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TdF: All Over But The Cryin'

There’s been lots of squabble on the nets about how slow this year’s Tour is, how boring.  Sure, a few years back, when the hard men had bulging eyeballs with pinner irises sunk into the sockets, stomachs churning with adrenalin, blood boiled by science, it was a faster race.  15 mph avg speed up the side of an Alpine tower today is nearly human, 23+ back then was alien.  While that might show the difference in the doping field, it’s not why this year’s race could be seen as a bit of a snore.  Tactics, wheel sitting, radio chatter and an apparent strategy by the number one contender to attempt overall victory without attempting a stage.  (Which could be known as The Levi Method)  That made the race for Yellow a chess match, rather than a hell for leather battle.  But boring?  The tallest mountain in France was not boring.  90 kph descents were not boring.  No prologue, no ‘easy’ first week – definitely not boring.  Cavendish?  Exciting for sure, but oddly the media barely commented on the absence of Tomke and Ale-jet.  We missed out on seeing the big Belgian and the upstart Briton do battle.  No Astana?  Certainly they’d have mixed it up and changed a few other team’s strategies with their presence, but note they just bounced a rider for abnormalities – would the Goose have been cooked in France, along with the other dopers?  One thing which leaving Astana out served to accomplish was limiting the number of squads with nearly matching blue kit to three.  It was a bit humorous when Phil would confuse Milram for Columbia and count 11 men from the same team leading the charge to the line.  God knows what would have happened if the azure-wearing Kazaks had contributed to the pale blue absurdity. 
What shoulda happened?  Take a trip back to Thursday.  After two days of watching wheels and listening to the radio, Evans stops throwing punches at journos long enough to gather resistance forces against CSC.  Cadel rallies Robbie and all the other Aussies to help him in a break on stage 18 or 19.  He takes his freshest men, plus Hansen, Gerrans,  Kruetzinger or Nibali, the South African’s, and Dean.  Dean and McRocket motor pace him into a strong advantage, while Liqui, Rabo and others fight CSC for control of the bunch.   With men in the break, Columbia and Credit Agricole wouldn’t work for the chase.  By forcing Riis’ boys to fight harder, and working with other teams who stand to gain (Liquigas for Kruetzinger, Rabo for Menchov, AG2R for Team…) they’d isolate the entire CSC squad and have a chance.  The break would finish with a 30 to 60 sec advantage on the field, Cadel stomps it and takes the stage, as well as precious time in the bank for the ITT.   Kruetzinger is back in the hunt for white, and AG2R has a closer race with CSC for the Team.
Rightfully, that didn’t happen.  Evans marked wheels in the Alps, his spirit broken by the brothers Schleck.  He rode a nervous time trial and spit away his chances.  The man who had the cajones to go out and win a tough mountain stage, Carlos Sastre, takes home the Golden Fleece.  Kruetziger did not gain today on Andy Schleck, who wears white for the rest of the summer.  CSC all but destroys the field, with only AG2R within minutes, the rest over one hour down.  After day 15 there wasn’t much challenge in the red beans kit, leaving it to the Austrian Kohl.  Sprinters will have their day tomorrow, unless Evans bullies it into a battle for his 65 seconds and tries a Vino tactic. Doubtful.  The old men will gun for a last shot, but more than likely Zabel, Rocket and the Norseman will be barred from victory by one of the young guns.  Green sleeves himself Oscar Freire might in fact put an unquestioning stamp on his point spread. Almost 40 men were dropped across the countryside over the past three weeks, some with serious consequences, some from exhaustion or time splits, one or two with a dubious excuse. The race for the unheralded Maillot Noir, last place, the Lantern Rouge, is a tight battle.  Vansevenant has a minute more than Eisel and Krauss.  Depending on how much champagne is passed around, this could shift dramatically tomorrow. 
Sven KRAUSS  87h52'55''      3h51'55''
Bernhard EISEL  87h54'58''     3h53'58''
Wim VANSEVENANT  87h55'51''     3h54'51''

Beef For Lunch

It just get's weirder.  After loosing principal sponsor Saunier Duval to The Cobra's wormy behavior, Scott has now partnered with American Beef.  'cause y'know, irony is just the ticket to convincing the skeptics that our sport is dope-free.  Sorta like that big American bike race that's sponsored by the company that invented EPO?  Yeah, just like that.

Itchy

Ah le Tour.  Less pinner eyes sunk in sockets, more testing (but does it work?), two comical attempts of escape by the guilty, three days of gloriously death defying descents, a million typical drunken roadside distractions.  Bikesnob brings his perspective with all the expected panache.  Dave Z weighs in with his usual droll nuggets.  Meanwhile, what happened to Michael Ball’s loud statements?  His team is quietly dominating in the mid-west and far east.  Jon Page is getting in some hot laps before battling the Belgians.  Back on the internets: two of our favorite things come together. Bikes can still help the world. The honcho of WTB has a limited run of bad-as single-speeds.  Some video to get us over the hump.  Onward…

Blood For Breakfast

Just sittin' around this morning, enjoying another smooth bottle of Chinese deer blood liquor, when the shocking news of The Cobra's demise caused a spray of the elixir to coat the television.  Shocked!  Ok not really.  Fortunately, Big J had this amusing link of Triki B running away from the dope control to keep it all in perspective.  Meanwhile, in more pedestrian pursuits, there's no war in Portland; no really.  More people should try bicycle rollercoastering.   And thankfully, there's now a way to make your old, tired cel phone into a tazer to thwart bike thieves.   All going to prove, ya just can't make shit like this up; or more appropriately, you don't need to.  Onward!

Meeting Cancelled

Well now, see what all of that interweb sturm und drang has resulted in?  

MONDAY'S PUBLIC FORUM ON CYCLING ON MANDEVILLE CANYON ROAD IS CANCELLED

Rosendahl to Form Task Force of Residents, Cyclists and City Staff

"At the request of the residents and of the cyclists who use Mandeville Canyon Road, I have decided that a more focused, deliberative task force will achieve my goal of bringing the relevant people together to discuss ideas and proposals for everyone to share this narrow canyon roadway," Rosendahl said. Over the past few days, officials with homeowner associations and the bicycling clubs that train on the winding, 5-mile stretch of road expressed concern that the tenor of media coverage and of blog posts would make a Monday public meeting counter-productive. Many said they worried the issue had become larger than the specific issues of Mandeville Canyon."

TdF: Week One Wrap-up

Thoughts on Le Tour.  In decidedly French fashion, the organizers shunned the UCI and are doing it their own way.  A side note to that battle; does anyone care to note that ASO is a commercial promotions enterprise, not a sanctioning body?   Interesting that they don’t seem to meddle with the rules of their other branded events in athletics, motor sports, golf, etc… or do they? 
On to the racing and it’s the first Tour de France in years with no prologue and no 1st week of sprinter’s stages.  What does it all mean?  Well, the big boys actually have to race from the get go, for once.  Usually the token opening 10k time-trial is followed by a week of groupetto riding for the bunch while the sprinters duke it out, which means a nice gradual build up to the real fireworks in the cols.  Not this year.  Middle mountains in the middle of week one and arguably only one pure sprinter’s finish meant that the contenders had to actually mark breaks and put some effort in.  And it showed.  The media keeps calling numero uno contender Cadel ‘nervous’ but apparently they’ve forgotten that he’s one of those riders that’s so tranquillo on the bike it equates to ‘boring’.  He sure didn’t look nervous today after he decked it and had to get his raspberries patched by the Tour doc.  Bonus points for giving his only post-race statement to the normally non-cycling sports-writing giant Rupert Guinness in three words and a grunt. 
A media balloon worth popping is the notion that Ricco must be juiced because he loves Pantani and he rode away from the bunch so remarkably today.  Maybe no one noticed that the rest of the group wasn’t really trying?  Pretty easy to look super-human when the big guns are content to ride tempo and bide time for tomorrow’s cracker of a hill climb.  Interesting that The Cobra explains his hall-pass for abnormal blood levels with the quip that he’s had a high count his whole life.  When was the last time you had your toddler’s hemocrit tested? 
With Monday being Bastille Day, hopes will be pinned on a French victory – an unlikely prospect but hey, it’s le Tour and anything could happen.  More likely we’re going to see an angry Aussie and a Spanish armada assault the Hautacam.  The burrito brother Christian Vandevelde is riding brilliantly for the freedom-frites flag, but again, not one of the big guns aside from Valverde have really shown themselves yet. (Props to Allesandro for having the most balls-out flash bike in the pack.) 
The Garmin squad has spent more time in front of the cameras than any American team to date, giving unprecedented access to the press via team car ride-alongs, blog entries and interviews. Will Vaughter’s experiment in transparency hold together into weeks two and three?  He’s lost Big Maggie, but gained a ton of confidence in his riders with their breakout week one performance.   Meanwhile smart money falls on the other US crew, Stapleton’s newly branded high roader’s, who loose major style points for changing kits to a dull blue that at best seems to be mocking Astana and at worst blends in with the three other azure shirted squads in the peloton.  That said, they’re carrying three of the four coveted jerseys into next week; so much for bad fashion. 
Spectacular crashes, if only briefly noted by the media, have per usual marred the opening circuits.  In recent years, it’s been nervous sprints through dangerous streets that cause carnage but with the drawn out stages of 2008’s first week it’s been feeds, furniture and trees.
Of course, the big news of the first seven days was the booting of Triki Beltran, he of Armstrong lieutenant fame and former Mapai juggernaut ace, caught for EPO use.  As usual, the press has convicted based on an A-positive and circumstantial evidence, and as usual, the team claims it to be an isolated incident – if proven true. We’ve said this many times before; you can’t take EPO without someone else knowing about it.  Recent news about the test for EPO being unreliable has been proven to be taken out of context of the complete study, seemingly supporting the testing procedure, but the question of trust in the process cannot be taken out of the equation now. 
For the remaining riders it’s on to the high mountains during the home country’s big bash before a well-earned rest and transfer day.  Vive le Tour, let the fireworks begin.

More On...

"The Deputy District Attorney assigned to the case said he has "no sympathy" for this motorist, and called this "a dark day for Mr. Thompson".  The local bike coalition and many others are rallying around this event - let's hope it brings some change to the way we ride on our roads.  Have a great weekend folks.

Flash: Road Rage Driver Charged

Felony reckless driving.  Here's some interesting stats compiled by someone on the Midnight Ridazz site about the content of the comments in the original LA Times article on this travesty...
======================================
I only tallied opinions expressed by people who were not defending the cyclists. The following is a list of opinions expressed and how often:

Cyclists break the law (27)
Cyclists are arrogant, have feelings of entitlement (27)
Cyclists should not be on the road; the road is for vehicles only (23)
Cyclists shouldn't ride two abreast; should always ride single file (18)
Cyclists are not part of traffic (16)
Cyclists don't give cars enough room to pass (15)
Cyclists shouldn't be in the street because it is dangerous (13)
If a vehicle/bike altercation happens, the cyclist must be at fault in some way (12)
It is against the law to ride two-abreast (9)
Cyclists must always ride to right and not in the lane (9)
Cyclists incite harassment fromn vehicles by not following the law (8)
Recreational use of the roads by cyclists should not be allowed (6)
Cyclists should only use streets that aren't busy or dangerous (5)
Cyclists have bad manners and shouldn't incite bad vehicular behavior (4)
Cyclists shouldn't be on road because they don't pay for them (3)
Cyclists should be licensed/insured (3)
Cyclists should not have a right to the road if they do not follow the laws (2)
Doesn't matter what vehicular law is; nobody drives that way anyhow (1)
Who cares what rights cyclists have under the law (1)
Cars are bigger and therefore have more rights (1)

Le Dope Du Jour

Oh Manuel, tisk tisk.  Hey, isn't Liquigas ol' Ivan's new club?  And didn't they both ride for Mr. Might As Well Win?  We figured the bounce-outs wouldn't start until week 2.  Inshalah. 

Laugh A Little Before You Cry

We all need a little comedy after a holiday weekend that resulted in this calamity.  God speed to the victims, all hell to the perpetrator.  In this case, the law is prosecuting as a felony; let's hope the raging local crew don't do anything stupid.  Violence begets violence.  Stay aware, stay safe folks.