Tour de France 2007 thread (4 Viewers)

[nuke terrorist]

ok i'm too lazy to type up the link but I've found what was for me the Holy Grail of Irish cycling footage. search on you tube :

1986 Giro - Irishman Wins Stage 14 .

I had regularly looked for this footage of Martin Earley over the years and finally it's online. the commentary is crap - who where these guys ? what Earley looks like Fignon !???
whatever great to finally to see this.

sad to say this but it's hard to get excited about Roubaix. it seems a foregone conclusion after the Flanders.

 

[rettucs]

I'm very bloody excited about Roubaix.

I know come 4 o'clock I'll be disappointed as can be, like most years, but shur fuckit, for now I'm happy out

 

[CinnamonBoy]

ok i'm too lazy to type up the link but I've found what was for me the Holy Grail of Irish cycling footage. search on you tube :

1986 Giro - Irishman Wins Stage 14 .

I had regularly looked for this footage of Martin Earley over the years and finally it's online. the commentary is crap - who where these guys ? what Earley looks like Fignon !???
whatever great to finally to see this.

sad to say this but it's hard to get excited about Roubaix. it seems a foregone conclusion after the Flanders.

The stage where Paul Kimmage is in with a chance of winning, which he describes so well in Rough Ride, is also on Youtube somewhere.

Hard to see anything other than a Cancellara win today but it should be an enjoyable spectacle all the same.

 

[rettucs]

awesome race

 

[CinnamonBoy]

Watched the last 25km, was cracking viewing altogether. Amstel Gold next week, then Fleche Wallone, then L-B-L. Lovely.

 

[rettucs]

check out chris juul-jensen on twitter. Hes one funny fucker.

I'd post his tweet about P-R here except I don't know how.

CJJ is from wicklow and finished last in P-R on sunday.

 

[rettucs]

then theres this

http://rouleurmagazine.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/last-but-not-least/

 

[CinnamonBoy]

Nice! I've never heard of this guy. He sounds like a good laugh anyhow.

Sample tweet:

With all this hopping around on cobbles, and constant vibrating , are the Belgian classics the favorite part of the woman's calender ??

 

[rettucs]

Nice! I've never heard of this guy. He sounds like a good laugh anyhow.

he'll be riding the Giro. Will be interesting to see if he gets any media coverage here.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

he'll be riding the Giro. Will be interesting to see if he gets any media coverage here.

The poor chap will be knackered. He'll be strong as an ox after this season if he can keep finishing all his races.

Is there any talk at all of "poaching" him to ride for Ireland? Maybe Nico can have a word in his ear...

 

[rettucs]

The poor chap will be knackered. He'll be strong as an ox after this season if he can keep finishing all his races.

Is there any talk at all of "poaching" him to ride for Ireland? Maybe Nico can have a word in his ear...

he still considers himself Irish. He rides for Denmark because he was part of their youth program (there basically isn't one here), so its hard to blame him

anyway, check this;

http://nos.nl/video/493569-de-achterkant-van-de-hel.html

2 mins 10 seconds in. Thats him. Gas fucker

 

[IFF]

superb win for dan martin today

 

[nuke terrorist]

i didn't know Chris Juul-Jensen until he was mentioned here.
Martin was definitely the strongest in Liege. it's a race where the best guy on the day virtually always wins.
OK Rodriguez wasn't 100% after the Amstel crash and Moreno had to stop at the worst possible moment on the
Saint Nicolas but that was it as far as good fortune went.
one thing that was obvious was that Gilbert, Valverde and some of the other aristocracy haven't dominated and the
Ardennes were far more open this time.
huge day for Irish sport. love these races above all others.

Irish Cycling nominating Pat McQuaid for re-election - beyond mortifying.

 

[rettucs]

one thing that was obvious was that Gilbert, Valverde and some of the other aristocracy haven't dominated

they're being watched too closely to be taking some 'risks' they might have taken in the past. Valverde is still recently enough back after his Puerto ban and questions were being asked about fast phil from his lotto days. Still have good time for him but he did have a couple of ridiculous seasons while with lotto.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

Hoping to do a few days in the Ardennes now next spring to support the lads. I got into cycling around '98 when I was 16 and got my first racer, and used feel fierce envious of the tifosi when all we really had was the promise of Mark Scanlon. Not anymore. Cracking watching the highlights of LBL on Youtube on French TV and hear all the references to Kelly (the only bits I could understand). Go on Ireland (And CJ-J).

 

[nuke terrorist]

some bad news:
the infamous Phillippe Gaumont (Cofidis scandal) has had a heart attack and is in a coma - he's only 40.
i remember him once crashing near the front in Arenberg and having to be draggeout of the middle of the road because he couldn't move with a broken leg and he was holding the whole race up. his time with Vandenbrouke seems sadder than ever.

things are really beginning to take off for African cyclists and especially with 22 year old neo pro Natnael Behane's historic win in Turkey.
the stage was cool with no team controlling the race (for a change) and every man for himself at the summit.
I knew Eritrea was rapidly rising for a couple of years but didn't know they now had a second elite rider. this has been coming for a while and I reckon things could happen very fast when the next wave riders come through.
actually Europcar have three black guys - Reza (from Paris i think) and the longstanding guy from Guadeloupe Yohann Gene.
and of course all the African guys with MTN .

i want to mention Barcelona cycling legend Miguel Poblet who died this month. for decades he was the only Spanish cyclist to have won a classic and took 26 GT stages wins (20 in Giro) he was also a top climber. you may well have known that but the thing that blows my mind about him is his two podium finishes in Roubaix ! when i first read he'd been second and third there i was stunned.
when ever i think about this - about 45 years before Flecha.... WOW.
there's some good footage of him on You Tube. he was no stylist - total knees out, side-to-side sprinting - Chris Anker is more graceful !

it amazing the cycling porn on there I've found loads of old stages of the say the Giro with 40-50 minutes highlights e.g. Visentini falling to bits at Sappada and Hinault dropping Van Impe, Moser, Prim, Baronchelli etc . to take pink.
ten years ago i would have paid a lot to see these guys in action now you're spoilt for choice.
it's not just that way for music.

 

[nuke terrorist]

i loggoed on the net two weeks ago fully expecting Fuentes, Belda and ' that fat bastard from ONCE that never rode a bike' to be heading to jail but no chance.

 

[nuke terrorist]

previous post was a fuck up !

PUERTO:
naively expected Fuentes, 'that fat bastard from ONCE that never rode a bike', Belda and the other two to go to jail.
Dr. Fuentes is up for selling his story so we should hear what he has to say after his appeal. at least we know about Cipollini now. Vicioso continuing to lie through his teeth after initially refusing to turn up in court was a highlight.
obviously a cover up from the top to spare tennis, athletics and football. there are are too many sports where it is child's play to freely dope and football is one of the easiest.

Giro:
the first mountain ( Passo CASON DI LANZA) on Tuesday's stage 10 was one the most beautiful places i've seen: steep narrow forested climb with some gorges - gorgeous place.
i never thought i'd say this but the TTT was a good idea. i think in recent years they've solved this - keep them short and they're fine.

respect to Deignan for finding form recently. it was so sickening (dangerously) warm in California i reckon a lot of the guys were just satisfied to finish on stage 2 .

i can't understand why the IAM Team won't be riding a Grand Tour this year.
Netapp - Endura who don't seem to have any riders as good as Lofkvist, Tschopp, Haussler etc. but got the nod to ride the Vuelta.
it's customary for French teams to get Tour Wildcards but i have to say Cofidis are really weak nowadays. the likes of Le Mevel and Taaramae haven't performed. for a longtime they've been one of the cleanest teams but nothing's going for them now. they've been rewarded for being in cycling for sixteen years.

Gaumont hasn't improved but does anyone know specifically what he said about Millar and how their accounts differ ?
Millar has said he won't put he blood values online - i mean why not ? ..... i read his book and i still don't know if he's told the whole story.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

The most sickening thing for me was hearing Nadal condemn the destruction of the blood bags. I don't remember him being a big advocate for identifying them beforehand.

Deignan was great the other night. Someone on cyclingnews said it was 43 degrees celsius while they were doing that climb!

 

[rettucs]

111 farenheit. I watched that stage last night before the live coverage came on. Watching the European based riders coming to an absolute halt on that last climb was horrible. The Eurosport made a valid point that the American based riders are well 'acclimated' to those sorts of conditions. While in Europe its been so shite all spring and early summer that it was a leap too far for a lot of them and some protour riders dropped out on the first day. I see where Deignan has Boulder listed as his hometown on his facebook page. I know he spends time at home in Terenure where he is/was sharing an apartment with Stephen Halpin, but not sure if that arrangement is still in place. Halpin is with the Polygon-Nice team who are largely focused on Asian races. But Boulder is a hell of a place to be based. I've done some cycling out there and, mother-of-jaysus its a whole different experience than riding at sea level. It would have one very well prepared for climbs in California, no doubt. I kind of wish Deignan hadn't attacked so early on that climb though. If he waited I reckon he'd have been good for second place head of Van Gaarderen.

The Giro is fantastic. The one downside (or at least dubious side) is the so-called emergence of all these Colombian riders. Sorry, but I just don't trust them. Its great to see the GC contenders look almost human (especially Bradley, with his team now devoid of all that 'expertise' they decided they could do without over the winter).

I'm kind of sick to the teeth of all the doping scandals at this stage. I'm more interested to hear about the non-cycling stuff that might come out of Puerto, but it seems we may never know.

and RIP Phillipe Gaumont. Very sad. I didn't see much sympathy coming from riders on twitter. It was almost exclusively from journalists and bloggers. I guess they don't forgive you when you spit in the soup, even when you die.