[Tour 2005]Stage 18 - Albi - Mende

race-report@cyclofiend.com race-report@cyclofiend.com
Wed, 27 Jul 2005 01:10:04 -0500


Preface/Apology - 

Not that I think you all are hanging on my every word, but I'd like to
apologize for missing the past few (and final) stages of the Tour. I
was traveling this past weekend, and the promised "OLN for SURE" feed in
the lodgings turned out to be ESPN, which would be great if I cared to
watch an endless parade of "who's he?'s" debate stick & ball sports that
either are out of season or should be out of season. Further, the "fast
internet connection" proved to be spotty at best, usually locking up
about the time I'd viewed and responded to a couple work and personal
emails. If I'd known that things were to be that way, I'd have given a
bit more of a warning. Alas....I didn't and thus did not. But, I'm
back, and though I may have read ahead in the book, cycling is a
process-oriented sport....so, I've rewound the tapes and am about to find how things unfolded.


Stage 18 - Albi - Mende 189 km
A bit of a sting in the tail of this stage. After making the riders a
bit grumpy with a steadily uphill start, the course finds a couple of
climbs in the Massif Centrale, then punches uphill on the Cat2 climb of
Cote de Boyne, a 10 km climb which brings the riders up onto an
undulating plateau. But this is where everyone needs to pay attention -
within 20 km of the finish comes the Cote de Chabrits, a sharp little
climb and then the finishing climb of the Cote de la Croix-Neuve, a 3 km
gut-punch of 10%. That should weed out the big boys a bit.

Riders may be dreading that little pitch, but there are a few riders who
need to do well. The spots from 3rd to 9th not assured, and 7 minutes
covers the spread between those riders. Further, Discovery stands 37
seconds ahead of T-Mobile in the Team Classification. Everyone will have
to pay attention and scrap for every second.

155 riders begin today.

One person who always seems to pay attention is T-Mobile's Alexandre
Vinokouov, who zips out to snag a four second time bonus at the first
Sprint Point of the day, putting him a couple seconds ahead of Levi
Leipheimer in the GC before the stage even gets serious.

Following that, a few riders kick up their heels and go. Working well
together and aided by the fact that none are a GC threat, they work up
to an 11:41 lead with 74 km to go.

The 10 man breakaway consists of:

13 - Matthias Kessler - T-Mobile
25 - Luke Roberts - Team CSC
39 - Xabier Zandio - Illes Balears
45 - Axel Merckx - Lotto
98 - Marcos Serrano - Liberty Seguros
119 - Franco Pellizotti - Liquigas
128 - Cedric Vasseur - Cofidis
149 - Thomas Voeckler - Bouygues Telecom
174 - Carlos Da Cruz - FDJ.com
198 - Egoi Martinez - Euskatel-Euskadi
XXX - Some Rider to be named later

The presence of Kessler in the break bumps T-Mobile up and around
Discovery in the Team Classification. The continuing gap might lead one
to believe that they either don't care diddly-squat or plan on quite an
effort on the final climbs of the day.

Discovery's Benjamin Noval hammers out the pace at the head of the
peleton as the leading group begins to hit the slopes of the Cote du
Boyne - punching quickly up for 9.2km. You'd think the climb might slow
the riders, but the gap has edged out a bit more to 12:15.

Road surface has been slowly softening in the heat today, though not
quite turning to the treacherous black puddles which snagged Joseba
Beloki a couple years ago. Now they just seem to slow the riders, adding
the insult of increased friction to the injury caused by riding their
bicycles around France.

The Discovery team photo op froms at the head of the chase, as the hill
begins to bite. Riders from Gerolsteiner are massed behind them,
determined not to lose any foolish seconds as they did to start the day.

In the lead group, the riders have been rotating through in what would
almost seem to be a paceline. Of course, they are climbing up a mere 6%
grade. Perhaps the inverted 13 of Kessler has managed to bring him luck
today.

Now the pace edges up a bit in the break, with Voeckler snaking above
his bike in that characteristic style to rev things up. But, he pays
almost immediately for the increased effort - pedals klunky squares and
drifts to the back of the bunch.

Of course, with Noval-the-big-boned-boy leading the charge uphill, you
can pretty much figure that the stops have not yet been pulled out
today. Behind the Discovery squad, Michael Rasmussen in everything
except for polka-dotted shoes, Levi Leipheimer, Phonak's Floyd Landis
and T-Mobile's Jan Ullrich all follow in their immediate wake. And lest
all of the couch pilots get cocky, he's running them along at 20 mph.
Climbing.

Up ahead, the ever-scooting Carlos Da Cruz squirts away for the Sprint
points. He's nabbed the mountain points since the breakaway separated
themselves. Their accelleration toward the money line pushes the gap
into the neighborhood of 13 minutes even. Zandio of Illes Ballears is
gaining the most from this time spread, as he started the day in 26th
place and now has moved up to about 20th on the roadway. He takes a
moment to drop back to his team car for bottles and a strategic caucus
before rejoining the quickly rotating paceline which continues adding
time to their gap.

It will be a tricky finish, as I alluded to earlier - following the
undulations of the plateau, two sharp climbs hit the riders in quick
succession before a slight downward pitch, which will add to what is now
a tailwind to the finish. And they'll have plenty of time for tactical
dinking around, as the gap has added another minute.

Phil and Paul devolve into odd jokes and theorizing about which space
aliens have managed to carve out the bicycle images in the hay fields.
All this to cove the face that the gap has stretched another 60 seconds.
15 minutes even. That's roughly a 6 mile lead.

20 km to go. Clearly, the winner will come from the breakaway.

15 km to go. The route now quickly snaps the riders out of town onto the
final climbs of the day. Word is that even though the last climb
averages 10.1%, the final pitches are more on the order of 15%. It's
certainly going to hurt.

Da Cruz makes a move. He pushes out a clean gap from the rest of the
bunch, who race their pace but don't get all goofy. Unfortunately, he
finds a nekkid guy running in front of him.

A quarter hour behind them, CSC has suddenly strung out the bunch

Zandio moves awyu from the bunch, followed immediately by Merckx. Merckx
dumps Zandio in short order, and nearly runs over teh fast failing Da Cruz.

Voeckler hammers aw2ay, jersey unzipped and flapping behind him. He
shuts down the gap to Merckx and the twosome slips over the climb with
about five seconds over Serrano, Zandio and Vasseur. As they scream down
the descent, the three riders turn themselves inside out to regain the
wheel of Merckx and Voeckler.

They've created a gang of six, with Pellizotti nipping up to them as
they begin the final climb. Merckx sets the pace on what looks darned
steep climb - even on TV. Testing them with some pressure. Everyone is
out of the saddle dancing on the pedals.

Merckx accellerates again as spectators crouch agains the jptich

Zandio now drops back and Pellizotti gets all mushy as the other four
continue hurting one another. Voeckler buttons up his coat and leaves -
but out the wrong way this time. Serrano tries to cause a selection,
which only serves to sever Merckx. Vasseur continues to look strong as
Merckx watches them 10 feet ahead o them.

The steep bit knifes into the riders legs. Looking strong and riding
well are not always the same, as both Merckx and Vasseur can only match
pedal strokes and watch Serrano continue to stretch away. Though he
looks agonizingly close on the extremely steep climb. Mardi Gras hits
France as the inbred wine taster's clubs populate the climb. Thank
goodness for metal barriers.

Serrano peels away layers of his skin to reduce excess weight and then
streaks down a slight downhill. By the time he begins looking behind and
zipping up his jersey, there's nothing behind him but chase vehicles. He
wins his first Tour stage ever, punctuating the win with a huge smile.

Behind him Merckx gets a spoonful of bitter soup as Vasseur shoots
around him to take second. He shares a few choice phrases of
Flemish-influenced invective at the French ricer.

On the steeps, Armstrong, Basso, Ullrich and Cadel Evans have formed a
breakaway quartet and few other riders are anywhere to be seen.
Noticable in their absence are Rasmussen and Alexandre Vinokourov. Vino
tries to stay stuck with Leipheimer and Rasmussen, who have fallen an
easy 30 seconds in back.

Basso again tries to push Armstrong, and Ullrich once again can no
longer hold the pace of the Italian rider. Though a gap appears, Ullrich
keeps stressing his hardware, raising a cloud of aluminum shavings and
carbon dust, but manages to close it down again. He doesn't want to
attack Armstrong, but he is relentlessly slicing down the time which
separates them. The foursome keeps the pace high as Armstrong takes over
the pacemaking. Armstrong and Basso lead them through the chicanes that
lead into the finish line, and a petulant Evans tries a late dive at the
line.

Rasmussen's group follws 36 seconds behind, and I imagine the Dane is
well aware that those seconds would have helped at the upcoming time trial.

Landis and Eddy Mazzoleni come in together after another gap appears. No
other riders can be seen behind them, as they gasp their way through the
heat of southern France.

Stage 18 -
1 - Marcos Serrano - Libety Seguros - 4:37:36
2 - Cedric Vasseur - Cofidis - +:27
3 - Axel Merckx - Lotto - s.t.
4 - Xabier Zanio - Illes Balears - +1:08
5 - Franco Pellizotti - Liquigas - s.t.
6 - Thomas Voeckler - Bouygues Telecom - +1:28
7 - Luke Roberts - CSC - s.t.
8 - Matthias Kessler - T-Mobile - +1:44
9 - Egoi Martinez - Euskatel-Euskadi - +2:03
10 - Carlos Da Cruz - FDJ.com - +2:39


GC -
MJ - Lance Armstrong - Discovery - 77:44:44
2- Ivan Basso - Team CSC - +2:46
3- Michael Rasmussen - Rabobank - +3:46
4 - Jan Ullrich - T-Mobile - +5:58
5 - Francisco Mancebo - Illes Balears - +7:08
6 - Levi Leipheimer - Gerolsteiner - +8:12
7 - Cadel Evans - Lotto - +9:49
8 - Alexandre Vinokourov - T-Mobile - +10:11
9 - Floyd Landis - Phonak - +10:42
10 - Christophe Moreau - Credit Agricole - +13:15

If he can finish in Paris, Michael Rasmussen has clinched the Polka-Dot
Jersey, as no other rider can move past him by virtue of points. He
leads the competition by 50 points, with less than that between him and
Paris.


Tomorrow's Stage -
Stage 19 - Issoire - Le Puy en Velay 153 km
The shortest road stage comes the day before the Saturday's individual
time trial. Still there is little to chear about, as the ribbon of the
roadway negotiate 5 categorized climbs and two more sprint points.
Althrough nothing is worse than a Cat2, there seems to be virturally
flats to be found. A descent to the finish may give another
opportunistic breakaway the chance to shine again.

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