Tour de France 2011 (Page 1 of 2)

One more aficianado here George and Cathy. I get up early and get to watch most of the day's stage live. The real racing is waiting for the mountains and the flats are to survive while the sprinters have their day. Beautiful travelog as well. I'll check with the son but I think there are several from our area in the race this year. San Diego has become a year-round training area since there is so much varied terrain with some serious hors climbs as well.
Rick

i wonder what this years doping technique is?????

                                                                                                             Think Clean,

                                                                                                             J Dawg

Well Cathy, I get to watch all but the last 10 miles, then off to work so I watch the finish on the replay in the evening. I'm an early riser anyway. So far a lot of fun in the flats with beautiful scenery along the way. Waiting for the mountains! You are correct about the doping tests. No chance to cheat is the word now. I wish other sports had a regimen as stringent as pro cycling. (the son's team won last week in a big street crit .)

As a keen cyclist since i was a small boy and continue to be. I used to follow the tour up until 2004, purely because of what happened with David Miller. The sport isn't clean. Thats just my opinion.
I am siding with The Dawg on this one!

I feel the same way about much of what goes on in athletics, and many other sports - the doping culture in sport is endemic. Again, just my opinion.

She got her dawgs mixed up, dawg. I didn't fix it because I thought it was kinda funny.

Let's leave the D word out of it, please! All seems to be going well on that front - so far - let's just hope it stays that way and enjoy the spectacle. Unfortunately, today's spectacle was all of the wrong kind, apart from yet another Cavendish stage win. Both US and British hopes of some kind of GC glory were seriously damaged today.

Have a look at this - http://video.bicycling.com/video/Chris- … ge-7-Crash

It's utterly unbelievable that neither his team manager nor the Tour doctor pulled him out of the race. He went to hospital after the race and was found to have concussion and a broken nose. I can't imagine him starting tomorrow. Leipheimer fell in the same crash as Horner and has lost so much time that his role will now be to work for Kloden, the only Radioshack top-10 possible still in with a chance.

Almost the entire Sky team fell, (as did the value of Murdoch's Newscorp by $1.7 billion) resulting in a broken collar bone for Wiggins, who also had to retire, as did Tom Boonen. Not what we wanted to see.

Today was the first time since 1989 that two Dutch riders have held jerseys at the same time, so we're happy in Clogland!

There should be some kind of fireworks tomorrow with a Cat. 2 climb just before the final Cat. 3 uphill finish. Expect Contador to try and get some seconds back.

Brunyeel knows his stuff, he has been around long enough, - classic concussion from Chris Horner, - in motorcycling you get an automatic 24hour ban if you take a head hit and show signs of concussion as you need to be closely monitored for at least that period as swelling of the brain can still occur some time after the initial bang.

..as an aside and as you are a Dutchman I have only one thing to say to you: Gert Van Theunisse, great hair, great cyclist such bad luck, but what a competitor!

The two stages either side of the rest day really need some talking about! First, we had the creation of a new Tour folk hero, Johnny Hoogerland, after an idiotic driver dumped him into barbed wire at around 60 kph. Any of you who follow the race at all will know all about this incident. Sadly, two more team leaders, Vinokourov (Astana) and Van den Broeck (OPL) crashed out with serious injuries.

At the same time, the Dutch Rabo team ensured their Tour success by winning that stage, where French folk hero Voeckler bagged the yellow after a long breakaway. Yesterday, on an apparently short and boring 'flat' stage, we were treated to one of the most exciting last 20 kms or so that I can remember!! At one point, the yellow and green jerseys found themselves in a breakaway close to the finish, then the green jersey (Philippe Gilbert) tried to go the last 7 kms alone - well, that's what it looked like, but it was apparently part of his team's (OPL) tactics to weaken Cavendish sufficiently so that 'Andre the Giant' Greipel could finally (and deservedly) beat him in a one-on-one. Let's just say that there's plenty of history between these two and that most cycling fans rejoiced at this win!

New TdF folk hero Johnny Hoogerland, riding with 33 stitches, made it through the stage to announce that he would have to be dragged off his bike before he would give up!    He also said that almost the entire peloton came by during yesterday's stage to wish him well, and that numerous well known riders like Basso, Gesink and Kreuziger, helped him up the hills by giving him a push when he appeared to be in trouble!! This is a perfect example of why I love this sport!

One more flat(ish) stage today, then we finally hit the big mountains where we will find out how good the main contender's climbing legs are. Riders to watch tomorrow are Contador, the Schleck brothers, Evans, Gesink and maybe Kloeden. I can't wait! 

edit - almost forgot to mention this outrage - if any of you tweet, please send one to ESPN commentator/'personality' or whatever the hell he is, Michael Smith, who thinks that one of the most horrific crashes of recent times is "funny"!! 

The cycling world is up in arms about this idiot, and rightly so. Members of one of the largest cycling forums have been hitting back by writing directly to ESPN - http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=14480

A Washington Post blog has also picked it up - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ear … _blog.html

some superb photos on this page (warning a couple show blood and injury, - Hoogerland's barb wire fence incident):

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011 … -1/100105/