Tour de France 2007

not again wrote:

Way to jump to conclusions there, genius.

I hope they are not using the same lab because, if you actually followed the Landis hearing, it was run with about all the control of a roomful of chimpanzees.

Doesnt make Landis or Lance innocent. I dont think they are. But for the love of God, get a lab that has a clue what the hell they're doing so we can at least have a CHANCE of catching these guys properly.

Sinkewitz's positive test was in T-Mobile internal testing at a training camp before the Tour. It seems unlikely that they would be using the same lab that the Tour uses, but you never know.

Ol Grumpus wrote:Sinkewitz's positive test was in T-Mobile internal testing at a training camp before the Tour. It seems unlikely that they would be using the same lab that the Tour uses, but you never know.

No, Sinkewitz' was an out-of-competititon test done by the German NADA. The analysis was performed by the IOC-accredited lab in cologne.

Sorry, my mistake. I misunderstood the cyclingnews article, which stated only that the test occurred during the team training camp and didn't say who did the test.

saursoor wrote:

no, no he's not. he's an average TTer, like Levi. he's always been a noted climber, hence his pursuit of KOM. if he were likewise a good TTer, this wouldn't be his first tour for pursuing GC, would it?

Do you actually know anything about cycling? Moreau once finished 4th in the TDF and was an outstanding time trialist. Now he is a much better climber and has sacrificed alot of his time trialing. LL is also widely regarded as a very good time trialist.

I think Razzy is going to win. The comp this year just isn't there. There aren't any great climbers who are also good TTers like Lance and Ullrich. There's only one TT so he just needs to stay close enough to get it back on the mountains.

Alan

There are two long time trials in this year's Tour.

history buff wrote:

saursoor wrote:

no, no he's not. he's an average TTer, like Levi. he's always been a noted climber, hence his pursuit of KOM. if he were likewise a good TTer, this wouldn't be his first tour for pursuing GC, would it?

Do you actually know anything about cycling? Moreau once finished 4th in the TDF and was an outstanding time trialist. Now he is a much better climber and has sacrificed alot of his time trialing. LL is also widely regarded as a very good time trialist.

not much of a history buff yourself.

last year's tour TT's (minus Ullrich, Lance, Vino, Gutierrez, among other real TTers)

1st:

1 Serguei Gonchar (Ukr) T-Mobile 1.01.43.60 (50.54 km/h)

2 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak 1.00.62

3 Sebastian Lang (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.04.27

4 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile 1.23.87

5 Gustav Larsson (Swe) Francaise Des Jeux 1.33.48

6 Patrik Sinkewitz (Ger) T-Mobile 1.38.65

7 Marcus Fothen (Ger) Gerolsteiner 1.41.77

8 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile 1.43.26

9 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 1.43.90

10 Joost Posthuma (Ned) Rabobank 1.44.41

11 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 1.49.39

12 Vladimir Karpets (Rus) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 1.51.68

13 David Zabriskie (USA) Team CSC 1.56.59

14 Matthias Kessler (Ger) T-Mobile 2.02.77

15 Christophe Moreau (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance 2.03.46

...

96 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 6.05.46

2nd one:

30 Christophe Moreau (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance 5.33

...

34 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 6.02

sorry, neither is gonna scare Kloden with their TTing. don't tell me how good a 36 year old Moreau "used" to be as a TTer. He's a climber, KOM type, as everyone knows.

Last year Levi was clearly off, as he never really looked in it and his finish result showed that, 13th, after finishing 6th the year before (a stronger year) and top 10 twice before that in the previous 2 years. Lets go back to the year he was really on, 2005, and see how his time trialing stacked up then...

1 001 ARMSTRONG Lance DSC USA

2 011 ULLRICH Jan TMO GER 00' 23"

3 019 VINOKOUROV Alexandre TMO KAZ 01' 16"

4 023 JULICH Bobby CSC USA 01' 33"

5 021 BASSO Ivan CSC ITA 01' 54"

6 066 LANDIS Floyd PHO USA 02' 02"

7 044 EVANS Cadel DVL AUS 02' 06"

8 004 HINCAPIE George DSC USA 02' 25"

9 031 MANCEBO Francisco IBA ESP 02' 51"

10 037 KARPETS Vladimir IBA RUS 03' 05"

11 007 POPOVYCH Yaroslav DSC UKR 03' 09"

12 026 SASTRE Carlos CSC ESP 03' 10"

13 101 MOREAU Christophe C.A FRA 03' 11"

14 164 LEIPHEIMER Levi GST USA 03' 13"

15 068 PEREIRO SIO Oscar PHO ESP 03' 25"

14th in that field over 55 kilometers is not to bad. Sure he was behind moreau who is now aged and not nearly the TT'st he was back then... but Rasmussen is nowhere near LL level in the ITT. Im not saying LL is gonna win but he is a major threat as of now.

Sure Rasmussen is a great climber, but his TT skills are far below that of the big GC contenders and they always have been.

agree with the rasmussen observation, with one caveat: i wouldn't be surprised by how well he does in Saturday's TT in Albi. He may surprise over that hilly terrain. Levi as well.

Bob Roll (who should know better than both of you put together) says he's a GREAT time trialist.

read up wrote:

Bob Roll (who should know better than both of you put together) says he's a GREAT time trialist.

he couldn't PUT both of us together. so there.

I'm sure if your remark made any sense whatsoever, I would feel like you burned me but good. Let that be your consolation.

read up wrote:

I'm sure if your remark made any sense whatsoever, I would feel like you burned me but good. Let that be your consolation.

it's a messagebored. i didn't 'burn' anyone, and certainly don't need 'consolation' from an anonymous bunch of bits.

My bad, I forgot the last time trial. By that time things are usually done and over.

Alan

Good for you. Thats the spirit.

saursoor wrote:

sorry, neither is gonna scare Kloden with their TTing. don't tell me how good a 36 year old Moreau "used" to be as a TTer. He's a climber, KOM type, as everyone knows.

So do you want to back off your original claim that this is Moreau's first time chasing the GC? He is not "a climber KOM type, as everyone knows". I've never heard anyone refer to Moreau as a climber, Like LL he is an all around rider looking for a High GC finish. Ever heard of a race called the Dauphine? And before you furiously reach for your keyboard, I'm aware of the results of today's stage where Moreau lost huge time, but I don't think anyone would have predicted that.

just reading the text of today's stage at lunch.

loved that Vino's team did what they did - and when the pull was complete, discovery did work - and then another team helped...

payback is hell.

After saturday, Kloden will be in yellow. The guy is a great at TT's, and is a monster in the mountains. Since Vino is out of the GC, the team is going to be his.

Just curious... payback for what?