2010 TdF

[Uncle Leo]

This in a Spanish newspaper (Sport) today, regarding Stage 4:

"Cavendish was taught a humiliating lesson by a true sprinter [Petacchi]"

Spot on there journo. Prick.

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

Sprinters aren't there to be liked, they're there to win stages. Long may Cav continue to do so, rubbing up Spanish journalists the wrong way in the process.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Just got back from a trip to France, where I watched Sunday's stage to Morzine-Avoriaz. We were about 5km from the finish and even though we were there for about eight hours in total and saw about ten minutes of cycling it was well worth it; such a great buzz. Alas I didn't get much luck with freebies from the caravane; that is a most unseemly scrum!

Francaise Des Jeux were staying in a hotel near us and apparently I teabagged one of the team cars on the way back from the pub last night. Maybe it inspired Sandy Casar to victory today.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Looks like Renshaw has been chucked off Le Tour

Wonder if it was for headbutting Julian Dean, or for blocking Tyler Farrar. I thought the later was more naughty.


Will be interesting to see what Cav does now for a lead out: stick with the HTC train or stick on Petacchi or Farrar's wheel?

 

[John Cena]

YB it was for Headbutting Julian Dean, has just come up on SSN.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

YB it was for Headbutting Julian Dean, has just come up on SSN.

Ridiculous when Barredo got fined €100 for attacking Rui Costa with his wheel.

The blocking of Farrar was far more dangerous.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Poor show from Contador.

You'd hope that the champion would have more class than to attack when Schleck had mechanical issues.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Poor show from Contador.

You'd hope that the champion would have more class than to attack when Schleck had mechanical issues.

Racing incident - if Schleck had not attacked and was still in the group then yes he should have waited, but as he was slightly up the road when it happened then sorry but in my opinion AC was entitled to do what he did.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Racing incident - if Schleck had not attacked and was still in the group then yes he should have waited, but as he was slightly up the road when it happened then sorry but in my opinion AC was entitled to do what he did.

On ITV4 yesterday, Boardman mentioned the 'chain guard'. As far as I can understand, having one of these makes losing your chain far less likely. Given that it was Andy Schleck's decision not to have one, then I guess it's a case of hard cheese.

What did stick in the craw though was Bertie lying and saying he had no idea what had happened to Andy's bike. What, depsite him being in front of you when it happened? And looking back several times after you overtook him? Pull the other one.

Predictably, the Spanish press take the view that Bertie is a true gentleman (un señor líder) as he deigned to say sorry afterwards. But why the outright lie?

A shame that such an incident has all but handed Bertie the race.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

This is the kind of thing they were talking about...

I bet Schleck will always ride with one from now on.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Hoping Lance wins today, Rich?;)

ps Having watched it last night (rather than just followed on BBC livetext), it's not as clearcut as it sounded. Still think it was far from Bertie's finest hour though.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Hoping Lance wins today, Rich?;)

Er no, I'm praying for a Joseba Beloiki style descent into Pau for him...

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Er no, I'm praying for a Joseba Beloiki style descent into Pau for him...

That was the incident where the Dodgeball star went cross country wasn't it?


Mistake on the BBC text commentary:


1522: Carlos Barredo, who did most of the attacking on the way up the Aubisque, Rui Costa is first to try to go off the breakaway on the way down. He still has 42km to go, and has built up a lead of 19 seconds so far...

 

[Uncle Leo]

Oh Cav, why did you sit up in that earlier stage, the maillot vert should be yours! :doh:

A fantastic Tour though, I really enjoyed it. Fair play to Bertie, a deserving winner, but I am looking forward to him and Andy developing a rivarly for the ages in the next few years.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Oh Cav, why did you sit up in that earlier stage, the maillot vert should be yours! :doh:

A fantastic Tour though, I really enjoyed it. Fair play to Bertie, a deserving winner, but I am looking forward to him and Andy developing a rivarly for the ages in the next few years.

I know they maybe don't need the extra pressure but on a route de tour like this year, it was obviously the points for stage wins was going to be minimal and so they should have gone for at least 4 or 5 days of intermediate sprint points. This "it's not my style" line is a bit of a joke when you think he was only 9 points off winning.

Best tour since 2003 & one of the best ever I'd say.

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

So, cycle-nuts... where does Contador stand in the pantheon of recent / all-time tour greats? To someone who has only a very tangential interest in Le Tour (i.e. it seems quite exciting, although I haven't really got into the nitty-gritty of it all), the pantheon includes Merckx, Indurain and Armstrong (*) - but is Bertie there, and who else is?

Matt

(*One thing I've never understood about Lance - who seems to inspire devotion or hatred in equal measure - is this whole business about doping. Everyone was doping when he won it, weren't they... so isn't he still the best, and wouldn't he have been if they were all clean? Yes, I get the point about hypocrisy, but then no one ever really fesses up to that stuff, do they? Allegations have been lain (in the world of athletics) against pretty much everyone who sprinted in the 1990s... yet none of them has fessed up. Has Ben Johnson even admitted he took performance-enhancing drugs?!)

 

[Uncle Leo]

Purely in terms of numbers, Bertie has joined a very select group. Post-WWII, only the following riders have won the Tour at least three times:

Armstrong (7)
Indurain, Hinault, Merckx, Anquetil (5)
Lemond, Bobet (3)

So, Bertie deserves his slot on that bottom rung, particularly when we consider that (a) he has also won the Giro and the Vuelta and (b) he won this Tour without a particularly strong team. Not winning a single stage in this year's event might lose him a few points (so to speak) but all in all he's clearly a very special rider.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

So, cycle-nuts... where does Contador stand in the pantheon of recent / all-time tour greats? To someone who has only a very tangential interest in Le Tour (i.e. it seems quite exciting, although I haven't really got into the nitty-gritty of it all), the pantheon includes Merckx, Indurain and Armstrong (*) - but is Bertie there, and who else is?

Matt

(*One thing I've never understood about Lance - who seems to inspire devotion or hatred in equal measure - is this whole business about doping. Everyone was doping when he won it, weren't they... so isn't he still the best, and wouldn't he have been if they were all clean? Yes, I get the point about hypocrisy, but then no one ever really fesses up to that stuff, do they? Allegations have been lain (in the world of athletics) against pretty much everyone who sprinted in the 1990s... yet none of them has fessed up. Has Ben Johnson even admitted he took performance-enhancing drugs?!)

Are we talking about TdF greats or cycling greats?

Anyway for me there's Merckx and then everybody else.

If we're talking Le Tour and GC only, then its the likes of Indurain, Hinault, Anquetil and Armstrong who all won five or more TdFs, you've then got a gap to the group, including Contador and LeMond who won three.

Personally, I'd be looking wider than the TdF and GC, so would give extra credit to Bertie for having also won the Giro and the Vuelta. I'm also impressed by those who excelled in more than one discipline, so riders like Coppi and Bahamontes (sp?) who won the KOM as well as the GC (Bahamontes picks up extra style marks for stopping and eating an ice cream at the top of a col, whilst waiting for the others to catch up) and the Classics as well as the Grand Tours.

As for Armstrong, he has a somewhat holier than thou attitude which rubs a lot of people up the wrong way. He's more of a great TdF rider than a great cyclist. Others have much more varied palmares and are more exciting, attacking riders than Armstrong who often ground down opponents rather than accelerated past them with a burst of speed from nowhere.

FWIW, Cavendish is probably not too far from working his way onto all the all-time great list. He's won 15 stages in 3 years. If he keeps that rate up for another 2 years, that'll put him 3rd in the list of all-time stage winners in the TdF. As a sprinter he'll never win the yellow jersey but that is some record.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Cousin Weir has pretty much saved me the bother of a long post on this in response to your comment MtS.

Armstrong no way deserves to be mentioned as the best Tour rider ever. It's disrespectful to guys like Coppi, Anquetil, Merkcx & even Indurain (to some extent) as well as other riders who've graced the Tour but maybe not won as many. How 3 weeks of racing every July can be put above and over every single other thing he did (at his peak) also shows another level of disrespect for the monuments of cycling. Look at his absymal performances in Milan San-Remo & the 09 Giro d'Italia, something any professional cyclist should be embarassed about. This is even before you take into account his dubious doping position, which I've detailed my perspective on many times before when we've spoken about two-wheels on this board.

For what it's worth I've got to say I imagine that 2010 was one of the cleanest Tour's certainly in modern times. Look at the 4h30 difference between Alberto (I refuse to use this Bert or Bertie fashion that's come about over the past few weeks) and the Lanterne Rouge. Also, consider how far Contador & Schleck were down on the finishing list in Saturday's TT, something unthinkable in terms of GC contenders for the past 20+ years, OK the wind direction changed and got stronger but to be THAT far behind suggests to me even these guys were hitting the limit of their reserves. This has got to be a good thing and one hopefully that will spur on Wiggo next season, he needs to either go for the Dauphine, Tour de Suisse or even Tour of California next season - I'm guessing riding the Giro was because Sky have huge commercial presence in Italy (2nd only to UK & Ireland). However, I still think Sky will need to wait 5 or 6 years before they have a genuine Tour winner, both because the Schleck/Contador rivalry will go on that long and Peter Kennaugh (neo-pro this year) will need to ride some grand tours to gain experience and fulfil his potential.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Armstrong no way deserves to be mentioned as the best Tour rider ever. It's disrespectful to guys like Coppi, Anquetil, Merkcx & even Indurain (to some extent) as well as other riders who've graced the Tour but maybe not won as many.

Tour rider as in Grand Tours, agree totally. The Tour as in TdF, yes he does deserve to be mentioned as one of the best. I don't like him but 7 wins is pretty good.

Still no where near Merckx's versatility. Armstrong just won the yellow jersey and stages. Merckx won stages, the yellow, the green, the polka dot and (had it been in existance) the white jerseys and the red and white numbers - and that was just in his first TdF. Wow, just wow. I think the Lanterne Rouge was about the only honour that eluded him....

I'm guessing riding the Giro was because Sky have huge commercial presence in Italy (2nd only to UK & Ireland). However, I still think Sky will need to wait 5 or 6 years before they have a genuine Tour winner, both because the Schleck/Contador rivalry will go on that long and Peter Kennaugh (neo-pro this year) will need to ride some grand tours to gain experience and fulfil his potential.

I thought this was more political than economical (didn't know about their Italian operations being so important), as a new team I suspect they had to promise to send big names to secure invitations. Radioshack got snubbed for the Vuelta (ha ha ha, serves them right for focusing so much on the TdF), whereas Sky managed to secure invitations for all three Grand Tours. Agree Wiggins should concentrate on the Classics. In fact with Thomas and EBH they look better suited to success in that format rather than the grand tours.

Sky said it was their aim to have a winner of the TdF within 5 years. I reckon it will take at least 5 years before they have a proper contender.