Category: tour de france (Page 20 of 23)

As predicted Team Radio Shack got a rider in the breakaway, Sergio Paulinho, and managed to pull out their first stage win. Paulinho narrowly edged out Vasili Kiryienka, Caisse d’Epargne, at the line. Both riders were part of a 6-man breakaway that included 2 French riders who both hoped to bring home a stage win on Bastille Day.  Fortunately for Team Radio Shack, they were unsuccessful – besides the French almost never win on Bastille Day! 

Team Radio Shack very much needed the win – in what has been a very disappointing Tour thus far. Part of that is obviously Lance Armstrong losing any chance for a place on the podium in Paris. Much of it has to do with the overall performance of the Team. Coming in to the Tour Team Radio Shack was thought to be “scary strong". That along with Johan Bruyneel, arguably the best tactician in professional bike racing today, made them look hard to beat. 

Goals have changed for Radio Shack as a result of Armstrong slipping out of contention. Goals now are for stage wins, the team classification and if they get lucky, 3rd place for Levi Leipheimer who currently sits in 6th overall.

Otherwise, it was a normal day in the peloton at the Tour de France. There was a crash – this one involving 4 riders. All were able to remount and return to the race. The team of the yellow jersey, Saxo Bank, controlled the race sitting on the front protecting Andy Schleck. Alberto Contador, 2nd place to Schleck, stayed in the front as well with his teammates. Armstrong rode in the front, as did Leipheimer. Although there was a category 1 climb, there was no splitting in the peloton because Saxo Bank maintained a very moderate tempo. There were a lot of tired legs and bodies today and the peloton raced accordingly.

Stage 11
Tomorrow’s stage is a day for the sprinters and a race for points in the Green jersey chase. Look for the breakaway to be caught before the finish. It has been several days since a true sprint finish and the sprinters will not be denied.

Stage 9 confirmed what Stage 8 alluded to – the Tour de France champion this year will be either defending champion, Alberto Contador or Saxo Bank’s, Andy Schleck. If those two stay healthy with no mishaps, it will come down to mano-a-mano in the Pyrenees.

Third place on the podium is still up for grabs. I see Sammy Sanchez, Denis Menchov, and Levi Leipheimer all having a chance. Sanchez and Menchov are about even, with Leipheimer a minute back.

There were many questions about the strength of the Astana team prior to the Tour. Daniel Novarro and Paolo Tiralongo keep answering those questions soldiering Contador up the climbs – particularly Novarro. The pace he sets is just brutal knocking everyone off the back except a few elites. He did it today and did the same thing two days ago – setting a murderous tempo for what must seem like forever to the guys try to keep up behind him.

There were so many impressive moments in today’s stage. Schleck repeatedly attacking Contador, trying to shake him loose, but to no avail – then dropping everyone else from the group – was an impressive display of strength. It was an impressive display of race tactics when they decided to work together to cut their time loss to the 4-man breakaway – and then catching them 1km from the finish.

Impressive was Saxo Bank’s Jens Voight’s performance today. Voight is the epitome of the type of rider you need as a teammate if you are a serious contender. No one works harder for his team leader then Jens Voight.  He turned himself inside out for Schleck today; it was just an unbelievably gutsy performance. Voight got in the breakaway for the sole purpose of being down the road near the summit of the Col de Madeleine so that when Schleck got to that point he could work for him. Voight had to be near exhaustion, but when Schleck approached with Contador, somehow Jens found something, got in front and paced Schleck up the climb. After pacing Schleck for several kilometers Voight was so spent he almost did a track stand (complete stop while on bike) because he simply had nothing left.

Cadel Evans is a great bike racer, currently holding the world road champion jersey. Evans had a very bad Tour last year, but was optimistic about his chances for this year. In the past, Evans did not have a team that could adequately support him and yet he finished in 2nd place twice. There were questions about how well BMC would perform today in protecting the yellow jersey, but they did a solid job early in the stage setting the tempo on the climb and protecting Evans. Unfortunately, Evans had a bad day (turns out he fractured his left elbow in Sunday’s crash) and was dropped off the back. He lost 8 minutes today and with it his chance for the Tour de France win. He was obviously devastated, starting the day with the yellow jersey, and losing 8 minutes to the new leader – Andy Schleck. When Evans crossed the finish line teammate Mauro Santambrogio tried to comfort him.

Stage 10
Tomorrow is Bastille Day, look for a breakaway with riders from the French teams – Cofidis, Francaise des Jeux and Bbox-Bouygues – perhaps "little Tommy Voeckler" (Phil and Paul’s nickname for him) from Bbox or Sylvan Chavanel will have a go at another stage win.

Look for Team Radio Shack to try and get 1-2 guys in the break.  They need to salvage something, a stage win would be huge.

*Pictures are from Getty Images

I hope you were able to get some rest on rest day. I know I certainly needed a rest from writing, but then here I am anyway.

Just a little heads up about the stage tomorrow – in one word – difficult. In a few more words – difficult, but not the type of stage that should dislodge any of the true contenders. With that said, some that look like contenders may lose significant time. Plus, as Stage 8 taught us, anything can happen to anyone – including the true contenders.

On Stage 9, there are four climbs: Col de la Colombiere (Cat. 1), Col des Aravis (Cat. 2), Col des Saisies (Cat. 1), and Col de la Madeleine (HC). HC is Hors Cat̩gorie, which is French for Р"so difficult it is beyond category".

Unlike Stages 8 and 7, Stage 9 will not feature an uphill finish. The finish is actually 40km from the summit of the Madeleine – a harrowing technical descent that flattens out about 10km from the end. If the area is not too heavily treed, we should get good video coverage of the riders flying down the descent. You will not believe how fast they go!

In tomorrow’s stage we will likely see a breakaway of riders in search of points or a win, and multiple splits in the main field along the climbs. The biggest selection of riders will occur on the last climb of the day – the monstrous Madeleine.

Something to keep in mind is once the riders reach the summit then start their descent towards the finish, those that were dropped due the climb may be able to rejoin. Meaning that time lost on the climb may be regained on the descent – depending on the ability of the rider to negotiate this very tricky descent.

Although these climbs are very challenging, they are not the toughest that riders will face in this year’s Tour. That distinction belongs to the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, which the riders will climb twice this year.

There very well will be riders finish outside the time limit for Stage 9 and thus get eliminated.

One other thing, although it is counterintuitive, Tour riders often have a difficult time racing the day after a rest day. A day of (active) rest can actually leave them feeling sluggish and slow.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

A famous line that aptly describes Stage 8 for two of this year’s favorites to win the Tour – Lance Armstrong and Andy Schleck.

Best of times for Andy Schleck, who won his first stage ever at the Tour de France by taking off from Contador so strongly that Contador couldn’t match the effort. Schleck is young and his Tour career is ahead of him.

The worst of times for 7 time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. He retired in 2005 after winning a record setting 7th Tour in a row. Late in 2008 Armstrong announced he was coming back to racing – and that he did – finishing with an impressive 3rd place in the 2009 Tour de France. He hadn’t had the time to train as fully as necessary to contend for the win, but with a year to do so hopes were high for this year’s Tour.

Today all hope for another Tour victory or podium placement were buried when he finished the worst stage of his Tour de France career – 11:00+ behind the GC favorites and slipping to 39th place overall.

Lance Armstrong looked solid yesterday. Today’s stage however, started out badly when there was an unexplained crash at the 6km mark. He avoided serious trouble by moving to the grass to bypass the fallen riders. Unfortunately, Armstrong crashed a little later just before the start of the Col de la Ramaz climb when he apparently clipped his pedal in the roundabout while going around 40mph. He said the next thing he knew his tire had come off and he was rolling on the ground. It was a hard fall, but he got up, shaken, but otherwise okay.  After getting a new bike from the team car, he remounted and his teammates proceeded to try to pull him back up to the main group.

Armstrong made it back to the main group, but just as the pace was quickening to begin the climb to the summit of Ramaz. Team Sky went to the front to do the pacemaking and continued to turn up the pace. 

As the pace went up, so did the gradient of the climb building to 9-10%.  Saxo Bank took over the pacemaking maintaining the fast tempo.  Armstrong, who was already suffering due to the effort to get back to the group, dropped off the back as did others, among them, Chavanel in yellow.

As the select group with all of the favorites (minus Armstrong) neared the summit, Chris Horner with Team Radio Shack attempted to pull Armstrong back to the group.  The gap between Armstrong and the favorites however continued to build to around one minute.

It was hoped that Armstrong would be able to close the gap on the descent and rejoin the select group, but he was unable to close in – still off the group by about a minute.  Fortunately for Team Radio Shack, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Kloden were in the elite group with all of the GC favorites.

Unfortunately, for Armstrong things went south again.  At the summit of Les Gets, still at around one minute back, an Euskaltel-Euskadi rider in front of him missed getting his feed bag and crashed.  Although Armstrong didn’t go down, his bike did.  With hands on hips in seeming disbelief, he stood for a minute then untangled his bike and remounted.  At that point he must have known it was over. 
 
At the base of the climb to Avoriaz, Contador moved his team up to the front (unbelievably he had 3 teammates left) and turned up the pace. This put other riders in difficulty, but Schleck, Evans and the new leader of Radio Shack, Leipheimer, hung on.  One by one the group picked up the remains of what had been a 7 rider breakaway.
 
About this time it looked as if the favorites would all ride in together.  Contador must have been thinking something similar because he turned to look over his left shoulder to see who was left.  Schleck was watching and right when Contador looked back to his left, Schleck attacked to the right.  Only Sammy Sanchez could follow – Contador either couldn’t or chose not to respond – nor did Evans, Ivan Basso, or Denis Menchov.
 
Andy Schleck took his first stage ever at a Tour de France by beating Sanchez at the line.  It was a great piece of racing when he took the opportunity to gain time on Contador and Evans.  Even more fortunate was the fact that the yellow jersey went to Cadel Evans and not him.  Reason being – the team with the yellow has to do the work at the front of the peloton.  Evan’s BMC squad will have that responsibility when the race continues on Tuesday with another stage in the Alps. 
 
Tomorrow is a rest day.  Don’t be fooled by the term, they don’t race, but they do ride on rest days.  The body doesn’t take kindly to hard racing, rest and then hard racing again.  Think of it as an active rest day.

*Pictures are from Getty Images

Stage 7 had plenty of fireworks.  The focus was on what the GC favorites would do, but what made this stage of the Tour de France so exciting were the efforts of the riders that aren’t picked to win or finish high. Those riders know that to get any glory from the Tour they have to get a stage win.

As usual, a breakaway took off at about 2km. The breakaway of 5 riders, included Jerome Pineau who was on the hunt for points in the mountain jersey (polka dot) competition. Pineau even went so far as to announce last night exactly what his plan was. The other 4 riders in the breakaway also were not GC contenders, so they were allowed to go.

Team Bbox planned to get one of their favorites, Tommy Voeckler, into the breakaway – but they failed. The breakaway had about an 8-minute gap when Bbox started seriously chasing.

Going to the front of the peloton was an unusual move for Bbox as they don’t normally attack.  Reportedly, the Directeur Sportief (the coach/general manager) of Bbox was less than happy that they missed the breakaway and ordered them to chase the break down so they could attempt to send two of their riders into another breakaway. To accomplish this they had to set a brutal tempo (pace) that along with the heat ultimately fractured the peloton.

Although none of the GC favorites were dropped, the yellow jersey (Fabian Cancellara) was dropped along with 2nd placed Geraint Thomas. Although the most difficult climb was a category 2, there were 3 of them in a row and that proved to be harder than expected. Much of the reason was the high tempo set by Bbox and the high temperatures.

A chase group went off the peloton at the 4th climb, the Col de Serra. In that group were Bbox captain Tommy Voeckler, Matt Loyd and Sylvan Chavanel. Again, no serious threat to the overall GC – so off they went. Several kilometers down the road Chavanel took off from the 2nd breakaway and joined teammate Pineau. Chavanel knew Cancellara was off the back (the DS would have told him via radio) so he also knew the yellow jersey was up for grabs. Pineau exhausted by this point from being in the break and doing much of the pace making, couldn’t follow. By now, he had collected the maximum of points for all climbs except the last. Not a problem – the polka dot jersey was securely in his possession.

Meanwhile back in the peloton, a group of only about 40 riders – the GC favorites – Armstrong, Evans, Contador, Schleck, teammates, plus a few others – continued to ride hard. All 3 teams, Radio Shack, Astana and Saxo Bank shared in the pacemaking. The remainder of the original peloton was off the back of this group – anywhere from a few minutes to more than 10 minutes.

Chavanel ended up winning the stage and taking back the yellow jersey. The consensus was that Cancellara might lose the yellow jersey today – if not today, for sure tomorrow. What was not expected was that Chavanel who had previously won Stage 2 and the yellow jersey, (but gave up the yellow to Cancellara in Stage 3) would reclaim it. Revenge was sweet I’m sure.

One rider, a teammate of Robbie McEwen, was eliminated today after he finished outside the time limit – 25 minutes behind the stage winner. Elimination time is calculated for each mountain stage. The time limit is based on the category of climb(s) and average speed of the stage. Riders must finish within a certain percentage of time from the stage winner to stay in the race. Sprinters estimate what time they will need to finish by and ride just fast enough to make it in within that time.

Today was a very tough stage for the riders. Compared to the Alps and the Pyrenees, which are still to come, it was a relatively simple mountain stage. Not exactly easy, but not the type of stage you would expect to splinter the peloton. What did it wasn’t the difficulty of the mountains, but rather the grueling pace that Bbox set – and the heat. There are a lot of tired legs tonight and the only thing they can look forward to are the Alps tomorrow.

Stage 8
Stage 8 has five categorized climbs; the most difficult – 2 category 1 climbs – are in the final 55km. Don’t expect anything to be settled among Contador, Armstrong, Evans, Wiggins, Schleck and other top 10 GC riders. Although the climbs aren’t easy it is unlikely any of the favorites will attack. The favorites will only attack if they think they can gain time on the other GC contenders. If one of them attacks, the others will be on them like glue.

That could change if on the climbs one or more of the elite appear to be in trouble. Otherwise, I would expect they would finish as a group with no change in the time that separates them in the GC. If any one of them falters the others will attack – but otherwise no reason to do it. If you attack and gain nothing you have wasted precious energy that will be needed later on in the Tour.

Unless one of the top contenders sees an opening, a solid climber who is not one of the favorites for the overall- but high enough in the GC to try to gain time on favorites – will most likely win tomorrow. One possibility is Jurgen Van Den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto), currently holding 7th place in the GC and only 2 seconds behind Contador. There are any number of riders that could try for the win tomorrow.

It’s safe to say there will be a breakaway or two, a chase, and a small main group. The main group will be made up of the favorites, 1 or 2 teammates each (hopefully for them), plus a few other riders who are able to keep the pace. The remainder of the peloton will be scattered along the climbs, some struggling to finish within the required time to avoid elimination.

The mountain stages are where the Tour de France is fought and won. In these battles over the next couple of weeks only a few select warriors will still be standing to fight on for the ultimate prize – a Tour de France victory. We haven’t seen anything yet – the big fireworks are ahead!