally melted down. Azevedo was the only bright spot, only losing 4:10 to Landis. Popovych, one of the candidates to lead the team, was over 6 minutes down. Hincapie and Salvodelli melted down entirely, losing more than 20 minutes each. I hope Hincapie and Salvodelli like carrying bottles because they aren’t going to be leading the team for the rest of this race.

Rabobank and T-Mobile are surprising me with how well they are organizing and delivering their good riders to the front of the race on the mountains. T-Mobile arrived at the tour without their leader and their best “super domestique”, so seeing them with 3 guys in an 18 man lead group is pretty amazing.

AG2R is another surprise - they worked like hell today to keep Dessil in yellow. I wonder if AG2R will work to get Dessil back in yellow for the next couple of days.

Phonak is a surprise and a disappointment. The one rider they had with Landis on the first mountain, Robbie Hunter, is not their best climber, and it was expected that their mountain specialists would stick with Landis but they were nowhere to be seen. Mind you, last year Discovery did the same thing - leaving Armstrong alone whenever he was attacked on the mountains. Maybe you don’t really need help if you’re good enough.

The next three days are “lumpy” stages, which might end in bunch sprints if the sprinter’s teams are not too tired from trying to get over the mountains. Small break-aways might succeed because of that and because of the small hills on the day. Hopefully Phonak won’t tire themselves out trying to defend the yellow jersey. The next important mountain stage is Tuesday which finishes up L’Alpe D’Huez.

Cyclingnews.com says that they purposely didn’t have the mountain stages on the weekends this year because they were getting too crowded with spectators and the organizers were worried that there were going to be more crashes and more spectators interfering with riders.

First mountain stage, and it was worth the wait!

As predicted, the peleton fractured into pieces on the first mountain. There were 20 or so riders back in the “sprinters bus” including one of the GC favourites, Iban Mayo. I guess his dreams of GC are over. Other riders who didn’t seem to have what it takes in the mountains but who’ve managed to get back into the peleton on the long flats include Levi Leipheimer and yellow jersey wearer Sergei Gonchar, and my hero from the Giro a few years back, Cunego.

Gonchar is definitely *not* T-Mobile’s preferred leader - his team was setting tempo on both of the major climbs in spite of the fact that it was causing him to drop off the back of the peleton. If he’d really been the leader, they would have either slacked off or sent somebody back for him. Instead, they had him carrying bottles, and made him take a pull up front for part of the downhill drag into the finish. I guess they’re dedicating themselves to Kloden or Rogers.

Cyril Dessel took yellow by being one of two survivors of a group that got way ahead and stayed ahead - the two man break-away was leading by nine and a half minutes with 5km to go, but they were fighting each other for the stage win and so ended up finishing 7:23 up on the peleton. He’ll also have the polka dot jersey for the “King of the Mountains”. He’s likely to lose both of them in the next two days as other opportunistic breaks go up the mountains.

Freire, Zabel and Bennati are in the peleton while McEwan and Boonen were in the sprinters bus, so yesterday’s stage winner and those others will gain some ground in the green jersey competition, but not enough to wear it yet.

Tomorrow is another mountainous stage, but this time it finishes up a long climb. The announcers don’t seem to agree with me, but I would expect the GC contenders to have a go at getting some time on each other tomorrow, since it finishes with a long climb. An attack on the mountain, but with no downhill to recover and regroup, would be a great opportunity to stir things up. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are not so much flat as “lumpy”, but nothing great is going to happen to the GC on those days. Monday is another rest day, and then Tuesday is a mountain stage that finishes on the famous Alpe D’Huez.

Another flat stage, another 3 man break-away caught with a few km to go, and another bunch sprint. All as everybody predicted. The surprise for me was Oscar Freire winning his second sprint of the Tour. Robbie McEwan was about 5cm behind in second. Robbie made an amazing cut as he was boxed in behind Boonen and Zabel on the right side of the road, and suddenly zipped over behind 5 riders, and attempted to come around Freire. In spite of the extra distance he had to do to make that zip, he nearly made it too. Aging former sprint star Eric Zabel spoiled Tom Boonen’s day by coming in third just ahead of Boonen, so Boonen ended up getting 6 fewer points than McEwan rather than 4.

McEwan’s lead on the green jersey competition is now 23 points. We’ve got a couple of days of mountains now, so he’ll get to sit at the back of the race in the “sprinters bus”. The “sprinters bus” is a pack of riders whose only aim on the day is finishing before the cut-off time so they don’t get disqualified.

Tomorrow’s mountain stage has an HC climb, then a Cat 1, then mostly downhill for 40km to the finish. The climbs will probably break the peleton into chunks, with the main GC guys watching each other and a few opportunistic breaks going up the road (and the sprinters falling off the back). I wouldn’t be too surprised if the long down-hill means that the chunks will re-coalesce into bigger packs - maybe the lead couple of breaks will get away or maybe not, but you can bet that Landis, Gonchar, Hincapie, Salvodeli, Kloden and the rest of the GC contenders will finish together.

Ok, I didn’t think I’d be posting about the Tour today either. But today I have another reason to respect Floyd Landis.

Floyd has been doing great this year - he won 3 major races before the Tour, and now he’s a minute out of the yellow jersey after a great performance in the first individual time trial. He’s always had a reputation for hard work and for never making excuses or complaining. But now I find he’s a fellow chronic pain sufferer. He’s just admitted that for 4 years he’s been suffering from osteonecrosis in his hip, and he’s going for hip replacement surgery soon after the Tour (to maximize his recovery time for next year’s Tour). The New York Times has two stories, here and here. (Registration required, use BugMeNot.)

One of the interesting facts I learned from the articles: his extreme forward position on the seat on his time trial bike was chosen to create a wider angle between his trunk and his femur to help his hip work.

Some of the quotes from the articles:

He walks with a limp. He sits as often as possible and cannot cross his right leg over his left. He takes elevators instead of stairs, valet-parks at the shopping mall and sometimes has difficulty sleeping. Running is out of the question. Like many of the 216,000 Americans who will receive hip replacements this year, his life is defined by chronic, debilitating pain.

Yeah, I can relate.

Later, back at his house, Landis would finally open up a little about the pain. He would say: “Everybody thinks you can overcome pain if you want to enough, and let me tell you, you can’t. This isn’t some Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, where somebody can get shot in the leg and keep going. There’s pain that makes me stop, makes everybody stop.”

Here’s hoping you don’t have to stop, Floyd.

Ok, that was a surprise. The stage was flat enough that the sprinters teams *could* have controlled the field and made a bunch sprint. But it looks like Boonen decided that his team had done enough work this week and waited for another sprinter’s team to step up, and none of them did.

Instead Phonak, Floyd Landis’ team, acted like the “senior team” like US Postal/Discovery has in the past, and made pace most of the day. But Phonak wasn’t concerned with catching the six man break away, so they didn’t go any faster than they had to. Eventually some of the sprinter teams started to step up, but it was too late - with 30km to go, they started to close the gap, but Calzati attacked off break-away, nobody went with him, and he stayed away and won. Two more of the break-away tried to bridge up to Calzati but they left it too late and couldn’t make it.

The surprise of the break-away is Kessler, who won off the top of the Cauberg a few days ago. He was in the break-away, but just sitting on, never taking a turn at front. And yet, he didn’t use that energy to chase either of the attacks off the break-away and ended up being absorbed back into the peleton along with the other two.

Behind the two break-away groups, there was a bunch sprint and once again Robbie McEwan out sprinted the rest of the sprinters and got some more lead in the green jersey. No significant change in the GC.

Tomorrow is a rest day, then Tuesday is another dead flat stage on the coast of Bordeaux. Wednesday is the first mountain stage, although it has a long downhill finish.

The first individual time trial. And what a day! Full of personal ups and downs. I was out of town and really busy, so this will be a short one.

Heart ache for Bobby Julrich, the leader of CSC since Basso was suspended - he crashed on a corner and was taken to
hospital with a suspected broken wrist. His Tour is over. I guess CSC will have to rely on Sastre to carry their flag.

Disappointment for most of the “big men”, especially the big Americans, who did badly on the day - Levi Leipheimer way, way, way down, Zabriske not showing his normal TT prowess, Hincapie down about 25th or so.

The two stars of the day where Sergei Gonchar who blistered around the course and won by over a minute, and Floyd Landis who was the best of the rest finishing second on the day and making it look more and more certain that he’s going to be on the podium in Paris.

Landis was told by UCI to change the position of his aero bars just before the start. I’m not sure if that was a factor, but his handle bars broke soon after out on the course and he had to change bikes, losing a good 15-20 seconds. What a machine to have a distraction like that, have to ride in a different position than what you practiced, and still end up second on the day!

T-Mobile is defying everybody who thought that the loss of Ullrich would kill them - they’ve got several people up near the top of the GC now, including Kloden who has finished second overall before. If he’s recovered the form he was showing that year (and hasn’t shown since), he could be back on the podium this year.

Discovery seems to have forgotten how to TT without Lance there, with their 3 top men all 2+ minutes down.

Another sprinters day tomorrow. Boonen worked too hard today, TTing more like a yellow jersey owner than a green jersey hopeful, so I expect Robbie McEwan or Thor Hushovd to win tomorrow.

Another flat stage again today. There was a huge break-away, but since it was joined by Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen, the other sprinter’s teams had to chase it down, and they did. Then three broke away, and were allowed some free reign until they were inevitably chased down and caught a few km from the finish.

Looked like Tom Boonen was finally getting a good lead-out this time, but Robbie McEwan did his usual trick of coming out of no-where and winning. He’s won three of the first six stages, a pretty amazing result. And his time bonuses put him second on GC, but of course that won’t last with tomorrow’s time trial. Boonen retains yellow for another day with a 3rd place finish.

About the most interesting news of the day was that one of the riders had been fined because on Wednesday, in the middle of the peleton, he’d hauled off and punched another rider in the face. I would have loved to know what they were talking about. Jens Voigt said in an interview on a German web site that everybody started yelling at them both because they were in danger of causing a crash, and the guy who got punched went and complained to the race commissionaire. Kind of a different definition of “attacking the field”.

Tomorrow’s individual time trial should be where we see if Hincapie or Landis have what it takes to win. Can’t wait.

Another flat stage, another bunch sprint. The biggest surprise of the day for me was the news that Thor Hushovd had been “relegated” for improper actions in yesterday’s sprint. I’d watched it on TV and hadn’t seen anything irregular - he shifted sideways to avoid Dean’s crash, and squeezed somebody else against the barricades. Being “relegated” means that he didn’t receive any points at all for the day, which effectively puts him out of the running for the green jersey - the same thing happened to Robbie McEwan last year, although it was a lot more obvious why that one happened than this one, since McEwan was basically leaning on the other guy.

With Hushovd out of the race, his team didn’t really have any motivation to help the peleton catch back the break-away group, but they did step up near the end. I guess they were trying to get organized, but it appears that there is no dominant team the way Alessandro Petacchi’s team used to make the sprints so predictable in previous year’s Giros.

Out of the massive confusion at the finish, McEwan looked like he had a good lead-out but jumped too soon - he actually let up on the gas, and several people went past. Boonen was looking good, but Oscar Friere took a line up one side with no traffic in front of him, and sprinted for first place, with Boonen nearly a bike length behind. McEwen had to settle for 5th, and Hushovd for 7th.

No change in the GC, except Boonen’s time bonuses put him a few more seconds further ahead, and Freire’s put him tied for 3rd with Hincapie.

Boonen moves within one point of McEwan in the green jersey competition, but nothing is sure there. McEwan seems to have the form so far, but today was the first sign that Boonen still has the form he showed in the spring classics and the world championships.

Tomorrow’s stage is also flat and boring, but it’s the day before the first individual time trial, so the big GC teams will have no interest in chasing the break-aways preferring to rest up for Saturday. So we’ll have to see if the sprinters teams are strong enough to do all the work for driving the peleton or if a break-away succeeds.

Another flat stage, another bunch sprint. Tom Boonen might have enjoyed the day in yellow, but he sure isn’t sprinting like a guy who thought he was going to win the green jersey this year.

Boonen’s team controlled the peleton most of the day and reeled back the break-away with 2km to go. But they didn’t get organized to do a proper lead-out. Two days ago, Thor Hushovd pulled his foot off the pedal in the sprint - today his lead-out man Dean did the same and crashed with 400 metres to go. But by that time, McEwan’s “new” lead-out man Stegmans had delivered McEwan to the front, and Robbie did the rest, winning by a convincing margin.

Hushovd got 4th, Boonen 5th. McEwen is back in green for tomorrow, Boonen retains yellow.

Tomorrow is another relatively flat course with a few 4th category hills. Expect another bunch sprint, and not much change in GC. Boonen better get it together and show some of the talent that he showed this spring or he’s going to go home empty handed.

Yesterday, the TV showed a former sprint champion Stuart O’Grady peddling very slowly off the top of the Cauberg long after the rest had finished. Today they’re saying that he cracked a vertebrae and is still in intense pain - but he rode today and finished in the peleton. The difference between a race horse and a bike racer is a horse race has a vet to say “no, racing this horse would be too cruel” and the horse doesn’t talk back.

Today the big stories were flat tires and broken collar bones. I think both the flat tires and the crashes were caused by the high heat and long tiring stage, since they mostly happened on flat straight bits.

Out of the race with broken collarbones:

• Freddy Rodriguez, Robbie McEwan’s lead-out man
• Erik Dekker, Rabobank’s team leader
• Alejandro Valverde, a man several commentators though might win overall.

There was the usual long break away that splintered and the last guy got caught just on the base of the last climb, the Cauberg just 2km from the finish. The Cauberg is a feature in the Amstel Gold Classic in the spring, but it was a lot hotter today. Matthais Kessler, the same guy who got caught about 100 metres from the finish yesterday, took off about half way up the Cauberg and managed to hold them off this time, finishing 5 seconds ahead of the rest.

The Cauberg managed to fracture the peleton and some of the top sprinters ended up behind the first major group, including Hushovd and McEwen - but not of course the GC contenders like Hincapie and Landis, whose teams made sure they were kept near the front of the peleton for just such an eventuality.

World Champion Tom Boonen hasn’t been having a great Tour so far, but he was the best sprinter in the front group. cyclingnews.com says he had a slow leak on the Cauberg and finished on a flat tire, so he wasn’t successful sprinting for second place. He had to content himself with 4th on the day, and ending up in both the yellow and green jerseys (green will be worn by Bennati) for tomorrows start in his home country of Belgium.

Tomorrow will be a flat and long stage. Look for Boonen, Hushovd and McEwen to fight it out for a sprint finish. McEwen will miss Rodriguez a lot, though, and Boonen and his team will have to contend with the pressure of being in yellow, which means setting tempo on the peleton and bringing back the break-aways.

Well, I thought the small hills at the end might lead to a successful break-away. Several tried, but the last lone break-away, Max Kessler from T-Mobile was caught about 100-150 metres from the finish. Ouch. There was a major crash 2km from the finish which gave the sprinters some room to maneuver. Robbie McEwen once again came out of no where, sprinted, and won.

Thor Hushovd, riding with a huge bandage over the stitches in his arm, sprinted for some intermediate sprint time bonuses to put himself ahead of Hincapie in GC. He was very well placed in the final sprint, but he was too tight into McEwen and when McEwen drifted towards him, Hushovd jinked hard and his foot came off the pedal. He had to settle for third, and regaining the Malliot Jaune. Not bad for a guy who lost a lot of blood yesterday.

BTW: The race organizers have banned those stupid foam hands from the last 2km of the race. I had a good look at them in the earlier parts of the race - they aren’t the big fat ones you can put your hand in like you see at USian spectator sports, they’re quite thin. It’s easy to imagine getting a paper cut from one of those - especially if it slaps across you at 70km/hr.

Tomorrow sees Hushovd in yellow, McEwan in green. Tomorrow is going to be another “lumpy” stage with some small category 3 and 4 climbs. It crosses through Belgium over the same territory as the Liege-Bastogne-Liege spring classic, and finishes in the Netherlands up the same hills that the Amstel Gold spring classic finishes up, so maybe one of the Dutch riders will go for it. But more likely it will end up with another mass sprint, with McEwan, Hushovd and Boonen battling it out.

Today was a flat stage, favouring the bunch sprinters. True to form, a break away formed, stayed out front for most of the day, but got caught in time for the sprinters teams to try to get lead-outs organized. I find these types of stages pretty unexciting except for the last 10 minutes or so. Today there were two highlights:

• George Hincape saw a chance when most of the break had been caught leaving only one guy up ahead, and sprinted for the last intermediate sprint point. Somebody from AG2R saw him go and beat him to the line, but George ended up with a 2 second time bonus for being third to that line. He was gambling that Thor Hushovd and the others within a few seconds of him in GC would end up out of the time bonuses at the finish, and he was right - his quick thinking and quick peddling landed him in the Malliot Jaune for the first time in 11 years of riding the Tour.
• None of the sprinters teams got really organized for the final sprint, and Tom Boonen made a really bad mistake, but Thor Hushovd got caught without a good line, so he tried to push along the barricades. Evidently one of those green foam hands that one of the sponsors were handing out to all the spectators caught him edge on and slashed his arm open. He crossed the finish looking fine but then collapsed with blood all over him. It looked awful.

I don’t expect Hincape to keep the yellow for very long - one of the sprinters will get some time bonuses and push past him. The GC never starts to sort out until the first individual time trail, and doesn’t get decided until the mountains. The biggest hills and the last TT are in the last week, so it might be a tense race towards the end.

They’re saying that Hushovd’s cut isn’t that bad and he’ll be fine to ride tomorrow. Hope that’s right.

Tomorrow’s stage might bring some surprises. There are a few small hills towards the end, and that might help a small break away escape and not be caught up at the end by the sprinter’s teams like happens on the flatter stages. I expect the break away will feature “also-ran” teams that don’t have a good GC contender or a good sprint contender. We’ll see.

With so many of the big names out, I would put Floyd Landis as one of the favourites. But not if he has bad luck like he did today in the prologue. The prologue is a timed start, and you get used to seeing riders in the start house while you hear “bleep bleep bleep bloop” and the rider starts off. But when it was Landis’ time, you heard “bleep bleep bleep bloop”, with no Landis. A few seconds later he rides up into the start house, looks around, and finally realizes he’s supposed to have started and rides off. The announcers figure he lost 7-9 seconds. And then ended up finishing 8 seconds behind the leader. That 8 seconds isn’t going to be significant for the GC. After the race they announced the reason he was late is because he got a flat tire riding to the start house. Bad luck.

The winner of the prologue is Thor Hushovd, the Norwegian sprinter, former green jersey winner and one of my two favourites to win the green again this year (with Tom Boonen).

Second place by 0.73 seconds was Discovery’s George Hincapie, who rode with Lance Armstrong for most of Armstrong’s career.

George is a sentimental favourite, he deserves to win for all the work he’s done for Armstrong, but I didn’t think he’s really got the talent for it. Maybe this Prologue is a sign that I’ve underestimated him.

Ok, so yesterday I was speculating on whether it would be Basso first and Ullrich second, or maybe the other way round on the podium in Paris. I didn’t really think there could be any other result.

Now it turns out that neither of them is going to be there. Ullrich, Basso, and a host of other top riders have all been suspended because of the Operacion Puerto busts.

It makes you wonder if there are any clean riders left. It also makes you wonder about the heroes of the past, which is the saddest part.

The prologue is this Saturday, and then the real separations in the standings start with the first major time trial a week after that. First mountain stage is on the 12th. First mountain top finish is the day after. L’Alpe D’Huez is the 18th, starting three days of hell, and then another individual time trial. Can’t wait.

The course this year was designed to have fewer mountains and put more emphasis on overall performance - I’m surprised they didn’t do this the last couple of years before because having the race decided almost entirely on HC climbs favoured Armstrong over Ullrich, and as much as the French press and public hates the Germans, they hated Armstrong more. (Of course the organizers loved Armstrong because he brought the tour a lot more attention and money.)

So the question on my mind is whether Basso burned himself out winning the Giro, or whether his time trialing has improved to the point where he can not lose too much time to Ullrich or even beat him against the clock. He’s certainly got a monster team around him - Julrich, Zabrieski, Voigt, Sastre - and they’re not going to split their attention between the GC and the sprint points like they have in the past.

The other big question is the current doping scandal, and which teams it will touch. There was even some rumours flying that Ullrich might be caught up in it. Of course, it being Tour season, Greg Le Mond showed what an attention whore he is by making his annual spate of crazy accusations against Lance Armstrong, including accusing him of being an attention whore. Looked in a mirror much, Greg? Armstrong said it best on the Daily Show when he said that he figures he’s going to be dealing with these accusations for the rest of his life.

Well, I’ve got the season pass on the TiVo, the cyclingnews.com “live” site bookmarked on my Treo, and I’m all set.