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Tour de France 2007!

Any chance of a Wiggins prologue win followed by a Cavendish sprint win = 2 mailot jeunes with the sprint bonus's for cav overcoming his prologue deficit?
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Cycle Sport reckons Millar's a better bet for the Prologue than Wiggins, mainly I think due to road experience. Brad would probably destroy him on the track, but the road's a different kettle of fish.

I know he's not a popular guy, but could we sort of celebrate a home win if McEwan got Stage 1?
 
Alessandro Petacchi banned for 1 year by Italian Olympic committee for overuse of asthma product salbutamol.

1 less sprinter for Cav to worry about:)
 
Oh big news....he was a threat for sure. Who runs Astana - they're a pretty new team, but I assuem behind the scenes it's the same people who dodged the bullet during the Festina years!
 
Astana is the remains of the old Liberty-Seguros team - the team that had Puerto blow up in their face with their manager (Manolo Saiz) caught red handed giving some dude 60,000 euros for a bagfull of 'medical assistance'. Astana are now owned by a Khazak businessman and friend of Vino though Saiz is off the payroll.

Kloeden and Kessler both joined Astana when T-Mobile announced their stringent anti drug regime and testing program and Salvodelli jumped from Discovery channel at the same time. They're certainly rich as they can afford to employ 4 riders who would be team leaders in any other team.

Its just my opinion of course but I think Astana are as bent as hell. Vino employs Michele Ferrari as trainer (as Lance Armstrong once did), Ferrari has a certain reputation shall we say. Also L'Equipe did a computer analysis of the penultimate stage in last years Vuelta and concluded that Vino, Kesheshkin and Valverdes climbing speed (who all climbed together and were fighting out the lead) was physiologically impossible - it was very complex but it boils down to them making over 380 watts of power for almost 45 minutes.

I won't be cheering them on, put it that way.
 
Ah right...I wondered what had happened to L-S because there were whispers the backers weren't happy with the team's 'approach' a long time before OP. The L'Equipe thing is interesting...must be quite a complex formula (and one that probably wouldn't work if a French rider was involved ;) :D )

I love L'Equipe during Le Tour...their righteous indigantion at the state of French cycling is just :D
 
g force said:
I love L'Equipe during Le Tour...their righteous indigantion at the state of French cycling is just :D
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A lot of it is justified though - everybody wonders why French riders aren't any good and the answer is usually 'because they're clean'.
 
Could be...I think they also lost heart over the whole Virenque thing. I love to see a French rider claim the title - is there anyone coming through the ranks?

Oh and I think Valverde is probably not clean, although he does seem to suffer burn out and injuries more than other riders.
 
Sylvain Cazati was big news last year (AG2R), proved to be a great climber - at least in the giro. Cyril Dessel was 7th in the tour but he and Moreau are the wrong side of 30, couldn't tell you who was coming through.
 
How's George Hincaie doing

Last year, noticing that in two thousand and five he'd won a mountain stage and had most imortantly finished every Tour he'd done, I ut twenty quid on him in yellow. He did fuck all.

Aologies for odd tying - wife silt tea on the keyboard and only the lefthand half works
 
Hapless Hincapie? Some joker journo was bigging him up as a potential tour winner last year - never in a million years. Seems like a nice enough bloke but seems unfortunately to be the universal laughing stock amongst cyclists all over europe - usually because all the yanks big him up as a classics winner and every year he either crashes or gets rinsed by the winner.:D
 
Oh.

He does indeed seem like a nice bloke - almost like the fourth Beastie Boy, sort of good looking New Yorker with attitude. He did win a stage in O5 though, didn't he.
 
Yeah he did to be fair. And he was in yellow for a couple of days last year.

I'll eat my entire collection of cycling caps if he ever wins Paris-Roubaix though.
 
stavros said:
I know he's not a popular guy, but could we sort of celebrate a home win if McEwan got Stage 1?
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No we absolutely cannot celebrate under any circumstances :mad: Super Cav is the man, Millar I like a lot, especially the way he handled himself during and after the ban.
 
stavros said:
Holy fuck, I just checked and the French haven't won since Hinault in 1985. :eek:
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What a rider though. Unbeatable in TTs, great climber and even sprinted out a few stages in the tour. Hinault is probably my 2nd fav rider ever after Obree, 'the badger' had a kind of swaggering arrogance but fortunately had the ability to back it up. I loved the way he rode in yellow at the front of the Peloton refusing to take shelter behind his team mates as a kind of dare to the other to attack.

Favourite Hinault story is when he rode Paris-Roubaix, crashed 7 times and came in 13th. He refused to ride it again describing it as 'a fucking lottery'...until the next year the organiser and his team put him under immense pressure to ride. 'Ok, if I win the fucking thing will you leave me alone after that?'. Hinault crashed 3 times, punctured twice but still won by over a minute.

Bernard Hinault - man god

cyclicme_tdf1981_hinault_47.jpg
 
Hinault was a god. And wore my 2 favourite cycle jersey ever

hinault.jpg


renault.JPG


Yeah a cycle squad sponsored by the national oil company, car maker and...fags :D :cool:
 
1930: THE GRAVY TRAIN

The Tour de France publicity caravan was devised in 1930 as a means of raising money for the event without having to rely on the major bike manufacturers, whose influence was killing the Tour. Back then it consisted of a few advertising vehicles chugging along in the riders' wake. Today, there are more than 200, and the caravan is an event in itself. It sets off two hours before the riders and stretches 15 miles (25km) along the route, showering spectators with giveaways.
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i met the union rep for this, and he gave me a lighter with a torch in in it , not from the bike ride but from the conference
but i really like it

<edit> last year not 1930>
 
What a fucking amazing day.

About 12 of us rode down to Hadlow just north of Tonbridge to see the race. The atmosphere by the roadside was extremely un-British with loads of picnic tables and BBQs set up and everyone chatting and shooting the shit. A very kind lady saw out Brixton jerseys and gave us burgers from her BBQ 'as you've come such a long way'. Incredible. Even the cops were cool.

The publicity caravan was beyond trippy - the sight of big yellow wheelie bins screaming towards you at 60mph followed by orange VW beetles with massive papier mache foxes heads on the front won't be forgotten. Soon we heard the sounds of helicopters and David Millar and his breakaway group came through flanked by about 40 motorbikes (I'm not exaggerating). 'Go Dave!'.

Now the anticipation really started to build. We spied 3 more helicopters on the horizon, more and more Gendarmes and Met bike cops came screaming past and then...about a quarter of the Peloton stopped about 100 yards ahead and had a piss! The entire field slowed to walking pace to wait for them. Vinokorov and his Astana boys kept huddled together, Fabian Cancellara in yellow was sharing a joke with Hincapie. My mate shouted out 'Boonen you crazy fool!' in the style of Mr T and got a big toothy grin from big Tom. And there, right at the back of the field was McEwan...with the bibstraps of his shorts flapping down...he'd clearly just stopped for a shit :D

I rode home. I've just read on t'interweb that McEwan crashed in the last 25km and won the stage...absolutelyfuckingunbelievable, you've gotta hand it to him. to fight back into contention when in pain in a pack raging along at 45mph is shocking. Cav had bike problems Robbie, I really think our man might give you some problems in the next few days.

Absolute hats off to Ken, the TdF people, the cops and most of all the people of Kent who did us proud and turned out with enthusiasm to welcome the race, its been an incredible weekend to cherish.:cool:
 
Bloody hell!! You were in Hadlow? Some mates of mine lived there and only recently moved to East Peckham, just down t'road. They had some Scottish cousins staying this weekend and were camped out on Hadlow village square. I was updating them on DM's progress which was looking pretty good up to then. They were having a great time,

The start looked wonderful, the whole stage did tbh...thousands out cheering them on. Heard a few surprised "DAVE'S" shouted early on when he was out on his own, it was like "Dave???? DAVE DAVID MILLAR!! COME ON" type of thing.:cool: That was a canny ride by him and his team, although I'm not sure why he got the polka jersey and not the french lad as they had the same number of points :confused: Not complaining though!

McEwan's win was superb whatever anyone thinks of him. He was down and out but unlike Cav his team came back for him, eventually got him back in the bunch and he flew out of nowhere to take the win!

Don't know what initially happened to Cav...did he crash?...but he had a wheel change then a full bike change in the closing kms so he was out of it :(

What a brilliant weekend :cool:
 
Sigmund Fraud said:
Absolute hats off to Ken, the TdF people, the cops and most of all the people of Kent who did us proud and turned out with enthusiasm to welcome the race, its been an incredible weekend to cherish.:cool:
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Echoed. We watched today at plumstead bus station - on the premis that you can see the riders go through rolling countryside any day of the week, but on the flyover in plumstead - that really is something special!.:D

And we were right - Robbie Mcewan had a puncture and his back wheel swapped right in front of us (er...although we only worked out who it was when we watched the highlights tonight...
 
ScallyWag II said:
Bloody hell!! You were in Hadlow? Some mates of mine lived there and only recently moved to East Peckham, just down t'road.
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Yeah. We were initially heading for Goudhurst but we had a 16 yo lad riding with us and Goudhurst would have been 105 miles there and back, so we settled for the approach to Hadlow (as it was I made it 82 miles round trip so the lad did really well to ride that far).

Cav had problems with his gears and got a puncture in the last 20km. Unless like McEwan you have 4 blokes working flat out on the rivet for you theres no way to get back on terms. Cav will get his chance, I'm sure of that.
 
Sigmund Fraud said:
I rode home. I've just read on t'interweb that McEwan crashed in the last 25km and won the stage...absolutelyfuckingunbelievable, you've gotta hand it to him. to fight back into contention when in pain in a pack raging along at 45mph is shocking. Cav had bike problems Robbie, I really think our man might give you some problems in the next few days.

Absolute hats off to Ken, the TdF people, the cops and most of all the people of Kent who did us proud and turned out with enthusiasm to welcome the race, its been an incredible weekend to cherish.:cool:
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Agreed.


I was just near you in Tonbridge itself. After the Tour passed we watched it on Eurosport in the pub, saw the crash (someone hit a kerb I think) and the amazing last stretch whene McEwan came from nowhere to win it.

Loved the Caravane too, my favourite was this lion:

CLparade-749049.jpg
which just made everyone laugh. Have no idea what he's sponsoring though.
 
From the highlights, Cav's initial problem - not caught by the cameras - seemed to spark him looking back at the crowd and shouting "TWAT!"

Then interviewed he said he hit a spectator - clearly, in the initial stages before he got more diplomatic, he was under the impression the spectator got in the way
 
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