freckling Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 Someone please tell me they're following this too
Dreadhead Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 Absolutely and totally obsessed with it. I "watch" nearly every stage on the velonews race tracker then go home and watch the recording of the stages too.
tyrion Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 I missed yesterdays stage. I'm going to try to watch the highlights during the day.
Dreadhead Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 Today is the first real "GC" stage. I'm cheering for Vande Velde or Sastre for GC (I know I only have a small chance of either of them wining) and Cavendish for green. I was hoping Boonen would do more on the sprints but he seems to be having a horrible time.
Voltron Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 I record the live coverage show on Versus every day and watch it in the evening or whenever. I am often [relatively] bored by flat stages but these have been amazing. Looking forward to some big action today. Boonen just needs a little toot and he'll be back on form.
peanuthead Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 Today's mountain top finish should be very revealing. Hoping that Lance can hang with the big boys...
Augsburger Posted July 10, 2009 Report Posted July 10, 2009 I love the mountain stages those are the most grueling and exciting especially when Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen mention how steep the climbs are in feet and percent grade. I have a 11% and 13% climb at the end of my Saturday rides but they are only a fraction of a mile, I can't imagine suffering through climbs like that for miles.
Voltron Posted July 12, 2009 Report Posted July 12, 2009 These is a really great TDF so far! Not sure Lance is speaking to Contador at the moment, but tomorrow is going to be killer on Tourmalet. I wish it was ending at the top but oh well.
Augsburger Posted July 12, 2009 Report Posted July 12, 2009 Man, averaging 24 mph with the last section climbing to 1500 meters of elevation, that is smoking! It takes strong legs and a huge heart to grind out through the mountain stages like those guys are doing. The mountain stages are always some of the most exciting stages in the Tour.
Voltron Posted July 12, 2009 Report Posted July 12, 2009 It was super fast today and would have been faster if the yellow jersey hadn't made it back into the leaders group.
veloaudio Posted July 21, 2009 Report Posted July 21, 2009 Holy crap. Andy is making this a race Damnit, I wish I could watch at work....
Dreadhead Posted July 21, 2009 Report Posted July 21, 2009 Damnit, I wish I could watch at work.... Me too. I like the VeloNews Live tracker though. Gets the point across.
Voltron Posted July 22, 2009 Report Posted July 22, 2009 Just finished watching the stage. Quite exciting, and Lance really was impressive coming back to the yellow jersey group. Alberto seems untouchable but tomorrow's killer stage and the time trial will be very interesting. Very sorry about Jens Voigt who is one of my favorite domestiques. That crash was scary but he didn't get hurt nearly as bad as I thought.
veloaudio Posted July 22, 2009 Report Posted July 22, 2009 Me too. I like the VeloNews Live tracker though. Gets the point across. I can get the tracker on my iPhone, work firewall won't allow it. iPhone FTW
Voltron Posted July 23, 2009 Report Posted July 23, 2009 I'm pretty pissed that Alberto rode off on the Colombiere because Johan B says that he was not in favor of it. I think Alberto wanted Lance and Kloden to lose time and if he had not made that move and ended up dropping Kloden and advancing with the Schlecks then at least Lance would be in 2nd or 3rd. TT will be quite interesting but I don't think the gaps are going to be really large. Ventoux is going to decide things....
Augsburger Posted July 25, 2009 Report Posted July 25, 2009 I am watching Ventoux now. Am I the only one who noticed the guy BAing Lance and the camera on Lance's final 5K of the time trial? Pretty funny and I am surprised it doesn't happen more in the TDF nowadays. Crushing day. Alberto is self serving and may find it tough to have his domestics kill themselves for him next year unless he gets his act together. Maybe with Lance off team Astana the "team" dynamics will change.
Voltron Posted July 25, 2009 Report Posted July 25, 2009 The Ventoux delivers today, as always. Didn't see any BAs along the way, but plenty of people. Between 500K and a million apparently. Alberto was selfish but wanted a cushion and got it at the expense of an Astana podium sweep and some respect. Radio Shack will be an interesting team. I have to look at the news, but is Johan going to be the director?
Dreadhead Posted July 26, 2009 Report Posted July 26, 2009 I thought today was amazing. I really don't see Contador as particularly self serving. Did lance slow down the split so that Contador could catch up in the early stages? No. Did anyone give him shit? No actually they gave Contador shit for not keeping up. Seems to me if Lance had done identical things all would be forgiven. As far as that attack can see Contador not particularly wanting to listen to Johan since Johan didn't even have the nuts to go with the guy who was the stronger rider from the beginning. Today Contador rode a perfect team mates race and even paced Lance up once or twice. I just hope these Contador doping accusations are entirely false. It's too bad that this in this sport everyone lives under a cloud.
Augsburger Posted July 26, 2009 Report Posted July 26, 2009 The BA was in the time trial. If you recorded it look for the last part with Lance around 5K I think.
freckling Posted July 27, 2009 Author Report Posted July 27, 2009 Completely forgot I started this topic. I kept up with the race by watching the live video streams off my laptop. About Contador being self-serving...of course he is, and so is Lance. However, the difference is that Lance followed the split while Alberto was the one who dropped his own teammate. While it hasn't officially been decided, I would be shocked if Bruyneel didn't direct Team RadioShack. I can't wait for next year. Alberto will most assuredly be the favorite, but the Schleck brothers and LA will be there at the end again.
Voltron Posted July 27, 2009 Report Posted July 27, 2009 I sure as hell hope Cavendish isn't found out to be doping, but what the hell can explain his kick? Unfuckingbelievable that he and his awesome lead-out man simply rode away from the pack and that he then put a couple bike lengths on his teammate. Quite something. Next year is going to be great. I hope Hincapie is on Team Radio Shack -- did you happen to notice him pulling the Columbia line for the last stretch? George is the best.
Augsburger Posted July 27, 2009 Report Posted July 27, 2009 George is the best, and from what I understand a really nice guy too. I hope he rides next year and gets the respect he has earned. I hope there are no doping scandals this year, and the sport has cleaned up it's act.
freckling Posted July 27, 2009 Author Report Posted July 27, 2009 Hincapie is awesome. Too bad Garmin went out of their way to stop him from riding in the yellow jersey for a day. We won't know about any doping results until much later considering how long it took them to find evidence of CERA during the Giro. Most of the riders are still cheating in some shape or form, but at the same time, cycling is still 10x cleaner than 90% of the professional sports out there. I'd love to see how baseball or football reacts to having the biological passport program. The passport is pretty tough to beat, and even if you do beat it, it's debatable that what you're using isn't really going to help after all.
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