Cycling 2011 [Archive] - Page 3

Dodge

01/07/2011, 10:16 AM

I'd prefer if he aimed for a stage win but there you go. In my first ever TDF fantasy league

Here's my team

Alberto Contador 550 /€ SAXO BANK
Mark Cavendish 400 /€ HTC
Philippe Gilbert* 250 /€ OMEGA LOTTO
Chris Horner* 200 /€ RADIOSHACK
Egoi Mart�nez* 150 /€ EUSKALTEL
Christian Vande Velde 150 /€ GARMIN
J�r�me Pineau* 125 /€ QUICK STEP
Paolo Tiralongo 100 /€ ASTANA
Anthony Roux 75 /€ FDJ

Limit was 2,000 per team

Points are

Overall
1st 100
2nd 80
3rd 60
Down to 1 point for 20th

Polka and green
1st gets 20 down to 10th getting 1

Stage winner gets 16, down to 5th getting 2 points

Daily points for classificatioms
1st in GC gets 20, down to 10th getting 1
1st in polka/green gets 8, down to 1 point for 5th

Banking on Gilbert winning that 1st stage. Hope he wins stage 4 too

Mr A

02/07/2011, 5:22 PM

Great start for Roche (http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-france/stage-1/results)- the peloton split so he put over a minute into a lot of the other main threats.

Hopefully AG2R can perform well in the team time trial and keep him right up there.

Dodge

02/07/2011, 7:24 PM

Gilbert is amazing! I punched the air when he flew past Cancellera. Amazing finish. I love that the Tour (and Giro) has added these 'classic' type stages

Stuttgart88

03/07/2011, 10:09 AM

Excellent idea to have a stage race to start with, and yes, a classic-style stage at that. The prologue has always bored me. Gilbert's form in the classics over the last couple of years totally warranted that win.

According to ITV4, the decision to allow the second crash group to record the same times as the leading group because of the 3km rule was only taken after the race finished. They had to debate whether the hilly finish made the 3km rule redundant. The cynic in me thinks that the organisers saw that by ruling as they did, they could penalise Contador at the expense of Schleck.

The next few days will probably be SKY-this and SKY-that unless Hushovd & co. have a good day today.

Great that Roche was in the top group. He said in The Indo that he didn't necessarily want good luck, but just avoiding bad luck would be good. He got his wish I guess, but then again, isn't it an age-old rule to ride at the front in that type of stage - exactly to avoid what happened Contador?

Dodge

03/07/2011, 10:35 AM

In fairness the decision is always made after viewing the footage to check it was in last 3k

There's 4 teams in the running today; Garmin, HTC, Radioshack, Sky

So the yellow will be on Hushovd (swoon), Tony Martin, Kloden or Geraint Thomas

Dodge

03/07/2011, 4:38 PM

Delighted for Garmin. First tour win. Hushovd in yellow too

Great performance by BMC. Roche happy to stay within a minute.

BonnieShels

03/07/2011, 7:01 PM

Gilbert is amazing! I punched the air when he flew past Cancellera. Amazing finish.

Looked at the repeat on TG4 last night and it looked like Cancellera was letting him past initially but looked at it again and the stamina of Gilbert was something else. Cracking opening stage.

Also that crash was just like slow-mo dominoes dragged over a 20m wave. Unreal sight.

Macy

04/07/2011, 8:29 AM

According to ITV4, the decision to allow the second crash group to record the same times as the leading group because of the 3km rule was only taken after the race finished. They had to debate whether the hilly finish made the 3km rule redundant. The cynic in me thinks that the organisers saw that by ruling as they did, they could penalise Contador at the expense of Schleck.
In the ITV podcast, they said that this years tour rule book specifically excluded stage 1 from the uphill rule (iirc stage 4's is counted as an uphill finish). Probably because it shouldn't have been a classified climb.

On the general point, I'm not sure I'm as anti the prologue as some, but I do agree these classic stages add a lot to the tour. Winner of the GC should be an all rounder imo - a second TT and the balance this year wouldn't be far off ideal for me. Loved last year's opening week and this years has great potential too. Some of my favourite stages of the last few years have been the flat ones that have been ripped apart by cross winds (which also could happen this week, today included depending on the wind). One thing I'd say though - there's no dominant team at the moment. Would yesterday have happened during the US Postal years?

Delighted for Garmin, even if I'm pee'd off that Martin isn't riding, and Millars sycophantic love of Sky/ Wiggins this week. Some performance by BMC - Evans a real contender this year, and a big threat to Gilbert this week too. He's a good role model for Roche in a way* - you can't concentrate 100% on GC, you have to try and get a few wins on your palmares as well.

*anyone managed by Rominger always has a bit of question mark for me.

Dodge

04/07/2011, 9:55 AM

One thing I'd say though - there's no dominant team at the moment. Would yesterday have happened during the US Postal years?

Its easier when you've science on your side. Still though I think I remember one of Lance's rivals being caught behind after a split some years ago and US Postakl basically time trialling to the finish and putting 2/3 minutes into them. can't remember who though.

And I noticed that, unlike last year when Schleck fell on the cobbles and AC pushed on, there was nobody saying the peleton show wait for AC (or the garmins, or Euskadel)

Saturday's stage was very siumilar to the stage into Barcelona, a couple of years ago. Looking forward to tomorrow now.

Today should be a Cavendish procession. In terms of teams, I've no doubt HTC are the only ones that can dominate (in their control of the sprints)

Macy

04/07/2011, 10:25 AM

Its easier when you've science on your side. Still though I think I remember one of Lance's rivals being caught behind after a split some years ago and US Postakl basically time trialling to the finish and putting 2/3 minutes into them. can't remember who though.
Don't remember that one. The one that comes to my mind is Moreau losing 7 or 8 minutes after astana put the gas down in the crosswinds (iirc he finished in tears), but echelons are fair game I guess.

I more meant that postal would've been at the front all day setting the tempo keeping Larry out of trouble - he wouldn't have been caught out by that, imo, and there wouldn't have been the chaos.

And I noticed that, unlike last year when Schleck fell on the cobbles and AC pushed on, there was nobody saying the peleton show wait for AC (or the garmins, or Euskadel)
Genuinely missed that criticism tbh. Thought it was for chaingate that he took the heat for (rightly imo). There was that ridiculous Ardenne stage neutralisation though too, but that was Cancellara/ Saxo (and more fool the others for going along with that anyway).

Dodge

04/07/2011, 11:47 AM

Hmm, I think I mxed about 4 stories/incidents up there

Carry on...

Macy

04/07/2011, 1:24 PM

Not sure you did really - hard to keep up with Contador vs Schelk if you look at some of the other forums (when I do, I'm reminded why I don't bother!). I'm surprised at the vitriol towards schelk - I mean he's not my favourite, but people seem to really hate him, whereas Contador generally gets a pass.

Dodge

04/07/2011, 1:51 PM

Its mainly due to the Schleck being seeing as a wheel sucker and his love affair with his brother.

Contador, drugs qustion aside, is an attacking cyclist and that will always please some.

Mr A

04/07/2011, 10:22 PM

Roche is seems to be doing a video diary as well as his Independent piece: http://www.youtube.com/user/nicolasroche1984

Dodge

05/07/2011, 3:33 PM

Brilliant stage win by Evans. Went from about 400m out and just held off Contador. Magnificent ride by Thor to hold onto yellow (finishing in 6th, one behind favourite Gilbert)

Contador gained 8 seconds on Andy (Frank finished in main pack). Roche was 19 down on the lead pack

Macy

06/07/2011, 7:49 AM

Can we use the spoiler tags, at least until after the ITV highlights, please???

Dodge

06/07/2011, 9:32 AM

Sure, no problem. As a matter of interest, what time are they usually on at?

BTW I record the TG4 highlight programme each night. Watched the last couple of days last night (and really just the final 2k and the magazine style bit). How bad is Phil Liggett now? Literally forgot Farrar's name 10 seconds after he won the stage.

And as great as it was to see Hushovd hand on to yellow, he missed the Evans/Contador finish!

Mr A

06/07/2011, 9:39 AM

Yeah, I noticed that too.. never saw a stage finish where the commentator kept gushing about the guy coming in 6th!

Macy

06/07/2011, 10:17 AM

Sure, no problem. As a matter of interest, what time are they usually on at?
7pm. Although it was the email alert that busted me (and I'm not sure the spoiler tag will work on that anyway). Hard not to follow the cycling news live updates when you're in work though.

Liggett's driven me a bit nuts the last few years actually, mainly when watching live coverage. I'm not sure whether it's age, or he was always this bad and when we were restricted to half hour highlights the crap was cut out. Repeating himself, mistakes on riders, missing bloody obvious stuff (e.g. the Omega guy falling - I could see he hit the speed bump, why couldn't he and instead insisted he just fell off!). Who's on eurosport now - can't still be Duffield?

BonnieShels

06/07/2011, 11:24 AM

Summer as a kid was glued to Eurosport listening to the great Duffield and Sean Kelly. A cracking team and the way he seemed to idolise Kelly was great.
Having become an adult and not having 2 and 3 month holidays in summer makes it difficult to keep abreast now with him. Never could believe just how old he was.

Dodge

06/07/2011, 12:08 PM

David Harmon is the main Eurosport guy, and to be fair he's very good. Kelly is co-commentator and Calton Kirby (i think thats his name) chimes in every now and again. Even if I had access to Liggett, I'd pick eurosport for the comms

Macy

06/07/2011, 12:43 PM

Duffield was going ahead of the race in one of the Tour of Ireland's in a car with loudspeaker - he stopped where we were (by the first intermediate sprint), and he was just the same as eurosport, telling irrelevant stories. Legend.

Even if I had access to Liggett, I'd pick eurosport for the comms
I don't have the option, but the ITV coverage is alright apart from that. I only really watched some of the 1st stage live, but they spent a fair amount of the time talking over the live footage rather than with commentary - Imlach, Boardman, Rendell and Boulting are pretty good imo.

Dodge

06/07/2011, 12:59 PM

Imlach, Boardman, Rendell and Boulting are pretty good imo.

Big fans of all them. Never checked to see if they were doing the podcast this year. Anyone know?

Eurosport have James Richardson with a variety of studio guests, ranging from Stephen Roche to Magnus backstedt to the guy who runs Endura racing.

Macy

06/07/2011, 1:43 PM

Big fans of all them. Never checked to see if they were doing the podcast this year. Anyone know?
Yep. Same xml as last year, so it's coming into my zencast, even though they're only linking to itunes on the site. I can post it if people need it. A professional sounding real peloton (which I also like, if it's a bit infrequent).

No sign of cyclingnews doing one this year for the tour though. The monthly podcast never came back this season, but thought they might resurrect the daily tour one.

Stuttgart88

06/07/2011, 8:06 PM

I still have sentimental respect for Liggett. He is similar in a way to Murray Walker, but MW became an irritant as bad as Peter Alliss, John Motson and mackerel once their sell-by dates had been passed. Liggett's love of the sport, for all of its faults, is contagious and I commend him. The same doesn't apply to Walker and the others, in my mind. For example, F1 is a glamourous sport and is easy to be passionate and enthusiastic about . Cycling isn't, except for a few weeks of the year maybe. Liggett can miss things and get things wrong as far as I'm concerned.

I do like watching Eurosport live though, and would watch it rather than ITV4 if watching live.

I don't know who my first cycling commentator was. My earliest memory was watching weekly highlights on ITV's World of Sport every Saturday lunchtime. Was that Liggett? There was eff all else to watch on World of Sport except the TdF! Did RTE / Sports Stadium / Jim Sherwin do something back then?

I remember in second year in school (1982 I think) my French teacher was telling the class all about the TdF. He got some bits right but plenty wrong and I corrected him so much from my desk he called me up to the top of the class to tell everyone about the Tour, the yellow jersey, the green jersey etc. I was basically a 14 year-old Jimmy Magee.

It was Kelly's era and Zoetemelk and Hinault were the top dogs afair.

I don't like Cavendish much but he's candid and actually very interesting. He knows and admits that he's an a$$hole, but let's all face it - he's absolutely brilliant. His interview on ITV tonight was top class. Jaysus, I wish football could be covered as well. The chat around sports like cricket and cycling makes football pundits sound like brain dead automatons.

Mr A

06/07/2011, 8:58 PM

Used to dislike Cavendish but have really changed my mind about him- he's incredibly emotional and at times very funny.

Macy

06/07/2011, 10:29 PM

Liggett's love of the sport, for all of its faults, is contagious and I commend him.
I think that is what has put me off in recent years as well though. I don't think I can take him getting over excited over another late Vino attack. He belongs to a more naive era of my cycling following.

On cav, I change my mind several times a day. I thought his whinging today about the stages so far - and how it's deliberately against htc - was absolutely pathetic, given the quality of the racing so far. But I always want to hear what he has to say, and agree he can be very funny at times. Brilliant win by him today.

Mr A

07/07/2011, 9:49 AM

A few more "I'm not sure you want to be that honest" moments in today's diary from Roche: http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/nicolas-roche-the-riders-are-just-the-show-and-when-the-show-is-over-we-become-nothing-again-2814997.html

Still though, you seem to get more truth, honesty and insight in a single interview or column with a cyclist than you'd get from most footballers over their whole careers.

Macy

07/07/2011, 10:05 AM

Was that motorbike crash on the TV? The ITV podcast basically blamed the rider, saying that the motorbike had no where to go and was even up on the grass trying to avoid contact.

Sounds crap with the transfers - I actually thought it'd be better for them with relatively close stages. Looks like it's made things worse.

Dodge

07/07/2011, 10:08 AM

Yeah, there’s a whole heap of guys willing to speak their mind. Definitely ads to the intrigue. Of the English speaking guys; Roche, Cavendish, Miller, Wiggins, O’Grady and Evans are all good interviewees.

Like Macy I thought Cavendish saying the tour was being set up to stop HTC (and by that he means himself) was a bit off. As if he has a divine right to 6/7 completely flat stages. Listened to the ITV podcast earlier, and Chris Boardman said something along the lines of “maybe they did, but so what, the racing has been terrific”. He mentioned today's finish has another ‘anti-Cav kick’

Stuttgart88

08/07/2011, 12:00 PM

It might not be anti-Cav in the personal sense, but the organisers realise that having one guy winning all the flat generic stage races would greatly reduce the Tour's appeal. They are therefore well within their rights to make changes. I'm sure they'd have done the same if any one rider / team was so comprehensively better than anyone else. I think they have the race's commercial interests in mind, not a personal vendetta against Cav, even if he doesn't help himself from a PR point of view. It's the classic "competitive balance" argument that dominates most sports (apart from F1 seemingly).

Anyway, Roche up a place to 23rd, but I'm not convinced he's on great form, judging by his remarks about getting dropped on Wednesday's climb.

Macy

08/07/2011, 12:41 PM

I think it's that flat stages themselves can be pretty boring, rather than anything to do with Cav or HTC tbh. They've tried to spice up today's stage with the late intermediate, for example. I think that's been a great initiative btw (one intermediate, with more points), notwithstanding some of the stupid rulings that have been made.

Hope I'm wrong, but hard to see Roche doing much in the GC this year, but that might give him an option of going for stages. And then him and his cousin fighting it out for podium places at the Vuelta.

cestlavie

08/07/2011, 5:01 PM

Roche is steadily rising up the GC, staying out of trouble. His form has been poor all year but I think he can push for top 10. Disasterous day for Sky and sorry to see Wiggins going out with suspected broken collar bone, he really looked like an outside bet for this years tour especially the way this first week has gone.

Horner and Levi Leipheimer chances in the overall GC have all but vanished over past 2 days.

Its still between Contador, Andy Schleck, C Evans and probably Kloden with outside bets on people like VAN DEN BROECK, Gesink and Vino. Going to be fascinating week to come.

Cav was really gutted when he heard today that Wiggins was out. He said that he thought Wiggins would have been up their for overall GC

Macy

08/07/2011, 11:17 PM

Good to see Nico the right side of the split. Despite him riding for sky and the way he left garmin, I like wiggins (very confident he's clean, and always has been), so disappointed to see him go out like that. Whether he had enough for the podium I don't know, but he probably deserved to prove his form on the road. It could be a career defining "what if".

Stuttgart88

08/07/2011, 11:31 PM

It'd have been interesting to see how Wiggins would have fared, but I can't help but feel that he's been close to most of this week's crashes so amybe he doesn't have the internal radar needed to avoid trouble on troublesome stages. The ITV guys said he must have been towards the front, but Cavendish didn't even know there was a crash.

Roche on the other hand is keeping towards the front and avoiding trouble. I think! 18th now, still 1:12 back, 53 secs of which was the TTT.

Mr A

09/07/2011, 3:48 PM

Roche has done pretty well so far, consistently in and around the big guns. Another solid ride today and moved up the GC once again.

He has also commented on twitter that he's feeling better every day.

Stuttgart88

09/07/2011, 8:00 PM

Roche up to 14th now I think. He finished with the main bunch after the Super-Besse climb, so he appears to be in decent shape. Nobody among the GC favourites has stood out yet, but much respect to Hushovd retaining yellow while the (other?) pure sprinters finished 20 minutes back. Gilbert having a great tour so far.

Dodge

10/07/2011, 10:07 AM

Ah Hushovd has never been a pure sprinter, How can you be when you're half a Viking God...

Contador tried to get away a couple of times yesterday. Never really looked like he was going to.

Agree on Wiggins, not just anti-doping but angrily anti-doping. Another candid interviewee too

Can't see too much change in GC today. Long hilly day but I'd imagine a breakaway will do most damage and with no hilltop finish, the manin contendors will come in together

Stuttgart88

10/07/2011, 10:50 PM

Mad stuff again today.

Footballers and whinging managers should be made to watch the KOTM's interview after the stage today after he was knocked into a barbed-wire fence at 60kph today and still shook himself off to get a high finish. Compare that to some tart who hasn't even been kicked rolling around like he's been axed, or Arsene Whinger's tiresome rants.

Macy

11/07/2011, 1:48 PM

Itching to get to Thursday, to see how everyone's going. Reassessing Roche a bit - he's managed to avoid any trouble, so if he's managed to build up any form top 10 is really achievable now, given how many who he'd be fighting with are out.

Mr A

12/07/2011, 9:45 AM

Sam Bennett takes a win in Belgium: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/gp-van-de-stad-geel-2011/results

And in case it was missed Brammeier was pipped in a photo finish in Austria: http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/int-osterreich-rundfahrt-2-hc/stage-6/results

Mr A

13/07/2011, 11:16 AM

Gadret has quit the tour. In retrospect it was a mistake to select him as he never looked in any sort of shape. It would have been better for Roche to have another domestique in there instead.

Macy

13/07/2011, 11:20 AM

Gadret has quit the tour. In retrospect it was a mistake to select him as he never looked in any sort of shape. It would have been better for Roche to have another domestique in there instead.
He was dropped on a cat 4 yesterday, wasn't he? In hindsight he shouldn't have been selected - whatever about the form he showed in the giro, his heart was never in the tour.

Great stage yesterday. Hope to feck I'm right to continue to have faith in Gilbert.

Dodge

13/07/2011, 12:12 PM

Don't even joke Macy. One of the last hopes we have...

Great seeing the green and Yellow jersies attacking yesterday. Can't remember who said it but the stage finish yesterday reminded me of the Milan San Remo finish. A testament to Cavendish that he lasted longer than Renshaw and Goss.

Should be easier for HTC today. Suits the likes of Petacchi too