Tour de France 2007

They were just ripping on Al for his pick Hushovd. Did anyone see what Phil mouthed to the camera?

Bradley Wiggins - both brave and foolish, although he gained a tremendous amount of noteriety today.

Al always pickes Hushovd, although he has won a stage this year while Boonen and Friere have not.

Any favorites? I love Michael Rasmussen, absolute stud in the mountains plus is a former world mountain bike champion. Other than the obvious pull for Team Discovery, I must pull for Team Rabobank and Denis Menchov

July 13th 1967: 13th stage from Marseille to Carpentras.

The doping controversy in cycling turns 40 today. Not doping itself which is much older, just the controversy. Until Tom Simpson collapsed and died on Mont Ventoux nobody really cared that much.

Was it drugs that caused Simpson to die? I wasn't aware of that. I thought he had just literally cycled himself to death in terrible conditions.

Prognosticator wrote:

Actually, it would be hilarious if they moved the entire Tour de France OUT of France....not just the Prologue! Now THAT would be hilarious. It would serve those whiners right.

France sucks. here comes Jan ulrich, he's german, we give up! we give up!

france has always been there when they needed us.

cycling fan wrote:

Was it drugs that caused Simpson to die? I wasn't aware of that. I thought he had just literally cycled himself to death in terrible conditions.

Tom Simpson was on amphetamines and had been reported to have drank brandy on the ascent. It's also been reported that he was on the waning side of a stomach virus, which is quite possible as a lot of riders get sick in the first week.

The anti-performance enhacing drug prohibition went into effect shortly thereafter.

forrest, n. b. wrote:

Prognosticator wrote:

Actually, it would be hilarious if they moved the entire Tour de France OUT of France....not just the Prologue! Now THAT would be hilarious. It would serve those whiners right.

France sucks. here comes Jan ulrich, he's german, we give up! we give up!

france has always been there when they needed us.

Oh, I don’t know.

The USA is about to be routed by a bunch of ragged insurgents and scurry away because, from a nation of 300 million, you’ve lost 3600 of your armed forces.

The French, a nation of 40 million at the time, lost 1,385,000 of it’s manhood, fighting the bulk of the German forces for 4 years in the First World war.

I imagine, if America fought a war which ended with over 10 million dead, even the most gung-ho of you wouldn’t be so keen to fight another war just twenty years later.

No to 2012 wrote:

Oh, I don’t know.

The USA is about to be routed by a bunch of ragged insurgents and scurry away because, from a nation of 300 million, you’ve lost 3600 of your armed forces.

The French, a nation of 40 million at the time, lost 1,385,000 of it’s manhood, fighting the bulk of the German forces for 4 years in the First World war.

I imagine, if America fought a war which ended with over 10 million dead, even the most gung-ho of you wouldn’t be so keen to fight another war just twenty years later.

Amen brother...

Is it just me, or is Zabriskie losing time to the peloton on virtually every stage? Is he sick? Doing a lot of the work to keep Cancellara in yellow? Aiming for the Lanterne Rouge? Just saving himself for the TTs?

One of the highlights from Schmalz's coverage of yesterday's stage:

"Salvodelli comes back to help – Kloden attacks him."

http://www.velocitynation.com/article.aspx?ID=1563&CID=2

have you noticed how slow the times are? they are finishing 40 min behind the slowest predicted times. i guess not being able to blood dope, take epo or put a testosterone patch on the back of your nuts must be slowing people down!

Trautwig is a bit of a goofball, but he did make one of the most astoundingly astute (or probably lucky) predictions last year. He picked Hushovd (naturally) to win the prologue TT much to the derision of his colleagues. It was hysterical when Hushovd actually won. He's a decent time triallist, but never considered any sort of favorite to win the prologue. Atta boy, Al!

Paul Sherwin's the best commentator especially since he's seemed to cut back on his 'suitcase of courage' routine, although he did slip one in today. I hope he's not just warming up for the mtns. Liggett is a disaster though. He's batting about .500 for identifying riders in the race and he frequently goes into raptures about so-and-so's terrific stage win, when they're still 200 meters from the finish and someone else ends up winning.

It's sad to see Vino and Kloeden so damaged. I find it hard to believe they can be competitive in the mtns. with their injuries.

Alberto Contador will win tomorrow's stage into Le-Grand-Bornand. Karpets will win the Tour de France.

it almost always comes down to the final sprint...no one ever goes out and guts it all the way through...its pretty stupid.

I'm predicting Kaschekin to win the first mountain stage and I also think that he has a good chance to win the overall since Klodden and Vinokourov are in trouble. Karpets has never achieved much in the tour but good on you for making a bold prediction. The other big chances in the overall are pretty obvious. Valverdje, Sastre, Evans, etc. The next couple of days will be interesting to see if teams like CSC attack and try to take advantage of Astana while they are struggling. Vino could get back to full fitness in a few days so they should try to get more time on him now.

Dave Zabriske loses time because he's always at the front helping shoulder the work load for CSC which has done most of the work defending the yellow jersey in the first week. When the field gets pulled back together he soft pedals to the finish. There is nothing wrong with him.

ildiablo wrote:

Dave Zabriske loses time because he's always at the front helping shoulder the work load for CSC which has done most of the work defending the yellow jersey in the first week. When the field gets pulled back together he soft pedals to the finish. There is nothing wrong with him.

Not exactly true. Zabriskie and Cuesta are the two guys who are supposed to help out Sastre and Schleck in the mountains. Today they failed. Kim Andersen said afterwards that he was disappointed, but not concerned as long as it was just a one-day lapse.

Think Lance can win it all again?

discovery looked pretty good today. It can all change twomarrow but they had 4 guys up front and big george was hanging around