Interesting and insightful analysis of the battle for the Lanterne Rouge by Nancy Toby.
Archive for July, 2007
Time to roll out the puns and cliches, members of the press! Today saw the second serious dog-related incident of this year’s tour, though it didn’t end so badly for Sandy Casar. In stage 9 we saw Markus Burghardt’s wheel fold under the impact of a tubby blond Labrador going for his customary lunchtime stroll across the road. This time it was a chocolate Labrador (what is it with labs and crossing the road without looking, eh?) who decided to dash across the road in front of Sandy Casar of Française Des Jeux and Frederik Willems of Liquigas. Casar lost a fair bit of skin in a pretty tender place but managed to get up and keep going, but poor Willems was delayed enough to be re-absorbed by the peloton.
As we now know, Casar hung on, using every bit of his remaining strength to best a fading Boogerd, Merckx and Lefèvere for another French win. Meanwhile eight minutes back in the peloton, Discovery managed to fall asleep for long enough for Cadel to gain another three seconds on Contador. What’s that about? It could be a Tour-changing three seconds for both of them!
Keep your eyes on the prize Alberto!
As it stands Cadel Evans is a minute and fifty three seconds behind Alberto Contado with the Tour de France due to finish on Sunday. It would seem only the time trial in Cognac will give the opportunity for Cadel to make up the time (though the Tour has a way of making people who make predictions look like fools).
The Maths
The Prologue
Contador was 1 second ahead of Evans in the Prologue. It’s hard to know what this means as serious GC contenders tend to try and stay out of trouble on the Prologue since it doesn’t contribute to the times of the Tour proper (indeed, next years Tour de France 2008 won’t even have a prologue).
Stage 13: Unlucky for some
The Albi time trial is probably the best indication of how Contador and Evans compare as timetrialists. Cadel came second first and was 1:04 ahead of Contador. The course was about the same length but was hillier than many time trials and the wet may have favoured Contador. Watching the riders prepare for the time trial we were all struck by how relaxed Evans was joking with some of the Australians (apparently we wanted to know how V8 results!). Contador wasn’t so approachable and had his earphones on and seemed very focused.
History
The 1989 tour was in a similar tight balance. Greg LeMond went into the final time trial 50 seconds down on Laurent Fignon but went 58 seconds faster in the time trial to gain the yellow jersey. It would be nice to see a real battle on the Champs-Élysées instead of Champaign drinking and the sprinters fighting it out.
So, my prediction? I think the accepted thinking is that Cadel Evans is just a little too far back. But I think Cadel is in really great form and is in the right frame of mind to put in the performance of his career, whereas there is a lot of pressure on Contador and pressure in time trials often results in mistakes and crashes…
At the end of the Stage 15 where Contador and Rassmussen battled it out on the Col de Peyresourde and Contador took 1:11 from Evans, I was lucky enough to be at the finish with BikeStyle Tours. Cadel has the misfortune to be stuck in a car in traffic and was nice enough to have a chat with me. Not being a journalist I didn’t ask the cutting questions, I just wished him luck and asked how he felt the stage went. His reply was interesting he said it was very hard and he was tired but he seemed to be very relaxed and I think he knew he was always going to lose time in the mountains to the super human climbers like Contador and Rassmussen but he knew perhaps his time would come in the time trial in Cognac. Time will tell. I wish I was there with the BikeStyle tour to cheer him on again.
Stage 16 - Wednesday, July 25: Orthez - Gourette - Col d’Aubisque, 218.5km
Well I’m back in England being drowned by rain and having to watch the decisive stage of the tour on the computer (check out cyclingfans.com for links to video and audio feeds- it’s great, though it does make doing any work difficult). I left le Tour de France yesterday on the rest day and headed back to my ‘real’ job trying to forget that two days ago I was at Loudenvielle watching the race finish and drinking Champagne and not expecting to see the BikeStyle guys again but I did, along with another few million people. I’m not sure who it was but at 4.6km to go there was someone in BikeStyle kit cheering the riders on. What a spot to watch the race; Rasmussen and Contador were battling it out with Evans and Leipheimer just behind. AND, it was sunny… sigh, I wish I was there!
Mazamet -> Plateau-de-Beille
It’s very nasty. I think they should take it out. It’s a violation of our human rights. I love it.
Lance Armstrong about the Plateau-de-Beille in 2004
Mazamet > Plateau-de-Beille
July 22 2007 / 14th Stage / Distance : 197 km
Km 9 Côte de Sarraille Montée de 9 km à 5,2%
Km 146 Col de Pailhères Montée de 16,8 km à 7,2%
Km 197 Plateau-de-Beille Montée de 15,9 km à 7,9%
BikeStyle Tour de France Pyrenees VIP Experience
The BikeStyle VIP Tour that I’m lucky enough to be going on takes in the Pyrenees stages and the Albi time trial. This years tour is so finely balanced we are certain to see the decisive moments of this years tour. Apart from watching the tour and exploring the riders enclosure at Albi and enjoying finishes in VIP style there is some hard work to do! As part of the tour we get to ride a whole stage of the tour on the day that the tour rides it.
The stage we get to ride is the first in the Pyrenees and it’s a killer. The stage starts in the first time start town of Mazamet and just to wake the riders up immediately has a category 2 climb over the Montagne Noir. It’s a climb i’ve done and although not too steep it’s quite long and the riders who are still digesting breakfast might get caught out. Then it’s a nice downhill for 17k or so out of the Montagne Noir. Then the only way is up from Carcassonne to the Pyrenees.
To break up the monotony of the flat plain comes a hors category climb: Col de Pailhères (2001m). The Col de Pailhères as been the seen of some epic battles, not least between Ullrich, Basso and Armstrong in 2005. The climb the way we’ll do it is 10.6 km long and has a maximum gradient of 10.2% . This isn’t the last HC climb of the day so it might be where I’m grateful of the two support vehicles, they have promised a push if necessary. Down 30km then the HC climb of the Plateau-de-Beille to the finish.
The finish at Plateau-de-Beille is an amazing finish won by Lance Armstrong the last two time the tour has finished here. The climb is 17.9km at 7.9% and at the end of a long day should be quite a trial. If you want an idea of the finish have a look a video fly through of the finish Warning 16.8MB. The last finish in 2004 it was Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso shoulder to shoulder through the Basque crowds. Lance sprinted in the last 100m and won.
NASA has some great imagery of the finish including a 16 MB video fly through of the finish.
July 22 2007 / 14th Stage / Distance : 197 km
Km 9 Côte de Sarraille Montée de 9 km à 5,2%
Km 146 Col de Pailhères Montée de 16,8 km à 7,2%
Km 197 Plateau-de-Beille Montée de 15,9 km à 7,9%
Well here we go, the magic day is upon us. Day 1: airport pickups.
From 6am to 7pm our clients arrived in Paris today. The first thing to do was to get the bikes out of their travel boxes and get them built up for the next 2 weeks of riding around France. For those arriving early enough, a ride led by Ex-Pro Dave McKenzie was on the menu. After that we loaded most of our bags and all the bikes out the bus that left Paris late afternoon in order to get to the Alps tomorrow in time for us to ride the Alpe D’Huez. We are traveling by TGV, the world’s fastest train.
Once all the dirty work was out of the way it was down to the bar for a cold beer and to watch the Tour of TV. This is going to be a very interesting Tour by the looks of things, and one that will keep us on our toes until the last minute in Paris. Sadly the Tour lost Michael Rogers today after a crash, but there’s still a long way to go to Paris and many more dramas to come I’m sure.
Right, now it’s off for a our welcome dinner where we’ll all meet properly, get in some much needed food after a very long flight for most of our clients. Then it’s off to bed.
Tomorrow we will be in the Alps… our first “real” ride of the trip.
Finally, craft and cycling come together in the Tour de France Knitalong!
Alpes and Pyrenees to Paris Trip starts tomorrow…
Published by July 14th, 2007 in On Tour. 0 CommentsDay 0
Today all the guides met up at the hotel in Paris and we got all the bikes and equipment ready for the trip. One of our clients Russ Poole is already here, so he got his bike set up and very kindly lent us a hand in our preparation work. Once the dirty stuff was out of the way we headed to the roads of Paris for a little ride… we did the 50km loop that we will be doing with the clients who all arrive tomorrow. A nice loop that takes you very quickly out of Paris and through a couple of small towns, it’s easy to forget the big city of Paris is just off to your right.
The ride ends along a nice bike path that runs along the Charles de Gaulles airport fence. As endless planes take-off and land you seem to ride along side them for a little longer than you would think.
After watching the end of the Tour and what was a great stage with Linus Gerdeman taking both the stage and the yellow jersey, it’s time for our little group of guides and “Ketchup” (that’s Russ Poole’s new nickname as he managed to spill ketchup over himself twice today) to go find a place to eat and have a beer.
If you haven’t made it on one of our Bikestyle Tours trips to the Tour de France this year, there are still plenty of interesting ways to track Le Tour - preferably while you’re at work so you’re accumulating money to come on a trip with us in 2008! 
Firstly, you should keep an eye on our blog as we’ll be posting stories live from our trips throughout the Tour - look forward to some pictures and tales from the (Bikestyle) peloton.
As usual I’m enjoying the Cyclingnews live stage coverage, which can be complemented by the Eurosport audio feed and if you’re lucky a live video feed found by the Cyclingfans site - so all media are covered. Google maps visualisations and tracking provides a good view of where the riders are on a particular stage (including heart rate, speed and power output data for a few riders - very cool) , and if you want to find out how hard a particular hill is, you can see the live heart rate data for five different riders on the Polar site.
Of course if you really must work at work, you can view Tour footage at your leisure on the official ASO Le Tour de France YouTube site.
Keep an eye on the blog for more Tour-related internet goodies - I’ll be doing a roundup of the most interesting TdF cycling blogs soon. If you know of any cool stuff yourself, feel free to post a comment below.
Hi, I’m Lucy, and I’m the Bikestyle Tours website coordinator. Having read Sim’s picks, I thought I’d contribute my own - though I’m not as bold as Sim - I don’t think I’m willing to commit to a Top 10, but I will reveal my Fantasy Team picks. At the moment I’m doing very well - but I’m not sure how I’ll go once I hit the real mountains! Here it is:
Overall: Cadel Evans, Frank Schleck
Climbers: Patrick Sinkewitz, Manuel Beltran
Sprinter: Thor Hushovd
Domestiques: Fabian Cancellara, David Zabriskie, and the wonderful Jens Voigt!
Wildcard: Tom Boonen
