TDF Stage 14: Saint-Gaudens - Plateau de Beille 168km

[More Strides than Rides]

....just 10 months to the giro !

Haha

Pistolero: 08 ITT was against SASTRE -07 was against CONTADOR....
now- what if Evans blows big time in Alpe d'huez? was it worth holding up to watch the rest? that's not being smart all IMO

Do you expect any top level racer to anticipate a blow up? What kind of logic is that?

 

[etymology]

Gotta love the wreckless attack of Andy to gain a massive 2s over his biggest opponents! Wow.

indeed. did you notice how everyone behind the barriers was blown backwards by the wake of air as he sped around the final corner and through the finishing strait? wooooooooo....he REALLY showed his rivals who's the boss!

and...was that a can of wd-40 i noticed in his bottlecage?

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

....just 10 months to the giro !

OMG. Still that much?.... Hopefully without any guy named Schleck.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Has BavarianRider been around to tell us how huge and decisive those Plateau de Beille time gaps were?

As it stands: Luz Ardiden>Muy de Bretagne>Plateau de Beille.

Wacky racers.

Not to hammer on Cadel, but I didn't think he looked that great today; at one point, struggle to get onto Tommy V's wheel.
Looked a bit grey at the finish to me.

Bavarianrider promised us the gaps here would be bigger than Zoncolán. I can't remember if there was also a bet on it.

 

[MKirilenko]

indeed. did you notice how everyone behind the barriers was blown backwards by the wake of air as he sped around the final corner and through the finishing strait? wooooooooo....he REALLY showed his rivals who's the boss!

and...was that a can of wd-40 i noticed in his bottlecage?

A class ahead of everybody. I did feel the air blowing even in front of EurosportTV. He silenced everyone with this.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Seems my eyes have been deceiving me again. I could have sworn I saw Andy attack 3 times on the last climb. It's a good job you lot are around to point out to me that this didn't happen.

If those were real attacks, representing his best effort, then Andy 100% will not win the tour.

Of course, they were not.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Bavarianrider promised us the gaps here would be bigger than Zoncolán. I can't remember if there was also a bet on it.

Yepp. There was. I really didn't excpect such a chicken ride by the favs. So guuys you can decide on a new avatar for me once again

 

[El Pistolero]

Bavarianrider promised us the gaps here would be bigger than Zoncolán. I can't remember if there was also a bet on it.

Contador of 2007 would have made bigger gaps though

I'm still convinced that a climb like this can create bigger gaps than a more difficult climb like the Zoncolan if the race is really on.

 

[The Hitch]

he is by riding smart....not running himself to the ground just to please a handfull of people

Why does everyone on this forum think that their personal satifaction is more important than winning the tour de france FFS!

Evans can do what he wants, I just wont respect him for it.

And yes I know "no one cares what some posters on the forum have to say" bla bla bla but i hold my opinion of him whether other people care or not.

I was one of the Evans fans on this forum, but I think his entire advantage is undeserved, unearnt, he got it from the ttt on half his rivals and from a ttt+ crashes on a few more, and is desperately trying to hold on to this gifted advantage so i feel he hasnt earnt one second of his advantage and whether anyone else cares or not, my 2 cents are that i hope he loses.

Of course if he grows some balls during the next week, or gets his fair share of bad luck then fights on to try to win the Tour, my 2 cents might change and i could be back to cheering for him.

Until then, Mellows analysis that Cadel was looking a bit tired hanging on to Voeckler, is cheering me up.

 

[Liquigas]

Great attack from Candy Schleck on those last few meters, it was like seeing Pantani again...

What a loser really, he will never win a Tour because he doesn't have the balls to.

 

[El Pistolero]

Yepp. There was. I really didn't excpect such a chicken ride by the favs. So guuys you can decide on a new avatar for me once again

A Jurgen van den Broeck avatar would be great. I remember reading you hate him

 

[Pharazon]

i honestly wish the GC contenders would grow some testicles.. maybe the years of drug use have shrunk them?

 

[The Hitch]

A Jurgen van den Broeck avatar would be great. I remember reading you hate him

Vanendert, Peraud, Rolland or Voeckler.

Lets give riders that showed true grit, the chance to appear on Bavarians avatar.

 

[krismtb]

He could have got another minute had tv car not taken out 40% of his breakway.

It seemed to me the Peloton, on that day, let him have the gap he currently enjoys. Obviously that appears to have been a miss-calculation. My guess is, if his gap was indeed bigger, they would be trying much harder to drop him, so the fact that he's only 1:50 ahead is to his benefit than if he were 3-4 mins ahead.

This tour has been heavily decided by accidents. I am still disappointed we lost so many good mountain guys so early. Seems like every time a Radioshack rider went down, the GC group sped up and not so much so with others ...

Now all we have left to watch is some silly Schleck games against a moderately tired Contador, so much so that diesels like Evans, Basso can easily hang on. I'm hoping this will change in the Alps.

 

[Bavarianrider]

fixed

 

[Sleimas]

Again I'm new to cycling so i want to ask. Why do a lot of people think that Contador will beat Andt easily? He wasn't able to drop him when climbing last year and now he's hurt. Also i couldn't find an ITT from the last few years where Contador gain more on Andy than a gap that is between them now. It's because of Contador reputation and hate of Schlecks or am I missing something?

 

[Mellow Velo]

Yepp. There was. I really didn't excpect such a chicken ride by the favs. So guuys you can decide on a new avatar for me once again

Can't have been that easy:
75 Tony (climbing sensation and GC candidate)Martin(Ger) HTC-Highroad @ 17'-03".

 

[Parrulo]

fixed

bavarian don't forget that you betted with me many months ago that martin would top 10 the tour so next sunday i chose your avatar till the end of the vuelta

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Well that was an interesting final hour of racing! Hats off to Voeckler, what a champion ride. He loves riding this mountain in yellow. Also big props to his teammate Rolland. Great work in the Pyrenees from those two. Tommy is still looking very comfortable in yellow.

Good to see Sammy inching closer to a podium (he's only 3:44 out of the lead now). It would be great if he made it to a top spot on GC. I loved seeing Basso trying to grind them off his wheel, which is a different type of attack that is great to watch. Good to see Basso going well in the Tour again. Cadel's attack was a nice to see, and he was often the first responder to attacks by others. And a nice finish by Jelle Vanendert.

The Schlecks missed an opportunity today to bury Conti, who was struggling on their first couple of attacks. Conti did seem to get better further into the climb. So hats off to AC for that. In the Alps AC still has a shot if the knee gets better.

Too bad Vino, Gesink, and VDB2 are out. They could have added another element today, which is one of the reasons I was really glad to see Vino back this year.

 

[El Pistolero]

Again I'm new to cycling so i want to ask. Why do a lot of people think that Contador will beat Andt easily? He wasn't able to drop him when climbing last year and now he's hurt. Also i couldn't find an ITT from the last few years where Contador gain more on Andy than a gap that is between them now. It's because of Contador reputation and hate of Schlecks or am I missing something?

Contador wasn't on top level in 2010 and now he already did the Giro. It's painfully obvious that Andy just isn't a Tour winner material.

 

[El Pistolero]

fixed

Good

Perhaps Tony will win the TT though, so you'll be happy again then

 

[JimPanzen]

Man, if the Schlecks wouldn't have talked that much prior to the Tour, you couldn't blame them. But damn, they really are not able to make a differnce, let alone the tactics. Contadors form is improving, I expect him to go all out in the Alps. But the biggest threads at this time are Evans and Voeckler. If the Schlecks don't put some time into them, they'll be fighting for the 3rd podium spot (if at all).

 

[luckyboy]

I was one of the Evans fans on this forum, but I think his entire advantage is undeserved, unearnt, he got it from the ttt on half his rivals and from a ttt+ crashes on a few more, and is desperately trying to hold on to this gifted advantage so i feel he hasnt earnt one second of his advantage and whether anyone else cares or not, my 2 cents are that i hope he loses.

I don't know how you can dislike someone because others were unlucky. I agree that TTTs skew results a bit unfairly though.

 

[El Pistolero]

Omega Pharma Lotto was such a big factor in this Tour if you think about it

It's them who caused the crash in the peloton and decided to give the break a lot of free minutes.

 

[hfer07]

Different thing this year. First of all, Evans needed to put minute and half on Sastre, who is actually one of the greatest third week GT-ers around and a guy who can ride very,very solid TT if he really needs it. At least before that final TT in 2008 he was 3rd or 4th in the final TT of the Vuelta in 2005, rode some other good TTs, check his results. Yet Schleck bros are mediocre time-trialists and don't have a good history of doing any reasonable TTs, he also doesn't need to put any time on the strongest of the two, because he is ahead of Andy in GC. So, things are looking quite good for him.

Evans literally "was convinced a 100%" he would win the 08 TDF in the final ITT, since he was confidence of his ability to take back all that time on Sastre-but guess what-CSC put a extremely hard pace the day before the ITT and soften Evan's legs......
Sastre has always been "an average" ITT-only the MTT he was better....

On topic: now it does not matter if he's currently in front of Andy at all- is the "time buffer" that he must "widen" to ensure that no sudden surprise or incident would compromise his advantage in the Alps-and that to me is the risk that he's taking & rather shouldn't, considering that AC is not in shape, and the Schlecks seem to be more worried about berto than him(Evans) - so i ask myself - why not profit on that?