The last time up Courchevel was in 2000. The winner that day was Marco Pantani. That stage win was a epic attack that was fueled by anger at Lance Armstrong. Earlier in the 2000 Tour, Armstrong and Pantani engaged in a war of words on whether the stage win by Pantani on the top of the Ventoux was a gift by Lance or a win by Pantani. That was the last major victory by Pantani before his downward spiral.
Poking around the Velonews site, I finally found a close-up of the odd Gerolsteiner bars that were used during the Team Time Trial.
The elbow pads are 30cm apart! Even more unique is that the extensions and the drops on those bars are one in the same; it is essentially a narrow, flat base bar with super-long, wavy, angled-in-and-down that has elbow cups at either end of the base bar. The brake/shift levers were mounted out at the ends of those wavy bars.
I just started reading this blog on active.com, but these lines make me want to leave work and book the next plane to Grenoble. Velochimp might have a cousin moving to grenoble in the near future, it may be time for a visit.
“The Alps watch over Grenoble like a brooding, malevolent presence. It is up their narrow roads and over their tree-less summits that the race will now travel. The spectator throngs are already in place. Their campers and pup tents line the roads. The smell of grilling sausage from their portable barbecues rivals the relaxing aroma of wild lavender as the prevalent roadside fragrance. So, yeah, its a day of rest. But it feels a whole lot more like a prelude to some great drama. The stage is set, now all we need is the actors.”
“Around the World on Twenty Inches is the online journal and photodocumentary of Nick Busey’s solo journey around the world on a single-gear 20″ BMX bike. The trip begins on July 2nd, 2005, Nick’s 19th birthday. It is being funded through donations, and the sale of prints of photographs from the trip.”
Not sure if the trip ever got off, but he will be or is using a Google Map to track his trip.
With the rest day today, there will be lots of articles with speculation on who the challengers will be now that the “Real” Tour starts tomorrow. The next three days will be action packed excitement. We could see a repeat of years past with the Discovery team systematically eliminating the competition on the final climb while paving the way for Lance to win the stage. Or we could see more of what happened in Stage 8 with everyone taking turns attacking Armstrong while he is isolated from his teammates. Whatever happens, it will surely be entertaining to watch.
Yahoo! Sports – Cycling – Tour reaches moment of truth in the Alps
Local club member’s broken bike.
This is what happens when a minivan clips your back wheel while going 50 mph.
Check out more pictures and story to follow.
Michael Rasmussen took control of the Polka Dot jersey with an very impressive break on the second mountain stage of the Tour. This gives Rabobank the weekend of victories with Pieter Weenien taking the stage on Saturday. The Rabobank team is having a successful Tour this year and Rasmussen, known as “The Chicken” for his skinny legs has upped his game to try and take the Polka Dot jersey. For a short time Rassy had the yellow jersey, but Jens Voight and former teammate Christophe Moreau brought back enough time so that Voight could take the Yellow.
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Not since 2003 have we seen a big group of riders taking turns attacking Lance Armstrong. Lance was in an unusual position without the many teammates he has been accustomed to have accompany him up a mountain in the Tour de France. T-Mobile took turns with each of the triad of challengers taking a flyer off of the front of the elite group. Vinokourov looked linke he was doing climbing intervals as he would attack, slow to look at the damage, then attack again. His attacks helped to thin out the elite group of any Discovery Channel supporters.
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That is how Lance described today’s first mountain stage. Armstrong’s powerful Discovery Channel team was nowhere to be seen in the final kilometers of today’s stage while T-Mobile and CSC had good numbers up front.
Good article from Procycling on the state of Italian riders at the Tour.
.:. procycling .:.