mostly palaver

Cycling Hilarity

Locking-your-bike-up tips, from Bike Snob NYC:

You bring it inside with you. Sure, sometimes businesses treat bicycles like wet dogs, but you'd be surprised to find how often you can just walk in with your bike. This is especially true of bars, and it's particularly true of the kinds of seedy dive bars young urban riders are pioneering these days. These are the kinds of bars where, until recently, the bartender wouldn't flinch if you walked in with a 7'10" heroin-addicted transsexual, so what makes you think they care about your lime green fixie? And if someone does give you a problem, you can always throw a trenchcoat over it and pretend it's a person. "That'll be a PBR for me, and a shot of ProLink for my bony transgendered ladyfriend here."

Easing back in

Back from vacation, instead of hitting on some of the many things that happened while I was away, I'll provide a study on excuses from my favorite bike blog, Bike Snob NYC, quoting Cadel Evans:

"With everything that's gone on in the last three months - I had tendonitis, a huge crash in the Tour de France, defending the yellow (jersey) with only one leg and breaking my anterior cruciate ligament - I was on crutches for three or four days after the Tour," he said.

Indeed, the dog days of summer have driven Cadel Evans, the John Coltrane of excuses, to finally take his excuse-making into the "sheets of sound" phase. It's one thing to blame injuries, but to flat out claim you only had one leg in the Tour de France (yes, I know he's being metaphorical, but I prefer to read it literally) is a statement bold and surreal enough to qualify as art. As time goes on, I hope Cadel adds to his exquisitely-wrought excuse canon. Perhaps he can also say he didn't have a bike, and that he was blind. Maybe he could also tell a tale of how a Succubus came to him in the night and stole his spirit, and how he was forced to waste an entire rest day journeying to the Carpathian mountains in order to retreive it.

Bad day at the office

This happened to Damiano Cunego 30 minutes into a stage that lasted almost 5 hours.  That's right, he rode in this condition for 4 1/2 hours. Look at the shedded jersey!  Looks like he did a belly-flop and drag.  Someone is not going to get much sleep this evening.

Climbing L'Alpe d'Huez

Here are the top-10 times for riders climbing L'Alpe d'Huez in the Tour (Sastre did it yesterday in 39'41"):

1. Marco Pantani 37'35 (1997)
2. Lance Armstrong 37'36 (2004)
3. Marco Pantani 38'00 (1994)
4. Lance Armstrong 38'01 (2001)
5. Marco Pantani 38'04 (1995)
6. Jan Ullrich 38'23 (1997)
7. Floyd Landis 38'34 (2006)
8. Andreas Klöden 38'35 (2006)
9. Jan Ullrich 38'37 (2004)
10. Richard Virenque 39'02 (1997)

Pantani, Ullrich, Landis and Virenque are all confirmed dopers.  Armstrong and Kloden have never failed a test.

Tour News

Well, CSC did ride like lunatics over the 3 days in the Alps, with Carlos Sastre in yellow after today's stage up L'Alpe d'Huez:

1 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Team CSC - Saxo Bank         74.39.03
2 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank                    1.24
3 Bernhard Kohl (Aut) Gerolsteiner                            1.33
4 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto                           1.34
5 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank                                2.39
6 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30    4.41
7 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne          5.35
8 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi           5.52
9 Tadej Valjavec (Slo) AG2R La Mondiale                       8.10
10 Vladimir Efimkin (Rus) AG2R La Mondiale                    8.24

I don't think that Sastre has enough to hold off everyone in the ITT coming this Saturday and barring something unexpected over the next 2 days, I'd expect the final podium in Paris to be Evans then Menchov then Sastre.  I don't think that Vande Velde can take almost 5 minutes out of Sastre.  Garmin-Chipotle said they were looking for a Top-10 so they'll be happy with 4th, but 4th really sucks for them too (sooo close to the final podium).  

Tour Thoughts

It's the second rest day of the Tour, after the first day in the Alps, and things have shaken up considerably GC-wise:

1 Frank Schleck (Lux) Team CSC - Saxo Bank                        63.57.21
2 Bernhard Kohl (Aut) Gerolsteiner                                                0.07
3 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence - Lotto                                              0.08
4 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank                                                0.38
5 Christian Vande Velde (USA) Team Garmin-Chipotle p/b H30        0.39
6 Carlos Sastre Candil (Spa) Team CSC - Saxo Bank                     0.49
7 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Team Columbia                                             2.48
8 Vladimir Efimkin (Rus) AG2R La Mondiale                                 3.36
9 Alejandro Valverde Belmonte (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne                  4.11
10 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi              4.34

There are still two days in the high Alps with Wednesday's stage to L'Alpe d'Huez being the one that could decide the race if Schleck, Kohl or Sastre can gain enough time on Evans, Menchov, and Vande Velde because the Tour has now become a race of the guys who can climb like angels but can't time trial for shit, against the guys who can time trial really well and climb pretty well. 

There is an individual time trial on Saturday that is twice the length of the Stage 4 time trial.  Looking at the performances on that day, Schleck would have to have about 4 minutes in hand, Sastre and Kohl somewhere between 3 and 4 minutes to avoid losing the jersey in the ITT. That's the thing to watch for over the next two days, can one of the three climbers separate themselves from both the other climbers and the TT guys, or do the TT guys keep it close enough that they will fight for the overall on Saturday.  I'm betting that CSC goes bananas over the next couple of days in an effort to get Schleck his time, but can't get him the time he's going to need.  Losing the jersey at this point was probably a good thing for Evans and I'd look for either he or Vande Velde to win the overall.

I really like the way this tour is shaping up.  I've been saying for years that with modern testing and training methods that superman-like performances are impossible.  If you test within similar physical parameters (VO2 max, power generation, etc) then it is not plausible that a rider has found some new training regimen that makes him 10% better than his competitors over a 3-week tour.  It's just not possible today.  Guys can always have bad days, but they can't have superhuman good days.  That said, it's awesome to see the top-6 are less than 1 minute apart - it's what I'd expect to see in a clean(er) race, everyone is about the same physically and the differences are in a handful of seconds here and there and the less frequent physical or emotional crisis.  Good stuff.

He said he was a big fan of Pantani

Dope:

Italian rider Riccardo Riccò of Saunier Duval has tested positive for blood booster Erythropoietin (EPO), French sports daily L'Equipe reported on its website on Thursday. According to the paper's Damien Ressiot, one of the climber's urine samples collected by the French Anti-Doping Agency AFLD showed traces of a third generation EPO called CERA (Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator).

The Saunier Duval team has voluntarily withdrawn itself from the Tour de France, and said it would not compete in any races until further notice. Directeur sportif Joxean Fernandez Matxin said he was as surprised as anybody. "We only found out ten minutes ago. The entire team will stop racing, not only in the Tour de France. We suspend the activities of the team until we understand what has happened."

UPDATE: Well, at least Saunier Duval did all they could to ensure Ricco was clean:

Piepoli, the winner of stage 10to Hautacam, is not reported to have failed a drugs test, but the team decided to fire him after conducting an internal investigation. "[Gianetti] did a personal investigation and consequently lost faith in Riccò but also in Piepoli because of a violation of the team's ethics code," read a team statement.

"All our riders gave us guarantees that they were clean," the statement added. "Riccò swore on his mother's head that he had never turned to illegal substances or means to improve his performance. Despite all the efforts made both internally and from outside the team we have failed to avoid this deplorable situation. We are the victims of the deceitful behaviour of those who put our sponsors' investments and the jobs of so many honest people at risk with the loathsome purpose of improving their cycling performance." [emp. added]

After all, we all know that swearing on his mother's head is even more serious than the infamous "pinkie promise" which, in turn, trumps "cross-my-heart".   Jesus.  Does it really surprise them that a rider could lie about cheating?  Really? 

Ricco also made a big splash in the Giro by all-but-accusing Alberto Contador of doping.  Fate has a weird way of biting you in the butt sometimes. 

Google Maps and the Tour de France

This is pretty cool.

TdF - Thoughts after Stage 5

The Tour is getting better and better for the two US-based teams, Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle:

Dave Millar (Garmin) and Kim Kirchen (Columbia) tied for 2nd in the first individual time trial yesterday.  They each had storming rides. 

Mark Cavendish (Columbia) won today's stage, the longest stage of the Tour.  Getting the stage win out of the way will take a huge burden off of Columbia, but I'm starting to think that they may be aiming higher than stage wins (with Kirchen).

So where it stands today, Columbia has 3 riders in the top-10 (Kirchen in second, Hincapie in 7th and Lovkvist in 8th) while Garmin has 2 in the top-10 (Millar in 3rd and Vandevelde in 6th).  Lovkvist is leading the best young rider competition.  Garmin is leading the team competition with Columbia in 2nd.  One team or the other has been on the podium every day save the first (Kirchen on Stage 2, Frischkorn on Stage 3, Miller and Kirchen on Stage 4, Cavendish on Stage 5).  LOTS of great publicity and return for the sponsors.

Overall thoughts:

I'm cautiously optimistic.  Nobody has shown themselves to be a superman yet, and those riders who expend a huge effort on one day are hurting the next.  One good example - of the 4 breakaway riders from Stage 3, the BEST placed rider in the Stage 4 ITT finished 141st (out of 178 riders).  They were cooked from the day before.  Another good example - Valverde, the early yellow jersey, doer of much early work and top contender for the overall lost over a minute on Stage 4.  Yet a third, somewhat more murky example:  On Stage 2 there were some serious headwinds and the announcers were repeatedly wondering why none of the teams was going to the front of the pack to drop the hammer and blow the race to bits.  What I'm starting to think is that the directors sportif were not willing to take the chance and risk blowing up one or more riders on Stage 2 of the Tour knowing that they won't be able to "chemically recover" as they have in the past.  Riders seem much more human this year (Cancellara on Stage 2, Valverde Stage 4) and "humaness" speaks well for "cleanliness".

We'll see.

The VS. coverage sucks (at least the primetime coverage).  They could save themselves so much money by simply providing the straight video feed and commentary for the last 3 hours of every day.  I'd be much happier with that as would (I'd bet) 95% of their audience because we are all avid cyclists. Casual viewers are not tuning into to VS. for this coverage.  There is no story there for them.

Tour de France - Thoughts after Stage 3

So far, a good tour for the two US teams (Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle), Kim Kirchen (Columbia) is currently 5th overall and is in the Green Jersey.  Kirchen and Gerald Ciolek finished 2-3 on yesterday's stage, and Kirchen finished 4th on Saturday after narrowly missing the win.  Will Frischkorn (Garmin) finished 2nd today after the long break survived (pissing off the sprinters), Frischkorn was named Most Aggressive Rider today and sits 3rd overall.  Dave Millar is 8th overall and Garmin-Chipotle is currently leading the team compeition.

Alejandro Valverde looks strong, Evans has stayed out of trouble as has Frank Schleck.  Bad luck rider so far has to be Mauricio Soler (Barloworld) who was last year's polka dot jersey winner and was considered by some to have an outside chance this year - he fell on Saturday and broke a bone in his hand.  He's still racing, but his Tour is effectively over - he's 13 minutes down on the leaders and nowhere in the mountains competition. 

So far it seems like a very wide-open race and is fun to watch.  That the sprinters let a break get away today was a colossal screw-up - today was the last day for any of them to wear the yellow jersey as tomorrow is the first ITT - none of them will be anywhere near the jersey come tomorrow night and their focus will turn 100% to green.  It'll be interesting to see how aggressively Columbia defends the green with Kirchen in it - he's not a typical field sprinter, but is a guy who can very easily get over the mountains - look to see what happens on Wednesday between he and Thor for an indication of Columbia's intentions.