Official thread: Tour de Suisse

[clydesdale]

How much time can Kirchen make up? It'd be silly to pick him as a winner but he can throw down a mean time trial, no?

 

[laurentiu46]

George Hincapie made it 6 Columbia riders in the top 20!
It's about time all these riders stopped taking PED's.
It's slowing them down so much they can't compete with these clean teams.


43 Andy Schleck (Lux) Team Saxo Bank @ 3'-56"
Miles off the pace, today, having done a lot of the early donkey work for Spartacus.
Is he going to be doing the Tour spade work, so bro Frank can try to finish 5th or 6th, or is he playing dead, again?

Well,he played dead before the ardennes and looks like it worked out for him.
Maybe he wants to stick to this plan.

There were rumours about irregular blood values for Thomas Dekker last year,as far as i remember. His situation was like Francesco De Bonis',who won the queen stage of Romandie and after that Gerolsteiner sidelined him apparently without reason. Now we've seen why.

 

[laurentiu46]

How much time can Kirchen make up? It'd be silly to pick him as a winner but he can throw down a mean time trial, no?

He could make up some time on everyone but Cancellara.
It would be a real fiasco for the swiss organisers if FC misses the overall after having a perfect last stage for him,not mentioning the previous easy climbs.
Maybe he'll be tired after all those "big mountains" that he had to overcome until Bern.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Maybe he'll be tired after all those "big mountains" that he had to overcome until Bern.

Sort of Bernt out, then?

 

[laurentiu46]

Good point.
That would be a real shock,but still,i think the diesel will go full gas today.

 

[Eldrack]

Total joke. FC will win todays TT and the overall. Not only have the mountain stages been easy but FC has been climbing suspiciously well. Would have expected him to have been dropped for at least 30 seconds on Crans Montana yesterday. It's like Jens Voight winning the Tour of Germany i.e. totally impossible if he's not totally jacked up on gear. My prediction, FC either gets hit by the blood passport or tests positive at the TdF.

 

[knorensnor]

It's like Jens Voight winning the Tour of Germany i.e. totally impossible if he's not totally jacked up on gear. My prediction, FC either gets hit by the blood passport or tests positive at the TdF.

if you don't have anything thoughtful to say, please stay low

 

[Bala Verde]

And we are underway!

I have live images of Maximaal Montfort. Let's see how he does.

Too bad all these Columbia guys are separted in the GC by one or two... They could have done a TTT instead

 

[39*23t]

talk about home advantage (crowds) fabs is charging

 

[39*23t]

good ride from t. dakkor. cadel should be happy to have someone limit his losses to ac next month

 

[jaylew]

Wow, Cancellara passed Kreuz like he was standing still

 

[Bala Verde]

good ride from t. dakkor. cadel should be happy to have someone limit his losses to ac next month

Have you been playing that mgmt game too often?

 

[issoisso]

good ride from t. dakkor. cadel

you mean Kadel Ovans

EDIT: Bala Verde beat me to it

 

[39*23t]

well fabs charging home in the national jersey to take stage and the national tour guess the tds organisers got their wish

 

[39*23t]

doh!!!!!!!!

 

[Mellow Velo]

How can you have race, where the leader can lose almost 4 minutes, against the clock, but a climber hasn't the opportunity to take 30 seconds, anywhere?

I never knew there were so many flat roads in Switzerland.....
.....until this week.

 

[jaylew]

How can you have race, where the leader can lose almost 4 minutes, against the clock, but a climber hasn't the opportunity to take 30 seconds, anywhere?

I never knew there were so many flat roads in Switzerland.....
.....until this week.

So, obviously this one was organized for Cancellara for reasons already mentioned in this thread. The big question is are they going to continue to cater the event for Cancellara for the next few years? If so, they'll ruin what is usually one of the best stage races around.

 

[Pennypacker]

So, obviously this one was organized for Cancellara for reasons already mentioned in this thread. The big question is are they going to continue to cater the event for Cancellara for the next few years? If so, they'll ruin what is usually one of the best stage races around.

For the TdS, historically one of the great climbing tours, to place FC on the top step of their podium is a joke. What a bore hole!
Then listening to the FC interview after the stage, where he is contemplating his chances at the "Tour". Did this easy parcours make him insane?

 

[Buffalo Soldier]

This TdS was a joke indeed

 

[laurentiu46]

As everybody expected,FC won today,but i never thought that he will beat the second by almost 1:30.
Kloden's TT was pretty poor,Kreuziger was passed by Cancellara...it was the icing on the cake.

Fab's chances at the Tour? If he wins the first stage,he could keep the jersey until Arcalis.
Or maybe he wants to look even forward and eye a stage win at Verbier,another swiss climb which is not one of the hardest,but steeper anyway than what we've seen this week.
Just in case he will be alive after the Alps,the Ventoux will kill him.

But realistically speaking,his targets are the two ITT's and a few days in yellow in the first week,because the Tour is not TdS. He will sink in the first mountain stage in Andorra.

 

[laurentiu46]

Total joke. FC will win todays TT and the overall. Not only have the mountain stages been easy but FC has been climbing suspiciously well. Would have expected him to have been dropped for at least 30 seconds on Crans Montana yesterday. It's like Jens Voight winning the Tour of Germany i.e. totally impossible if he's not totally jacked up on gear. My prediction, FC either gets hit by the blood passport or tests positive at the TdF.

Even if Cancellara's win is a joke,at least he won a stage race who did not have a real mountaintop finish,but some 3 easy final climbs,and a glove-like 40k final TT.

Voigt's Deutschland wins,at least the one from 2007,were much more surprising.That year,he finished second on the hardest stage,with a final climb atop the Rettenbachferner glacier near Soelden,almost 2700m high,putting a minute into Leipheimer. And that is a monster of a climb,13 km with an average of 10,4.%
And he also won the final TT,again beating LL by half a minute. Another shock,considering that Leipheimer easily won the Tour 07's final TT a month earlier.
I didn't know Jens was such a mountain goat,except that Criterium International hilly morning stage where he wins almost every year.

 

[jonjungel]

I didn't know Jens was such a mountain goat,except that Criterium International hilly morning stage where he wins almost every year.

Well, he has his moments. Take a look at stage 10 in last year's TdF. Going up Tourmalet, Jens drops just about everyone and ruins Valverde's podium chances.

It will not surprise me if he has the same form this year.

Back on topic... Looking through the results, some surprise me:
- I expected Karpets to do better.
- Same goes for Klöden
- Excellent result by Dekker. He looks to en route for a good tour.
- Cunego went very well
- O'Grady rode a little bit slower than I had expected. Larsson rode a lot slower
- Vandevelde is out of form
- Kirchen WTF??? Mechanical?

 

[laurentiu46]

Vlad Karpets might peak at the right moment and crack the top 10 at the Tour.
It is about time to do that,after placing 7th at both Giro and Vuelta throughout his career.
Anyway,a 5th overall in Suisse seems a good result. Keep an eye on him next month.
Too bad Colom and Pfannberger,two of his mountain men(and probably the only),are sidelined by EPO. He'll be on his own.
I wouldn't count out completely CVV even if he is not showing signs of form. In 2008,except that pink he wore in the Giro,nobody heard nothing of him in June,and he made the ride of his life at the TdF,coming out of nowhere.

 

[Parrot23]

Yawn, when can I go back to sleep?

Talk about "stage"-managed racing. This whole thing is a "pedestrian" bore, organized by the "organizers" and team cars with other objective in mind. Reminds me of F1. Well.....at least they've been trying to makes some changes.

At least Zomegnan wanted to create a "spectacle" at the Giro. Maybe we need a jersey for best urban cyclo-cross on a TT bike, or best yodeler (aerobic and anaerobic), etc. Anyone else have any ideas...?

For starters, high time we throw all race radios down the toilet.

 

[39*23t]

interesting though was andy schleck 2:37 down on fabs so basically a minute on everyone else. must be his best tt yet.