Rainy, crappy weather. Makes it hard the day before the race’s first mountaintop finish, at least from a literary prospective. And, of course, from the prospective of the 100 or so riders who either crashed, got crashed, or got stuck behind a crash coming into the line today. A mere 43 riders finishing on ST?…
Month: July 2009
Is It Boring Yet?
Well, I did technically predict that today’s stage would be won from a break, but the way things unfolded on Stage 5 was definitely not what I had in mind. I was thinking something along the lines of break gets clear, gets 10 minutes, pack calls it a day and rests the legs, and one…
Stage 4 By The Numbers
A tight, crash-heavy parcours, riders dropping off the pace left and right, a symbolic surge to the line by a snubbed favorite, and frantic, split-second calculations after the last team’s finish. Stage 4’s Team Time Trial has delivered on what is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting TdF first weeks in recent memory—and a…
More Proof the ProTour is Bunk
Yeah, BBox Bouygues Telecom—now there’s a top tier bunch. Light years beyond LPR, that’s for sure. (via @alexfeel)
One Other Possibility…
I hadn’t initially considered this article to be of much merit. After all, the Texan has been quoted as saying “I’m here to win”. And even then, “ambiguity” isn’t really an asset if two of your riders split the team’s limited support resources attacking each other in the final week. But then I caught this…
Great Minds Think Alike
From my twitter feed today. Literally within seconds of each other: I didn’t see even a second of footage from after today’s stage got interesting, and from what I can tell, neither did anyone watching Versus. My frustration at this is countered only by my anticipation of the awesome spectacle as Astana continues to spin…
2009 Tour de France – Stage 2 – How The Race Was Won
Stage 2 of the 2009 Tour de France—in useful video analysis form! Some early-race crashes and good racing over the final kilometers. Watch the picture-perfect leadout by Columbia-Highroad HTC and hope they aren’t this effective for the next three weeks. I had a fairly clear schedule yesterday, so I figured I’d put another one of…
The First Sprint Stage
Where’s Tom Boonen? He certainly didn’t get much TV time yesterday. He’ll be much easier to pick out in his new Belgian champions kit, should he be in the mix for the sprint today. But I doubt he’ll take the win. TDF 2009 – IN SEARCH OF TOM BOONEN from CYCLEFILM on Vimeo. It’s not…
Cancellara Makes It Look Easy; Astana Makes It Look Hard
“I took it easy on the climb because I didn’t want to have problems with lactic acid building up in my legs” – Fabian Cancellara Excuse me? Fabian Cancellara buries the entire field by 18 seconds, in a TT that went over a Category 4 climb and he took it easy? Man, forget holding the…
Not What I Expected to See…
Does anyone else find this extremely disconcerting? Maybe I just sit too close to the screen… (click for full-size terror)