From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sun Jul 4 00:08:25 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2004 16:08:25 -0700 Subject: [Giro 2004]Preface & Prologue 2004 Message-ID: Preface & Prologue - Liege Belguim - 6.1 km Time Trial Preface - "Six" =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D So many images and thoughts float about at the beginning of this race. Boundries always exist. They spoke about the 4 minute mile, the 10 second 100, the "fact" that no one would ever travel beyond the speed of sound. Now we ponder the potential for one man to win the Tour for a sixth time. Even though the "SIXTH" is being pounded into everyone's conciousness, and will be repeated endlessly for the next three weeks, that will take care of itself. It (to state the obvious) will take care of itself if Lance Armstrong can win the bike race. I recall an interview around the 3rd or 4th time he'd won the race. The question had to do with his longer term goal of winning a 5th Tour. Before he answered the question, there was this pause, and a gleam in his eye. In the silence, it was obvious what his real focus was - to win the sixth race (at least). That's an incredibly far-reaching strategic goal and the effort to do so stretches beyond what most of us can comprehend. To win once is a staggering accomplishment. To remain at the top for 5 years in a row is mind-boggling - especiallly since the man who has the potential to do this wasn't really even supposed to be here. There was another interview in Outside Magazine - before the cancer, before the first TdF victory - when he brashly replied to a question that he had probably heard too many times that he was not the next Greg Lemond, rather the first Lance Armstrong. It's been a wonderful priviledge to watch the story unfold. More images: a team picture in some bike magazine of the Cofidis squad, when Lance was going through treatment. He was clearly bloated and wasted, bald and yet somehow propped up and photographically dropped into the picture. He looked bad. Not long after, he was let go. Another year and stories began that he was considering racing. Then he was racing. Then it became clear that he was challenging. When he lined up on the start for the Tour, it was a stunning return. When he thrummed through the prologue and it became clear he was going to win that day and tears began to fall from my eyes, he really did not need to do anything ever again. Coming back from cancer and competing at that level was plenty. Of course, to make an incredible understatement, he did do more. The victories, of course. But, because of the nature of the story, he has transcended the boundries of our quirkey little sport. When people who have never in their adult lives slung a leg over a bicycle know his story, you have to know that his reach has moved far beyond mere cycling. So, we find ourselves at the start of 91st Tour de France, lining up 188 riders on 21 teams to cover over 2000 miles in the next 23 days. That's a whole lotta pasta. Everyone knows the "short list" by now - Jan Ullrich trying to not become the first man every to take 2nd a record 6th times; Tyler Hamilton who had his obligatory pre-Tour bounce on the ground, thereby ensuring some initial pain to ride through; Iban Mayo, the reclusive yet dynamic climber who just beat Lance by 2 minutes in the Dauphine Libere's Mt Ventoux Time Trial; Roberto Heras, ex-USPS climber extrodinaire now leading Spanish team Liberty. Others to watch will include Ivan Basso, now riding under the tutelage of Bjarne Riis on the CSC squad. He's a very strong rider and with the masterful leadership and tactical sense of Riis, he's due for a breakout Tour. This year should be a dynamic rumble for the sprinters. Mario Cipollini finally back into the race with his Domina Vacanza semi-zebras, screaming-fast Allessandro Petacchi of Fassa Bortolo coming off 9 (NINE!) victories in this year's Giro D'Italia, Robbie McEwen the Thunder from Down Under on the Lotto squad, Brad McGee Anotha Thunda from Down Unda will be FDJeux.com - winner of the Giro Prologue Time Trial and last year's P. Of course, no discussion of prologue time-trialing would be complete without a quick discussion of David "Dummy" Millar who (a) will not ride in the Tour and (b) has been dropped by the Great Britain Olympic Team because of admitted EPO usage. What a waste of talent. "A Very Bad Way to Start Your Day" Whap! A mistake while warming up puts Matthew White from Cofidis down hard, a cracked collarbone at the world's least opportune moment has ended the Tour hopes of this young Aussie. The Cofidis curse continues, as Richard Farezin gets the weirdest cell phone call of his career to drive across town in two hours and join the Tour squad for the next 23 days. Prologue - Liege =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Oscar Pereiro of Phonak set the early time at 7:01 We begin to get into some recognizable faces as George Hincapie flows into the streets of Leige, sporting a bike that almost vanishes when viewed from the front. There's been a lot of chatter about Lance's new equpment, but it seems that everyone benefits. George has also shifted to the nearly flat extensions that seem to be molded to the handlebars. His shift and rear brake cables disappear into the frame just behind the headset, leaving no lever for the wind to pull upon. Hincapie pushes hard and finishes just outside the current fast time at 7:02. Looks strong. The guy you'd want to have as your engine for a 2000 mile race. In other tech-geek stuff, riders have slightly swollen heads, as they use actual helmets rather than the eggshell thin aero "helmet" of years past. Giro has developed a protective version of their earlier designs, while riders such as Paolo Bettini who simply have non-perforated version of their normal helmet. The sun is out in earnest now, and the roads have remained dry for the riders. Battling Bobby Julich of CSC lines up with a day-old beard. Another talented rider who has had a bit of a rebirth this season under the direction of Riis. Unfortunately, about half way around the circuit, he has a bit of trouble on a tight turn, slipping the back wheel a bit after misjudging the entrance. Even with the distraction, he nips Hincapie by 5/100ths for second, but can't quite push his way past Pereiro. Robbie McEwen leaves the start house in what most be the ugliest flippin' helmet in the peleton. This one (by Lazer?) looks like a Texas debutante's haircut from 60's. He's a big-hair boy as he heads out onto the roads of Liege. Michael Rogers puts it down in the same corner where Julich ran into trouble. Clipped so strongly into his pedals, he remains attached even with a slow-speed flip. He's up and seems to be back into the rhythm, but he's not going to make up the time he lost. In slow speed replay, it looked almost like he clipped a pedal on the inside as he finished the corner. CSC's Jens Voight takes a hard stab at the stage, but finishes 2 tenths behind Pereiro. Fabian Cancellara from Fassa Bortolo strains against his machine and finishes at just a mini-tick past 6:50 - eleven seconds faster than Pereiro! A new leader on the day! Baden Cooke of FDjeux.com rolls over a good sized gear. The tail of his helmet seems strangely truncated and looks a bit like the end of a lemon. Another of the USPS squad, Jose Azevedo finishes in the top 20 with a solid ride. This is the man who replaced Heras on the squad, and he definitely gives them more strength in the Team Time Trial, in addition to being a stunningly good climber. Michele Scarponi of the Domina Vacanza squad moves through the streets on his all black Specialized TT bike. The Domina's have shed their stripes, by the way, opting for a much more subdued kit. Well, it is strange how quickly the weather can change in places other than California - the sun has disappeared as the sky clouds over. No rain yet. Mario Cippollini is having "adjustments" to this year's skinsuit - it seems that judges may not be allowing the bits below his knees for some reason. It looks like a bit of wardrobe that wasn't used for the remake of TRON. As we head into commercials I have to wonder, can there really be a "World Series of Poker"?..... Lance drips sweat as he warms up in the shadow of his bus, wearing his iPod. Focused. In his own world as he listens to the music and warms up his engine. Over by the pink bus, Ullrich sips water and spins as well. The total difference last year was 61 seconds. Hushovd is pushing to strong time, but just misses the 7 minute mark, notching into 3rd currently. Aitor Gonzalez of Fassa Bortolo finds the finishing straight a bit too long for his liking, but loses a bit too much time and drops into the mid-20's. Brad McGee glides onto the roadway with his eyes on the victory. Levi Leipheimer has the most determined face of anyone who has left the start house. Homeboy from Santa Rosa. The first mists of rain begin to hit the camera lens and roadway. That nasty light coating of moisture that could make things treacherous..Of course, as soon as I type that, every other camera shot seems to be drenched in sunlight - well, I can't be worse than most of the other weather forecasters... McGee pulls around the corner and becomes the third rider to finish under 7 minutes, but finishes 9 seconds behind Cancellara. Reports were that he was ill last evening, and as Phil points out, he's changed his prep this year to focus on a bit better climbing at the sacrifice of some raw speed. Levi rolls in strongly and finishes in 7:05.04, putting himself into 11th on the day. Heras comes in at 7:27. Iban Mayo of Euskatel carries his early season form out of the start house. Winner of the recent Dauphine-Libere, the question is whether he can carry his form through the Tour. Tyler rolls away. Ullrich sets himself onto his cycle and then moves away from the start to a rousing roar from the crowds. He's ina new position as well, with his handlebars pitched well down. The power of Ullrich - who has lost they say 14 pounds since April - is frightening. Armstrong on the line - flashes going off - an even louder set of cheers and howls. Mayo goes through 13 seconds behind Cancellara's mid-course time. Hamilton goes through 10 seconds behind Cancellara's time. Ullrich matches Hamilton's time at the check. More or less a minute behind, Armstrong is out of the saddle picking up some speed as the course rolls along the river. He's looking very fast - an image aided by his phenomenally smooth and fast cadence. We won't know for sure until - there we go! - Armstrong comes through 2 seconds behind Cancellara's Though not regarded as a strong time trialist, Mayo looks strong and comes in at 7:11. Hamilton pushes to the line and comes across with some fading, - finishing at 7:08 Ullrich looks well within himself, but will be outside the top 10 at 7:07 Driving to the line, a clearly on-form Armstrong finishes in 6:52.58 - 2 seconds behind Cancellara and one of only 4 riders to get below 7 minutes on the day. At 23 years of age in his first Tour de France, Cancellara begins to shed tears of joy as he realizes that he will wear the Yellow Jersey tomorrow. In the bigger picture, Ullrich needs to now find 15 seconds. It is always important not to overdramatize the Prologue, but this is a very different Tour route this year, and a very special challenge. There is no question that Armstrong and the best tactical mind in bike racing today, Johan Bruyneel, have a definite plan for success. Stay tuned - this is going to be quite a Tour. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Tour de France 2004 - Prologue 1 - Fabian Cancellara - Fassa Bortolo - 6:50 2 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - @ :02 3 - Jose Guiterrez - Phonak - @ :06 4 - Bradley McGee - FDJeux.com - @:09 5 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole - @:10 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D 6. Oscar Pereiro Sio (Sp), Phonak, 00:11 7. Jens Voigt (G), CSC, 00:11 8. Christophe Moreau (F), Cr=E9dit Agricole, 00:12 9. Bobby Julich (USA), CSC, 00:12 10. George Hincapie (USA), U.S. Postal Service, 00:12 11. Gutierrez Jos=E9 Enrique (Sp), Phonak, 00:14 12. Angel Vicioso (Sp), Liberty-Seguras, 00:15 13. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Rabobank, 00:15 14. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, 00:15 15. Arvesen Kurt-Asle (Nor), CSC, 00:16 16. Jan Ullrich (G), T-Mobile, 00:17 17. Floyd Landis (USA), U.S. Postal Service, 00:18 18. Tyler Hamilton (USA), Phonak, 00:18 19. Viatceslav Ekimov (Rus), U.S. Postal Service, 00:19 20. Andrea Peron (I), CSC, 00:19 --=20 You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sun Jul 4 16:43:34 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 08:43:34 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 1 - Leige to Charleroi Message-ID: Pre-Stage Thoughts: It's interesting to see how a roughly 7 minute effort can set the stage so quickly. I've never been one to put a great deal of credibility to the Prologue results - there are simply too many miles to go. Still, it does set an interesting , Ivan Basso of CSC lost more than 30 seconds. Ex-USPS rider Roberto Heras nearly 40. Jens Voight of CSC did manage to stay within 11 seconds, and even Iban Mayo of Euskatel kept within striking distance at 20 seconds. Of course, unless they've done some special training Though I didn't go into it yesterday, George Hincapie, Floyd Landis and Vlatchislav Ekiimov (who at 38 is the oldest rider in the race)all finished in the top 20. Clearly, the preparations have been team-wide. This bodes well for protection on the roadways and the upcoming (thought gutted by the time loss limit rule) Team Time Trial. Tech Note: According to Chris Carmichael, Lance's testing shows him to be in the best shape of his career. His HRM showed that he averaged 188 bpm during the Prologue Time Trial. Stage 1 - Leige to Charleroi - 202 kilometers Today could be a stinky shock to some riders. No riding in the Belgian countryside will ever be easy, between the roads, weather and winds. This stage is no spring classic, but the profile on this stage looking noticeably "toothy" in the first three-quarters of the course. There are actually five categorized climbs today, though nothing is over a "3" or "4" rating. Once they make it through that, there are three sprint points in the final 50km, so we'll get to see men who are eyeing the Green Jersey come to the front (or scramble to get reattached if the Belgian crosswinds blow and echelons form). If the group can come back together, the sprinters will come out to play, with the teams of Allessandro Petacchi, Robbie McEwen, Mario Cipollini ready to take control to the finish. ====================== We begin the day with rain on the camera lens, Mario Cipollini trying to reattach after a slippery crash, Fassa Bortolo leading the peleton over the toughest of today's climb while the USPS boys hold tight formation right behind them. They follow a small group who have a gap of 2:20 102 - Paulo Bettini - Quick-Step 69 - Jens Voight - CSC 98 - Janek Tombak - Cofidis 165 - Bernhard Eisel - FDJeux.com 127 - Frank Renier - La Boulangere The slippery roads find Tyler Hamilton sliding down the roadway as well. His team ferries him back up front, and there seems to be no time lost As the lead group speeds along, the FDJeux.com team car comes alongside and while talking, Eisel touches wheels with the rider in front and goes down at full speed - it's an absolute yard sale as the bike narrowly misses being crushed by the wheels of the team car and every bit of food and drinks get spread across the roadway. Thankfully the slick roadway provides enough lube to keep his skin reasonably intact. It was an absolute error of attention - dare I say Cat 4 mistake? - but, he does regain the lead group. At the other end of the peleton, Cipo and some teammates have found other stragglers and victims of the slick roadway, and work to close the 30-40 gap to the bunch. Brad McGee is in the group as well, having either come off or gotten stuck behind a crash. 88 km to go and the gap has fallen to 1:41. Eisel makes a stab at keeping the gap, but Fassa Bortolo's pacemaking continues to reduce the time - now 1:15. A lot of orange nipping around the front of the bunch, with black-rain-caped USPS riders tending to Lance. They begin the rain-soaked descent with reports of another crash - no specifics yet - and Fassa Bortolo's pacemaking having reduced the gap to just over 40 seconds. The gap has caused a split off the front of the pack - true Belgian racing conditions. Cancellara and his Fassa Bortolo teammates find themselves with a 10 second gap, which gets shut down fairly quickly by the Euskatel orangemen. The roadways seem to be drier now, and there is not a lot of spray coming up any longer. The efforts bring them within 10 seconds of the lead bunch. For those with a quick calculator, you might notice that if Jens Voight wins another Intermediate Sprint, he will move into second place due to the time bonuses. Unfortunately, the scattered race cameras miss the sprint results. The field has them well within sight, moving quickly up from behind like a grey mass. Bettini drifts back and finally the tough German eases up on the pedals and accepts the inevitable. Despite the slobber and bluster of the first parts of the race, things have come more or less together - gruppo compatto if this were the Giro - The crowds are thickening up along the roadside and the bunch has widened across the roadway. Thought the sun is still hidden, the bunch tap out a calmer tempo on dry roads. There are now about 35 miles to, with one more bonus sprint on the roadway. As with the rest of the sprint points today, it is worth a 6, 4 and 2 second time bonus to the first, second and third place riders. Since it applies to the overall time, it does tend to determine the early wearer of the Yellow Jersey. The big German himself - Telekom's Jan Ullrich - appears near the front of the bunch - that would be a curious sprint this early on if Lance were to take a serious stab at those sprint bonuses. Brad McGee continues to suffer today, slipping back to the team cars and race doctor. He had a strong Giro this season, suffering his way through the mountains. He may have overestimated his ability to recove this year. The massive Norwegian Thor Hushovd marshals his Credit Agricole teammates to the front. Now 1 km to go to the sprint. Tom Boonen has his Quik-Step teammates suddenly ramp up the pace, follows the leadout and makes his move. Yellow Jersey wearin' Fabian Cancellara has been patiently locked right on his wheel, and rolls up a big gear as 4 or 5 riders begin to spread across the roadway. A Cofidis rider - Stuart O'Grady - begins to slip up the inside while Cancellara moves up on Boonen's shoulder. The Belgian phenom may have slightly misjudged the distance, as he seems to get caught by one or both riders right before the line - already we find a need for the finish line camera. Preliminary Results: O'Grady Boonen Cancellara Of course, the wiley Belgian Marc Wauters of Rabobank fires away from the bunch as they catch their breath - joined by the CSC Dane Jakob Piil. They quickly move out to a 23 second lead over the main bunch. Five more riders edge slightly away from the main group, but they can't establish a lead and they sit up and leave the pair to suffer alone. With 26 miles to go, the sprinters' teams probably feel they can retrieve these men before the stage finish. It's curious to see Lance wearing the Green Points Jersey today - but since Cancellara actually won everything yesterday, they get distributed among the subsequent places. The gap eases up to a full minute. A commercial break over, the gap has pushed to 1:37 - I'm not sure that the peleton wants to give these two talented riders that much time at this point on the day. Another bit of roadway under the wheels findsd the pair out to 1:54. At the head of the peleton, Robbie McEwen's Lotto teammates begin to nose out into the wind. The Fassa Bortolians take on a Borg-like look at the front - concentrating on bringing the boys back. They begin to form a bit of a wedge as the speed continues to climb. Quik-Step riders swing into the rotation. Suprisingly, the orange jerseys of Euskatel are highly evident near the front. No matter what, this regional team have also focused upon this event. 1:40 with 12.4 miles to go. 1:20 with 10 miles to go. On the other end of things, Brad McGee has been snipped off the back of the bunch, and can only watch as the tail of the peleton edges away. 1:05 at 15 km McGee gets the tow from teammate Matt Wilson, who has dropped back from the bunch. Ahead of him, the peleton has strectched again, as they try to cut down the gap. Just the hint of a shadow appears on the roadway. Things are thankfully dry for what seems to be shaping up as a fierce sprint. The Quik-Step/Lotto/Fassa Bortolo troika share the pacemaking, but as the peleton heads up a slight rise in the outskirts of Charleroi, Alessio rider Marcus Ljungqvist gains a quick gap. He is the teammate of the big Swede Magnus Backstedt, and this may be a savvy way of getting the speed of the main field to increase. :18 at just under 3 miles. Ljungqvist is swallowed back up while Vjatchislav Ekimov leads the bunch. The pair are rolling in the saddle and praying for the banners to go overhead - just now they see the 4 km to go banner. But, now they have only a -- Crash in the field - Phonak rider - Nicolas Jalabert is down but seems to be unhurt -- 15 second gap...they still try to hammer and hang onto their dwindling gap. The Yellow Jersey at the head of the field knowing that his job is to now put Allessandro Petacchi over the line first - a perfect leadout line forming. They have made the catch of Wauters and Piil with just under 2 km to go. But suprisingly, it is the Ag2R team who have managed to push out to the front - the Fassa Bortolo train noses them back out of the way at they go under the 1 km to go banner. T-Mobile's Erik Zabel moves up strongly and gets immediately onto Petacchi's wheel. It's a wide straight road as Gerolsteiner Danilo Hondo pushes the pace and Hushovd goes hard at the rail. No one will come around his inside. Curiously, Petacchi is nowhere to be seen, but the big Hushovd has a shadow as Estonian Jan Kirsipuu from Ag2R slides around his left shoulder and winds it up hard. To his left Robbie McEwen appears and seems to shut down the effort of Allessandro Petacchi, who cannot find the roadway to unleash his speed. Kirsipuu timed his effort to perfection and just edges out Hushovd as McEwen lunges to grab second place. Stage 1 Results - 1 - Jan Kisipuu - Ag2R 2 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto 3 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole 4 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner 5 - Jean Patric Nazon - Ag2R The finish pushes Thor Hushovd into second place overall, with the time bonuses putting him 6 seconds ahead of Lance Armstrong, and two behind Fabian Cancellara. Tomorrow's Stage - Charleroi to Namur - 197 kilometers Another fairly flat stage, but nothing in Belgium is truly safe and simple. Aside from the winds and weather, there's a sharp short climb at about 50 km to go - 1.1 km at averaging nearly 7%. 2 spring points on the day, with the second coming at 158 km after the climb. If the sprinters' teams can prevent a spllit on the climb, it could come back together, with a descent into town and what seems to be a dead-flat finishing run. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Mon Jul 5 16:42:12 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2004 08:42:12 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 2 - Charleroi to Namur Message-ID: Today's Stage - Belgium Again Charleroi to Namur - 197 kilometers Another fairly flat stage, but nothing in Belgium is truly safe and simple. Aside from the winds and weather, there's a sharp short climb at about 50 km to go - 1.1 km at averaging nearly 7%. 2 spring points on the day, with the second coming at 158 km after the climb. If the sprinters' teams can prevent a spllit on the climb, it could come back together, with a descent into town and what seems to be a dead-flat finishing run. It's shaping up to be a nice day, weather-wise. The sun has been breaking through the clouds and roads are dry. ================= Lotto's Aussie rider Nick Gates did not start today - eliminated on time after a hard crash in the wet weather yesterday. 187 riders begin, with a number of "officially" banged up riders - those who reported to the race doctors. Among those listed are two riders from Tyler Hamilton's Phonak squad, and Benjamin Noval from the USPS. Thor Hushovd starts the day in the Green Points Jersey, after nabbing some points on the road and finishing in second. Palo Bettini gained the Polka Dot Mountains Jersey over the small climbs yesterday, and leads the race over the first categorized climb today to receive three more points in his effort. Attacking after the day's first climb, a group of six now find themselves about three and a half minutes off the front of the pack with 60 miles still to go. 66 Jakob Piil -CSC 84 Sebastian Lang - Gerolsteiner 94 Christophe Edaleine - Cofidis 126 Jerome Pineau - La Boulangere 149 Mark Scanlon - Ag2R 167 Christophe Mengin - FDJeux.com As they run through the feed zone, another American in the race - Christian Vandevelde riding for Liberty Seguros - receives a rear wheel change and threads through the team cars to regain the pack. We've dipped into France for a bit right now, with slightly wider roads and smoother pavement. The lead group still hold a three minute gap. Thor Hushovd's Credit Agricole squad has taken up the pacemaking duties, trying to close down the gap before the day's final sprint point, so their man can gain maximum points. Quik-Step begins to pitch in on the efforts as the peleton begins to stretch out a bit and focus upon cutting down the gap Roberto Heras of Liberty Seguros finds himself off the back with a flat tire. Five teammates immediately drop back to tow him to safety after a flawless change. Almost immediately they rejoin with a minimum of panic. The quickening tempo begins to eat into the lead, as the breakaway finds themselves less than 3 minutes ahead for the first time in quite a bit. They also find themselves dinking around a bit as they approach the sprint point in the town Beaumont. Edeleine swings out from third position in the bunch and grits it toward the intermediate spring point. The rest of the riders spread across the roadway and grimace toward the line. On the inside, Piil finds a bit of speed the others lack and screams up on them. They hit the line and this result with have to go to the judges. Edeleine just manages to hold on to nab 6 points. But with the tactical maneuvering, they find their lead has dropped to 2:30. Pineau skitters away to push across the final climb point, a 1.1 km averaging nearly 7% on the Cote de Silenrieux. That will put a few extra Euros in the team kitty, but they've lost a little time, down now to 2:10 with about 30 miles to go. A tailwind is giving a little bit of a push to the riders. In the peleton, Quik-Step riders have continued to mass at the front to bring things back together for the young Belgian phenom Tom Boonen. The orange jerseys of Euskatel again mass near the front, clearly taking a page out of the USPS "How to Win the Tour" handbook. Saeco even shake off some cobwebs and position themselves to protect Gilberto Simoni. However, it's becoming clear that they will not get ahold of the break before the final sprint point. It's less than 5 km to the town of Florennes. The lead has come down under 2 minutes, so with the requisite amount of tactical messing about, they will lose more time to the ever-increasing speed of the sprinters' teams. The sprint is an uphill, dead straight drag. Piil moves away strongly with a good jump, but Edeleine times it to perfection and nips it right at the line. == crash in the field == Before we can even savor the quality of the sprint, the cameras find riders scattered and jumping off bikes to avoid prone riders. The cameras find CSC's Andrea Peron getting his gear together and other riders hiking back and pulling straw out of their spokes. Riders seem to be getting back underway - all except Domina Vananza rider Gianmatteo Fagnini - Cipo's main leadout man is in a slow-moving heap on the side of the road. Unfortunately, he seems to hold his arm in an uncomfortable angle - indicating he may have damanged his collarbone. Before too long, the stretcher has been brought around, and it becomes clear his race is over. Back in the race, the pack has begun snarling a bit, and the time gap has dropped to nearly a minute. A few USPS riders find themselves briefly at the front, as they pass through the open fields of Belguim at a visibly faster clip. Now Phonak sets the pace for a bit as they run through a bit of traffic furniture. They continue to eat away at the gap, and they come into view only 33 seconds ahead of the bunch. The race moves into wider and straight roads now, and you can see the ooomph go out of the legs in the group of six. The catch is imminent with 12 miles to go Another crash at the back. This one leaves a Cofidis rider limps his way back up out of a deep gutter. Frederic Bessy is in a couple of worlds of pain as he tries to get his left leg to work right. USPS immediately begins to set pace and creates a perimeter of safety for Lance. George Hincapie bangs out a strong pace and the other riders come under a bit of pressure as things stretch out. These are nervous stages and they know how to keep their man out of trouble. Word is that the finish has a bit of a curve at 200 meters to go. Hopefully, we will not find a replay of last year's disasterous crash. Under ten miles to go and Alessio's Fabio Baldato fires away to try to gain an advantage. Actually, it may have been more to put pressure on Thor Hushovd, who also went down in that crash and is getting towed back up. Despite the increased pace, he manages to get back on but doesn't look too happy. He's having some mechanical issues, as the team car is trying to oil the chain and make minor tweaks before the final sprint. 8 miles to go and Lance is riding in about 8th position as the USPS works to keep him up front. Erik Zabel also works his way onto the wheeel of a teammate - the only disruption in a group of Fassa Bortolians. Speed keeps increasing. On the other end of the group, Heras again finds himself off the back. Four teammates pull him past the tail of the bunch to position him closer to the middle of the pack. The roads begin to twist a bit, and Hushovd has found his way back to the front of the group. A few Gerolsteiner jerseys have massed, trying to launch their sprinter Danilo Hondo. But Fasso Bortolo keep pushing their way back to the front. Paolo Bettini settles into second, and the Quik-Step group has plans to get their Belgian to the line firrst Bottles are jettisoned to the side of the road and the Fassa Bortolo finishing drills begin to show - the train has formed as yellow jersey wearing Cancellara hammers out the lead with about 2 miles to go. Zabel is doing everything he can to get the wheel of Petacchi. At 1 km to go, the peleton hammers around a 90 degree right. It's has been a Fassa Bortolo team picture, but they seem to be losing speed and control as Gerolstiener leadout men and Zabel have seeded themselves into the rotation. The speed increases again, and Credit Agricole have ferried Hushovd into the thick of the fray. Fassa Bortolo leads out the wrong team as Petacchi seems to be boxed in. They scream through a sweeping left turn and focus on the line. A rider goes down hard on the curve - CSC's Kurt Arvesen must've caught someone's wheel - it looks like someone pushed over to try to find daylight. Arvesen slides into Jimmy Caspar from Cofidis who hits the tarmac in an equally ugly manner. Somehow riders avoid the widespread disaster and skirt the prone riders. Up front Hushovd has gone hard, but Lotto's Robbie McEwen appears from nowhere and finds speed that no one else can match. He has an easy bike length, checks over his shoulder and crossing the finish with hands in the air. An interesting finisher is Mario Cipollini, who finished somehwere in the top ten. The time bonus for Hushovd's finish will place him into the Yellow Jersey. Stage 2 Results - 1 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto 2 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole 3 - Jean-Patrick Nazon - Ag2R 4 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner 5 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis General Classification - MJ - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole 2 - Fabian Cancellara - @ :08 3 - Robbie McEwen - @ :12 4 - Lance Armstrong - :22 ================= Tomorrow's Stage - Waterloo to Wasquehal - 210 km What looks to be the absolute flatttest stage on the profile. However, they still have a couple recognized climbs. They are sharp little buggers, with a 9.4% climb coming at 14 km. This could become a springboard for an early opportunistic attack. Another comes at around kilometer 61. Other than that, what appears to be a very level stage. Should be a day for the sprinters. But, the race does find it's way back onto the Belgian cobbles, so nothing is cast in stone. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Wed Jul 7 06:27:48 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 22:27:48 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 3 - Waterloo to Wasquehal Message-ID: Stage 3 - Waterloo to Wasquehal - 210 km We'll be leaving Belguim toady over what looks to be the flatttest stage on the profile. However, as with all things Belgian, the riders still have a couple recognized climbs. They are sharp little buggers, with a 9.4% climb coming at 14 km. This could become a springboard for an early opportunistic attack. Another comes at around kilometer 61. Other than that, what appears to be a very level stage. Should be a day for the sprinters. But, the race does find it's way back onto the Belgian cobbles for a couple of miles, so there will be an incredible accelleration for the narrow road. That presents the big question mark for today - can the USPS squad keep control of the race, thereby ensuring their position as the leader in the team competition - allowing them to finish last in tomorrow's Team Time Trial. Today's stage finds the first-ever Norwegian wearing the Yellow Jersey. Credit Agricole's Thor Hushovd's second place finish nabbed him the time bonus he needed to pull on the leader's togs. Obviously, Domina Vacanza's Gian Matteo Fagnini will not start the day, having broken his collarbone in yesterday's crash - he is, or rather was, Mario Cipollini's main leadout man. Cipo was the last man to win a stage in Wasquehal, taking the victory iin 1996. Cofidis' Frederic Bessy did not start today, although he finished yesterday's stage. He was clearly in all kinds of pain when remounting yesterday - and it wasn't just because he watched his bike get unceremoniously dropped to the roadway and then clipped by a passing team car. Jens Voigt of CSC and Bram de Groot of Rabobank took off early - at about the sixth kilometer, and as the peleton crosses into France for good, they have a lead of nearly six and a half minutes. The riders covered 46 kilometers in the first hour, and with Voight snagging the early sprint points, he has become the virtual race leader. It's a warm day finally, and though reasonably humid, the race conditions are nearly perfect. The cobble section looming before them stretches for 2.8 km, and even though they are some 20 miles ahead, the teams are sharpening their elbows and beginning to position themselves at the front. This does have the potential of Passage du Gois (crikey, I know I've misspelled that...) back in his first Tour, when a crash on the slick narrow roadway caused a significant split and a significant amount of carnage. Santa Rosa homeboy Levi Leipheimer finds himself among the team cars with a front flat, but almost before we can confirm it's him, he's being pushed back onto the roadway. Netherlands national champion Erik Dekker drops back to lend him support, and he gets towed back up. Way ahead of the bunch, Jens Voight switches bikes, but manages to do so with nary a loss of time. It seems that this one is fitted with an SRM Power Meter, but it's not clear why he's chosen to go to the other machine. Magnus Backsted finds a bad time to flat, as the complete USPS squad has gone to the front to drive the pace, stretching the bunch out as the cobbles draw nearer. Gone-but-not-forgotten T-Mobile rider Santiago Botero punches through at the head of affairs. Less than 4 km to go before they hit the cobbles. -- Crash in the field - many riders are down in a wide stretch of roadway - at least one USPS rider, a rider from Fassa Bortolo has a left sleeve already drenched in blood. The USPS rider is Nozal, who just a second ago was right at the head of the field. Iban Mayo has a seriously shredded kit, with most of the left leg of his shorts ripped away. No word yet on what it has done to the field. The two lead riders are on the cobbles. Euskatel has dropped back several riders to tow Iban Mayo back up, and Nozal slips into the draft as well. Big George Hincapie leads the USPS team onto the cobbles - screaming through the cobbles. Ekimov moves to the front now as the Postal Service holds a practice for tomorrow's team time trial. A clear split has occurred at about 40 riders or so - there's probably a good 3 or 4 seconds between the bunches. It is soon out to 8 or 9 seconds and other splits appear between groups as riders seek smoother roads and try to echelon across the roadway. Riders are leaping right and left to find a clear section. USPS sweeps onto the smooth roadway and snags drinks from a soigneur. They have kept Lance in third place all the way through, as the order of the peleton gets reduced to anarchy. T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner and USPS are flogging the pace to make life as tough as possible for Mayo and his teammates. This has become a pretty serious split. There are three main groups, it seems with Liberty contender Roberto Heras stuck in the second group with some determined CSC and Rabobank riders with their team leaders Ivan Basso and Levi Leipheimer. Both the yellow jersey and Mayo trail behind them. Word comes through that Marco Velo was the Fassa Bortolo rider who was bleeding in the ditch. So far no word on the condition or situation. Approximately 30 miles to go and it seems that the CSC/Liberty/Rabobank group have cut down the gap and joined up with the USPS/T-Mobile (and Phonak) lead bunch. It appears that the Mayo group is still about 2 minutes behind the lead bunch, who trail the nearly forgotten lead pair by less than a minute. The Orange Basque men are trying to organize the chase, but this situation does not seem to play to their strengths. They don't seem to be getting much help from the Credit Agricole group. Up front de Groot and Voight have seen their lead clipped to 38 seconds, and begin pedaling like cyclo-tourists as they begin to feel the spittle from the bunch. De Groot entertains us by seeing how many water bottles he can stuff into his jersey before the bunch arrives. Official times come through that the Mayo bunch is 2:25 behind. Also, it seems that Marco Velo has been taken to the hospital with a broken collarbone. The other rider who seems to have been caught out is Credit Agricole's team leader Christophe Moreau. With a few more kilometers under the wheels, the gap seems to be stuck at just under two minutes. The Euskatel support riders are absolutely burying themselves to get back in touch with the lead bunch. They are getting help only from a couple riders from the Spanish Beleares squad. There are just over 21 miles to go, and their peleton finds itself duking it for the final Sprint Point on the day. Gerolsteiner's Danilo Hondo pips Stuart O'Grady and Jean-Patrick Nazon. The accelleration adds a few more seconds to the gap back to the Mayo group - it now sits at 2:09. We hit another group of cobbles, with dust rising as riders scream over teh ancient rocks. Stuart O'Grady immediately hits the ground, bounces up and remounts before anyone realizes he's been slowed. An Alessio rider squirted clear over the rocky bits. The Mayo group hits the cobbles, throwing another handful of worry into the bunch. They quickly seem to be slowing, and pass through the thousands of spectators at a visibly slower speed. The Lotto bunch set the pace as they roll up on Martin Hvastjia, the Alessio rider who had set off. We break for commercial, but upon a return, there seems to be another breakup of the bunch - Phil and Paul say they were held up by a level crossing (train tracks). Not quite clear, but it does seem that things are split again - It seems that support riders have been caught out. As for the Mayo bunch, the incredible has occurred. There are no Euskatel riders working at the front of their group. The gap continues to edge out - now 2:43. The impetus seems to have slipped away... === Crash in the field - A gaggle of Rabobank riders get scattered by some road furniture. Most hop on again quickly - but Mark Wauters seems visibly stunned and has not regained his feet. Time gap - now 2:56. Bad day for Euskatel. An RAGT rider skips off the front with just under 6 miles to go. A few more riders join him, as the sprinters teams move strongly to the front and elminate their tenuous gap. The riders from the teams you've heard about toss in the towel, but Sylvain Calzati from RAGT makes another push away. Sadly, his valiant effort is swept aside. 2 miles to go and Fassa Bortolo begins to show themselves in a long blue and white line out front. Gerolsteiner snakes around behind them, and somewhere in there lurks Robbie McEwen, who could be wearing the yellow jersey tonight if he wins the stage. As they head through the manicured suburbs, the riders are in a single long line as they snake through numerous turns. 1.5 km to go - now led by Gerolsteiners Under the 1km flag and Gerolsteiner has lifted the pace to get a classic leadout for Hondo. Hondo is launched with a couple hundred meters and riders scramble to move around him. McEewen goes hard right and seems to move away. Against the rail Jean Patric Nazon finds another gear and matches pedal strokes with Erik Zabel and both men ride through McEwen's sprint. Both riders throw their bikes, but Nazon manages a solid wheel length victory. McEwen, though fading, seems to hold onto third place - with the bonus time, he should be the fourth Australian to wear the yellow jersey. Behind him, the wrecked bunch doesn't cross the line until 3:55. There has been nearly unrecoverable wreckage done in this stage. Riders limp in as as far as 10 minutes back. Stage 3 Results - 1 - Jean-Patrick Nazon - Ag2R - 4:36:45 2 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile - s.t. 3 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - s.t. 4 - Tom Boonen - Quick-Step - s.t. 5 - Kim Kirchen - Fassa Bortolo - s.t. General Classification - 1 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - 13:42:34 2 - Fabian Cancellara - Fassa Bortolo - @ :01 3 - Jens Voigt - @:09 4 - Jean-Patrick Nazon - @ :12 5 - Lance Armstrong - @ :16 =============================== Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 4 - Cambrai to Arras - Team Time Trial 64.5 Unique to this year is a "time loss limit", whereby teams can only lose 2 minutes and 30 seconds, regardless of how far they fall behind the winning squad. The high speed ballet will be played out with the entire squad, with the 5th rider across giving the elapsed time. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Wed Jul 7 16:40:18 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:40:18 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 4 - Team Time Trial Message-ID: Stage 4 - Team Time Trial - Cambrai to Arras 64.5 km High speed bicycle ballet today. Perhaps the only cycling event which requires more delicate interaction would be the 4 man Pursuit on the track. Of course, that's a much more controlled environment than what we find today - it is a snotty, rainy afternoon, and the roads are slick. You probably couldn't have made worse weather. Saeco slides out in the near-last corner, and Gilberto Simoni is left to chase as a teammate drops back to pace him. They yell at Salvatore Comesso who can sense only the finish and so does not slow down. The team finishes with the second fastest time, but Simoni will not actually share in this, being give a slower overall time. The rains had let loose with about 30 minutes beore the start of the stage today. Maybe too close to the start for any kind of of technical adjustments for tires. T-Mobile went through the first check at roughly 45 seconds behind the current best time - they are only 7th best currently. The first part of the course twists through town and numerous painted stripes, so you couldn't fault them if they kept things throttled down. Alessio pulls through strongly over the last bits, but cannot quite unseat Euskatel as the new leader. T-Mobile - Guiseppe Guerini hails the team car and gets a quick rear tire change. It's early enough that they should ease up just enough to let him catch back on. Phonak seems to be running with 7 riders, and they splay across the road to let him catch back on. Tyler Hamilton himself drops back from the group to see where the dickens the guy has gone. Back to 8, they reassemble and drive the pace again. CSC has already fallen off by 58 seconds at the first check - having waited for Jens Voight to get back onto the bunch after a mechanical. A few more turns find three riders slapping onto the wet tarmac - Nikki Sorensen and two other riders dump it on a turn - team leader Ivan Basso immediately requires a new bike and shakes his right arm to get T-Mobile have found their rhythm in the second section, runing through the time check at 42 km with the second best time Illes Baleares thumps along to the finish - 1:13:18 gives them the new best time on the roadway. Euskatel slips to second on the roadway. Another Phonak mechanical - a rear wheel change. USPS rider Benjamin Noval has been clipped away from the herd - after his hard crash yesterday, he may be suffering just a bit too much to be of help today - at the 19 km time check they come through in 5th place, about 11 seconds ahead of T-Mobile's effort. Rabobank pulls through the 42 km check at 47:35 - 4th best at this point. Phonak finds themselves down to six riders, as another rider falls away as they approach the second time check. They still manage to hold 3rd best time. T-Mobile rider Sergei Ivanov drifts off the back of the bunch while the team motors on. Liberty Seguros has gobbled up the gap and scream past FDJeux.com, who have now lost their 5 minute start gap. They hurtle through the soaked streets of Arras, but will not nick Balears - finishing with a time of 1:14:28 for second place. The rain seems to have lessened somewhat as the USPS team sweep along towards the 42 km check. Fassa Bortolo seesm to be tapping tempo as they have only the 12th best time, having dropped a good 2 plus minutes to this point. T-Mobile hammers home along the slick cobbles and find themselves only 4 seconds behind Balears - notching into 2nd overall with a time of 1:13:22 US Postal has gone through the second check at 46:30 - a new best split time. Phonak suffers again - they now ride with only 5 riders. Despite the hardship, they are running in second on the roadway, with a good shot at the stage-leading time of the Spanish squad. Rabobank come through with a respectable finish, holding third with 1:13:56. Phonak come under the 1 km to go banner - Tyler Hamilton leads them safely throught he last hard left, and they have a good cushion! They finish at 1:13:10 with five riders! New leader of the stage with a stunning effort. CSC form a ragged wedge on the roadway, trying to maintain a descent echelon with all 9 riders. Finally seeing the 1 km to go banner, they have left their problems behind them on the roadway 1:13:49 - fourth place on the roadway. 10 km to go for the USPS team. The precision and organization of the USPS squad is stunning - they are riding in such a tight bunch that you know they have spent a significant amont of hours on this discipline. Just in case you are wondering, Fassa Bortolo comes across at 1:14:55, not lookiing terribly energized by the experience. An intensely concentrated and slightly soggy blue train rolls around the last couple turns with a wad of time in hand, 1:12:03 - they have set the fastest time and smiles rip through the bunch - Lance Armstrong will put on his first Yellow Jersey of this year's Tour de France. If you are keeping track, this will be his 60th Yellow Jersey. Meanwhile, the top spaces in the overall look like a USPS team photo. Stage 4 - Team Time Trial Results 1 - USPS - 1:12:03 2 - Phonak - 1:31:10 3 - ibalears - 1:13:18 4 - T-Mobile - 1:13:22 5 - CSC - 1:13:49 General Classification - 1 - Lance Armstrong - 14:54:53 2 - George Hincapie - :10 3 - Floyd Landis - :16 4 - Jose Azevedo - :22 5 - Jose Rubiera - :24 Other riders: 8 - Tyler Hamilton - :36 16 - Jan Ullrich - :55 18 - Bobby Julich - 1:00 ========================== Tomorrow's Stage - Amiens to Chartres - 200 km We may end up with an actual day for the sprinters - a flat profile (although there is a little Category 4 bump at around 70 km)with no craziness may finally let the fast men rub elbows at speed. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Thu Jul 8 17:22:59 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 09:22:59 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 5 - Amiens to Chartres Message-ID: Stage 5 - Amiens to Chartres - 200 km We may end up with an actual day for the sprinters - a flat profile (although there is a little Category 4 bump at around 70 km)with no craziness may finally let the fast men rub elbows at speed. The riders have awakened to "Spring Classics" weather this morning - grey rainy weather with strong gusty winds. What could have been a simple day for the sprinters could be another day of selection hell for the riders whose attention lapses. It could be a day of crashes and echelons, riding in the gutter and trying to hold the wheel ahead of you. In short, a very difficult day for a light rider like Mayo, or for a rider who does not enjoy the cooler weather, like Ullrich. This is not to say that USPS won't suffer, but when you look at the dominance they have been able to exert over the race when, you get the sense that Lance Armstrong was not the only rider who spent a very serious period training for this event. Clearly, first time Tour Team member Benjamin Noval has been having a tough time of it, having to ride home alone yesterday, struggling just to stay inside the time limit. He's crashed twice, and clearly paid the price for it yesterday. He has to be a bit nervous, amazed at the speed of the race and the fitness of the competitors. Watching the riders of the USPS surround the weeping Noval after he finished yesterday's stage indicates just how strongly they pull together to make sure he remembers just why he was included. Hopefully, he can relax and pull together today. The actual timing rules for the Team Time Trial was a bit more complex than I realized yesterday - despite the USPS team having won by 1:07, they were given only a 20 second lead over the second place Phonak squad - the gaps were meted out with 10 second increments until it reached 3 minutes at maximum - not the 2:30 which I'd stated earlier. It's a bit goofy 183 riders begin the day - they will be making their way to the Tour's first-ever finish in the town of Chartres. At about the 12 km point, a breakaway moved clear of the bunch: 91 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis 131 - Magnus Backstedt - Alessio 66 - Jakob Piil - CSC 162 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com 129 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangere The gap sits at 15:36, which puts Voekler into the leaders jersey on the road right now. Aussie standout Bradley McGee of FDJeux.com is again having trouble holding on as the riders begin to echelon into small bunches which have noticable gaps. A decided split has occurred in the peleton, as Robbie McEwen's Lotto squad has decided that the gap has grown large enough and begins to put pressure on at the head of events. Flags are snapping at the side the road and the riders snarl and spit to hold the echelon which stretches across the roadway. Gaps continue to appear and then get closed. This is an ugly day - thankfully not rainy, but the winds are continue to cause selections in the bunch. USPS sits near the front, but wisely have decided that the Yellow Jersey is not worth keeping yet. They position themselves well, exerting just enough effort to be where they want to be. Of course, Ullrich's squad is right there as well, but so is Roberto Heras, who with his Liberty Segurous squad has quietly kept himself out of trouble. 92 km to go, the gap hovers at 15 minutes. Riders continue to get spat out the back, as winds hit from the head and side of the bunch. It is not so much that the pressure is on, rather the winds are so nasty that the riders absolutely need the protection - as soon as they get slightly separated, they hit the wall of wind and get pushed away. More riders drift back to the suffering McGee, who at least has some friendly wheels to follow in his painful effort. == Crash in the field Rabobank's Michael Boogerd and a Fassa Bortolo rider hit the pavement on a turn as they tear through the town of Limay. The shock waves hit USPS riders Jose Luis Rubiera and Manuel Beltran - Beltran seemingly having caught the worst of it after endoing over the prone Fassa Bortolian. The USPS boys have spread across the roadway and slowed the pace. The stunning thing is that this is the second time we've had a crash which occurred in the first 20 riders - another reminder of just how tenuous the grasp is on adhesion raised to the power of early-stage-nervousness. Fassa Bortolo was penalized 2 minutes in yesterday's TTT - one for pushing riders and another for drafting behind a team car. Like no one would notice... The gap to the breakaway is increasing again, now over 16 minutes, as the USPS tap out a recovery-level tempo as the riders move among the stands of trees on this rainy day. They are making no move to push the pace, as riders reattach and swell the peleton - USPS wants to make sure everyone is in good shape. Rubiera glides along next to the race doctor's vehicle and others who did the roadway double bounce queue nearby. With 76 km to go, the gap has pressed out to 16:49. Voeckler may be pleased to add a Yellow Jersey to his French National Champion's Jersey. In other jersey news - specifically the Green Points Jersey - O'Grady has been quietly snagging sprint points on the road, and a win on today's stage could push him into second. He's coming back froma nasty early season, both personally and with the allegations of drug use within his Cofidis squad (O'Grady was not involved in those allegations). On the other side of events, Tyler Hamilton is towed back to the tail of the bunch after either a natural break or another flat. It's noticable that the Phonak squad has been suffering what seems to be more than the usual number of punctures. I have to wonder if they are maybe reconsidering their tire sponsor... Now the break is away by 17:15 - with 42 miles to go the breakaway the gang of five could actually begin thinking about holding on to the end. The interesting visual in this bunch is watching the lucky rider who gets to sit behind the massive Magnus Backstedt - in this case it's O'Grady. The Aussie is no flyweight, but in comparison to the big Swede, he looks like a climber. Word now comes that Bradley McGee has abandoned the Tour. He'll heave a big sigh and focus on the Olympics later this summer. ===== Crash in the field Phonak rider Jose Guiterrez and a RAGT rider bounced off the pavement s things squeezed down to negotiate a divided roadway. Both are up, although the RAGT rider does not get away very quickly - more than likely he will have a longer wait to have his team car reach him. Guiterrez rides another mile or so and then realizes that he has a broken handlebar after the crash. He changes bikes and restarts. The lead bunch has hit the rains again, as they head into the town or Orvillies for the third sprint point for the day. O'Grady wins the maximum 6 points from the front and Backstedt nicks the second place points. After they leave the town, the 5 riders nip right back into a tight rotation, ticking over the pedals and pulling for a second or two to keep the pace as high as possible. There's no question about the focus of this bunch. Miles roll along and my dog decides that it's breakfast time. By the time she does her business and gobbles the grub, there's still a good 24 miles left and the gap has settled at around 14 and a half minutes or so. It's pretty clear that barring a railway crossing or a fistfight between the leading riders, they'll hold a gap to the finish. It remains to be seen how much the other teams will allow it to become. Right now, that seems to be "more" rather than less - the gap has pushed out again to 15:25. Voeckler needs only to maintain a 3 minute lead over the peleton to assure his Yellow Jersey. Doing so will make him the fifth French rider to wear both the National Champions Jersey and the Yellow Jersey. That should be plenty of time to dink around near the finish - not that the priority of the stage win will fall to Voeckler. Piil, for example, has been in three breakaways this tour, and a stage victory has to be a priority for Bjarne Riis' CSC squad. He's certainly a cagey rider, well able to work the dynamics of the bunch to his advantage. The two sprinters - O'Grady and Backstedt - are the fast men in the bunch, but that means it will be up to them to chase any moves which occur in the final kilometers. There's a strong crosswind at the finish line, and the roads seem almost dry for the lead bunch. There is a bit of a rise in the roadway at about 600 meters to go, which could either become a nasty surprise or a springboard to victory. ==== Crash in the field Midpack on a slick right hand turn. 5 or 6 riders, including the Green Jersey wearing Robbie McEwen and the Polka-Dot Jersey leader Paolo Bettini. A rider went down on the outside of a curve and the rest seem to have swerved and dumped while trying to avoid him. Meanwhile, in the town of Maintenon, O'Grady leads the breakaway through the final sprint point of the day. Although McEwen popped up and got away quickly, he will need to finish in the top 20 in order to gain points for the Green jersey. O'Grady would love nothing more to win this jersey, which has eluded him in the past. McEwen skips to the side of the roadway and replaces his front wheel. Wisely, he had waited until he'd rejoined the bunch before swapping out the wheel, which seems to have been damaged in the crash. Out front, the lead group push on through the headwind, which bends the trees and make the flags snap with just over 9 miles to go. Adding insult to injury, a strong storm now begins to roll into the finish line. The camera lens shows that the rain is coming directly into their faces. Backstedt makes a strong move with 6 miles to go. Piil moves hard to regain his wheel and O'Grady and Veockler jump ahead to teach him a lesson. The big Swede has passed around the twitchy cup, and everyone seems suddenly jumpy after the moves come back toether Piil makes a hard move, but Voeckler again drives to regain his wheel. Despite prognostications to the contrary, Voeckler certainly is not going to pull off and let riders just take the win. Certainly, he wants the Yellow Jersey, but a French rider on a French team wearing the French National Champions Jersey just might want to take a stage in the Tour. Of course, the other Frenchman, Sandy Casar, has just been quietly hiding out, letting everyone Voeckler punches the pedals and this time it's Backstedt's turn to chace him down. O'Grady waits for Casar and Piil before bringing up the rear. Again Voeckler goes and Piil nabs him quickly. Voeckler finds some momentum off of a curve and moves ahead again. Piil hits it hard on the catch and O'Grady is in his rear jersey pocket. Backstedt and Casar can't quite ====== Crash in the field. Middle of the mid-pack, the classic spreading tumble. Reports put Christophe Moreau of Credit Agricole on the ground, and we can see Erik Dekker threading through riders to grab his bicycle. But, the cameras quickly give up on these goings-on, as there are two French riders in the break... "The heck with it," says O'Grady who goes and immediately gets a gap over Voeckler and Piil. He does not want to leave anything to chance on the wet roadway with only 1.8 miles to go. He's pummelling the pedals, but Voeckler has been trying to close the gap, and now Piil trades in with a pull back to O'Grady. They have left Casar and Backstedt. Voeckler has gone again on another turn, O'Grady closing the gap with a well modulated effort. Piil again using his tactical sense, but O'Grady has forced him to the front. The two others regain, Voeckler goes and Backstedt cannot match the accelleration This time Backstedt goes agains the left hand bariers. Casar pulls out to go, O'Grady dips to the other side and goes hard to take the stage - no one will get around his final effort! Stage 5 Results 1 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis - 5:05:58 2 - Jakob Piil - CSC 3 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com 4 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie 5 - Magnus Backstedt - Alessio All riders same time. O'Grady gains 35 points toward the Green Jersey competition. Behind them, the peleton still chugs along through the streets. Into the final stretch (some time later) McEwen stages behind Nazon, while Danilo Hondo and Thor Hushovd decide that they want some points as well. Hondo goes waaaaaaaay too early against the left hand side of the roadway, and McEwen fights to get around some slowing riders. Hushovd is closing fast as McEwen seems to get ahead of the slowing Hondo just before the line. That's one for the cameras, but it looked like McEwen has nabbed his points. General Classification - 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 20:03:49 2 - O'Grady - @3:13 3 - Casar - @4:06 4 - Backstedt - @6:03 5 - Piil - @ 6:58 Tomorrow's Stage - Bonneval to Angers - 196 km Flat, flat, flat, flat. Not even a categoriezed climb as the riders continue to head southwest into France. Of course, the weather could continue to be a factor until Sunday, at least. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you've missed any reports, you can view the archives here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Fri Jul 9 16:55:16 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 08:55:16 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 6 - Bonneval to Angers Message-ID: Stage 6 - Bonneval to Angers - 196 km Potentially one for the fast men again - Not even a categoriezed climb as the riders continue to head southwest into France. The USPS will be content to let Voeckler enough a day in Yellow, and see how the battle for the Green Sprint Points Jersey shapes up. Unfortunately, this has been a year for crashes - quite understandable given the howling winds and slick roads. Though the sun seems to rule the day, winds are still evident. Things aren't as slippery, but the riders will have to keep alert. The big news items today is that Lance has stated he will not compete in the Olympics this summer. OK, not _big_ news, but some news. Of course, probably subject to updates and changes depending upon what happens on the roads of France. It sounds more like he's simply maintaining focus on the task at hand. Currently, he sits at 6th overall, having been pushed back to 9:35 behind the Yellow Jersey. Other challengers remain at the earlier comparative gaps - everyone having been shuffled back by the 5 breakaway members from yesterday. As soon the flag goes up today, a crash ripples through the field - catching a few members of the USPS, including Lance Armstrong. Though always a concern, everyone gets back and rolling without any apparant damage. While Lance notches himself back into the peleton, a group of 6 riders move away. 44 - Juan Antonio Flecha - Fassa Bortolo 62 - Kurt-Asle Arveson - CSC 95 - Jimmy Engoulvent - Cofidis 133 - Alesandro Bertolini - Alessio 155 - Marc Lotz - Rabobank 164 - Carlos Da Cruz - FDJeux.com They gain a gap of 4:24 - although no one appears supremely dangerous, Flecha is a strong rider who won a stage last year. Only 179 riders started today, with both of the marquee names not starting today: Alessandro Petacchi and Mario Cipollini. Petacchi had a bad crash yesterday, saying that he felt his should pop out as he hit the tarmac. Cipollini has suffered both through numerous crashes, catch-ups and cold weather since the beginning. A true shame, especially after all the pressure which Cipo tried to put on the race organizers to be included in the event. With 90 km to go, the breakaway group pushes into a headwind, losing a bit of their gap as the peleton keeps them now around 4 minutes. La Boulangerie has stayed on the head of events, shadowed by the USPS. The slightly damp roadway shows that weather has continued to remain unsettled - the rain capes have stayed in the team cars, however, as the rains seems to have preceeded the race. Lotto chips in a bit with the pacemaking, and they do begin to squeeze the gap again - not a chase in earnest, just enough to simplify things whe they make the decision to make it a sprint finish. Well, I take s short break to feed the dog and return to find the gap has pushed back to 4:23 at 65 km to go - meanwhile, the peleton finds themselves in a sudden downpour. In the breakaway bunch, Carlos Da Cruz fires ahead of Kurt Arveson to nab his second set of maximum Sprint points for the day, and the accompanying 6 second time bonus. Above the main bunch, the skies have cleared just as suddenly. With the drying comes the increased effort of sprinters' teams. Ag2R, Lotto, Quik-Step, Gerolsteiner and La Boulangerie all click into position and pull through with some degree of seriousness. They slice about a minute off of the break lead, now at 3:19. The entire peleton is stretched out in earnest, no more than 2 or 3 riders wide as they scream through the curves of the roadway. The sun seems to have come out in earnest, with 52 km to go, the breakaway still works well together as they sweep past the cheering spectators. Still, their gap continues to come down - now 2:42. It's interesting to see that the "pecking order" remains fairly consistent in the peleton. The Orangemen from Euskatel always seem to be positioned at the front left of the bunch, while Phonak is on the other side. Saeco cannot seem to get anywhere other than mid-pack. It's interesting to see the tenacity of Euskatel - despite the significant deficit at which Iban Mayo finds himself, they continue to work to keep him up front and away from the potential problems. 40 km finds the breakaway with a 2:29 lead. Sign of the day seems to be "Allez Voeckler", which has appeared repeatedly in the background all of France rejoice in the home rider on the home team who wears yellow. The gap clicks down to about 2 minutes now with 5 km more under the wheels. Another commercial breaks find that gap pushed down another 20 seconds, as the breakaway nears th final sprint point for the day. Today's finish is a bit tricky, with a definitely uphill to the final drag, following a sharp turn with 400 meters to go. Though it makes for a dynamic set of images, you just wonder why the organizers feel the need to introduce such potentials for disaster. In the breakaway, riders begin to dink around for tactical postion for the Sprint point. Meanwhile, Engoulvent fires off the front and immediately gains a gap. The others will duke it out for the dregs this time. After they get past the sprint point, Arveson begins pedaling squares and Bertollini is no longer able to remain connected. Thus the breakaway is reduced to a true Gang of Four, clinging to 1:39 gap with 22 km to go. Arveson & Bertollini have drifted back 30 seconds or so toward the bunch. Then, just as quickly, they are caught. The Lotto/Ag2R combo continue shoulder the bulk of the effort to catch, while Quik-Step works to position the Belgian phenom Tom Boonen. The break has increased intensity and pressure on the pedals, and are managing to hold the tenuous 1:40 gap. They may be benefitting from a bit of tailwind. With 14 km to go, the gap is at 1:18 - it may just be one of the ugly catches within sight of the finish. But, the breakaway is still keeping maximum effort as they strain for the outskirts of the town of Angers. The faces on the chasing men clearly show the efforts which are required. 10 km finds the gap at 40 seconds. The break battles, but the chasers can see their tires in the distance. Even with the wild efforts of the pack, the urgent efforts of the breakaway continue. 7 km with 21 seconds gap. Behind them the USPS and Phonak riders position themselves near the front as well. Roundabouts and traffic furniture will give a bit of trouble to the pack. Here goes Flecha with 3.7 miles to go! He gains a gap as the others finally do not answer his effort. This is a great move by Flecha! The roads are twisting through town and the Spaniard gets out of sight around th curves. Flecha has pushed his gap back out to 17 seconds, absolutely committed with 4 km to go. The crowds along the roadway are a blur as he screams past the barriers and rolls under th 3 km banner. The sprinters' teams can't quite decide how to prepare for their sprint while attempting to nail Flecha back. But the gap dwindles - 2 km finds his gap closed to 9 seconds. Behind, T-Mobile pushes to the front to get a chance for Erik Zabel. Just as quickly, Flecha is caught as they fly under the 1 km to go banner ========= Crash in the field! Just at the 1 km to go banner, everything comes to a halt and many riders are tangled and down. Only 20 or 30 riders are up and going to the finish. Quick-Step's Tom Boonen comes around the corner and just explodes away from the bunch. Stuart O'Grady makes a late move, but there's no way he can follow the flying Belgian. Zabel pushes toward the line and nips Danilo Hondo. But the wreckage behind is extensive - riders are rising slowly and limping to the finish - None of the heads of state are in evidence until George Hincapie leads in Armstrong. A huge number of riders are picking themselves up and rolling easily into the finish. Since the crash occurred within 1 km of the finish, the race officials should give everyone the same time. A Gerolsteiner rider is still crumpled on the side of the road at the base of the metal barriers. Robbie McEwen has a significant amount of skin showing on his left buttock, luckily obscured by a grapefruit-sized road rash. Unfortunately, the Green Jersey will be ripped from his back as well, as O'Grady's second place finish gives him the points to take over in that competition. The view at the finish line shows Tyler Hamilton and his Phonak squad as they ferry him in. A minute or so later, Gilberto Simoni is pushed forward by his Saeco squad. Ullrich must have slipped past the cameras earlier. Unfortunately, this has been another reasonably ugly finish at a crash-prone Tour. Stage 6 - Results 1 - Tom Boonen - Quick-Step - 4:33:31 2 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis 3 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile 4 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner 5 - Baden Cooke - FDJeux.com all riders s.t. General Classification - 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 24:37:30 2 - O'Grady - @3:13 3 - Casar - @4:06 4 - Backstedt - @6:03 5 - Piil - @ 6:58 Tomorrow's Stage - Chateaubriant to Saint-Brieuc - 204 km Probably another for the sprinters, with only two Categorized climbs on the day. Nothing sharp or terribly long - the 1 km at 6% Cote de Saint-Aide climb comes with about 50 km to go when the peleton will take a sharp left turn to follow the coastline - probably not steep enough or close enough to the finish to cause a selection, so the sprinters should come out to play. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sat Jul 10 17:37:35 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 09:37:35 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 7 - Chateaubriant to Saint-Brieuc Message-ID: Stage 7 - Chateaubriant to Saint-Brieuc - 204 km Into the home area of Bernard Hinault - the tough Breton who also won the Tour 5 times. The stage will actually finish at his hometown on the coast. Probably another for the sprinters, with only two Categorized climbs on the day. Nothing sharp or terribly long - the 1 km at 6% Cote de Saint-Aide climb comes with about 50 km to go when the peleton will take a sharp left turn to follow the coastline - probably not steep enough or close enough to the finish to cause a selection, so the sprinters should come out to play. ================ Gerolsteiner's Rene Hasselbacher has regained noteriety and a few enemies with his crash yesterday. After clipping the barriers in a sprint and causing a horrific crash in last year's Tour, he's did the same yesterday. Lotto's Robbie McEwen had a few choice words for his tactics on the runup to Angers, but Hasselbacher probably didn't hear them, as he was lying around the hospital with a broken nose and 2 or 3 cracked ribs. He will not be starting today's stage. The list of the "roughed-up" from that crash...well, it reads like pretty much everybody - Robbie McEwen, Tyler Hamilton, Bobby Julich and many, many more. Of course, the weather will always influence the race in addition to poorly executed tactics. Winds from the Channel have brought less than optimum racing conditions. As the teams make a sweeping left at the English Channel, rain dampens the riders and the speed creeps up. They are trying to eat into the lead of 4:21 which two riders have been holding. Erik Dekker - Rabobank - 154 Thierry Marichal - Lotto - 184 The rains intensify as the CSC team practices for next year's Team Time Trial. They have raised the pace and strung out the peleton as the riders suffer from stong crosswind. They have caused a definitely gap in the bunch. Armstrong, Hamilton, Leipheimer and Ullrich have their teams well positioned, and the Liberty riders are visible, so Heras must have made the split. There too is the Yellow Jersey on Thomas Voeckler Catching the breakaway becomes almost a secondary issue. It looks like Stuart O'Grady has missed the split, Christophe Moreau and possibly Gilberto Simoni as well. Clearly, the leaders' teams were ready, as USPS and T-Mobile had been well positioned before the split. They now have nearly a minute, though the second half of the peleton turns themselves inside out to regain the front bunch. We glimpse the devil for the first time today as he runs alongside the riders at the side of the roadway - the climbs must be looming. The rains have lessened, though the roads are still drenched. The gap to the two breakaway riders have been chopped to under a minute. The chasing riders in the split have gained a few seconds, but they seem to be working extremely hard - efforts which will come back to haunt them as the race continues to exert its toll. The motorcycles are pulled out, and with little ceremony Dekker and Marichal are scooped up by the bunch. CSC still is hammering at the front, dolling out big scoops of whup-ass to the chasers. O'Grady has marshalled all the teammates at the front, and with Ag2R riders they are going through all kinds of pain to get back on. The sun breaks through to remind everyone they are still riding during the day. The peleton spreads across the roadway, perhaps a bit content that they have made their point. They are now a bit more contented perhaps, and they have moved away from the cliff-hanging coastal roads. Jakob Piil of CSC and Evgeni Petrov from Saeco have moved away, and they are reasonably quickly joined by Fassa Bortolo's Fabian Cancellara and Iles Baleares' Vicente Garcia-Acosta With 20 km to go, the 2nd large chase group finally gains the end of the lead bunch. Moreau finds himself actually breaking the wind in the last bits, perhaps a fitting punishment for his inattention at the coast. O'Grady heaves an audible sigh of relief as he will at least have a chance to maintain the Green Jersey. McEwen had pulled to dead even by taking the day's first sprint points. Still off the front is the breakaway group of Piil, Cancellara, Petrov and Garcia-Acosta. They have stretched out their advantage to just around 30 seconds. 15 km to go has their lead chipped back a bit. T-Mobile and Quik-Step riders . The speed of the peleton begin to slow as they encounter another of the series of rolling hills that stand between them and the finish. The gang of four get summarily caught with about 5 km to go. No fanfare as the attention shifts back to how to win the stage. Again the bunch hits one of these rollers, and a string of rides try to scream away - Davide Etchebarria of Euskatel tries to wiggle away, but he's strongly marked by a number of riders including USPS rider George Hincapie. Polka-Dot Jersey wearin' Paolo Bettini from Quik-Step takes a stab at the stage, bringing an Euskatel rider Iker Flores, plus Ag2R short breakaway specialist Laurent Brochard. Bettini makes a hard solo accelleration under the 5 km to go banner - the others move along with him, knowing a strong wheel when it appears. Othes have joined on - Francisco Mancebo of Iles Baleares is in the bunch, plus Daniello Scarponi of Domina Vacanza, Sebastian Hinault of Credit Agricole (no relation to Bernard), Fassa Bortolo Filippo Pozzato and Iker Flores from Euskatel The sprinters' teams remain a bit unorganized, and can't quite organize a decent chase. Of course, it's a hellish approach to town, as when they aren't negotiating one of a series of rolling hills, the riders dive right and left to avoid big chuncks of concrete used to divide traffic. Padded though they are, they seem to appear out of nowhere, and many riders twitch away seemingly a notch past the last second. Brochard makes a powerful moves on a slight downhill at just over 2 km to go - It does not come to fruition as the others move hard to contain him, but it does add to the gap they have over the peleton, who has now disappeared behind a corner. Pozzatto rolls away after catching a quick breath, followed closely by Flores. Mancebo rejoins them to make a threesome. Under the 1 km to go banner - Mancebo and Pozzato accellerate - Flores suddenly drops off slightly. Again the undulations toward the finish complicate the tactics. Mancebo and Pozzato roll up towards the line - still around a corner or two - Pozzato behind in the stronger position. The tactical maneuvering has given Flores the chance and he tags back on. Pozzatto wrenches the bike goes a what seems to be a bit early, Flores moves immediately onto his wheel but has no power to come around while Mancebo strains not to be left behind. Pozzatto continues his accelleration. No one can match the young Spanish riders speed and he crosses the line, arms up and open water between him and the trailing riders. >From behind, the trailing members of the last minute breakaway are suddenly swept up by the bunch - right on their heels with O'Grady/Zabel/Boonen/McEwen/Cooke all pushing across the line with no daylght between them. Though O'Grady has been forced to make a strong chasing effort to regain the bunch, he manages to hold his Green Points Jersey for another day by crossing the line ahead of McEwen. Thomas Voeckler gains another stuffed lion, living the dream of every French rider as he trades his National Tricolore Jersey for the Yellow. Stage Results - 1 - Fillipo Pozzato - Fassa Bortolo 4:31:34 2 - Iker Flores - Euskatel - s.t. 3 - Francisco Mancebo - Iles Baleares - s.t. 4 - Laurent Brochard - Ag2R - @:10 5 - Sebastien Hinault - Credit Agricole - @ :10 General Classification - 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 29:09:14 2 - O'Grady - @3:13 3 - Casar - @4:06 4 - Backstedt - @6:03 5 - Piil - @ 6:58 Tomorrow's Stage - Lamballe to Quimper - 168 km A shorter stage may sound like blessed releif, but this one has a few stings for the legs along the way. After a quick sprint point at the 14 km mark, the riders have two climbs in quick succession - the nasty little Cote de Mur de Bretagne - a 1.6 km climb averaging 8.4% - and the Cote de Saint Mayeux which is not quite as steep, but almost as long. The rolling topography of the Breton region continues, with two more short but categorized climbs and a bunch of rolling hills between the rides and the finish. If the teams had to be alert today, wait'll tomorrow. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber, or missed any of the earlier posts on the 2004 Tour, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sun Jul 11 16:42:49 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 08:42:49 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 8 - Lamballe to Quimper Message-ID: Despite the report of yesterday, Rene Hasselbacher may have gotten a bit of bum rap. The slow-motion replay from a camera located just under the 1 km to go "Red Kite" would suggest that there was an overreaction to the slowing Juan Antonio Flecha, who had just been caught by the bunch. Hasselbacher certainly caught the worse of it. But, given where he was positioned, it's hard to see how he could have nicked the barriers. It appeared more likely that there was a sudden slowinng in front of him that he could not react to - clipping wheels and going over. It was an ugly fall, with many riders sacrificing skin to the topography. Phonak leader Tyler Hamilton was seen voicing his displeasure yesterday to race director Jean-Marie Le Blanc. He (among others) favors taking the finishing time at 3 km to go on these sprint finishes, so that the GC contenders teams do not need to add to crunch to the line. 99 riders were reported to have been on the sought medical assistance as of yesterday - clearly this has been a year of the crash again. One accident I didn't report yesterday was that of Gerolsteiner rider Sven Montgomery, who broke his collarbone in a nasty tumble early in the goings. Another pre-race point: I'll have to check, but I also believe that I've been misspelling "peloton" repeatedly up until now... Stage 8 - Lamballe to Quimper - 168 km A shorter stage may sound like blessed releif, but this one has a few stings for the legs along the way. After a quick sprint point at the 14 km mark, the riders have two climbs in quick succession - the nasty little Cote de Mur de Bretagne - a 1.6 km climb averaging 8.4% - and the Cote de Saint Mayeux which is not quite as steep, but almost as long. The rolling topography of the Brittany region continues, with two more short but categorized climbs and a bunch of rolling hills between the rides and the finish. There will be continually rollling hills and when things flatten out, a westerly wind will prey on the riders today. If the teams had to be alert yesterday, wait'll today. Lotto's sprint ace Robbie McEwen moved away and grabbed second in the early points sprint today. Strangley absent was Stuart O'Grady, who therefore has lost the Green Jersey on the road at this point. At the 16 km mark, a breakaway has formed with the ever-present CSC rider Jacob Piil, plus Fassa Bortolo's Matteo Tosattao and Gerolsteiner's Ronny Schotz. They've skipped away to a maximum of 5:53, but they seem to now have caught the attention of the peloton. Ag2R sprinter Jan Kirsipuu has been suffering like a dog today, yo-yoing out the back of the bunch when the roadway turns upward. The roads are narrow and the skies are grey and weeping slightly as we cvurve through Brittany. USPS and T-Mobile are content to let La Boulangerie handle the pacemaking, reminding them that they do have the Yellow Jersey and thus part of the responsibility of fetching the errant riders. With 47 miles to go, the gap has notched down just a touch to 5:46. Winds seem to be rising, and will probably be close to a headwind. It's certainly becoming more of a damp and nasty day over this part of the course. Rain has begun to show on camera lenses. The bunch have decided to warm themselves up, assisted by the efforts of Domina Vacanza and the group has strung out significantly and they've chopped a bit more than a minute off of the lead as the breakaway hits the the sprint point at Carhaix-Plouguer. Rain capes continue to come out and spray begins to fly into the faces fo the riders. They grind up a rise, a mass of soggy lycra and furrowed brows. But, they have managed to bring things back to 3:09 with about 52 km to go. Regardless of the rains, spectators in this cycling-crazy region of France continue to line the course shoulder to shoulder. With 25 miles or so, the gap has come down another 15 seconds, but the main bunch is still making a bit of a meal of it. The continually rolling topography may be working to the benefit of the break, although there are still some miles to cover. Shots from the finish line show dry roads, but the lead bunch still are still finding that continuing creeping sogginess in their chamois. 6-time Mountain Jersey winner Richard Virenque finds his front tire a bit soft and pulls over to get a quick tire change. The long-time pro even takes a second to pull the front tire out, so the scrambling mechanic needs only to slap in the new wheel. Virenque is in the hunt for an all-time record 7th Polka Dot Jersey. At the other end of the peloton, La Boulangerie riders have managed to sucker Domina Vacanza rider Francesco Secchiari to spearhead the chase for some time now. The support team of Yellow Jersey wearing Thomas Voeckler is working hard enough to keep the breakaway riders in check, but wisely no harder. So, the gap is remaining at 2:35 even though they are close to 18 miles from the finish. Personally, I think that Piil deserves to take a stage, if only because he has been putting himself into a huge number of breaks. Phil mentions that he's been out on attacks for nearly half of the 1100 kilometers that the riders have covered. The troika has hit the lower bits of the final categorized climb on the day - a long, yet shallow rise: 4.7 km at 3.5%. The riders seem to be bringing the rain with them. Now Virenque pushes against a flattening rear tire. Another quick change puts him back on the way even before the last of the team cars go by. The riders continue to go through a huge crowd on the way to the peak, having stretched their lead back out to 3 minutes exactly. They work together well as the road begins to flatten and descend. Behind the Quik-Step riders begin to get antsy at the gap, with Credit Agricole dipping into the rotation as well. Their speed over the climb is significantly higher, and they take a full minute out of the chase by the time they hit the 25 km to go banner. As they move in quick rotation, the trident of the devil is just visible over their heads - a strangley calming image of consistency all of these many years. Seconds continue to disappear as the main field continues to tap out an ever-increasing rhythm. The gap is geting pushed down to just over a minute now. Roads are drying and somehow the crowds somehow continue increasing as we get within 10 miles of town. Up front, George Hincapie and Vjatchislav Ekimov take the strategic position for Lance, who wisely pushes up to the front of events as the roads begin to get goofy with roundabouts and center islands. Gaps grow in the peloton under the pressure of "those who tow Lance". The hurtling chasers have the break in sight now - they are a mere 30 seconds ahead now. Rain has begun to fall at the finish line, and service cars are being pulled out of the gap. They've been out for about 144 kilometers, but the thundering herd is almost upon them. Their daily jaunt ends at almost exactly 10 km to go. With the bunch back together, the specifics of the finish become important: With 250 meters to go, there's a sharp left hand corner at the finish. Just before that, there's a sharp climb which could serve as a launchpad for the aggressive. ===== Crash in the field 8 or 9 riders near the end of the bunch find themselves creating a modern art installation - working in the medium of bike frames and bodies. A couple of spectators even seem to get tangled up in the riders who have tumbled into the gutter. Samuel Dumoulin of Ag2R is sitting in a heap in the center of the roadway - the lack of activity a giveaway that he's done some more significant damage. He eventually gets back on his machine, and limps along next to his team car, body positioned at a bad and ungainly angle as he tries to at least reach the finish. Meanwhile, up front, the bunch continue to stretch things out - Quick-Step Aussie Michael Rogers drives the pace at 2 km to go, ready to set up teammate Tom Boonen. The road keep geting thinner around the center islands and an Iles Baleares rider makes a go for it, hoping to capitalize on the confusion in the bunch. At the other end, Janek Tombak hits the pavement and will not be contesting this sprint. It's crazy fast as the bunch snakes through the curves and roundabouts. Quick-Step rider Paolo Bettini sets up and hits the sharp climb first with a furious turn of speed, Robbie McEwen shadowing him immediately. They gain daylight and continue to move well. They've gained a gap but Bettini sits up and dinks around just enough trying to get McEwen to pull through that the Euskatel Orangemen lead the bunch back up to them. Bettini seriously screw up what seemed to be a strong break, but he's a seasoned enough rider to know that towing a strong sprinter to the finish is only a good idea if he's wearing the same jersey as you are. Kim Kirchen fires away - the Luxembourg National Champ riding for Fassa Bortolo gains a gap and tries to keep away. He may have timed this well, as the nervous peloton slows to safely negotiate the 90 degree left hand turn. Some riders are not cowed by the slippery pavement, Thor Hushovd sees blood and whips up the watts in a perfectly timed move to first gap the casing riders and then blow past Kirchen. He slaps his Norwegian national jersey and coasts over the line arms in the air - stage winner today! Stage Results - 1 - Thor Hushovd - Crdit Agricole - 3:54:22 2 - Kim Krichen - Fasa Bortolo 3 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile 4 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto 5 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile 6 - Tom Boonen - Quick-Step 7 - Laurent Brochard - Ag2R 8 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis 9 - Oscar Periero - Phonak All riders s.t. General Classification - 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 29:09:14 2 - O'Grady - @3:13 3 - Casar - @4:06 4 - Backstedt - @6:03 5 - Piil - @ 6:58 Tommorow - Rest Day/Transfer Day. The riders will jump down to the south, preparing for a hike up into the Pyrenees. The French National Champion will hold the Yellow Jersey as they reach the first rest day. McEwen pulls the Green Jersey back onto his shoulders. Tuesday's Stage - Stage 9 - St. Leonard de Noblat/Gueret Riders leave from the hometown of Raymond Poulidor, the much loved rider who competed in 14 Tours, finished on the podium 8 times and yet never managed to pull on the Yellow Jersey by the end. The topography will kick up a bit, though there are only two categorized climbs. Still there are a number of changes in elevation, with some sharp uncategorized climbs and rolling bits, perhaps favoring an aggressive break. But, the final 50 km are calmer, and the sprinters will not have much time to shine in the next few days, so they may have an added impetus to fetch any escapees. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Tue Jul 13 06:33:49 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 22:33:49 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]First Rest Day Wrap Up Message-ID: Rest Day #1 - Lookin' Back and Glimpsin' Forward In a first week that has featured more crashes than a Tuesday Night Office Park Crit downstream from an olive oil factory after all the Cat 4's stoppe= d at Peet's Coffee for a few triple espressos, a large number of riders must have heaved a long sigh of relief to just still be in the race. This year's Tour has definitely shown all the teeth of a Spring Classic, which is only to be expected for a race which began in Belgium. Between th= e cold, windy, rainy days and the endless succession of breaks, echelons and general racing havoc, sniffles and soreness must be the order of the day. Already we have lost two of the sprinters who were to have factored, if not dominated - Alessandro Petacchi, coming off of nine (NINE!) stage wins at this year's Giro D'Italia and Mario Cipollini, who finally finagled his way _into_ the Tour have both retired. Both suffered crashes and looked to be among the walking wounded before checking out. Another rider who had apparantly checked out was Saeco's Gilberto Simoni. It's been a rough year for this rider - nixed out of the Maglia Rosa in the Giro by his 23 year old teammate Damiano Cunego and now clearly suffering i= n the rains and crashes of the first week. He actually did not sign in for state 6 or 7, and was fined 100 Euros or so for the infraction. He was dangling back among the race director's car for a while, and many had thought he was going to leave the race. But, whether something his teammates said or some epiphany he reached, he has elected to stay in the race - at least to test his fitness in warmer weather and more inclined topography. There are many others who also are hoping that the days in the Pyrenees and the Massif Central will treat them better. One person who has always enjoyed bad weather and trying conditions is Lanc= e Armstrong. A person who has suffered in bad weather is Jan Ullrich. In fact, it was not too long ago that he blew spectacularly in the mountains o= n a cold, storming day and lost his lead and ultimately the Tour to the late Marco Pantani. As I hope I wrote earlier, Armstrong has got a plan. Teamed up with the best tactical mind in bike racing, Director Sportif Johan Bruyneel, the two of them have cooked up a strategic plan for this race - back when the route was announced 10 or so months ago. But, here's how it's played out so far: Armstrong rode a solid Prologue, putting a significant amount of time on every one of the main threats - 21 seconds on Iban Mayo, 17 on Ullrich, 16 on Tyler Hamilton - on a stage which took roughly 7 minutes. That had to send a resounding "whoa" through the peloton. The USPS thumped everyone in the Team Time Trial. Sure the weather was nasty - but when you watched the boys in blue hammer along, it was clear that the trust and training was paying off - regardless of the spray, they ran tighter formations throughout the course. The time gains were quirky, courtesy of the Tour regulations for this year. They were even odder than = I originally wrote - there were actually "maximum loss" amounts for the different places in the stage standings, so that the second place Phonak team, for example, who finished 1:07 behind the USPS only were docked 20 seconds. Nevertheless, the USPS clearly showed they had put in an hour or two training in the off-season. The team remained alert and in control during those times on the course tha= t were most likely to cause trouble - the stage 7 left hand turn at the ocean in the Brittany region, which caused a split in the peloton that ultimately didn't matter, and the pre-pave crush & rush on stage 3 which has definitel= y had an effect. To their credit, Euskatel-Euskadi has come to play in all areas of this Tour. They have generally appeared at or near the front of the bunch, providing shelter for their main man Iban Mayo who has had a devastatingly stong recent racing campaign - setting a new record on the Mt. Ventoux Time Trial in the Dauphine Libere, beating Lance by nearly two minutes. But the one thing in which they didn't have much experience was the tactical imperative to be the first team onto the cobbles. When the speed increased and the inevitable twitch and clatter happened, Mayo was in the horribly wrong place at utterly the wrong time. He lost nearly 4 minutes that day. It's way too early and there are way too many climbs to count out this talented Basque climber, but 5 and a half minutes would require a large number of variables to go his way. All of which is to say that Lance and his team have taken time with extremely surgical precision, and done everything possible to limit problem= s and unforseen circumstances. That has put him with the following leads over the competition (and a few "dark horses" of my choosing): Current Standing - Rider - "Lance Gap" 6 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor .00 11 Tyler Hamilton (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems :36 15 Francisco Mancebo P=E9rez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto :45 16 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems :46 20 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team :55 22 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 1:00 24 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank 1:08 29 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 1:17 32 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) Liberty Seguros 1:29 36 Roberto Heras Hernandez (Spa) Liberty Seguros 1:45 51 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1:47 52 Jos=E9 V. Garcia Acosta (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 1:47 64 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 3:14 66 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) Saeco 3:22 89 Iban Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 5:27 91 Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 5:33 This was supposed to be the Tour that "doesn't matter" until the racers hit the mountains. But, as others has opined, the early stages are not when yo= u win the Tour, but they can certainly be when you lose it. Of course, the mountains lie patiently in wait, ready to make the big men cry and whimper, while the bird-boned bide their time and sharpen their big ring for the time of the attack. The efforts at culling the herd have been quick and silent, like the invisible raids of a panther. High drama and ar= t will be played out in the next 12 stages. It is opera on wheels presented to us. =20 Thanks for reading so far. ----------------------- Because it didn't really fit anywhere else, I had two other observations - both deal with the same topic: average speed. In the Prologue, the rider with the slowest time was Frederic Guesdon of FDJeux.com - he covered the course in 8:17. That means that he averaged roughly 27.45 mph unassisted by other riders. In the Team Time Trial, the USPS team averaged 33.37 mph for an hour and 12 minutes. In the rain. Through crosswinds and headwinds. While riding inches from the wheel in front of them. Just a couple facts to keep us humble and remind us of the talents these riders possess. ----------------------- And on a personal note, it looks like I will be traveling for the final few days of the tour - I'll try to keep up to date, but my posting may be truncated for the final four stages. So, you might want to call around and see what sports bars will be broadcasting the Tour on those days. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D General classification after stage 8 =A0 1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 33.03.36 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 3.01 3 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fdjeux.com 4.06 4 Magnus Backstedt (Swe) Alessio-Bianchi 6.27 5 Jakob Piil (Den) Team CSC 7.09 6 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 9.35 7 George Hincapie (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 9.45 8 Jose Azevedo (Por) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 9.57 9 Jos=E9 Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.02 10 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team 10.06 11 Tyler Hamilton (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.11 12 Floyd Landis (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 10.12 13 Santos Gonzalez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 14 Bert Grabsch (Ger) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.16 15 Francisco Mancebo P=E9rez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 10.18 16 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.19 17 Jose Luis Rubiera (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 10.20 18 Manuel Beltran (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 10.22 19 Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 10.26 20 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 10.30 21 Andreas Kl=F6den (Ger) T-Mobile Team 10.32 22 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 10.35 23 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 10.37 24 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank 10.43 25 Daniele Nardello (Ita) T-Mobile Team 10.46 26 Matthias Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile Team 10.49 27 Bram de Groot (Ned) Rabobank 28 Michele Bartoli (Ita) Team CSC 10.52 29 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 30 Kurt-Asle Arvesen (Nor) Team CSC 10.54 31 Grischa Niermann (Ger) Rabobank 11.02 32 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) Liberty Seguros 11.04 33 Dariusz Baranowski (Pol) Liberty Seguros 11.15 34 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 11.17 35 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon 36 Roberto Heras Hernandez (Spa) Liberty Seguros 11.20 37 Marc Lotz (Ned) Rabobank 11.33 38 Evgueni Petrov (Rus) Saeco 11.35 39 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 11.37 40 Pietro Caucchioli (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 11.50 41 Andrea No=E8 (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 11.54 42 Laurent Dufaux (Swi) Quick Step-Davitamon 11.56 43 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 44 Nicki S=F8rensen (Den) Team CSC 11.58 45 Jaan Kirsipuu (Est) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.02 46 Jean-Patrick Nazon (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 47 Laurent Brochard (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.05 48 J=E9r=F4me Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 12.14 49 Danilo Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner 12.16 50 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 12.19 51 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 12.22 52 Jos=E9 V. Garcia Acosta (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 53 St=E9phane Goubert (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.24 54 Didier Rous (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 12.25 55 Mark Scanlon (Irl) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.26 56 Aitor Gonzalez Jimenez (Spa) Fassa Bortolo 12.34 57 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.35 58 Richard Virenque (Fra) Quick Step-Davitamon 59 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Fassa Bortolo 12.38 60 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 12.41 61 Marzio Bruseghin (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 12.44 62 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 12.48 63 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 12.49 64 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 65 Paolo Valoti (Ita) Domina Vacanze 12.51 66 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) Saeco 12.57 67 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Fassa Bortolo 68 Axel Merckx (Bel) Lotto-Domo 69 Isidro Nozal Vega (Spa) Liberty Seguros 13.09 70 Sylvain Calzati (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 13.10 71 Christophe Mengin (Fra) Fdjeux.com 13.17 72 Jean-Cyril Robin (Fra) Fdjeux.com 13.22 73 Peter Farazijn (Bel) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 13.24 74 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 13.28 75 Gilles Bouvard (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 13.33 76 Aart Vierhouten (Ned) Lotto-Domo 13.35 77 Jos=E9 I.Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 13.59 78 Daniel Becke (Ger) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.11 79 Pavel Padrnos (Cze) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 14.12 80 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.13 81 Denis Menchov (Rus) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.21 82 Santiago Botero (Col) T-Mobile Team 14.30 83 Aitor Osa Eizaguirre (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.32 84 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cr=E9dit Agricole 14.37 85 Rolf Aldag (Ger) T-Mobile Team 14.48 86 Fr=E9d=E9ric Guesdon (Fra) Fdjeux.com 14.52 87 Matteo Tosatto (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 14.56 88 Marc Wauters (Bel) Rabobank 15.01 89 Iban Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 15.02 90 Christian Vandevelde (USA) Liberty Seguros 15.03 91 Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 15.08 92 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros 15.09 93 Iker Cama=F1o (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 15.10 94 Sergei Ivanov (Rus) T-Mobile Team 15.15 95 Marius Sabaliauskas (Ltu) Saeco 15.17 96 Massimiliano Mori (Ita) Domina Vacanze 15.20 97 Salvatore Commesso (Ita) Saeco 15.30 98 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner 15.31 99 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 15.33 100 Scott Sunderland (Aus) Alessio-Bianchi 15.43 101 Peter Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner 15.45 102 Claus Michael M=F8ller (Den) Alessio-Bianchi 15.46 103 Andrea Peron (Ita) Team CSC 15.50 104 Michael Rogers (Aus) Quick Step-Davitamon 15.51 105 J=F6rg Ludewig (Ger) Saeco 15.53 106 Unai Etxebarria (Ven) Euskaltel - Euskadi 16.00 107 Mikel Pradera Rodriguez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 16.02 108 Karsten Kroon (Ned) Rabobank 16.22 109 Sergio Marinangeli (Ita) Domina Vacanze 16.29 110 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 16.31 111 Walter B=E9n=E9teau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 16.38 112 Jimmy Engoulvent (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 16.49 113 David Loosli (Swi) Saeco 17.00 114 Nicolas Portal (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 17.04 115 Laurent Lef=E8vre (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 17.16 116 Christophe Laurent (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 17.18 117 Patrice Halgand (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 17.27 118 Stefano Zanini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 17.32 119 Carlos Dacruz (Fra) Fdjeux.com 17.34 120 S=E9bastien Hinault (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 17.46 121 Julian Dean (NZl) Cr=E9dit Agricole 17.48 122 Christophe Rinero (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 123 David Moncouti=E9 (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 17.55 124 Martin Hvastija (Slo) Alessio-Bianchi 18.49 125 Anthony Charteau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 19.47 126 I=F1igo Landaluze (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 20.18 127 Rik Verbrugghe (Bel) Lotto-Domo 20.20 128 Koos Moerenhout (Ned) Lotto-Domo 20.36 129 Angel Vicioso Arcos (Spa) Liberty Seguros 20.43 130 Fabian Wegmann (Ger) Gerolsteiner 20.48 131 Jan Hruska (Cze) Liberty Seguros 20.57 132 David Etxebarria (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 20.58 133 Alexandre Botcharov (Rus) Cr=E9dit Agricole 21.33 134 Janek Tombak (Est) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 21.35 135 Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 21.38 136 Santiago Perez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 21.54 137 Nicolas Jalabert (Fra) Phonak Hearing Systems 21.56 138 Christophe Edaleine (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 22.09 139 Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) T-Mobile Team 22.10 140 Martin Elmiger (Swi) Phonak Hearing Systems 22.15 141 Fabio Baldato (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 22.40 142 Guillaume Auger (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 22.42 143 Marcus Ljungqvist (Swe) Alessio-Bianchi 23.10 144 Servais Knaven (Ned) Quick Step-Davitamon 23.13 145 Beno=EEt Salmon (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 23.23 146 Yuriy Krivtsov (Ukr) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 23.34 147 Baden Cooke (Aus) Fdjeux.com 148 Dmitri Fofonov (Kaz) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 23.42 149 Ronny Scholz (Ger) Gerolsteiner 23.45 150 Franck Renier (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 24.06 151 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Fdjeux.com 24.17 152 Pierre Bourquenoud (Swi) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 24.55 153 Massimo Giunti (Ita) Domina Vacanze 25.06 154 Alessandro Bertolini (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 25.18 155 Stefano Casagranda (Ita) Saeco 26.09 156 Iker Flores (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 26.22 157 Marcos Serrano Rodriguez (Spa) Liberty Seguros 26.24 158 Xabier Zandio (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 26.25 159 Thierry Marichal (Bel) Lotto-Domo 26.39 160 Ludovic Martin (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 26.40 161 Mirko Celestino (Ita) Saeco 26.45 162 Egoi Mart=EDnez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 26.54 163 Gerrit Glomser (Aut) Saeco 27.13 164 Wim Vansevenant (Bel) Lotto-Domo 27.39 165 Juan Miguel Mercado (Spa) Quick Step-Davitamon 27.41 166 Uwe Peschel (Ger) Gerolsteiner 27.51 167 Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 29.07 168 Matthew Wilson (Aus) Fdjeux.com 29.35 169 Filippo Simeoni (Ita) Domina Vacanze 30.03 170 Erik Dekker (Ned) Rabobank 32.09 171 Benjamin Noval (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 32.12 172 Jimmy Casper (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 35.01 173 Davide Bramati (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 37.47 174 Francesco Secchiari (Ita) Domina Vacanze 40.53 175 Fr=E9d=E9ric Finot (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 41.19 176 S=E9bastien Joly (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 51.11 =A0 Points classification =A0 1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 158 pt= s 2 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 149 3 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team 148 4 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cr=E9dit Agricole 147 5 Danilo Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner 139 =A0 Mountains classification =A0 1 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 20 pt= s 2 Janek Tombak (Est) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 14 3 Ronny Scholz (Ger) Gerolsteiner 12 4 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 9 5 Jakob Piil (Den) Team CSC 9 =A0 Young rider classification =A0 1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 33.03.36 2 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fdjeux.com 4.06 3 Matthias Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile Team 10.49 4 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon 11.17 5 J=E9r=F4me Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 12.14 =A0 Teams classification =A0 1 Team CSC 97.05.12 2 Alessio-Bianchi 2.04 3 Brioches La Boulangere 3.16 4 Fdjeux.Com 6.12 5 US Postal presented by Berry Floor 10.41 From race-report@cyclofiend.com Tue Jul 13 16:43:19 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 08:43:19 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 9 - St. Leonard de Noblat to Gueret Message-ID: We start the day with fewer riders - Stefano Casagranda of Saeco and Martin Hvastija of Alessio have been released from the Tour due to drug investigations. Earlier this summer, Race Director Jean-Marie LeBlanc had stated that no rider who was the subject of a drug investigation would be allowed in the Tour, or would be allowed to stay in the Tour. The investigations which effect these riders are not related to the Tour itself, but were from earlier events. Another rider not starting was Samuel Dumoulin of Ag2R, who suffered what turned out to be a broken elbow after a dog ran into the peleton during the rider to Quimper. --------------------------------------------------- Stage 9 - St. Leonard de Noblat to Gueret - 160 km Today the riders leave from the hometown of Raymond Poulidor, the much loved rider who competed in 14 Tours, finished on the podium 8 times and yet never managed to pull on the Yellow Jersey by the end. The topography will kick up a bit, though there are only two categorized climbs on the shortest stage of this year's Tour. Still there are a number of changes in elevation, with some sharp uncategorized climbs and rolling bits, perhaps favoring an aggressive break. But, the final 50 km are calmer, and the sprinters will not have much time to shine in the next few days, so they may have an added impetus to fetch any escapees. The finish is close and tight today - with more obstacles among the roadway. Bob Roll voiced some concern as the race heads into a fairly small town for today's finish. Attacks hit the bunch almost from the roll out, putting the hurt into the rested legs of the bunch. It has good and bad effects - it puts Filippo Simeoni from Domina Vacanza and Inigo Landaluze from Euskatel out in a lead pair that move 4:45 away from the bunch. But, it causes Jaan Kirsipuu to ride off to the side of the road and turn in his numbers - having ridden his 11th Tour this year and achieved a perfect record of incompletion. Rabobank's Karsten Kroon is halfway between the main bunch, not sure if he will be able to cut into the lead of the breakaway pair. He's gapped the peloton, but has been unable to reduce the deficit to the twosome. Jan Ullrich spends a huge amount of time at the side of the road, working with his mechanic to reposition his saddle (a la Eddy Merkcx). Clearly, he took the right moment to do so, and they quickly regain the bunch. On today's first categorized climb, none other than Iban Mayo nipped away from the bunch and snagged the points. The gap has moved out to 6:36, with Kroon still staggering at 4:12 behind the pair. It's become a reasonably ill-advised effort for this rider, and unless there is some tactical plan in place, it probably it time for him to tuck in his sail and ease back to the big bunch. The sun begins to shiine in earnest, and there is a thing known as "blue skies". The bunch may have taken this opportunity to slather on the sun screen, as the gap has pushed out to nearly 8 minutes. Ok, sunscreen _and_ clean off their glasses, as another 50 seconds quickly gets added to their deficit with 44 miles to go. Granted, they are rolling through the feed zone, so maybe they are a bit distracted. La Boulangerie continues to set the pace, but the riders seem quite happy to putter along right now, with fearful dreams of tomorrow's effort looming in the backs of their minds. With just under 40 miles left on the day, the gap has finally hit the 10 minute mark. Karsten Kroon, who has not been pedaling very hard, finally just pulls off to the side to pay respects to the underbrush. Cameras stay on him much longer than anyone feels comfortable about, but finally switch away to other scenes. Flollowing that, they load him up with bottles and he rolls back to the bunch. Credit Agricole finally decides that they need to do something, pushing the pace and beginning the hard work of reducing the gap. Well, the dog wandered in to request some breakfast, and by the time we do all the business, the peloton has awakened - Lotto, Quick-Step and Credit Agricole have rolled down their arm warmers and started smacking the pace. They push it down under 8 minutes in pretty short order, giving hope to their big men who can bend the cranks over the final kilometer. Just over 27 miles to the finish, the breakaway pair hold onto a dwindling 6:50 as they begin to hit the nasty undulations that will be the feature of the final bits of the course. Cofidis rider Jimmy Caspar fires away from the bunch - he's not so much interested in the Sprint Points in the town of Pontarion as he is attempting to prevent Lotto's Robbie McEwen from gaining any more ground agains Stuart O'Grady. O'Grady and McEwen wisely decide to save themselves for the final bits of the race today, and they know that if they went for these points their effort and the ensuing response would knock the other teams off of their smooth chasing rotation. He neutralizes the points and no one bothers with him as he sits up and dives back into the group. The devil appears running alongside a small lake, as the leading pair have a 5:51 gap. The chase has continued in earnest, but they may have left things just a hair too late. The roads are still dry, but the sun left some time ago behind a high cloud cover. The peloton has squeezed the fat out of the bunch - stretching everything out and cutting things down to nearly 5 minutes before too many more miles go under their wheels. Now Cofidis pitches in as the gap twists down another 35 seconds. They are moving fast enough that you can literally see the time drop on the screen readout - sort of the reverse of watching your gas fill up. With the 25 km to go banner passing overhead, the break partners continue to work well together. The bunch screams along now, aided by inspired riders and a slight downhill. Even climber Richard Virenque has pitched in for Quick-Step to reduce the deficit. 3:18 now shows as the gap. Now 3:04 as they hit the 20 km to go banner. Servais Knaven and Davide Bramati from Quick-Step have been doing the lions share of the pulling. Others like Paolo Bettini will nip in for a short time, but when either of these two set up at the head of events, the others might as well pitch a tent as these pros thump out an insanely steady and powerful pace. Up front, Simeoni is showing some signs of strain - not quite able to match a moderate accelleration by Landaluze. They pull back together, but the Basque seems to have just a bit more left in the tank. They have a 2:17 gap with only 8.5 miles to go. FDJeux.com push up into the rotation, which may mean that Baden Cooke may be feeling a bit stronger. Folks are getting a wee bit nasty in the bunch, a Cofidis rider gives a full-on playground push to a Domina Vacanza rider who has been trying to edge his way in and disrupt the rotation of the chasers. You rarely see such a strong - and illegal - response. It must have a bit to do with the efforts that have been expended in running down the break. ===== crash in the field Someone cut across the roadway and hit full into center lane divider - He may be OK, but Kurt-Asle Arvesen gets flung off his bike and slams down hard as his bike gets knocked out from under him. He's back upright, but looks as shaky as you would expect. A replay shows just how high he flew after his bike disappearred. He landed pretty much on head and shoulder. In the confusion, a break of three becomes six and has gained a little daylight as Juan Antonio Flecha of Fassa Bortolo, Michael Rogers of Quick Step and Lotto's Axel Merkcx are the recognizable members - a bit of anarchy descends into the main bunch as other riders try to peel the tires off of their wheels. Now only 6.2 km to go - the lead cut to 52 seconds as the opportunistic six-pack is reabsorbed. 5 km to go and another gap appears at the front. The speed of the bunch continues to increase. If this were a Bugs Bunny cartoon, the needle would be at "Fast, Ain't It?". 4 km to go, the break has only a 40 second lead. They are on a ride through the town and finish at the far side of the village on a road built espcially for the finish. Landaluze makes a hard effort to gain a gap, but he gets reeled back by the dogged effort of Simeoni Now FDJeux.com whips up the pace and string things out once more. Just when you thought the pace couldn't increase....The gap down to 25 seconds with about 3 km to go. This will be extremely close. Landaluze keeps looking back over his shoulder as Simeoni has taken over pulling the pair. He trades off with his break partner and they've managed to hang onto a 20 second lead The lead pair scream under the 1 km to go banner, but any dinking around will mean that they will be caught. So immediately, Simeoni refuses to go to the front, then realizes his error and pushes ahead as he hears 170-odd drivetrains clattering up behind them. And here comes the bunch, howling after them on this slight uphill finish. The gap is squeezing down as the riders spit and snarl up to the rear wheels of the pair who have been away for so long today. Under 100 meters, the Basque Landaluze goes hard, but the swarming pack finds them within 50 meters of the line - McEwen Zabel, Hushovd and O'Grady all come twisting around him. Many others get held back slightly as the two former leaders go backwards through the spinters. McEwen screams up against the rails as O'Grady hugs his wheel before launching his own sprint. Right up the middle of the roadway, the big Norwegian Thor Hushovd creates a visible wake as he plows toward the finish. Zabel cannot quite match the speed of these three and Tom Boonen is caught up in the traffic. O'Grady, Hushovd and McEwen all throw their bikes at the line, but McEwen nips them! Hushovd manages a tire-width lead over O'Grady. Landaluze just manages to hold onto 10th place. Stage 9 - Results 1 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - 3:32:55 2 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole 3 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis 4 - Jerome Pineau - La Boulangerie 5 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile 6 - Janek Tombak - Cofidis 7 - Tom Boonen - Quick-Step 8 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner 9 - Sergio Marinangeli - Domina Vacanza 10 - Inigo Landaluze - Euskatel-Euskadi All riders s.t. O'Grady's finishing time bonus moves him slightly closer to yellow and Backstedt and Piil suffer some minor losses as they got held behind the crash, but othewise, there are no noticeable changes in the overall. General Classification - 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 36:36:31 2 - O'Grady - @2:53 3 - Casar - @4:06 4 - Backstedt - @6:27 5 - Piil - @ 7:09 Tomorrow's Stage - Limoges to Saint-Flour - 237 km It will be a long day in the saddle, actually the longest of the Tour as the roads begin to kick up a bit. We will encounter two Cat 2 climbs which bookend the day's Cat 1 climb. The climbs will intensify along the route of the course, peaking at kilometer 177, when the 1580 meter peak of the Col du Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary) rolls under the wheels after a 5.5 km climb at an average of 8% - of course there are a few pitches of up to 15%, just to keep things interesting. Most of us would be reconsidering what we had for breakfast just from that, but it is merely the cruelest blow of 9 categorized climbs on the day. Make no mistake, the topography is becoming angry and the birds of prey are beginning to spread their wings. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Wed Jul 14 16:46:32 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 08:46:32 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 10 - Limoges to Saint-Flour Message-ID: Today the hammer is poised. How hard it will hit and who will suffer most remains to be seen. This is the longest stage of the Tour - it is also Bastille Day, so there is strong impetus for a French victory. Today, the Tour will pass through its halfway point, and will go over 9 separate passes. There may not be a decisive move as far as the overall race is concerned, but the curtains will be pulled back for many riders - or maybe more appropriately, the skin will be pulled back and we'll get to see how the muscle is structured. Today's Stage - Limoges to Saint-Flour - 237 km It will be a long day in the saddle, actually the longest of the Tour as the roads begin to kick up a bit. We will encounter two Cat 2 climbs which bookend the day's Cat 1 climb. The climbs will intensify along the route of the course, peaking at kilometer 177, when the 1580 meter peak of the Col du Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary) rolls under the wheels after a 5.5 km climb at an average of 8% - of course there are a few pitches of up to 15%, just to keep things interesting. Most of us would be reconsidering what we had for breakfast just from that, but it is merely the cruelest blow of 9 categorized climbs on the day. Make no mistake, the topography is becoming angry and the birds of prey are beginning to spread their wings. The sun is out and there isn't a cloud in the sky - it is a beautiful day with some breezes. Lance Armstrong said in a post stage interview yesterday that he expected a hard day of racing and that some riders would find themselves "a la maison" - back at the house... The big points begin to be available today for those who seek the polka-dot climber's jersey. In another rule change, if they are Category 1 or HC, final climbs of the stage get double the regular amount of points. Of course, today's stage profile long ago caught the eye of Quick- Step's Richard Virenque, who took his climbing legs out of the closet this morning and began his serious campaign for a record 7th Mountain Jersey. Away he went at the 35 km point today, forming a breakaway with Axel Merkcx of Lotto and Sylvain Chavanal of La Boulangerie. The three some hit the first mountain peak in just that order - Virenque - Merkcx - Chavanal. Chavanal pretty quickly dropped off the pace, and slid back to the bunch, which left the Virenque/Merkcx combine to begin increasing their gap and focus upon the points. So, over the ensuing four peaks, the following scenario played out - Virenque nicks the maximum points, Merkcx continues to work with him but doesn't challenge, and back in the pack Paolo Bettini fires away and prevents any other riders from taking the remaining points, as he is a teammate of Virenque's. The leading pair continues to add a couple minutes on each climb - edging up from 6 to 8 and then 9 minutes on the subsequent cols. By the time they hit the Col de Neronne - they have cranked up a 1:048 lead with nearly 50 miles to go - a long climb but more steady and draining than the upcoming steep incline of the col du Peyrol. Liberty Seguros rider Angel Vicioso has struggled to remain in contact today, but the injuries he's suffered in the earlier stages have finally caught up with him. He pulls over to the side of the roadway and turns in his race number. While the La Boulangerie taps out a controlling rhythm, some of the bigger boys begin to roll back to the team cars. Magnus Backstedt, Robbie McEwen and Thor Hushovd all find pain in common as the road kicks upward. The leading pair are on the climb of the Col du Pas de Peyrol, with Virenque moving into his signature snakey climbing rhythm and Merkcx beginning to pedal chunky squares as he tries to find a cadence that will get his big body over the climb. This climb actually has some of the steepest pitches of anything the riders will face this race. Virenque moves away from the big man and accellerates. Merckcx must be wondering just what kind of idea this was as he finds himself gapped by a half minute. Virenque nips over the pass to the cheers of the partisan crowd - gaining 15 climbing points and the polka dot jersey. Euskatel's Iban Mayo gets the jersey for the Least Opportune Puncture, as he flats near the base of the climb. No pictures come to us, but race radio reports another rider has given him a wheel. Of course, as riders are on the first Cat 1 climb of this Tour, no one will wait other than his orange-clad teammates. Liberty rider Marcus Serrano pushes away from the chasing bunch. But, his is just the first volley as the steepening pitch continues to cause multiple selections in the bunch. Riders fall off in big bunches like the hair of an ex-rocker who stopped taking his Rogaine. In the main chase group of 15 or 20 riders, Armstrong lets Ullrich set a climbing pace while he watches and evaluates the cadence of the big German. Ullrich in turn has been following teammate Andreas Kloden - German National Champion. Kloden begins to drift away while a move by an Iles Belares rider moves off the front. The chasing bunch holds all the riders who seem to matter, Michael Rasmussen, Levi Leipheimer, Tyler Hamilton et. al. Everyone marks one another as they begin to see the crest of this climb. Yellow Jersey wearing Thomas Voeckler drops off the pace for a second, then fights his way back up to the head of events and actually manages to cross in second place. Iban Mayo has been climbing under pressure from a ways behind, with teammates around him, but suffering from the delay of wheel changes after that untimely puncture. Now suffering on the downhill is Matthias Kessler, a T-Mobile rider who overshoots a left-hand turn, endos and whips into a fence post with his mid-back. Doctors are with him, but he's at least moving around. Mayo has not hooked up with the main chase group, which screams down the twisty descent giving no quarter to the Basque team. At the next climb, Merkcx has been unable to reattach with Virenque and crosses about a minute behind on the Category 3 Col d'Entremont. A fairly serious accident seems to have occurred on the descent - a Credit Agricole rider is crumpled into a ditch at the side of the road - the movements of the medical team are fast and somewhat frenzied - never a good sign. It looks to be Sebastian Hinault, who they finally move onto a soft litter so they can move him to a stretcher. Not clear what happened or how he's hurt, but his Tour is clearly over. Things stabilize now as Virenque rides along alone, Merkcx hovers about 1:08 behind, and for some reason Christophe Moreau nicks some climbing points about 8:30 in arrears. The bunch has more or less reformed, with those who you would expect. The Col d'Entremont climb is really more of a bump on the descent from the high point of the day, with a Category 2 Col de Prat-de-Bouc bringing the riders back up to nearly 1400 meters before desending to the finish (which of course has a crisp little climb before the finish). Again the team of the Yellow Jersey his at the head of events - La Boulengerie ticks along at the head of the swelling chase group - it seems to be now a select bunch of 35 or 40 riders. Virenque is on the climb proper now, although he rolls between huge numbers of screaming-crazed-Bastille-celebrating French Nationals, he's found the zone he knows well, out of the saddle working the bike, eyes focused somewhere up the roadway, knowing that he rides on his favorite terrain. He's pushed out his advantage to over 3 minutes, although the main chase group has closed within 8:30. The devil appears behind Merkcx who continues to grit it out. Up front, Virenque has found that his bike does have a saddle, and he easily ticks over the pedals. Cofidis rider has become a sufferin' B, dangling off the back of the chase group, then scrambling to reattach when the pitch of the climb allows. He has managed to remain in contact with the Group That Matters, which may keep him in 2nd position overall, but should give him a Green Jersey Point or two at the finish. Telekom's Santiago Botero now begin to drift back a bit. Virenque is within a kilometer of the crest and just thrums along with a crisp seated cadence - he crosses his 9th peak on the day in first place. Now less than 18 miles to the finish. Voeckler and the Yellow Jersey slides to the last spot in the lead bunch even while his teammates drive the pace up front. Postal riders shadow the La Boulangerie members. Merckx crosses over the summit now 6:47 behind Virenque, and he's only 20 seconds ahead of the chase bunch, spearheaded by the semi-attack of Quick-Step rider Laurent Dufaux, who nabs the stray climbing points before Moreau can nip out and grab them. (Although why the not-particularly-known-for-his-climbing Moreau feels compelled to grab Mountain Points is beyond my ability to ken.) The bunch catches up with Merkcx in short order, so now Virenque goes it alone, lead down now to just under 7 minutes. He passes under the 20 km to go banner. The pain has crept into the edges of the face of Virenque, but he continues to drive the big gear on the long gradual descent. A noticeable crosswind has shown up, but his time has not been reduced by more than 15 seconds in the past 5 km. Given the length of the stage, this effort could actually land him in the record books with one of the longest victorious breakaways. It depends a bit on when they credit him with escaping the bunch. Though uncategorized, the final is pretty nasty. Virenque has held his 6:44 gap as he cruises under the 10 km to go banner. A couple minutes later, the chase bunch flows under the 15 km to go point. A good chunk of USPS riders are in this group - Hincapie, Noval, Landis, Rubiera all calmly where they should be as they seem to pull off the throttle a bit. Up front, Virenque drops through a twisty bit of roadway in a small village. The pain has been spreading through his body, but seems able to move past it. He's also move past the 5 km to go banner. Stephane Goubert of Ag2R goes into a full-body-clench and drifts off the back of the chase bunch. He's clearly cramped and can suddenly barely turn the pedals. Hopefully someone in the team car brought a chisel. Virenque has descended down into the town and now begins the effort to the finish. All up hill, out of the saddle, he flies up the final bits to thunderous applause. He takes a final look behind to make sure no one has suddenly come up behind, pulls around the lasts left-hand bend and points skyward in a double-handed salute to the crowd. He has won, crossing the line in just over 6 hours. The bunch hammers around onto the final climb and whip around a hairpin with 600 to go. Mancebo moves hard and Veockler finds his wheel. Kloden and Zabel grind uphill and pass Mancebo and Voeckler with Lance Armstrong slapped onto the their wheel. A gap appears in between the other members of the group, but the riders howl to close it. Ullrich seems to have reattached himself to the leading group, along with the unlucky Basque Mayo, but Heras, Leipheimer and possibly even Tyler Hamilton may have found themselves a few seconds back on the day. It does seem that they have dumped 7 seconds on the day. Stage 10 - Stage Results 1 - Richard Virenque - Quick-Step - 6:00:24 2 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile - @ 5:19 3 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile - s.t. 4 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Beleares - s.t. 5 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - s.t. 6 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - s.t. 7 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - s.t. 8 - Kim Kirchen - Fassa Bortolo - s.t. 9 - Michele Scarponi - Domina Vacanze - s.t. 10 - Pietro Caucchioli - Alessio - s.t. General Classification After 10 Stages 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 42:42:14 2 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis - @3:00 3 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com - @4:13 4 - Richard Virenque - Quick-Step - @6:52 5 - Jakob Piil - CSC - @7:31 6 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - @9:35 7 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile - @9:58 8 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - @ 10:04 9 - Jose Enrique Guiterrez - Phonak - @10:09 10 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Balears - @10:18 11 - Tyler Hamilton - Phonak - s.t. Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 11 - Saint-Flour to Figeac - 164 km What this day lacks in distance it definitely makes up for in change of elevation. Although certainly not a "mountain stage", there will be three factors which influence this stage. First, there will be some knackered legs after the efforts of Stage 10 - nine climbs do not simply melt from the quads when you take a shower. Second, the riders will probably not see a flat stretch of roadway the entire day. Third, Stage 12 will be on everyone's mind - it ends with two major climbs; Col d'Aspin (12.5 km at an average of 6.3%) and La Mongie (15 km at an average 8%). So, it the right break gets away, they may find themselves able to "pull a Virenque", but if any of the potential leaders twitch towards the front, it could cause some hellish infighting. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Thu Jul 15 16:13:01 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:13:01 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 11 - Saint-Flour to Figeac Message-ID: Here's something to try on your next club ride - yesterday's stage averaged over 40 km/hour through the 148 miles of racing. The two riders who went down yesterday will not start today - Matthias Kessler of T-Mobile will not be around to assist Jan Ullrich, as his high-speed horrific folding his body around a fence post broke a rib. Stunningly, he did manage to finish the stage. Sebastian Hinault fractured his 5th lumbar vertabrae in yesterday's crash. In other sad news, Tyler Hamilton's longtime companion, Tugboat the labrador had to be put to sleep - he'd been having some health issues. During last year's Tour, when Tyler suffered with his broken collarbone, Tugboat and his wife Haven stayed by him in the hotel, and he'd credited the dog with keeping him calm during the trying times. Tyler had written about Tugboat a great deal in his online and print columns as well. As someone who is pretty dog-crazy himself, my thoughts are with him and hope that Tugboat is enjoying the rabbits and smells in doggy heavan. In better news, Levi Leipheimer has been announced as the US rider who will replace Lance Armstrong in the Olympics. Stage 11 - Saint-Flour to Figeac - 164 km What this day lacks in distance it definitely makes up for in change of elevation. Although certainly not a "mountain stage", there will be three factors which influence this stage. First, there will be some knackered legs after the efforts of Stage 10 - nine climbs do not simply melt from the quads when you take a shower. Second, the riders will probably not see a flat stretch of roadway the entire day. Third, Stage 12 will be on everyone's mind - it ends with two major climbs; Col d'Aspin (12.5 km at an average of 6.3%) and La Mongie (15 km at an average 8%). So, it the right break gets away, they may find themselves able to "pull a Virenque", but if any of the potential leaders twitch towards the front, it could cause some hellish infighting. A beautiful, hot day greets the riders today. Bastille day winner Richard Virenque will begin the day in the polka dot Mountain Points Jersey. Egol Martinez of Euskatel, David Moncoutie of Cofidis and the ever-present Juan Antonio Flecha from Fassa Bortolo combined to make the first break that stuck today, after seemingly everyone from every team tried to get away from the bunch. But, the leaders were having none of that, putting riders on the front to pull everyone back, driving up the average pace to more than 46 kph and putting everything ahead of schedule by at least a half hour. But, for whatever reason, they all liked this combination, and have yet to react strongly. That means the triplets of Figeac have a gap of 6:47 with about 36 miles to go, while the red and white jerseys of La Boulangerie continue to cook themselves to keep the yellow jersey on the shoulders of the suprisingly tenacious Thomas Voeckler. The leading troika does not seem impressed, however, as the lead pushes out to 7:21 with about 30 miles left. Cattle on the roadway slows down the bunch -- a group of 8 stocky cows manage to split the bunch before they are herded off of the race route. No one other than the bovines make an attack, and everyone regains the bunch with hopefully not too much "cow-output" on their tires. It does seem that the peloton has not unfurled all of their sails today - or maybe more appropirately, they have tucked a couple back in their bins, clearly content to let things play out in the bunch of three who are now more than 8 minutes away. It will be interesting to see what happens on the last bits to the finish today - yesterday's sharp climb to the line factored in Armstrong's effort, and he nipped 7 seconds on Heras, Leipheimer, Basso and Hamilton by being on the front of the gap which appearred on the climb. Today finishes with another climb (reportedly at 7.5%) to the first-ever Tour finish in Figeac. With 15 miles to go, little has changed in the gap. Personally, I'd like to see either Martinez or Flecha take the win, as they both ride frames which are not "compact". Fassa Bortolo rides Pinarello frames with the "wiggly" fork and seat stays formed in carbon, while Euskatel-Euskadi uses their Orbea frames made by the Basque cooperative - which do actually make a compact frame, but Martinez is riding a more traditional looking model. I dunno, but there's something about a top tube that runs in a true horizontal line that gives a road machine its grace. Of course, it is actually a bike race, and these leading three thump out a tempo led by Flecha as they head over the Category 4 Cote de Bagnac. The three riders eye one another and not-really-a-climber Flecha sets the pace to discourage moves by the other two. No one decides to use the peak as a springboard to try a 9 mile breakaway. The heat has continued to mount and become oppressively humid, temps in the mid-80's, and Moncoutie has formed a thin white mustache on his upper lip. The Cote de Bagnac does manage to slice off about 15 or 20 riders without too much as the main bunch keeps the pressure on. Flecha rolls back just a bit and then fires away from his other riders. He is immediately marked by Martinez - when Moncoutie rolls back up, he swings out and goes hard. The two Spaniards eyeball one another but do not respond. The textbook counterattack puts him immediately up the roadway as you can literally see the other two riders deflate and begin pedaling with gushy bananas in their legs. The gap quickly becomes a minute and we have the possibility of two back to back French victories for the first time in at least 10 years. 2.5 miles to go, Moncoutie pushes a huge gear on the slight downhill to town, screaming under the 5 km banner in excess of 38 mph. He has a little finishing climb ahead of him in the final kilometer, not enough to even show on the profile, but that will be a moot point as the gap has now pushed out to 1:40. Under 1 km to go banner, around a couple sharp turns and with two or three looks back, Moncoutie realizes he will not be caught and celebrates his first ever stage vicotry before the extremely partisan crowd. The two Spaniards ride side by side up the incline to the finish before Flecha drives away from Martinez as if he had a motor on board. They cross the line a bit more than two minutes behind. The peloton punches it through the town as T-Mobile works to set up Erik Zabel. Armstrong marks the move strongly as the sprinters remember what they need to do and swarm after him. As they hammer up the rise to the finish, Gerolsteiner's Danilo Hondo feels he has the legs to take the remaining spring points and makes a move on the inside of the curve. Zabel responds instantly, but he's brought along a big Nordic shadow in the shape of Thor Hushovd. Hushovd punches out enough wattage to light up 47 1/2 Christmast trees and moves cleanly ahead of Zabel, who in turn has dropped Hondo. From mid-pack, McEwen makes his trademark sudden appearance in front of Hondo, but cannot catch the other two before he runs out of racecourse. Armstrong flows in right afer McEwen. Zabel's finish moves him up within 9 points of McEwen's total in the Green Points Jersey. Both Zabel and O'Grady are capable of keeping in contact as the roadway heads upward, and because of the way this year's Tour route plays out, the threat of being dropped in the mountains may play a larger part in who wears the Green Jersey in Paris. Stage 11 Results - 1 - David Moncoutie - Cofidis - 3:54:58 2 - Juan Anonio Flecha - Fassa Bortolo - 2:15 3 - Igol Martinez - Euskatel-Euskadi - 2:17 4 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole - 5:58 5 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile - s.t. 6 - Robbie McEwen - Lotto - s.t. 7 - Paolo Bettini - Quick-Step - s.t. 8 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner - s.t. 9 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - s.t. General Classification After 10 Stages 1 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 46:43:10 2 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis - @3:00 3 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com - @4:13 4 - Richard Virenque - Quick-Step - @6:52 5 - Jakob Piil - CSC - @7:31 6 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - @9:35 7 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile - @9:58 8 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - @ 10:04 9 - Jose Enrique Guiterrez - Phonak - @10:09 10 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Balears - @10:18 11 - Tyler Hamilton - Phonak - s.t. Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 12 - Castelsarrazin to La Mongie - 197.5 km Things are heating up in the pain skillet, and everyone is going to get a helping. A long steady gain in elevation for the first 150 odd kilometers will let the riders duke it out for the two sprint points, and then things kick up. The Category 1 Col d'Aspin gains a couple thousand quick feet, averaging 6.5% for the 12.3 km ascent. Then as soon as the riders drop down from that peak, they dive for the low gears as they climb La Mongie - the "Hors Categorie" 1715 meter climb goes upward for 12.8 km at an average of 6.8%. Though this may not be a decisive stage for the leaders, there will be nowhere to hide for the pretenders. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Fri Jul 16 17:39:38 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2004 09:39:38 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 12 - Castelsarrazin to La Mongie Message-ID: We are in the heart of the Pyrenees. Riders will ascend from around 250 feet above sea level to the height of 5550'. A day when the contenders will be separated from the pretenders. Everyone seems a bit cagey though, Armstrong has repeatedly said that today won't be a big attacking day for him, and Tyler Hamilton feels that the topography is not condusive to making a big effort for less substantial gains. What has seemed like considerable time gaps on the flat roads - the 55 seconds to Ullrich, the 5 and a half minutes to Iban Mayo - may look remarkably tenuous after the day's efforts. Whether the latter will howl forward in attack is almost a foregone conclusion, but what will happen to the former is anyone's guess. Ullrich is clearly on form, but how that engine will fire when the road pitches upward. The sun is out, but skies are not the pure blue of the past two days. Clouds threaten on the horizon and we may just see some rain on the roadway before we reach the dizzying heights of today's stage. Thousands of orange shirts have been distributed, and the crazed Basque fans have been camped out on the side of the roadway. No word on weather they have unlimbered the snowplows to get through the crowds today. Stage 12 - Castelsarrazin to La Mongie - 197.5 km Things are heating up in the pain skillet, and everyone is going to get a helping. A long steady gain in elevation for the first 150 odd kilometers will let the riders duke it out for the two sprint points, and then things kick up. The Category 1 Col d'Aspin gains a couple thousand quick feet, averaging 6.5% for the 12.3 km ascent. Then as soon as the riders drop down from that peak, they dive for the low gears as they climb La Mongie - the "Hors Categorie" 1715 meter climb goes upward for 12.8 km at an average of 6.8%. Though this may not be a decisive stage for the leaders, there will be nowhere to hide for the pretenders. Mikel Pradera of Illes Baleares did not start today. Right at the start of today's stage, at the 1 km mark a group of 4 have moved away from the bunch: 46 - Kim Kirchen - Fasso Bortolo 136 - Marin Ljungqvist - Alessio-Bianchi 187 - Wim Van Sevenant - Lotto 206 - Frederic Finot - RAGT With both of the finish climbs looming ahead and 48 miles to go before the finish, they remain 3:45 off the front after being out at 4:20. Voeckler's La Boulangerie teammates find help from a few USPS riders in the chase. The shadows have disappeared from the roadway, and they are reporting strong thunderclaps at the finish. The chase have nipped a minute back from the gang of four. Rains have hit the finish line, and as some of the riders take an opportunity for some "natural breaks", it's slightly concerning to ponder the treacherous switchback descent from Col d'Aspin. The riders' breaks may not be related to their concern about the potentially glacially slippery drop between the two climbs, but you never know. When the race last visited La Mongie in 2002, a certain Lance Armstrong was the winner of the stage (the other time here, it was when Bernard Thevenet escaped to beat Eddy Merckx on the stage and ultimately, the Tour). Armstrong had escaped with Joseba Beloki and at-that-point-teammate Roberto Heras. Although they put a 7 second nail into the coffin of Beloki, Lance commented at the end of the stage that there were a couple of times on the climb when he had to ask Heras to slow his climbing speed. This year, Heras has quietly been tucked into the bunch, but you know he's been waiting for topography such as this - the fact that it is near his home country will be even more inspiration. A lull seems to hit the peloton, which spreads out across the roadway as domestiques fetch food and rain jackets, the gap hovers at 2:50, where it has held for the past kilometers. Up front, the first spots of rain begin to hit the camera lens as the foursome approach the Col d'Aspin. With 32 miles to go, the gap has been squeezed down to 1:39, and the rain explodes off of the roadway. The tamac has a serious layer of water upon it, and it had not been raining for the past 8 or 10 days. The bunch have strung out under the pressure of USPS and La Boulangerie. Tucked in just behind them is at least one orange jersey. The Yellow Jersey pulls over to the side of the roadway suddenly and swaps out his bike - so to does teammate Sylvain Chavanal. It is a move which Iban Mayo and Tyler Hamilton have both executed - whether a spate of technical problems or, more likely, they have switched to the bikes which hover just at the UCI weight limit. Almost forgotten is the second sprint point on the day - now just 2 km away from the leading four. Hopefully for Robbie McEwen, his teammate can keep them off the front until they pass through that, as only the first three riders gain points in the Green Jersey competition. They do exactly that as Kim Kirchen attacks off the front in what may be the butterfly stroke to cross through first. But such things are quickly forgotten - the main pack now screams through the narrowing roads to position themselves properly before the climb - despite its imposing presence, the climb over the Col d'Aspin does not distinguish itself with exceptionally wide tarmac. All of a sudden, all the teams realize that (A) there is less room, and (B)they need to be at the front. Potentially a distasterous combination under these weather conditions. The riders make the sharp right turn onto the climb - Bettini leads the bunch, matched quickly by USPS who move to the front once the climb begins. Immediately, T-Mobile's Santiago Botero drifts back with a huge group of sufferin' B's who will become the "autobus" today. Up front, the boys in blue have opened the throttle, with Benjamin Noval and Manual Beltran setting the pace and littering the slopes with the wreckage of the bunch. At mid-climb, it is a USPS team photo at the front across the roadway. Though small bunches of riders continue to fall away, of interesting note is the inclusion of yellow jersey - Voeckler remains in evidence as they move along up the mountain. Domina Vacanza's Fillippo Simeoni whips up his effort to get off the front of the trundling pack. He's sitting 15 or 20 seconds ahead of the bunch of 50 or 60 semi-select riders. Credit Agricole's French hope, Christophe Moreau kicks up and moves away smartly - he's been hovering around the front of all of the polka dot jersey points. Moreau rolls up to Simeoni, but there's suddenly a third banana in the bunch - none other than the Mountain Jersey leaer Richard Virenque, who will not let his adversary get away. This in turn wakes up the GC leader Voeckler, as Virenque currently sits in 4th position overall. After the La Boulangerie riders kick up things a notch, Michael Rasmussen moves away wtih Euskatel's Egol Martinez. The pair immediately rope in the threesome and move away as the pack engulfs the three. The pictures go immediately to heck, but through the digital snow, it is evident that Hamilton, Voeckler, Gilberto Simoni and Iban Mayo all sit much closer to the rear of events than they should be. Up front, Rassmussen has clipped off the assistance of Martinez, who literally rides his rippling wake back to the bunch. Hincapie notches up the pace of the chasers again, followed by Lance and four other teammates, with Ullrich is just off their back wheel with a couple of his riders. The big German rides with a determined scowl on his face, grinding over the big gear he favors. Rasmussen climbs well - not bad for an ex-World Champion Mountain Biker. He's sitting comfortably 13 seconds off the front of events. 2 km from the top of the climb, the yellow jersey strains to hang onto the wheel of Michele Bartoli. Unfortunately, the wheel he's following is becoming unstuck from the bunch, so Voeckler hikes up his bib and moves around him to regain contact with the pack. Voeckler, as others before, seems to find something extra from the wearing of the Yellow Jersey and somehow moves up to the front of events again. He has been "bungie-climbing" his way through this stage, falling back and springing forward. Still stuck at the back of the bunch are Hamilton and Mayo - perhaps not finding the engine firing quite perfectly in the cold, wet weather. Despite the sensationally bad weather at the summit of the Co d'Aspin, the crowd is insanely huge - 30 or 40 deep on either side. They move with the thick motions of the overly waterlogged. Smelling the polka-dot points, Virenque and Moreau again fly off the bunch and pummel one another for the second points on the climb. Richard hears something to his left as the tenacious Moreau slips up and probably past him on his right. Hellish hairpins mark this descent, and while the rains have lessened, the roadway is still sodden. Rasmussen drives along hoping to hold his gap to the finish. He's a decidedly solid bike-handler, and he'll need all his skills as things head down. 20 km to go. A gap has appeared on the descent, and a group of nine riders including the yellow jersey move away from a string of chasers. The escaping group does not include Lance Armstrong. Hincapie realizes it immediately and sits up and looks behind to find his team leader. Jan Ullrich and Iban Mayo _are_ in the group - have they risked all to put Armstrong in trouble, or did the 5-time winner of the Tour pull in his horns so as not to risk things needlessly? You'd feel really silly needlessly leaving a pound of flesh on the roadway today. You can hear a serious sigh of releif as five blue jerseys drive up to the escaping bunch as sunlight hits the roadway here and again. Just as suddenly, the descent ends and the bunch begins to climb again. Euskatel rider David Etxebarria leads the serious competitors on to the beginnings of the ascent. Up ahead a naked-headed Rasmussen has doffed his helmet as he has begun the final climb (of more than 5 km - on which the riders can take their helmets off. Rasmussen has 13 seconds on the chasing pair of Quick-Step rider Juan Mercado and the last-mullet-in-the-peloton, Ag2R's Laurent Brochard, but their effort is eclipsed by the tempo-tapping of the USPS. Chechu Rubiera has positioned himself at the front of the events raised the pace, and the bunch find themselves maybe 25 seconds away from Rasmussen in a group of maybe 30 riders. Landis now sets pace with 10 km to go. The 10 km is, of course, all uphill. Despite the heartrate raising descent conditions, the USPS have 5 riders in this group - I think the largest number of team members in this bunch. The riders climb in ever-increasing sunlight which has followed in the lee of the earlier storm. Voeckler again finds himself at the end of events and wonders if he can continue to stay in touch. The USPS all hurl their $200 helmets toward the mechanic at the side of the road and focus upon the task now at hand. Tyler Hamilton dos not look good - he seems to be trying to find a comfortable pace, but in doing so does not move with exceptional power. His ex-teammate, CSC's ace climber Carlos Sastre clips on the afterburners and moves away from the bunch. Somewhere down the roadway, Virenque and Voeckler ride side by side, Virenque looking like he's making small talk at a dinner party while the other "V" is turning his lips inside out with his efforts. Virenque encourages him onto his wheel and the two move together. Leipheimer drifts away from a bunch, although things are beginning to break up so it's hard to tell where he's become unstuck from. Rassmussen's shaved pate glistens in the full as he becomes absorbed by Sastre and the accellerating chasers. A chill goes through the air as Armstrong rises up out of the saddle to find a little nudge more. Rassmussen has gone through that group like cheese through a sharp grater. Ullrich has now begun to drift back, his huge diesel not suited to the steepening incline. USPS rider Jose Azevedo ticks out the pace, leading now Armstrong at the front of events. CSC rider Ivan Basso sits smartly in Armstrong's left pocket, finally beginning to show his face at the interesting end of events. Ullrich is now 25 seconds back from the Armstrong group, with teammate Guiseppe Guerini helping him to set pace. Interestingly, Andreas Kloden from T-Mobile has remained in the lead group with Armstrongmatching pedal strokes and positioning himself well in the bunch. This former Olympic Gold Medalist should not be underestimated. Somewhere in the increasingly spread group of riders, Tyler Hamilton seems to be rolling smoothly, and he may be finding a rhythm that will work. His group of 10 now tows along Leipheimer and Gilberto Simoni. In the group with Armstrong is Mayo, Mancebo, Denis Menchov and Sastre. Sastre moves again at the 5 km to go mark and gains a minor opening In the Ullrich group, the big German is again having some trouble. His team car moves up and watches for a second. But, there is little they can tell him. What do you say? "Pedal harder"? Kloden finally looks around as if to see where his leader has gone. He does look to be riding within himself. An accelleration comes from Mancebo, Azevado drifts away and Armstrong finds himself at the head of events by himself. He opens his lungs slightly, moving easily out of the saddle. Voeckler shows all sorts of agony as he tries to remain in contact. Sastre continues upward ahead of the bunch. Although it's difficult to see the gradiant, they shift of a fixed camera position at the side of the road for a few seconds to see Sastre sail around a turn. The incline is hellish and Sastre is probably going faster than you would drive it in a car. Again Mancebo moves up and away taking Ivan Basso - who is marking Mancebo as it is his teammate who is up the roadway. Now Armstrong hikes it up and he moves up on those two riders. Suddenly they catch the pair and riders simply melt away behind him. Basso responds and is the only one who can stay with the charging Texan. Basso remains sitting and ticks over his gear while Armstrong moves easily out of the saddle. Although Armstrong has made an accelleration, it lacks the dynamic full-afterburner intensity that marks his most serious efforts. He's raised the pace after looking around and seeing that no other serious competitor is in his bunch. Now he is closing down the gap to Sastre while some idiot American in a red, white and blue clown suit runs alongside. Sastra is in his sights and they immediatley form a troika. It's a CSC sandwich - Armstrong is outnumbered two to one which may mean it's a fair fight. They roll along together with seeming ease, all riders seemingly within themselves. Mancebo and Kloden are somewhere in arrears, clearly suffering to a much higher degree. The cameras now find Ullrich, who looks absolutely like hell, with a strange fold of skin appearing under each eye and his short hair pasted down agains his scalp. The curse of rainy weather seems to again have found Jan. The leaders have opened a 2:08 now to the Yellow jersey. Basso and Armstrong move into a tunnel and away from Sastre. When they reappear, Basso leads Armstrong through an absolute sea of Orange t-shirts - who are probably slightly saddened to not see their man Mayo up with the leaders. Voeckler again snaps back up to a group of riders. Or maybe they slid back to him. Armstrong lets Basso roll to the front and then they slide even to be side by side. Mancebo drags himself up to Kloden and Sastre - they have lost a serious bit of real estate on this climb. The lead pair are under the final 1 km to go banner, and they both begin to think about the 20 second time bonus which goes with 1st place on the stage. 800 m to go. Basso takes a quick look behind to make sure no one is sneaking up and remains seated. 500 m to go Armstrong continues out of the saddle and finally Basso finally raises up and torque things for a few pedal turns before he sits again. I've always been a fan of this Italian rider, and he again shows the class that took him to a Best Young Rider Jersey a few years back. Armstrong ticks it out of the saddle, Basso just behind to his right again. They match pedal strokes, but Basso has moved ahead with a last gasp accelleration. Armstrong seems content to gain the 12 second bonus for second, and he clearly is happy with the damage he has done to everyone else - on a stage that was supposed to be "wait and see". Basso takes the stage win - his first stage victory in the Tour - he punches the air with elation! Popping around the last corner is the first German - not the one who you might think - Andreas Kloden comes through 17 seconds back - is there a new T-Mobile leader? This is reminiscent of the year after Bjarne Riis took his Tour victory - tapped as the leader the following year but clearly not firing on all cylinders, they finally gave the nod to a certain Jan Ullrich who went on to victory. Mancebo crosses the line at 23 seconds back, while Sastre rolls in behind. The damage to the other riders clearly shows, as Mayo rolls in with some Phonak riders who are not Tyler, and then Leipheimer finishes over 2 minutes back. Now Ullrich finally rolls into view - finising the day exactly 2 and a half minutes back. Cheers go up for Frances's favorite - Thomas Voeckler's tendons seem to have popped out of his skin layer as he brings the Yellow Jersey home for the day. A quick calculation shows that he will get enough yellow jerseys to give one to each team member. Hully Mully! What wreckage has occurred. And what will happen tomorrow? Stage 12 - Results 1 - Ivan Bass - CSC - 5:03:58 2 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - s.t. 3 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile - @:20 4 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - @:24 5 - Carlos Sastre - CSC - @:33 Other riders' gaps: Michele Scarponi - Domina Vacanza - @ 1:02 Iban Mayo - Euskatel - @1:03 Gilberto Simoni - Saeco - @1:32 Christophe Moreau - Credit Agricole - @1:59 Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - @1:59 Bobby Julich - CSC - @2:28 Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - @2:30 General Classification - MJ - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 51:51:07 2 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - 5:24 3 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com - 5:50 4 - Richard Virenque - Quick Step - 6:20 5 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile - 6:33 6 - Ivan Basso - CSC - 6:33 7 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - 6:43 8 - Jakob Piil - CSC - 6:53 9 - Santos Gonzalez - Phonak - 7:23 10 - Carlos Sastre - CSC - 8:11 11 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - 8:35 12 - Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - 8:50 13 - Joe Gutierrez - Phonak - 8:51 14 - Oscar Sevilla - Phonak - 8:57 15 - Jose Luis Rubiera - USPS - 8:58 16 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - 9:01 17 - Booby Julich - CSC - 9:11 18 - Michele Scarponi - 9:25 19 - Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano - Liberty - 9:42 20 - Tyler Hamilton - Phonak - 9:46 Tomorrow's Stage - Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille - 205 km Ugly. If you needed a recovery from today's dip into the room of whirling knives, you are simply out of luck. Seven categorized climbs lie before the riders. The toughest will be the finish climb of Hors Categorie Plateau de Beille, which will see the riders toss their helmets 16 km before the finish and then average 7.8% for the remainder of the course. Tough you say? Consider it comes after a Cagetory 1 climb at 146 km - the Col d'Agnes, which is 9.8 km at 8.2% average. Luckily, they will have a warmup before that at 64 km - the 4.4 km Col du Portet d'Aspet - kicking upwards at 9.8%, followed in pretty short order by the Col de la Core, which is a 14.2 km pitch at a restufl 6%... And I'm leaving out the category 3 climbs altogether... Blood is on the water, and toothy critters are about. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sat Jul 17 17:09:55 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sat, 17 Jul 2004 09:09:55 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 13 - Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille Message-ID: If you woke up this morning and felt anything other than 100%, today would seem to be the cycling equivilent of Dante's Inferno. There will be nowhere to hide as the road rises again and again. The brutal facts: km 42 - Col des Ares - 4.0 km at 4.7% - Cat 3 km 64 - Col du Portet d'Aspet - 4.4 km at 9.8% - Cat 2 km 99 - Col de la Core - 14.2 km at 6% - Cat 1 km 131 - Col de Latrape - 5.6 km at 7.7% - Cat 2 km 146 - Col d'Agnes - 9.8 km at 8.3% - Cat 1 km 155 - Port de Lers - 3.5 km at 5.7% - Cat 3 km 205 - Plateau de Beille - 15.9 km at 7.8% - HC And you thought your Monday schedule looked bad. Stage 13 - Lannemezan to Plateau de Beille - 205 km The toughest part of today will be the finish climb of Hors Categorie Plateau de Beille, which will see the riders toss their helmets 16 km before the finish and then average 7.8% for the remainder of the course. Tough you say? Consider the list above - it comes after a Cagetory 1 climb at 146 km - the Col d'Agnes, which is 9.8 km at 8.2% average. Luckily, they will have a warmup before that at 64 km - the 4.4 km Col du Portet d'Aspet - kicking upwards at 9.8%, followed in pretty short order by the Col de la Core, which is a 14.2 km pitch at a restufl 6%... And I'm leaving out the category 3 climbs altogether... As I said, the toothy critters have started started darting through the herd and the carcasses have been left behind - So far today: Former White Jersey winner Dennis Menchov of Illes Baleares has turned in his number today and will not start. Gone too are Gerrit Glomser of Saeco, Maryan Hary of La Boulangerie and last year's 5th Place finisher, Haimar Zubeldia of Euskatel >From the aerial photos, it is evident that Phonak's Tyler Hamilton has abandoned the Tour. At kilometer 90, he has turned backwards on the course towards his team car and waved a solemn goodbye to the other team directors as he passed them. He had stated yesterday after the race that he had no power, but gave no other excuses. Sadly, his Tour is now done. Another solemn moment on the day as riders pass by the Fabio Casartelli memorial on the side of the roadway. The former Olympic gold medalist was a teammate and freind of Lance Armstrong, and it seems that the Texan always finds strength when he passes by this point near the Spanish border. Quick Step's Tom Boonen hoes a furrow in the asphalt with his knee when his stem suddenly snaps. No word on who the manufacturer is. Fabian Wegman of Gerolsteiner has turned in his number and gotten his cleaning deposit. But there is an actual race going on amid the floating wreckage - Ever attacking Jens Voight of CSC and Sylvan Chavanal of La Boulangerie slipped away at kilometer 35, joined by Rabobank's Michael Rassmussen before they Col du Portet d'Aspet. As they crest the summit of Col de la Core the have managed a lead of 5:07 On a beautiful warm and sunny day, USPS sets the pace for the bunch, and there have already been a increasing group of stragglers slobbering in their wake. They are not pushing a crushing cadence, but the topography is taking its toll. As they aim for the crest, Richard Virenque is challenged for the remaining climbing points first by Illes Baleares' Francisco Mancebo and then Credit Agricole's Christophe Moreau. Despite being boxed in on a corner, Virenque finds a gap and fires ahead to gap both riders. He and Moreau trade a few comments as they begin to drop down the hairpins on the far side of the climb. ======Crash on the descent Liberty rider Roberto Heras is in the roadway with another teammate on the inside of a hairpin turn. As he stands, he seems to be checking his collarbone. But, evidently satisfied that it's intact, he gets a new bike and is paced back into the bunch. Up the Col de la Trappe, the three leaders have edged out a bit to 5:40 - there is still 77 km to go. Euskatel rider Iban Mayo begins to drift back on the climb, he actually seems to be unable to hold a group of riders who in turn have not been able to match the pace of the serious contenders. A couple of orangemen drop back to pace him - then a third drifts back to cheer him onward. Mayo chats on the radio for a minute or so. They do begin to pick up a few riders, but they are among the riders who will not factor in this stage, which does not bode well if he wants to be a factor in this year's Tour. Yellow Jersey wearing Thomas Voeckler again does his yo-yo imitation, stretching away from the leading group and then snapping back up through the bunch as he sprints to regain his position in the bunch. They are still a kilometer from the crest, and again he drifts back. Jersey fully unzipped, this rider who is showing such heart has reached very deeply inside himself this Tour found reserves that he did not know he had, and will be a name to consider in the future. Remember, this rider is also in possession of the White Jersey for best young rider. As the bunch hit the top of the climb, Virenque again hatchets the pedals, assisted by teammate Palo Bettini they push Moreau behind them to net the highest number of climbing points that the leading three have left them. Up front, Sylvan Chavanal has won all of the other points, and has gone from 46th in the chase for polka-dots to 4th. Mayo goes through another half minute behind the lead chase bunch. Paced by three riders among some bigger boys from other teams who cannot match the pace. It will be interesting to see how he fares on the upcoming Col d'Agnes, which has a couple nasty sections which kcik up at 12%. As the leading group makes their way up the Col d'Agnes, Chavanal pulls too hard on his extension cord and it slips from the outlet. He slows as if he has thrown out an anchor, and Voight works himself to a frenzy to hold the wheel of the determined Rassmussen. Voeckler is now in trouble again, and Mayo is reportedly already 2 minutes behind the Armstrong group as they proceed ever upwards. For those worried about my sleep patterns, I'll just share that today's coverage began at 4 am with the prerace show, and the feed of live racing began at 4:30. Clearly, I am a target of marketing, as they feel I'll be more susceptible to solicitations for brush mowers and life alert systems at this hour. Data to support this opinion? Since the coverage began an hour and a half ago, there have been nearly 30 minutes of commercial breaks. Tour Geek Tidbit: Voeckler has had more days in yellow than any Frenchman since 1992. Mayo now attempts to abandon. He gets off his bike and walks it briefly. His Team Director walks with him as teammates roll along next to him. Somehow, they coax him back upon a different machine - maybe one with a touch lower gearing. Every rider nearby puts a hand on his saddle to push him onwards. Teammates and former teammates all try to encourage him upwards - just to hang on until he finds some reserves. As they roll upwards, "luckily" the gears on the spare machine are not adjusted properly, so Mayo "must" hold onto the team car while the mechanic "fixes" the "problem". Finally "adjusted" properly, he sets off again. He is more than 5 minutes behind the Armstrong group. At the head of the chasers, Mancebo makes a sharp move off the front - immediately the USPS calmly raise the pace - there are 5 USPS riders at the head of events - and Roberto Heras is sent out the back in short order with a passel of other riders. In the bunch still is Levi Leipheimer, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich. TThere are only about 20 or so riders in the "tempo" chase group - which means that somewhere around 25% of the riders are Lance's teammates. Rassmussen leads Voight over the crest with a 3:44 gap to their ex-partner Chavanal, and another minute in front of the serious chase group. It should be noted that the chase group is being paced by none other than George Hincapie, who a few years back would've been back in the autobus by this point. In the chase group now is Gilberto Simoni, who had struggled briefly on the climb. Virenque twists his chamois in a knot and springs ahead of the bunch and stays ahead of Moreau for the climbing points. Mayo is now 8 minutes behind Armstrong on the the climb. He's found a semblance of cadence and continues to move upward. The Yellow Jersey rides alone on the minor Port de Lers climb. He decended like a stone to cut into the gap to the Armstrong group. He was unable to bridge the gap, but has cut down the gap a bit. The Mayo group finally crests the previous climb, now running about 11 minutes behind Armstrong. Voight and Rasmussen find themselves cresting Port de Lers, and Chavanal has found a pace that works for him, arresting his backward tumble. He's hung on and now pulled a time back on his previous partners - he's 1:55 behind them. The riders begin streaming down the narrowing switchbacks - Voeckler and some other stragglers forming a phalanx of descenders who are risking more than the Armstrong bunch. The chase group swells as riders tack back on while aided by gravity. Chavanal is surrounded by the Floyd Landis-led bunch as they sweep down the roadway. Nothing like coming back from the commercial break to see Lance Armstrong at the side of the roadway - he's removed his rear wheel and tosses it out of the way. By the time the mechanic launches himself out of the still-moving team car, Lance is stretching his back slightly and looks as calm as can be. Tire-with-air reinstalled, he pulls back out and easily reconnects with the bunch. The adjustment of the USPS to a different goal lets the breakaway pair move their gap out to 4:23 with just under 20 miles to go. They roll through the valley and lose about a half minute in pretty short order. Behind them, the swollen chase group follows the pacemaking of the USPS. The road continues flat for a short bit before a right-hand turn and date with climbing destiny. The helmets have flown off, so that means that the riders are on the climb proper. Rassmussen and Voight have held onto a 2:35 lead. Five USPS ridres are on the front, with Thomas Voeckler just behind. Hincapie swings off and Floyd Landis punches his timecard and does the same - he's worked his shift. The lead group squeezes down to 20 riders as Chechu Rubiera sets the pace. Oscar Sevilla has been lopped off. Moreau is suddenly off to the side of the road with a flat and swaps rear wheels with a teammate - Botcharov - it takes an unbeleiveably long time to lock in the rear wheel. Voeckler begins pedaling squares, as does Sylvan Chavanal. Gone too are Sandy Casar, Juan Mercado, Gilberto Simoni and Pietro Caucchioli. Moreau sets a chunky rhythm and begins to negotiate his way back up through the team cars. The group has selected down to 11 riders - Leipheimer, Ullrich and Kloeden, Basso, Periero, Totschnig are all in the bunch, and they are less than a minute behind the Rassmussen/Voight combine. Moreau pushes past Voeckler, who somehow manges to tack onto the helpful wheel for a bit of the switchback. Voight is caught and passed. Ullrich is now on the back of the bunch, as is Leipheimer and Stephane Goubert. Jose Azevedo is the lst USPS rider on the front, grinding the bones of Ullrich as the group splinters into three sections. Basso and Totschnig are the only men who can hang onto the wheel of Armstrong. Rassmussen is caught and passed - he dumps out the back of every group who reaches him. There are only three riders left up front - Azevedo, Armstrong and Basso - they pass under the 10 km to go banner. Totschnig has faded back. Mancebo and Kloeden work together next. Behind the stragglers, Ullrich sees to have found a pace of slightly less pain, and leads a bunch of 4 riders including Leipheimer. Basso sits at the back of events, rocking a little bit more on the saddle than he was yesterday. Armstrong skips over his pedals with his smooth and supple style. Azevedo views the world through a silent tunnel of personal pain as he flawlessly executes his task of pace-setting. Ullrich now rides alone - whether he's dropped back from the other riders or dropped them is not clear. Totschnig patiently thrums his rhythm, and seems to be working his way back up toward the leaders. Ullrich has indeed ditched the men he was with and is trying to grind his big gear up to the leaders. Up front, Azevedo has filled his dance card and moves off the front. Armstrong has picked up the pace and begins his personal assault on the stage. He's out of the saddle, moving easily and checking the condition of Basso. They switch pacemaking against the heat and winds. Azevedo has shut down the engine and drifts back to the pair of Kloeden and Mancebo. He picks up their wheel and wisely watches the German National Champion - who at this point seesm to be more of a threat than Ullrich. Speaking of the other German, he's gone 1:10 behind the leading pair. Voeckler has already dropped 3 and a half minutes off - if things continue at this rate, his days in yellow will be over. The flippin' idiots are on the roadway - too damn close and too bloody stupid. They do everything but offer slices of pizza to the leaders. Cameras get shoved into their faces. It's worse than usual. Thankfully, the motos aggressively begin to drive at the spectators who are on the course, one of the passengers gives a hefty shove to one of the less intellegent memebers of the dumbo brigade. Basso looks a under a bit more pressure today, while Lance tries to head for the race director's rear bumber. Mancebo rides under the 3 km to go banner with Totschnig about a couple hundre meters or so ahead of him. It looks like Kloeden has been able to hang with Mancebo, but Azevedo has drifted away. Ullrich now throbs under the 3 km, his big diesel engine not quite as well suited to the climb. A sea of orange t-shirts, hats and the inevitable Basque flags press at least 5 or six deep on the edge of the roadway - they have all been waiting to perhaps see the Mayo assault on the summit, but can only cheer for either Armstrong or Basso. I realize that the telephoto lens from the helicopter tends to compress the distance, but it's hard to see how the riders can thread their way between them. With 2 km to go, the two leaders are finally in among the barriers, and they have room to move. The climb flattens slightly as they hit the last bits, and they need to work to keep the pressure on and maintain the time gap. This incline will begin to favor Ullrich's massive power. Vooekler has a gap of 4:10, can only afford to lose one and a half more minutes if he wants to keep his jersey. Basso leads under the 1 km to go banner, clearly suffering, but still moving in his long-legged smooth pedaling style. Armstrong has him marked, and to underscore his confidence, with 500 to go, Armstrong sits on his saddle and zips up his jersey... At the 200 meter, Armstrong's right hand twitches on the shifters and he taps it up a couple of gears. He rises smoothly from the saddle and attacks hard, instantly gaps Basso and takes the stage - his first inidividual victory of this year's Tour! Tick-tick goes the clock and we'll see what happens.... Ullrich is shown just going under the 1 km to go banner. Totschnig is all open jersey and gaping mouth - comes in 1:06. Kloeden leads Mancebo around the last corner 1:27 back. Ullrich tips up a gear as the road, and tries to will himself over the line, his face an utter mask of pain and effort, he finishes 2:42 back With the time bonus that Armstrong has gained from the victory, Voeckler needs to cross the line within five minutes and 4 seconds of Armstrong's time. The clock is at 3:30. Now Gilberto Simoni rolls in alone at 3:43 - not a bad effort for someone who wanted to take his toys and go home early. Voeckler is all over the road, though his face shows a touch less pain than yesterday. He knows he has done it - crosses the line at 4:40 - he will maintain the yellow jersey another day! But, the domination of this stage by the incredibly strong USPS is without question. The boys in blue were at the head of events for nearly the entire 200 km today - and some folks were wondering why they didn't try to defend the jersey after winning the TTT. These two days hopefully give a sense of the targeted nature of their efforts. Stage 13 Results - 1 - Lance Armstrong - 6:04:38 2 - Ivan Basso - s.t. 3 - Georg Totschnig - 1:06 4 - Andreas Kloeden - 1:27 5 - Francisco Mancebo - s.t. 6 - Jan Ullrich - 2:42 7 - Jose Azevedo - 2:50 8 - Christophe Moreau - 2:51 9 - Pietro Caucchioli - s.t. 10 - Gilberto Simoni - 3:43 An interesting appearance in the top 20 is that of Axel Merckx, who finished 5:56 behind Armstrong in 14th place. General Classification MJ - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulanngerie - 58:00:27 2 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - :22 3 - Ivan Basso - CSC - 1:39 4 - Andreas Kloeden - T-Mobile - 3:18 5 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - 3:28 6 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - 6:08 7 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - 6:43 8 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - 7:01 9 - Pietro Caucchioli - Alessio 0- 7:59 10 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com - 8:29 also: 14 - Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - 10:47 Post Race: Tyler spoke briefly as he stepped into his team car. As he slipped out of his jersey, the bruises and bandages are clearly evident. He seems as wrung out as one could be - and commented that he is unable to use his lower back while climbing, a near impossible task. Rather than continue to damage his form, he elected to leave to race. The other story of the day is of course Thomas Voeckler's defense of the Yellow Jersey. His efforts and tenacity have amazed all who are watching this Tour, and everyone from the orange-wearing Basques to the most strident French fan has cheered his efforts. Tomorrow's Stage - Carcassonne to Nimes - 192 km I don't know where they found the dead-flat-calm topography for this stage, but there are a number of riders who will rejoice - or at least may stop bleeding from their eyes. There may be a speed bump or something halfway through, but this is as unlike the previous stage as could be achieved. Nothing at this point of the race is easy, but at least the racers are not heading upwards. They will have to be wary of the winds which characterize this region. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Sun Jul 18 16:56:52 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 08:56:52 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 14 - Carcassonne to Nimes Message-ID: The first slices have cut deeply: Tyler Hamilton is gone, the other American (and Santa Rosa homeboy) Levi Leipheimer sits 10:12 back, former teammate Roberto Heras is 27:13 aft, and the man formerly knowne as Iban Mayo finds himself 44:42 behind Armstrong. A side-of-the-road chat with Tyler was a mix of detachment and deep sorrow. As he wiped himself down and turned over his number. "As soon as I hit the mountains I was in pain. It's a sad day. I've Never dropped out of a Tour. Here on the last climb, I was empty." The images of Tyler's scraped up back, and the bandages on his low back, indicate just how much pain he has ridden through so far. With a trashed lower back, it's hard to comprehend how Tyler could have even hung on this far. Another image: I saw a still photo of Ullrich as he made his way up the final climb yesterday. It was from the rear, and he pressed down hard with his right leg. Even from the distance of the shot, and with the details reduced by the resoultion of my computer screen, you could see extreme definition of his upper leg and the insanely rippling tendons of his calf and hamstring. It looked like the medical illustrations for muscle detail. So, it isn't that Ullrich came in fat and slow. Certainly, he had to crunch to lose weight over the last month, but he's clearly in shape and has been staying reasonbly close for a big man on steep roads. Armstrong's goal was to get at least 4 minutes over Ullrich before the final day long individual time trial. To gain that time and more in two days has been a serious psychological blow. Ullrich himself was quoted as saying that the race is over for him -- a staggering admission at this point of the race. While you can never count out the big German, unless he has opted for an extremely cagey game, he has allowed the wrong thoughts to occupy his mind. Historically, Ullrich has always improved into the final week of the Tour, and the long time trial does seem to favor his massive gears and stunning power. The wreckage which has taken place does not stem from a lack of preparation by the other riders. It's just the level of dominance by the USPS has been raised to such a stunning level. The team took over early yesterday, following a absurd number of early attaccks, and put things under control. They positioned themselves at the front and just kept tightening the screw. On the climbs, particularly the final one, it wasn't so much that Armstrong attacked as it was that no one could follow the pace any longer. Every one of the team members on the USPS team have come into this year's Tour in perfect condition, with a clear understanding of both their job and the team's goal. The power being exhibited and the control the USPS has maintained has raised the bar for performance. In the time of Miguel Indurain, his squad tended to control from the front as well, but they never seemed to inflict damage. They would let "Big Mig" chop out his big time gaps in the Time Trials, but didn't crush riders the way that the USPS seems to this year. 611 miles to go in this race, with some serious efforts still lie ahead. Stage 14 - Carcassonne to Nimes - 192 km I don't know where they found the dead-flat-calm topography for this stage, but there are a number of riders who will rejoice - or at least may stop bleeding from their eyes. There may be a speed bump or something halfway through, but this is as unlike the previous stage as could be achieved. Nothing at this point of the race is easy, but at least the racers are not heading upwards. Winds could be a factor today. An absolutely scorching day in the south of France, full and direct sun falls on the riders as they move in parallel to the coastline on the Mediterranian Sea. Today Robbie McEwen holds 9 points over Erik Zabel. McEwen is also nursing a sore knee and some serious buttock-centered road rash. Zabel could conceivably win a record Green jersey, benefitting from attrition and perseverance. An example, one rider's exit which I missed was that of Magnus Backstedt, who may have left yesterday. But, make no mistake, Zabel is a cagey bike rider, and certainly one of the hardest-working-men-in-bike-racing. He's one of the few riders who no one ever seems to say anything bad about. Universally respected, he has a great love for cycling. No abandonments today, even though they are saying Bobby Julich had fractured his hand (Now when'd he do that?) and Jean-Patrick Nazon tangled musettes with a teammate and pitched himself face-first onto a picnic blanket at the side the road. Embarrassed and shaking the weeds out of his helmet, he rejoins the bunch. >From the first hour and a half, after flurries of attacks and subsequent shut downs, an acceptable break finally materializes. 13 - Santiago Botero - T-Mobile 26 - Nicolas Jalabert - Phonak 36 - Inigo Landaluze - Euskatel 37 - Egol Martinez - Euskatel 45 - Aitor Gonzalez - Fassa Bortolo 54 - Pierrick Fedrigo - Credit Agricole 89 - Peter Wrolich - Gerolsteiner 114 - Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano - Liberty 156 - Marc Lotz - Rabobank 167 - Christophe Mengin - FDJeux.com 86 km to go, they move outand work their way up to a minute, then quickly two minutes, and within a commercial break they hover past three minutes. The best placed rider in the bunch is a good 38 minutes back, and there is no one in the hunt for Sprint Jersey points, so the rest of the riders are content to let La Boulangerie set a reasonable pace while they hang on and recover from the stunning efforts of the past 48 hours. Oscar Sevilla must have bounced off the ground at some point yesterday, and he checks in with the team doctors to get his hand and wrist rewrapped. Continuing to slice through the heat, the gap is now out to 4:15. The riders continue to nab water bottles from the back of the neutral motorcycle and rotate through the front with smooth dexterity. Everyone in the peloton seems to be content with the composition of the breakaway, which allows them to recover and stretch the muscles which were so taxed by the last days' work. It also allows me to write more of a "preamble" to this posting. The dog wakes up and we go tend to business and breakfast. Little else transpires, except a squirrel drops a half-eaten apple down at us while we were in the back yard. Meanwhilte, with 27 miles to go, the gap sits at 11:00 and climbing. Unless they are waylaid by cattle, railroad crossings or the hand motions of Bob Roll. With just under 15 miles to go, the gap sits at 13:01. 13:23 Crikey. Under the 20 km to go banner now. Paul begins describing the vintage autos which are seen on the course. The Tour is never boring, it's just that sometimes there just isn't too much going on. Under the 10 km, the cries of "Allez! Allez! Allez!" echo suddenly - an actual attack has occurred. Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano jumps to wake everyone up, and then Aitor Gonzalez moves hard after they reel in his move. This in turn gets shut down quickly, as Fredrigo moves hard and gets a bit of a gap, his efforts matched by Landaluze. Jalabert fights back up with a couple riders and everyone is together once more. Aitor Gonzalez jumps to the far side of the roadway and tries to roll away. He has some serious time-trialing chops, and they close the gap quickly. But it suddenly stretches out again and Gonzalez gains a serious gap. Behind them, the other break members begin mucking around and eyeing one another instead of sucking it up and closing it down. The Euskatel riders, at least one of whom should just have put his head down and buried himself to rope in this attack, find their tactical decisions to be sadly lacking and they are flailing around in the middle of the chasing group. Now Gonzalez - a serious time trialist - has moved out to a lead of 16 seconds. The other riders suddenly realize that the Euskatel emperors have no clothes, and Gonzalez de Galdeano gains a small gap, shadowed by Fedrigo who leaves him behind as he jumps over the top of him. The efforts become frenzied, from every rider except the orange-clad. Then Mengin moves out and Jalabert realizes this is his ticket. They move away and the French pair immediately work well enough together to ride away from the others. More open roadway has appeared among the former break members. Though they are moving well, Aitor Gonzalez seems to have made the effort which will pay off today. Gonzalez negotiates the big turns in the last 1000 meters of the race - his speed is just shy of 33 miles per hour. He sits up and relishes the fruits of his well-executed efforts. Jalabert moves hard to get the jump on Mengin, and takes second on the stage. The big pfffffft on the effort came from the two Euskatel riders, who arrive in back with the chase cars - shattered by the effort and outfoxed by the tactics. 1 - Aitor Gonzalez - Fassa Bortolo - 4:18:32 2 - Nicolas Jalabert Phonak - :25 3 - Christophe Mengin - FDJeux.com - s.t. 4 - Pierrick Fedrigo - Credit Agricole - :29 5 - Peter Wrolich - Gerolsteiner - :31 6 - Mark Lotz - Rabobank - s.t. 7 - Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano - Liberty - s.t. 8 - Santiago Botero - T-Mobile - :37 9 - Inigo Landaluze - Euskatel - :41 10 - Egoi Martinez - Euskatel - :42 In what is really another race, Lotto drives the pace of the main bunch while McEwen sits back behind a long line of teammates. A slight rise finds Moreau at the head of events, with Hushovd tucked in two riders back. Zabel sits right behind him as they go under 2 km to go. O'Grady shows his head for a second before ducking being his big teammate Janek Tombak. The speeding bunch lean into the first turn and under the 1 km to go banner. Lotto now back on the front, though McEwen pulls his disappearring act and cannot be seen. Tombak begins to pull off, but a stream of colloquial reminders by O'Grady puts him back on task. Around nearly 270 degrees of the roundabout, not a brake lever tapped in the bunch, they scream out and smell the line. They spreak across the wide roadway - Zabel follows Aldag, then kicks it for the line. But, here comes Hushovd! The big Norwegian flag catches up on the German and then McEwen materializes out of a manhole on the street - his turn of speed simply awe-inspring. The light blue jersey of Danilo Hondo finds some daylight, and he explodes up on the right shoulder of Hushovd. Three abreast they hit the line - it's McEwen - Hushovd - Hondo! Stage 14 - Pt. Deux Results - 11 - Robbie McEwen - 14:12 12 - Thor Hushovd - Credit Agricole 13 - Danilo Hondo - Gerolsteiner 14 - Stuart O'Grady - Cofidis 15 - Erik Zabel - T-Mobile All riders s.t. Rest Day Tomorrow - a few hours spinning and maybe a hard effort just to keep the edge in the muscles. Tuesday's Stage - Valreas to Villard de Lans - 180.5 km To the Alps, to the Alps. Clean cows, wildflowers, and that Von Trapp family wandering around singing. 7 big climbs will test the riders, and as others have observed, the Alps are different than the Pyrenees. Near the middle of the stage, the riders will hit the Category 2 Col des Limouches - almost 11 km at 6.3% average - and then they go immediately up the Category 1 Col de l'Echarasson, 12 km at 7.4%. Three categorized climbs follow even that effort, and there will be much to monitor on these little-travelled climbs. Wednesday's Stage - Individual Time Trial - L'Alpe D'Huez - 15.5 km 780 meters elevation to 1850 meters at the finish. The classic 21 switchbacks, ridden one rider at a time. You do the math - remember to multiply by three when you're done to get a rough idea of feet climbed. For the locals, it's like doing a time trial up Mount Tamalpais - well I guess if you add a couple hundre more feet of elevation. You know that this stage will weigh on everyone's mind for the next couple days. But, here's a hint - Thursday is much worse... -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Tue Jul 20 07:42:25 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 23:42:25 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]2nd Rest Day Update and Chit-Chat Message-ID: Rest Day Rehash -=20 --------------------------- Of course, the name on everyone's lips is.... Sebastien Joly=20 Riding for Credit Agricole, Joly is the "Lanterne Rouge" as of stage end yesterday, running 2:26:32 behind his countryman/current race leader Thomas Voeckler. He turned pro in 2000, and has his own website: http://www.sebjoly.free.fr/ --------------------------- I'll go waaaaay out on at limb at this point, and say that a Sixth Tour Victory is _not_ a immutable truth. There are still lots of miles, loads o= f climbs and just too danged many variables between Lance and the Victory Lap in Paris. Almost every mainstream news report has been reporting how "locked up" everything is, as though all Armstrong has to do is show up and everyone and everything will bend to his will. To be sure, the USPS Team has cut a wide swath through the peloton - I've never seen a team which dominates so completely on all terrain as they do. They clearly have been extremel well drilled, extensively trained, and thei= r tasks cleanly articulated so that they execute well despite the confusion o= f racing and the exhaustion of their efforts. Clif Bar is running a contest for most valuable domestique. In all honesty, it is something that the entire team deserves equally. The race has too many challenges left, and the men who are still involved possess to much pride and ability to roll over and scuffle for second. I would also think that much of the peloton is suffering after the rainy and damp first weeks, compounded by the excessive number of crashes in this year's Tour. --------------------------- One story that the media has gotten correct is the heart and tenacity which Thomas Voeckler has held on to the Yellow Jersey. Watching him ride, you realize just haw much has been done on sheer guts. They say that the Jerse= y always elevates it wearer, and this year has been an uncanny example of jus= t that. --------------------------- The Loyal Competition: So, do not make the mistake of counting out Ullrich - He rides better when the pressure is off, which in all honesty, it is. The Alps are not the Pyrenees, despite the leg-crushing climbs found in each, and sometimes riders fare better in one set of mountains than the other. It's been great to see Ivan Basso finally riding where he deserves to be. This stylish and smooth rider has promised much, and seems to have found th= e right support with Bjarne Riis' CSC squad. Andreas Kloden suffers only from not quite having the strongest team supporting him - although T-Mobile sits atop the team competition, they really have Erik Zabel to thank for that with his strong finishes on the flatter stages. Guiseppe Guerini has not shown his spark in the mountains. Another rider who has done well is Pietro Cuacchioli - who had an exception Giro D'Italia a couple years back. There's also enough climbing left to bode well for Georg Totschnig. Roberto Heras is an utter question mark. Clearly he suffered a bit after his crash, and I would think we'll see him get his climbing legs under him. With the abondonment of Tyler Hamilton, it would seem that an all-US podium would be quite a long shot. Perhaps Levi Leipheimer can get himself on track into the Alps, and close down some of the gap - realistically, 7:30. But, he does time trial better than many of the riders in front of him. At any rate - here are the numbers General classification after stage 14 =A0 1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 62.33.11 2 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 0.22 3 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 1.39 4 Andreas Kl=F6den (Ger) T-Mobile Team 3.18 5 Francisco Mancebo P=E9rez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 3.28 6 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 6.08 7 Jose Azevedo (Por) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 6.43 8 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 7.01 9 Pietro Caucchioli (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 7.59 10 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fdjeux.com 8.29 11 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) Saeco 9.50 12 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 10.03 13 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.13 14 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Rabobank 10.47 15 Oscar Sevilla (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 10.54 16 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 11.49 17 St=E9phane Goubert (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 12.44 18 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 13.03 19 Jose Luis Rubiera (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 13.57 20 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.05 21 Richard Virenque (Fra) Quick Step-Davitamon 14.16 22 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 14.22 23 Laurent Brochard (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 14.29 24 J=E9r=F4me Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 14.48 25 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 15.09 26 Michael Rogers (Aus) Quick Step-Davitamon 18.08 27 Axel Merckx (Bel) Lotto-Domo 20.13 28 Iker Cama=F1o (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 20.31 29 Jos=E9 Enrique Gutierrez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 22.17 30 David Moncouti=E9 (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 23.02 31 Egoi Mart=EDnez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 24.10 32 Aitor Gonzalez Jimenez (Spa) Fassa Bortolo 24.56 33 Patrice Halgand (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 25.19 34 Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) T-Mobile Team 25.32 35 Roberto Heras Hernandez (Spa) Liberty Seguros 27.35 36 Santos Gonzalez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 27.50 37 Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano (Spa) Liberty Seguros 28.59 38 George Hincapie (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 30.39 39 Evgueni Petrov (Rus) Saeco 31.06 40 Floyd Landis (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 31.25 41 Juan Miguel Mercado (Spa) Quick Step-Davitamon 33.45 42 Michele Bartoli (Ita) Team CSC 34.36 43 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 36.22 44 Alexandre Botcharov (Rus) Cr=E9dit Agricole 37.02 45 Jakob Piil (Den) Team CSC 38.47 46 Santiago Perez (Spa) Phonak Hearing Systems 42.22 47 Marius Sabaliauskas (Ltu) Saeco 44.31 48 Daniele Nardello (Ita) T-Mobile Team 44.51 49 Iban Mayo (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 45.04 50 Jean-Cyril Robin (Fra) Fdjeux.com 45.34 51 Aitor Osa Eizaguirre (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 46.18 52 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 47.07 53 Rik Verbrugghe (Bel) Lotto-Domo 47.50 54 Laurent Dufaux (Swi) Quick Step-Davitamon 48.02 55 Bobby Julich (USA) Team CSC 48.13 56 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 49.15 57 Jos=E9 I.Gutierrez Palacios (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 51.55 58 Manuel Beltran (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 53.44 59 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Fassa Bortolo 54.12 60 I=F1igo Landaluze (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 54.33 61 Isidro Nozal Vega (Spa) Liberty Seguros 54.53 62 Claus Michael M=F8ller (Den) Alessio-Bianchi 55.09 63 Marcos Serrano Rodriguez (Spa) Liberty Seguros 56.19 64 Marzio Bruseghin (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 56.32 65 Iker Flores (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 57.00 66 Michael Boogerd (Ned) Rabobank 57.18 67 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team 58.41 68 J=F6rg Ludewig (Ger) Saeco 59.15 69 Christophe Mengin (Fra) Fdjeux.com 1.00.24 70 Ronny Scholz (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.00.33 71 Santiago Botero (Col) T-Mobile Team 1.00.38 72 Beno=EEt Salmon (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 1.04.11 73 Grischa Niermann (Ger) Rabobank 1.04.14 74 Christian Vandevelde (USA) Liberty Seguros 1.05.16 75 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.05.57 76 Benjamin Noval (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 1.07.15 77 Pierrick Fedrigo (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 1.08.42 78 Nicolas Jalabert (Fra) Phonak Hearing Systems 1.08.55 79 Sergei Ivanov (Rus) T-Mobile Team 1.09.14 80 Andrea No=E8 (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 1.12.11 81 Nicki S=F8rensen (Den) Team CSC 1.12.21 82 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.12.38 83 Marc Lotz (Ned) Rabobank 1.12.43 84 Andrea Peron (Ita) Team CSC 1.13.00 85 Didier Rous (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.13.23 86 Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 1.14.19 87 Daniel Becke (Ger) Illes Balears - Banesto 1.14.48 88 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros 1.15.41 89 Laurent Lef=E8vre (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.16.08 90 David Etxebarria (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 1.16.15 91 Nicolas Portal (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.17.03 92 Dariusz Baranowski (Pol) Liberty Seguros 1.17.25 93 Pavel Padrnos (Cze) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 1.18.05 94 Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Fassa Bortolo 1.18.06 95 Bert Grabsch (Ger) Phonak Hearing Systems 1.18.25 96 Sylvain Calzati (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.19.59 97 Peter Farazijn (Bel) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.20.22 98 Mark Scanlon (Irl) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.20.51 99 Jos=E9 V. Garcia Acosta (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 1.21.14 100 Peter Wrolich (Aut) Gerolsteiner 1.21.35 101 Koos Moerenhout (Ned) Lotto-Domo 1.22.20 102 Scott Sunderland (Aus) Alessio-Bianchi 103 Thierry Marichal (Bel) Lotto-Domo 1.23.01 104 David Loosli (Swi) Saeco 1.24.35 105 Walter B=E9n=E9teau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.25.03 106 Carlos Dacruz (Fra) Fdjeux.com 107 Danilo Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.26.24 108 Paolo Valoti (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1.26.37 109 Massimo Giunti (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1.27.23 110 Bram de Groot (Ned) Rabobank 111 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 1.28.55 112 Dmitri Fofonov (Kaz) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.29.01 113 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 1.29.12 114 Christophe Rinero (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.29.17 115 Rolf Aldag (Ger) T-Mobile Team 1.29.23 116 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cr=E9dit Agricole 1.29.27 117 Matteo Tosatto (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 1.29.53 118 Martin Elmiger (Swi) Phonak Hearing Systems 1.30.07 119 Unai Etxebarria (Ven) Euskaltel - Euskadi 1.30.26 120 Marc Wauters (Bel) Rabobank 1.30.30 121 Massimiliano Mori (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1.30.58 122 Salvatore Commesso (Ita) Saeco 1.31.38 123 Yuriy Krivtsov (Ukr) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.31.59 124 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.32.04 125 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 1.32.14 126 Julian Dean (NZl) Cr=E9dit Agricole 1.33.17 127 Karsten Kroon (Ned) Rabobank 1.33.29 128 Xabier Zandio (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 1.33.38 129 Aart Vierhouten (Ned) Lotto-Domo 1.34.03 130 Fr=E9d=E9ric Guesdon (Fra) Fdjeux.com 1.34.07 131 Gilles Bouvard (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.34.08 132 Stefano Zanini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.34.13 133 Filippo Simeoni (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1.35.57 134 Jimmy Engoulvent (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.37.14 135 Anthony Charteau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.37.43 136 Fabio Baldato (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 1.38.09 137 Christophe Laurent (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.40.03 138 Jan Hruska (Cze) Liberty Seguros 1.40.08 139 Jean-Patrick Nazon (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.41.27 140 Janek Tombak (Est) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.41.28 141 Pierre Bourquenoud (Swi) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.41.34 142 Alessandro Bertolini (Ita) Alessio-Bianchi 1.41.57 143 Marcus Ljungqvist (Swe) Alessio-Bianchi 1.42.00 144 Franck Renier (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.42.40 145 Guillaume Auger (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.42.51 146 Kurt-Asle Arvesen (Nor) Team CSC 1.44.19 147 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Fdjeux.com 1.45.23 148 Baden Cooke (Aus) Fdjeux.com 1.46.37 149 Uwe Peschel (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.46.41 150 Erik Dekker (Ned) Rabobank 1.49.16 151 Ludovic Martin (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.50.19 152 Servais Knaven (Ned) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.53.10 153 Wim Vansevenant (Bel) Lotto-Domo 1.55.07 154 Francesco Secchiari (Ita) Domina Vacanze 1.57.00 155 Christophe Edaleine (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.57.07 156 Davide Bramati (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.58.16 157 Matthew Wilson (Aus) Fdjeux.com 2.03.27 158 Fr=E9d=E9ric Finot (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 2.12.39 159 Jimmy Casper (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 2.20.35 160 S=E9bastien Joly (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 2.26.32 =A0 Points classification (Top 20 Only) =A0 1 Robbie McEwen (Aus) Lotto-Domo 225 pts 2 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team 212 3 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Cr=E9dit Agricole 209 4 Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 198 5 Danilo Hondo (Ger) Gerolsteiner 189 6 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon 128 7 Jean-Patrick Nazon (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 116 8 Laurent Brochard (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 111 9 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Fassa Bortolo 88 10 Francisco Mancebo P=E9rez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 85 11 Andreas Kl=F6den (Ger) T-Mobile Team 81 12 J=E9r=F4me Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 79 13 Baden Cooke (Aus) Fdjeux.com 77 14 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 73 15 Janek Tombak (Est) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 72 16 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 70 17 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros 65 18 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 58 19 I=F1igo Landaluze (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 55 20 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 54 =A0 Mountains classification (Top 20 Only) =A0 1 Richard Virenque (Fra) Quick Step-Davitamon 128 pts 2 Christophe Moreau (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 78 3 Francisco Mancebo P=E9rez (Spa) Illes Balears - Banesto 77 4 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 76 5 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 72 6 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 66 7 Axel Merckx (Bel) Lotto-Domo 57 8 Jens Voigt (Ger) Team CSC 56 9 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 53 10 Andreas Kl=F6den (Ger) T-Mobile Team 50 11 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quick Step-Davitamon 42 12 Georg Totschnig (Aut) Gerolsteiner 41 13 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 27 14 Floyd Landis (USA) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 24 15 David Moncouti=E9 (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 22 16 Juan Miguel Mercado (Spa) Quick Step-Davitamon 18 17 Laurent Dufaux (Swi) Quick Step-Davitamon 17 18 Jose Azevedo (Por) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 16 19 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC 16 20 Janek Tombak (Est) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 14 =A0 Young rider classification =A0 1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 62.33.11 2 Sandy Casar (Fra) Fdjeux.com 8.29 3 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Illes Balears - Banesto 14.05 4 Michele Scarponi (Ita) Domina Vacanze 14.22 5 J=E9r=F4me Pineau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 14.48 6 Sylvain Chavanel (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 15.09 7 Michael Rogers (Aus) Quick Step-Davitamon 18.08 8 Iker Cama=F1o (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi 20.31 9 Mikel Astarloza Chaurreau (Spa) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 49.15 10 Benjamin Noval (Spa) US Postal p/b Berry Floor 1.07.15 11 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.12.38 12 Allan Davis (Aus) Liberty Seguros 1.15.41 13 Nicolas Portal (Fra) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.17.03 14 Sylvain Calzati (Fra) R.A.G.T. Semences - MG Rover 1.19.59 15 Mark Scanlon (Irl) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.20.51 16 David Loosli (Swi) Saeco 1.24.35 17 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 1.28.55 18 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Fassa Bortolo 1.29.12 19 Yuriy Krivtsov (Ukr) AG2R Pr=E9voyance 1.31.59 20 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick Step-Davitamon 1.32.04 21 Jimmy Engoulvent (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.37.14 22 Anthony Charteau (Fra) Brioches La Boulang=E8re 1.37.43 23 Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Fdjeux.com 1.45.23 24 Christophe Edaleine (Fra) Cofidis - Le Cr=E9dit Par T=E9l=E9phone 1.57.07 25 S=E9bastien Joly (Fra) Cr=E9dit Agricole 2.26.32 =A0 Teams classification =A0 1 T-Mobile Team 185.25.00 2 Team CSC 5.28 3 US Postal presented by Berry Floor 11.20 4 Phonak Hearing Systems 15.01 5 Brioches La Boulangere 17.21 6 Illes Balears-Banesto Santander 28.36 7 Quick Step-Davitamon 32.23 8 Euskaltel-Euskadi 34.21 9 Credit Agricole 40.27 10 Rabobank 51.55 11 Saeco 1.02.04 12 Ag2R Prevoyance 1.03.42 13 Liberty Seguros 1.12.24 14 Alessio-Bianchi 1.33.55 15 Lotto-Domo 1.37.13 16 Gerolsteiner 1.37.44 17 Fdjeux.Com 1.38.33 18 Fassa Bortolo 1.55.59 19 Domina Vacanze 2.02.36 20 Cofidis Credit Par Telephone 2.09.26 21 R.A.G.T. Semences-MG Rover 3.50.43 Tomorrow's Stage -=20 Valreas to Villard de Lans - 180.5 km To the Alps, to the Alps. Clean cows, wildflowers, and that Von Trapp family wandering around singing. 7 big climbs will test the riders, and as others have observed, the Alps are different than the Pyrenees. Near the middle of the stage, the riders will hit the Category 2 Col des Limouches - almost 11 km at 6.3% average - and then they go immediately up the Category 1 Col de l'Echarasson, 12 km at 7.4%. Three categorized climbs follow even that effort, and there will be much to monitor on these little-travelled climbs. --=20 You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visi= t the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Tue Jul 20 16:37:18 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:37:18 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 15 - Valreas to Villard de Lans Message-ID: Stage 15 - Valreas to Villard de Lans - 180.5 km To the Alps, to the Alps. Clean cows, wildflowers, and that Von Trapp family wandering around singing. We begin 4 hard days in the Alps. 7 big climbs will test the riders, and as others have observed, the Alps are different than the Pyrenees. Near the middle of the stage, the riders will hit the Category 2 Col des Limouches - almost 11 km at 6.3% average - and then they go immediately up the Category 1 Col de l'Echarasson, 12 km at 7.4%. Three categorized climbs follow even that effort, and there will be much to monitor on these little-travelled climbs. The race will finish above Grenoble. 480 miles to go to Paris. I'm still trying to figure out just how Roberto Heras has ended up 27-odd minutes down on Lance Armstrong. Euskatel's Iban Mayo has looked into the mirror and found nothing. CSC's Jakob Piil is paying for his earlier aggressiveness and the worsening condition of a sore knee. Neither rider have taken the start line today. The early climbs have provided a flurry of attacks, of which Rabobank's Michael Rassmussen and our-boy-in-polka-dots, Richard Virenque are the remaining escapees with a 3:11 over the Armstrong group. There are stray riders strung between those two groups, but now that the more serious peaks of the second half of the race are taking their toll and sending them backwards. Ullrich has attacked on the vicious Col de l'Echarasson! After a bit of softening up by T-Mobile teammates Guiseppe Guerini and Andreas Kloeden, Jan Ullrich has kicked up his heels and moved away from the Armstrong bunch. Taking a look behind, he sees that Armstrong is not reacting. He gains 20 seconds almost immediately, as the big German climbs with exceptional power. The accelleration chops off Francisco Mancebo and puts the Mailliot Juane way off the back. This attack has come with 36 miles to go, over a difficult, but not exceedingly steep climb. In the chase group, no panic shows in the USPS camp as Floyd Landis pulls Jose Azevedo and Armstrong along. Behind him, Ivan Basso & Carlos Sastre, Andreas Kloeden (who has left some hip skin on the roadway already today), Rabobank's Levi Leipheimer, Saeco's Marius Sabaliauskas. Virenque and Rassmussen go through the crest, followed by Laurent Brochard and Jens Voight about 30 seconds back. Lance barely seems to be breathing hard, while up front, Ullrich is sucking in everything he can get. However, Ullrich is making some serious gains on the bunch. He's spit on the fire and called in the dogs - whether because he feels he can crack this race apart for himself or to launch his teammate Kloeden is not particularly clear just yet. It does seem a long way out to be trying this move, although the remaining climbs are the type which Ullrich can conquer. Jens Voight has totally sat back and is practicing his track stand up ahead of the Armstrong group - clearly ordered to wait for his teammate Basso. Ullrich has caught Laurent Brochard who drops into his slipstream. There too is Santos Gonzalez, who has managed to keep the German in his sights. The hard efforts have so far netted him 40 seconds. The big question - if indeed this is for Ullrich himself - is how much will be gained at what cost. The gap sits now at 35 seconds, and the Armstrong group has swollen with the stragglers who have been scooped up by their increased pressure. The yellow Jersy has found some teammates to lead his group, but seems to be struggling more than in previous stages. Ullrich, Brochard and Gonzalez scream down the descent and set up for the last two climbs of the day - a pair of Category 2 climbs that aren't particularly heinous. As soon as the topography flattens, Ullrich again drives the pace, but it will be all for naught. They are caught on the straight road which connects them to the final stretches of the stage. 27 km to ride. The accelleration in pursuit of Ullrich has opened 5 and a half minute gap to the main bunch which contains the Yellow Jersey, which has shifted the "virtual" jersey to the shoulders of Lance Armstrong. Other victims of the increased effort include the aforementioned Mancebo, plus Georg Totschnig of Gerolsteiner and Sandy Casar from La Boulangerie, who could not stay attached either. Roberto Heras and Gilberto Simoni have not elected to invest the effort to stay in contention with the lead group. Things have calmed down as the lead pair go up the Col de Chalimont - a 10.3 km climb of 5.8%. Among the members of the chasing group, former USPS rider Christian Vandevelde, who now rides for Liberty, benefits from his presence in the earlier break. Of course, as soon as I write that, Vandevelde drifts out the back of the bunch, unable to match pace as the Armstrong group ticks out a climbing cadence. Somewhere in the excitement, Domina Vacanze rider Paolo Valoti has abandoned the race. The Landis-led chase group has eased up to around 30 seconds, and there's still a bit to go before the crest of this hill. We find Voeckler struggling along behind the peloton, team manager alongside to see if there's anthing which can be done. Unless he has some lucky yellow shoes he can put on to match his socks, shorts, helmet, gloves and jersey.... Leipheimer moves ahead as they near the Virenque/Rassmussen pair. There are 16 km to go, and after taking a quick look back, Leipheimer hunches down and makes another accelleration, leaving behind his teammate. In the chase group, Landis finds an easier gear and drifts back a touch. As they begin to tighten the straps to hike back up to Levi, first Brochard and then Voight begin to fall back into the trailing gap. It looks like Sabaliauskas has become detached as well. This time Sastre winches back the escaped Santa Rosa boy. The lead group rides up reasonably narrow roads, zipping along quite quickly having been reduced to 8 riders. They have found themselves just over 7 minutes ahead of the main bunch. Kloeden now drifts back to chat with the team car, then zips up to the bunch again. As the lead group nears the crest of the climb, Virenque materializes again and grabs the KoM points. A narrow and twisty descent now lies before the riders, as they array themselves into a single file line. Behind them, the bunch now hovers at 7:31. Michael Rasmussen and Jens Voight have scorched the descent and slide up on the back of the breakaway bunch. The riders pass under the 10 km to go banner at an incredible pace. Now, much to my chagrin as I can't easily type his name, Sabaliauskas punishes himself to regain the bunch. As soon as Voight gets himself to the front, he starts chopping out a relentless rhythm, leaving Sabaliauskas to suffer over a probably insurmountable gap of tarmac. The riders turn right into town and run out of through twisty bits of roadway, Voight and Sastre gunning it on the front and Rassmussen straining to keep attached at the back. They make a left hand turn while Armstrong slips to the back of the bunch to watch how things unfold. Voight continues to bury himself, followed immediately by Azevedo and Leipheimer. They hit the steepest bit of the climb at 2 km to go - the first part is 9%. Sastre tumbles out the back, and Voight becomes unstuck. Azevedo drifts away and Rassmussen gets left. Now even Virenque has been cast off. Five riders remain. Kloeden is tapping out the pace at the front, followed immediately by Ullrich and Basso. Ullrich has notched himself into his big ring and is ready to leap form his tactical position at the second to last int he bunch. Leipheimer is right on the rivet at the tail of events. Armstrong is out of the saddle and dancing, moving easily, he takes look back as he hears the increased breathing of Leipheimer. 500 meters to go Leipehimer has been nicked off the back and four remain moving together. Kloeden looks back to see who is left, but doesn't stop setting the torrid pace. Now Basso goes hard and things start to happen extremely fast - behind the Italian, Ullrich seems to be slightly boxed between the barriers on his right and Armstrong on his left. Armstrong kicks it up a couple notches and moves quickly past the accellerating Basso, who zips over to grab his wheel. Ullrich suddenly finds himself slightly gapped, and then totally on the wrong side of the final sweeping left hand turn, as Armstrong sweeps through it and moves wide, leaving the German nowhere to go and with nothing to show. Armstrong takes a quick look back to see a good slug of pavement between him and the earlier attacking German. If anything, he seems to accellerate even more, knowing that his adversary is behind and the Yellow Jersey lies before him. He punches the air emphatically, clearly pleased with his efforts. Stage 15 Results - 1 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - 4:40:30 2 - Ivan Basso - CSC - s.t. 3 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - :03 4 - Andreas Kloeden - :06 5 - Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - :13 6 - Richard Virenque - :48 7 - Michael Rassmussen - Rabobank - :49 8 - Jens Voight - 1:04 9 - Carlos Sastre - CSC - 1:24 The wreckage rolls in - Julich, Chavanal, Guerini and a group come through 8:45 behind the leading group. Moving up the final bits of the climb alone, Thomas Voeckler hits the final turn and rolls through the line 9:30 back. He has finished his reign in Yellow for this Tour. Lance will put on his 61st Yellow Jersey, putting him third in the "quantity count" in the history of the Tour, behind Eddy Merkcx and Bernard Hinault. Onstage for the second time today, Armstrong pulls on his 61st career Yellow Jesey - The Lion and bouquet go skyward and the crowd goes utterly and thoroughly nutty - you can hear the chant of "Lance, Lance, Lance!" build up in the air as he shakes hands with the dignitaries on the side of the stage. Thomas Voeckler pulls on the other jersey has has held - the White Jersey for the best young rider. General Classification: MJ - Lance Armstrong - USPS 2 - Ivan Basso - CSC - 1:25 3 - Andreas Kloeden - T-Mobile - 3:22 4 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - 5:39 5 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - 6:54 6 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - 7:34 7 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - 8:19 8 - Thomas Voeckler - La Boulangerie - 9:28 9 - Pietro Caucchioli - Alessio - 10:10 10 - Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - 10:58 Individual Time Trial - L'Alpe D'Huez - 15.5 km Nowhere to hide on this climb. 780 meters elevation to 1850 meters at the finish. The classic 21 switchbacks, ridden one rider at a time. You do the math - remember to multiply by three when you're done to get a rough idea of feet climbed. For the locals, it's like doing a time trial up Mount Tamalpais - well I guess if you add a couple hundre more feet of elevation. You know that this stage will weigh on everyone's mind for tonight. The big men will cry and even the bird boned boys will suffer to the last moment. I'm sorry to say, the Alp D'Huez time trial will be the final "real-time" report of this year - I need to pick up the tent for a few days, which due to Circumstances Beyond My Control, will take me away from the live feed for one epic Alps stage, one epic Time Trial, and a Potentially Never Before Seen Celebration in Paris. Remember to agitate at your local sports bar or coffee shop to get the channel changed. -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com From race-report@cyclofiend.com Thu Jul 22 05:09:04 2004 From: race-report@cyclofiend.com (tour-junkie) Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 21:09:04 -0700 Subject: [Tour 2004]Stage 16 - L'Alpe d'Huez Individual Time Trial Message-ID: Stage 16 - L'Alp d'Huez Individual Time Trial - 15.5km The road rises to 1850 meters of elevation, there are 21 switchbacks on this climb. Each corner is numbered, and they count down as you go up. 158 riders will toe the line today, and close to a million fans have come to see them duke it out on the 15 km. It is a beautiful clear and hot day for the first ever Individual Time Trial on Alp d'Huez. Ludovic Martin of the heretofore invisible RAGT squad posts an early best time - 43:52 - which stands at least 3 minutes under the previous best time. He had also set the best time at the 9.5 km mark of 26:15. Anticipate theat the winning time will be hovering around 40 minutes. Still, it's an excellent time for th Now here's my question - since there's a following team car behind each rider, and there's only one way off of the climb, where do they get the extra cars? I remember first looking at this year's Tour route, and thinking that the organizers had done everything they could to keep Lance on the defensive - between the endless flat stages at the beginning which would keep the sprinters busy, the Robbie McEwen brings the Green Jersey over the finishing line - finishing in a decent time in the 47 minute neighborhood - and pops a wheelie just on the finish line and rides it out to the cheers of the crowd - enthused to have the clib behind him. Andrea Peron of CSC gets going off the line, followed by some mini-van they've talked a some local out of. My guess is they've been scouring the neighborhoods to find cars with keys left in. It sees like a number of the cars do not even have extra bikes in them. A while later, after Roberto Heras, Bobby Julich and Paolo Bettini have all moved out onto the course, another CSC rider toes the line. Jens Voight has officially put on the Ludo Dierckxsen jersey of aggressive riding. OK, so it's not an official jersey, but it's nice to see that this likeable rider has maintained the sheer attacking tenacity of the big bald Belgian. Ag2R's Mikel Astarloza goes through the time check at 26:04 - settting a new split time. Davide Etxebarria slips in just behind the best time - drool running off his chin to no avail as he runs out of time and finishes in 43:57 - which certainly idicates just how good Martin's time is. Down the course, Juan Mecado begins to show the serious what the serious contenders and clibers will do, as he clips some a bit off the 9.5 km time, notching under 26 minutes (25:46) and looks like he could keep his brisk cadence going all the way to the top of the climb. Astarloza crackles over the line at 43:06 - notching himself into the lead. The current "unofficial" record time for L'Alpe d'Huez means that the riders will move up through the climb at 22 km per hour. Mercado pushes all the way to the line, but comes up 5 100ths of a second short - he will notch into 2nd place on the roadway. The faces on the start house get more serious, the riders now staggered by 2 minutes as thye begin to get up to the big boys. Liberty's Marcus Serrano doesn't mess with any little time gaps, and rolls over the finish line at 42:50 - kicking every other ride down one notch in the standings. Cofidis Davide Moncoutie puts himself over the line at 42:04 - a great result for this stage-winner. On the other end of the spectrum, Roberto Heras confirms that he is not firing on all cylinders, finishing somewhere past 45 minutes. Not his year, unfortunately. Guerini is close to a new best time, swinging around the last turn and sprinting for the line - he misses by half a second. Santos Gonzalez is in 41:52- a new leader for now. Ullrich leaves the start house with the heaviest bike of any of the leaders. The beefed-up frame features 177 mm cranks and he wrenches the frame to get underway. Kloeden and then Basso whirl away, everyone for the time being separated by 2 minute intervals. The final beeps begin - Armstrong is away now - yellow jersey and a blue cap. Legs churning in his trademark high cadence. Ullrich hit the first check at 2:02 - before any of the climbing begins. This time check does not matter, but it serves as a welcome distraction from the tension of this stage. Basso is through at 2:06 - Then Armstrong goes through at 2:05 Up top, Vladimir Karpets comes out of the last corner with enough time to go, but becomes just another rider who hits the line outside the leading time. He had the leading 9.5 km time of 24:56, but couldn't hold on to the fnish Idiots begin to pepper the course, running up the middle of the roadway and leaning out screaming into the ear of Armstrong. Lots of Germans on the course, lots of carbo-loading folks whose tenuous grasp on reasonable behavior disappearred several six-packs ago. Ullrich rolls under the 10 km to go banner - running a tri-spoke front wheel and clip-on bars to give himself every edge he can conceive of. Basso steps up out of the saddle briefly, then sits. He's moving more on the bike than before, clearly trying to find every bit of muscle. An unofficial time gap has Armstrong nipping 15 seconds from Basso's lead so far. Drunken Germans waving flags run up the roadway directly ahead of Ullrich. Beacuse he's saved up his box tops and gotten the full sized version, he manages to obscure the race course as Ullrich heads into the turn. You can see a micro-pause in Ullrich's cadence. Not helpful, Helmut. Up the course, USPS rider Jose Azevedo hits a new 9.5 km split time of 24:40 - new best time on the course. Fixed cameras show exactly how lost in the sea of the crowd Ullrich is. I think there's a car in there somewhere, and there must be a cyclist. Suddenly, Ullrich comes into the protection of the barricaded turns of the time checkpoint, knees smoking as he cranks over a huge gear - but the big German diesel gets results - clipping the 9.5 km check to 24:07! Francisco Mancebo is curled uncomfortably over his machine - he's losing time on Ullrich and Kloeden, and clearly suffering more than other riders we've seen at the 9.5 km point. Kloeden notches the second best time at the point of 24:35 - riding well and looking clean as he continues to suprise everyone with his condition and preparation for this year. Basso now pushes toward the time check - he's riding just slower than Kloeden and Azevedo - he stops the clock at 24:43. Armstrong appears just around the corner from the time check - he's flying! He hits the 9.5 km check at 23:28 - 40 seconds faster than Ullrich and more than a minute ahead of Basso. Ullrich is between the barriers that hold the crowds back on the last 5 km of the course. He continues to deliver enough wattage to run your home for a few days. Armstrong is now in the protected area - scorching up the roadway and thankfully away from the hoi polloi. Somewhere up ahead, Levi Leipheimer finishes in 43:47. Ullrich rumbles through at the 12.5 km check point and posts another "best time" of 34:37. Basso looks troubled and struggling, rocking his upper body and wiggling the bike on the roadway. He calls for power which he cannot find today. Ullrich under the 2 km to go banner, clicks the gear up and sees how much more pain he can put himself under. There seems to be blood coming from under his eyes from his effort. The poise he is showing to generate this effort shows just what a competitor the big German is. Behind, Armstrong has drawn within 100 meters of Basso - is just nipping up at his heels and clearly targeting USPS teammate Azevedo flies around the last corners, on track to nip the best time on the day - he crosses in 41:26 to hold the lead. Thomas Voeckler wears his white jersey and crosses the line to probably the loudest cheers of the day so far. He's about midway down the results for the day, which may leave him open to a counterattack by Michael Rogers and Vladimir Karpets, both of whom are in the hunt for the best young rider's jersey. Ullrich drives hard for the finish and actually throws his bike like a track rider - new best time with 40:42! Arstrong moves foward, snatching the carrot and puts himself immediately onto Bassos wheels - then alongside him. Basso looks over slightly and then tries to lift his pace to stay near him. But with a quick out-of-the-saddle accelleration into the corner, Arstrong gains a gap and finds a slightly taller gear to begin moving away. Armstrong becomes suddenly smaller in the distance. Moving hard and breathing deeply, he's continually accellerating as he goes under the 2 km to go banner. Kloeden has Francisco Mancebo in his sights as they hit the less steep bits at the chalets near the top of the climb. Kloeden all but drafts off of him to cross at 41:23 - about 40 seconds slower than his teammate Ullrich. Lance is out of the saddle - then sits and finds even a bigger gear, cadence dropping noticeably. He's now down in the drops sprinting for every second and crosses in 39:41 - averaging more than 15 mph! He's beaten Ullrich by 61 seconds - excactly the gap from last year's Tour vicotry Basso crosses the line, managing to hold onto 8th on the stage, somewhere in the high 42 minutes. Understatement of the day: "The crowds were.....um.......animated," Lance Armstrong. He also went on to say that it was not a good idea to have a time trial on Alp d'Huez. The offical count was 900,000 fans who were (and will be stuck on) the climb today. Stage 16 Results - 1 - Lance Armstrong - USPS - 39:41 2 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - 1:01 3 - Andreas Kloeden - T-Mobile - 1:41 4 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - 1:45 5 - Santos Gonzalez - Phonak - 2:11 6 - Guiseppe Guerini - T-Mobile - 2:11 7 - Vladimir Karpets - Illes Baleares - 2:15 8 - Ivan Basso - CSC - 2:23 9 - David Moncoutie - Cofidis - 2:23 10 - Carlos Sastre - CSC - 2:27 11 - Stephane Goubert - Ag2R - 2:33 12 - Michael Rogers - Quick Step - 2:34 13 - Jose Guierrez - Phonak - 3:04 14 - Oscar Pereiro - Phonak - 3:05 15 - Marcos Serrano - Liberty - 3:09 16 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - 3:15 17 - Sandy Casar - FDJeux.com - 3:19 18 - Mikel Astarloza - Ag2R - 3:25 19 - Juan Mercado - Quick Step - 3:25 20 - Christophe Moreau - Credit Agricole - 3:25 General Classification - MJ - Lance Armstrong - USPS - 67:53:24 2 - Ivan Basso - CSC - 3:48 3 - Andreas Kloden - T-Mobile - 5:03 4 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - 7:55 5 - Jose Azevedo - USPS - 9:19 6 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Balears - 9:20 7 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - 11:34 8 - Carolos Sastre - CSC - 13:52 9 - Pietro Caucchioli - Alessio - 14:08 10 - Levi Leipheimer - Rabobank - 15:04 Since this will be the last real-time edition of this year's Tour for me, I thought I might mention the remaining challanges and some hopes for the next days. Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 17 - Le Bourg-d'Oisans - Le Grand-Bornand - 204 km No rest for the wicked - this is the nastiest day in the Tour if you measure by height. There will be 16,827 feet of climbing, including the Col du Glandon (21 kilometers - average 5.2%), Col de la Madeleine (19.5 km - 7.8%) the highest spot in the Tour, the little known Col de Tamie (8.7 km - 6.6%), the less known Col de la Forciaz (8.2 km - 8%)and the unknown Col de la Croix Fry (11.5 km - 7.1%). The final three climbs are virtually unknown to these riders, and this will be a stunningly hard stage for riders who are have been tortured significantly up until now. Certainly, look for Lance's team to control things, and Ivan Basso, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloeden to try to break things up. It would be great to see Leipheimer move up the standings with an excellent stage here. Friday's Stage - Stage 18 - Annemasse to Lons le Saunier - 166 km A reasonably shorter stage, with climbs that won't quite cause as much wreckage. Starting near the French/Swiss border, the rides will hit a Cat 2 and 3 climb mid course, but the sprinters might even begin to show their faces again. Saturday's Stage - Stage 19 - Besancon Individual Time Trial - 55 km A day of constant change of elevation on the longest ITT in recent memory. No categorized climbs on the day, but no rest for the wicked or damned. This is finally a stage that should favor a powerful rider like Ullrich, but it will remain to see how much he has left after the damage of the previous stages. My guess is that he will be on form and won't give up much here. Sunday - Paris, finally Paris Stage 20 - Montereau to Paris - 163 km The parade before the Champs-Elysees criterium...Hopefully champagne will be poured between the rider wearing number 1 and the USPS Team Car. Finally, on the streets of Paris, having locked up the Yellow Jersey, it would be wonderful to see the USPS team push to the front and lead out a sprint for either Lance (because when was the last time the Yellow Jersey won in Paris?) or George Hincapie (because of all the big-time engines behind Lance's Tour victories, he's the one who has been there for each one.) Granted, the team riders knew their jobs when they signed on, but it would be a great thing to see. Of course, memory fails me regarding the name of the American to win on the Champs Elysses. No matter what does happen, this year has provided a textbook example of teamwork and dedication to an overall goal. The condition, tenacity and dominance of the USPS squad in this race has been second to none. Thanks for reading! -- Jim -- You are receiving this email from the Tour-Junkie at Cyclofiend. http://www.cyclofiend.com If you are a new subscriber and want to see earlier reports, they are archived here: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/pipermail/race-report/2004-July/thread.html To subscribe, unsubscribe or to change any of your information, please visit the "Race-Report" info page: http://lists.cyclofiend.com/mailman/listinfo/race-report All rights reserved - copyright by Jim Edgar 2004 Permission granted to circulate this publication via manual forwarding by email to friends, providing that the text is forwarded in its entirety and no fees are charged. Questions or comments can be sent to this email address, or to editor@cyclofiend.com