[Tour 2005]Stage 16 - Mourenx - Pau

[race-report@cyclofiend.com]

Stage 16
Mourenx - Pau 180 km
The last of the moutain stages, with the potential for a sprint finish.
A couple of short climbs bookend the two beasts of the day - the 9.3 km
Category 1 Col de Marie-Blanque which edges upwards at 7.7% average
grade and the Hors Categorie Col d'Aubisque, not averaging quite as
steep (at 7%), but providing the riders with 16 km of up. After a quick
blip up a Cat4 climb with 20 km to go, the riders continue basically a
downhill jaunt to finish in Pau. If a sprinter can bundle himself over
the peak, they could be in a position to pull out the stage, but it is
also one of the last opportunities for Rasmussen to pad his lead over
Ullrich before suffering through the individual time trial.

11 men go out away for the first sprint, with among other riders,
Saunier Duval's Chris Horner in attendance. As they move along for the
first minor climb, Credit Agricole's Andriy Kaschekin gets whapped right
in the nose by one of the tubular "clapping" balloons that the caravan
passes out. It hits hiim hard enough to force him over to the doctor's
car to stem the bloody nose which results.

Phonak rider Oscar Pereiro goes over the Col de Marie-Blanque, perhaps
finding inspiration from yesterday's frustrating second place finish.
Eddy Mazzoleni works his way in behind him, showing that he's still got
some cylinders firing.

But it wouldn't be the 2005 Tour de France without a move by T-Mobile's
Alexandre Vinokourov - who attacks on the base of the climb of the Col
d'Aubisque. As stuffing leaks out of the legs of most of the riders, he
rolls upwards.

10 riders remain fully 7:15 away from the Armstrong bunch, with a number
of chasers littered along the roadway between them. The updates keep
conflicting with themselves, and even the announcers have trouble with
the reports they are receiving over race radio.

2 riders fewer began the stage, as Credit Agricole's massive sprinter
Magnus Backsted and Lampre's Gianluca Bortalami roll over and his the
big snooze button. That puts 156 riders on the roadway today. Liberty
Seguros rider Roberto Heras has moved away in a solitary effort. But
with the time he has lost, there's little effort made to reel him in.

On the front of the bunch, Cadel Evans makes a hard move away from the
lead bunch, rocketing up the roadway on the steep and crowded climb. The
members of the original break attempt to chase him, but the former
Australian mountain biker finds a punishing cadence to his liking and
distances himself from their squalor.

Pereiro, Marcus Serrano of Liberty Seguros and Lampre's Eddy Mazzoleni
can at least manage a faster pace than some of the big-boned-boys, and
distance themselves as well, though they still fall away from Evans.

Heras reamains by himself.

Some plulsing occurs at the head of the thinning peleton, with CSC's
Carlos Sastre pushing out a bit. A T-Mobile trio suddenly asserts inself
at the pace at the head of events, Ullrich nestled in 3rd.

This gets a bit old for the Discovery squad, and stage-winner George
Hincapie follows up this big pink effort by notching up the speed a
touch more, relegating the German squad to observers.

Ullrich animates again as they come up on Sastre, who had dangled off
the end of the bunch. Basso immediately follows, and Armstrong increases
his effort to pull polka-dot jersey wearing Michael Rasmussen up among
them. While we don't get a view of the wreckage as most of the cameras
are trying to sort out breakaways and chase riders, but assume that a
large number of riders are again becoming mountain detritous.

Upon closing the gap around the CSC rider, the Armstrong bunch reforms
with Sastre still setting the pace. CSC's Ivan Basso, Ullrich,
Armstrong, sore-nosed Kashechkin, Illes Balleares Francisco Mancebo,
Spotted Michael Rasmussen, Phonak's Floyd Landis, Gerolsteiner Levi
Leipheimer and Hincapie round out the group.

American Fred Rodriguez watches the Armstrong train motor past him on a
swtichback. He had been among members of the early break, his leadout
has loosed Evans on the roadway, but he could hang on - or maybe not
slide back slowly enough to be entirely accurate.

Heras looks good as he finds Vinokourov on the roadway, though they
don't seem too far off the front of the Armstrong bunch as the devil
thumps uphil behind them in large shoes.

Kashechkin just manages to hang on to the wake of break, as the
combination of exhaustion from the climb and embarrassment of being
damaged by what is essentially a balloon catch up with him.

Evans sets his sights on the crest ofthe climb, passing through steep
switchbacks within a kilometer of the summit. He's moved about 4 minutes
clear of the serious chasers, showing again that mountain bikers are
well suited to painful individual efforts of this type.

Ullrich decides that he needs to put some padding in his time, and makes
an accellerateion which neatly snips Hincapie and Kashechkin

Vinokourov looks in his rear view mirror and sees they've almost reached
him, and so drops back to help Ullrich set pace. Mancebo can no longer
match the pace and drops back.

Evans is out of the saddle trying to squeeze every stray second before
attempting the 77 odd kilometers of roadway before him and the finish.
He moves over the top of the Aubisque clearly showing the pains of his
efforts.

Pereiro animates into second, then Mazzoleni follows him over. They are
maybe half a minute back, with a relatively long descent to come,
punctuated by the whoop-de-doo of the Col du Solour.


Vinokourov punches away in another surcge

FDJ.com's Philippe Gilbert and always fighting Juan Antonio Flecha form
Fasso Bortolo hit the top of the climb, just a moment or two after
Marcus Serrano of Liberty Sequros.

The cameras find Vinokourov again caught by the Armstrong group. Mancebo
screws up himselves to try to reattach to the back end of that bunch. At
the other end, Rasmussen leads over the KoM point, taking most of the
remaining points for his jersey.

Hincapie leads a Sastre, Kashechkin and a hovering & reattaching Kloden.
Popovych is not far behind, riding solo to the summit. In the crowd, Che
Guevara makes an appearance on a large red flag.

Evans has set himself up fro a 40 plus mile time trial, now neatly
negotiating a bit of a climb before the steep descent begins. He is
chased by a spectator wearing an Ibis Bicycles jersey. I do not recieve
income from these product placements, but I do like to note odd
sightings of Nor Cal bicycle companies. Evans has gapped the Armstrong
group by 4:40, rocking the bike to squeeze all possible time before
gravity begins to assist the chasers.

Rubiera and Popovych have joined the Armstrong bunch as well, giving
Lance a goodly number of teammates as they head downhill.

Today's Trivia Question -
How many Americans have competed in the Tour since their appearance in
1981? 31 - 41 - 51 or 61?

Oscar Pereiro zips neatly up to Evans and gaps him slightly. Mazzoleni
continues with his quiet appearances, moving up into the slipstream of
Evans. Evans lets him push into the gap after the streaking Phonak
rider, who has pulled away around a couple of switchbacks. Somewhere in
the back of Evans' brain must be the thought of his crash here when
recon-ing. Having broken his collarbone about 7 times in the past years,
Evans might not be pushing his descent down to the last squeal of adhesion.

Pereiro comes up a bit lame, gets a neutral wheel to replace the flat
tire and hammers to regain the bunch. He gets back on reasonably
quickly, with Illes Baleares' Xabier Zandio attached to his wheel.

Domina Vacanze's Jorg Ludewig and Serrano chase along just under 2
minutes in arrears of the Evans group.

By the time the foursome has gotten off the serious bits of the descent,
another pair of riders has moved within a couple minutes. The lead bunch
has edged out to a 6:30 lead. Evans is quietly booting people out of the
top 10 of the GC. This point is not lost on Rabobank, Gerolsteiner or
T-Mobile, both of which move to the front and hammer the chasers into a
seriously stretched line. Someone in the team cars must have pulled out
the calculator, and realized that Evans has pushed past Leipheimer and
threatens Ullrich and Rasmussen as well.

Red-Numbe-Wearing Pereiro starts to swing to his right as his team car
swings left, and nearly finding himself up on the roof rack of the
vehicle. The driver considers a switch to decaf as team cars negotiate
the narrowing roads and liberal use of traffic islands in the region.

The peleton dips it under 6 minutes as the chasers get to deplete every
last bit of go-juice that pulses in their veins. The bunch has added a
number of riders on the descent.

The breakaway quartet are all out of the saddle as they negotiate the
Cat 4 Cote de Pardies-Pietat, which by comparison to the climbs of the
past days, could be described as a slight rise in the road - 2.5 km of
climbing at 5.2%. Simple big-ring stuff for these guys.

Mazzoleni - one of five remaining Lampre riders in the race - quietly
lurks in the break. He's a powerful rider who has worked as pace-setter
for a number of qualitly riders, Stephano Garzelli among them, and often
manages to show up in the standings. He's currently in the top 20, and a
few minutes nabbed on this stage coult jump him up to the top 10.

Philippe Gilbert from FDJ.com grabs momentum towards the day's final KoM
point and streaks away from the first chase group. He gains a nice gap
by the time the roads head downward, and somehow thinks he can get skip
across to the Evans group. A doubtful but optimistic move.

The now nearly fully reassembled peleton crosses the KoM point about
four and half minutes in back of the leaders. But, Evans keeps incrasing
his pressure, moving slightly away from his companions and causing
Mazzoleni to engage in a big double-whump to shut down a gap which
creeps in.

Bouygues Telecom rider Jerome Pineau has cut down the gap to Gilbert.
However, the chasing bunch behind him move their way back and catch him.

The bikes in the lead break are from Ridley, BMC, Orbea and Cannondale -
this kind of stuff always appeals to the tech-geek in me. The dimensions
of racing bikes have changed so much over the past few years, as bicycle
companies follow the lead of Giant's compace frames. It's interesting to
note that the Orbea as a horizontal top tube - though it may be because
of the large size needed by Zandio. Though the other tubes slope
slightly, they seem more normalized than the radical tube angles on the
truly compact. Regardless of the hardware, they go under the 10 km banner.

The finishing bits have continued to be tricky as they ride into the
more urbanized areas which loop around thetown of Pau. Undulations,
turns and traffic islands continue to hurtle toward the riders as they
press uphill again past the casino. They hold a 1:57 gap over the chase
bunch, but the peleton has pulled within 3:30. Evans has continued to
hammer the pace as hard as he can, certainly sacrificing his stage
victory to gain the maximum amount of time. He has time-trialed straight
through for at least 2 kilometers, refusing to let the pace devolve into
tactical dinking around. A three minute lead means he will jump up into
8th place in the GC.

Behind him, Ludewig, Gilbert and Pineau hit their break partners to see
if one of them can take 5th place. They gain a gap on a rise into the city.

Into the final kilometer Evans continues to lead - they hit the left
hand turn and have about 600 straight meters to the line. The threesome
behind him idle at a high rate of speed, waiting for just the right
moment. Pereiro goes hard up the left hand side of Evans and finds a
huge burst of speed, fueled by adrenaline and the memory of the previous
stage's second place. Mazzoleni can't quite find his fast-twitch fibers
and though he strains hard, he cannot match the speed. Pereiro leads the
other riders to the line, but darned near mis-times his finish line
gesture as Zandio looms a mere half-bike length back, streaking up fast.
But, the Spanish rider has just enough momentum and erases the loss
yesterday with a stage win!

Gilbert has remained off the front by himself as Pineau or Ludewig get
reclaimed by the chasing break buddies, but finds the roadway extremely
long as the rest they continue to close the gap. Somehow, he hangs on
though it seems his eyes are looking out through his ear holes as his
legs pound with the power of flour.

More than 3:15 behind, Laurent Brochard beats out the bunch, bringing
his mullet-cum-ponytail across as he stabs his bike across the line.

Pereiro enjoys his moments on the podium - his numerous attacks finally
coming to fruition.

The polka-dot podium girls keep their skirts down against the winds as
Rasmussen realizes that there is little chance of losing the KoM jersey.

Bernard Hinault zips up the jersey which ties with his record of 78 in
the Tour. If Lance holds the jersey tomorrow, he will pass "The Badger"
and notch in behind Eddy Merckx who still holds the record for the
number of days in the Yellow Jersey.

Interviewed after the jersey ceremony, Armstrong says that he feels
incredible on the day - the bike riding himself. Of course, he's aware
that any distance which remains ahead of him has the potential for
pitfalls. But, he continues to look stronger as the race continues, much
to the chagrin of those who would challenge him.

In the GC, Evans moves up to split the American pair, slotting into 7th
place. Only 9 seconds covers 7th through 9th place, and Leipheimer needs
to grab a minute to gain his goal of top 5 in the race. The just under 3
minute gap which Rasmussen has looks extremely thin when you consider
the 55 km time trial which looms this Saturday. Ullrich clearly has
power left in the legs while the Dotted Dane has note shown excellence
in this discipline.

Stage 16 - Results
1 - Oscar Pereiro - Phonak - 4:38:40
2 - Xabier Zandio - Illes Baleares - s.t.
3 - Eddy Mazzoleni - Lampre - s.t.
4 - Cadel Evans - Lotto - s.t.
5 - Philippe Gilbert - FDJ.com - +2:25
6 - Anthony Geslin - Bouygues Telecom - s.t.
7 - Jorg Ludewig - Domina Vacanze - s.t.
8 - Juan Antonio Flecha - Fassa Bortolo - s.t.
9 - Ludovid Turpin - Ag2R - s.t.
10 - Cedric Vasseur - Cofidis - s.t.

General Classification - After 16 Stages
MJ - Lance Armstrong - Discovery - 66:52:03
2 - Ivan Basso - CSC - +2:46
3 - Michael Rasmussen - Rabobank - +3:09
4 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - +5:58
5 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Baleares - +6:31
6 - Levi Leipheimer - Gerolsteiner - +7:35
7 - Cadel Evans - Lotto - +9:29
8 - Floyd Landis - Phonak - +9:33
9 - Alexandre Vinokourov - T-Mobile - +9:38
10 - Christoph Moreau - Credit Agricole - +11:47


Tomorrow's Stage - Stage 17
Pau - Revel 239 km
The longest stage of the Tour thankfully has moved away from the big
mountains. Though classified as a "flat" stage, the organizers have
managed to sneak in four categorized climbs on a slightly choppy
topography. While there's nothing longer than 2 km's, climbwise, it will
be a day undulations. Perhaps a rider or two will find a hidden reserve
of power to aniimate things.






Trivia Answer - 31
Extra Credit - how many can you name?

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