Stage 13 - Saturday, July 17 2010, Rodez - Revel, 195 km

ednwireland

lumpy !

Hurdle for the sprinters

With four difficult stages in the Pyrenees looming, the sprinters will be eager to take centre stage, but today’s run to Revel does them few favours. None of the five categorised climbs are exceptionally testing, but the last, the third category Côte de St-Ferréol, has a steep and sudden rise and comes just a few kilometres from the finish.

Two weeks into the race, it will be interesting to see how much juice the sprinters' domestiques have left to keep everyone in check on a stage as lumpy as this. With that in mind, the breakaway specialists will fancy their chances.

Beached

Im looking forward to todays stage, Will that last cat 3 climb be too much for the sprinters. Maybe its the perfect ground for a Nico roche impulsive attack, with the finish line just 7K from the summit

Beached

Also, i dunno if this has been mentioned before, but ITV have a dialy podcast on the TdF.
its kinda TdF lite, good humoured but they will always have a few interviews from the mixed zone at the end of the days stage. Obviously it is going to be focussed on the British cyclists but things seem to be less hyped than Sky and Eurosport.

http://www.itv.com/sport/tourdefrance/podcast/

Dodge

I@m hoping for a breakaway to eat up all the intermediate points, then the pack to catch them and Hushovd to be the only sprinter to get over the hill (similar to barcelona last year)

Friere could do it too btu he seems way way off the pace

IM0

Did armstrong hit the deck again!, or was it a puncture this time?

titan18

me@ucd wrote: »

Did armstrong hit the deck again!, or was it a puncture this time?

Fell in the neutral zone apparently

niceonetom

Lance obviously intends to keep throwing himself at the tarmac until it gives him an excuse to go home.

ednwireland

niceonetom wrote: »

Lance obviously intends to keep throwing himself at the tarmac until it gives him an excuse to go up and goes home.

fixed that for you

c montgomery

Thinkin about throwing a bet on todays stage.


For today head to head would ya favour Thor Hus or J J Rojas

Im leaning towards Thor but i have never won a bet on cycling so im prob wrong

he's 10/11 at the moment

ednwireland

bling


vino eh

Marvinthefish

Go on Nicolas Roche! Woo!

Also there's Vino's blingin' bike

mloc123

niceonetom wrote: »

Lance obviously intends to keep throwing himself at the tarmac until it gives him an excuse to go home.

Rolled in 4,34' down... I kinda feel sorry for him now

DirkVoodoo

Well done to Vinokourov, he won that well and I have to admit I was rooting for him. Shame Roche didn't have the legs to get across to Ballan but I doubt any of them would have stayed with Vino.

54kroc

Has Vinokourov admitted to cheating on the tour back in '07?

DirkVoodoo

I think in his open letter he might have alluded to it.

In the end, he paid for what he did through a 2 year suspension. Everyone deserves a second chance. I will be first with the pitchforks and torches if he does it again though.

TinyExplosions

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Well done to Vinokourov, he won that well and I have to admit I was rooting for him. Shame Roche didn't have the legs to get across to Ballan but I doubt any of them would have stayed with Vino.

I think he had the legs, but wasn't willing to pull the other two guys up with him, and they weren't willing to work

NickDrake

Looks like Vino is up to his old tricks again. You have to remember this guy's career was totally based around doping.

Doping made him able to attack so much and not talent for god sake. The guy injected someone else's blood into him.

And now he seems just as fast even with a Giro in the legs. Madness. Says a lot for the testing.

Disgrace to the sport!

Beached

According to the Letour text tracker, Cavandish was dropped on the last climb, and the Columbia team sat up not knowing what to do.
then Cav finishes 2nd in on the day.
Could someone explain what happened there for those who didnt have any Tv access today

IM0

NickDrake wrote: »

the same ol dope talk blah blah
Disgrace to the sport!

dont watch it then
as was said a few days ago, this gets old, very old.


mods one thing about the sub forum thing, can there be a doping forum ala american forums, no talking about dope unless your in the sub forum

NickDrake

me@ucd wrote: »

dont watch it then
as was said a few days ago, this gets old, very old.


mods one thing about the sub forum thing, can there be a doping forum ala american forums, no talking about dope unless your in the sub forum

Why shouldnt I watch it. Roche could have won that stage. Thats why I was watching it.

and why are you getting so upset with the doping issue. Sont be such a nerd about setting up another thread. Get over it!

TinyExplosions

NickDrake wrote: »

Why shouldnt I watch it. Roche could have won that stage. Thats why I was watching it.

and why are you getting so upset with the doping issue. Sont be such a nerd about setting up another thread. Get over it!

It's not upset, it's just tiresome to have every thread descend into a doping related one!

DirkVoodoo

I don't think Roche had much of a chance unless Sanchez or someone worked with him. It was between Vino and that other guy (was it Voeckler, I though it was a quick step guy?)

As for the doping, let's just stick to "innocent until proven guilty" and enjoy the win for what it was.

NickDrake

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I don't think Roche had much of a chance unless Sanchez or someone worked with him. It was between Vino and that other guy (was it Voeckler, I though it was a quick step guy?)

As for the doping, let's just stick to "innocent until proven guilty" and enjoy the win for what it was.

Hilarious. you think he is clean? He is just as strong as he was before.

Jeez why did he bother doping at all if it didnt make him faster. Has a two year break and comes back just as good and with a Giro in his legs.

The man is a disgrace to the sport. He keeps dragging it down and should not be enjoy. You really are so very naive

DirkVoodoo

NickDrake wrote: »

Hilarious. you think he is clean? He is just as strong as he was before.

Jeez why did he bother doping at all if it didnt make him faster. Has a two year break and comes back just as good and with a Giro in his legs.

The man is a disgrace to the sport. He keeps dragging it down and should not be enjoy. You really are so very naive

Give it a rest. If you want to talk about the stage and the win, I'm all ears. If you want to organize a witch hunt then I will pass.

TinyExplosions

niceonetom

It hard not to cheer on that kind of aggressive riding. For all his faults I still just like watching Vino ride a bike in anger. I'm bracing myself just in case though.

Curses upon the houses of Sanchez and Baredo! Do some bloody work you idle Spanish bastards! If they'd worked with Nico they could have gotten onto Vino's wheel (though staying there might have been hard).

NickDrake wrote: »

Hilarious. you think he is clean? He is just as strong as he was before.

Jeez why did he bother doping at all if it didnt make him faster. Has a two year break and comes back just as good and with a Giro in his legs.

The man is a disgrace to the sport. He keeps dragging it down and should not be enjoy. You really are so very naive

Is there a limit to the number of times you're going to post this identical sentiment? Can we expect it every single time Vino features in a stage? In every thread? Every day?

Whether he's clean or not is debatable. Whether he should have been let back in is also debatable. ...whether your one-note carping is growing tiresome is not.

If you wish to discuss doping there are plenty of other specific threads to do so. Hey, you could even start a Vino thread of you own. But, please, don't keep moaning in the stage threads. It ruins them.

Chips Lovell

175 white-as-snow riders and one evil Kazakh maniac bent on destroying them all. HE MUST BE STOPPED!

NickDrake

Ok Ok I wont post anymore about Vino. Lads the censorship on here really is crazy and some of you need to chillax.

Last thing I will say is I told you so and I will wait for the positive test and/or that he is back working with Ferrari (which has been rumoured) or/and involved in doping (AGAIN)

Last post on Vino.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/nedboulting/100010823/tour-de-france-2010-vino-he-ruined-my-lunch/

TinyExplosions

NickDrake wrote: »

Ok Ok I wont post anymore about Vino. Lads the censorship on here really is crazy and some of you need to chillax.

Last thing I will say is I told you so and I will wait for the positive test and/or that he is back working with Ferrari (which has been rumoured) or/and involved in doping (AGAIN)

Last post on Vino.

Who is censoring you? You have an opinion, and we have opinions, and they don't always gel, but no one has stopped you from posting your diatribe on dopers. In fact, that you haven't been banned, warned or anything of that nature confirms that there is no censorship whatsoever going on here.

mloc123

Let Lance have the last word on Vino..

Lance Armstrong wrote:

Say what you want about Vino but the guy has some serious guts. When he puts his numbers on he races. Period.

Captain Havoc

Beached wrote: »

According to the Letour text tracker, Cavandish was dropped on the last climb, and the Columbia team sat up not knowing what to do.
then Cav finishes 2nd in on the day.
Could someone explain what happened there for those who didnt have any Tv access today

Don't follow the tracker for results, get them from the main page. The tracker had me in hysterics when it showed roche in yellow the other day.

Dodge

This is EXACTLY the type of move Vino would do long before he was caught. I posted here before that I believe he started doping to turn himself fro a great classics rider into a GC contendor

The vino of old would always have tried for these stages.

Shane Stokes tweeted a link (which i can't find) that showed that this years climbs were markedly slower than previous years. That tells me a lot.

NickDrake

Dodge wrote: »

This is EXACTLY the type of move Vino would do long before he was caught. I posted here before that I believe he started doping to turn himself fro a great classics rider into a GC contendor

The vino of old would always have tried for these stages.

Shane Stokes tweeted a link (which i can't find) that showed that this years climbs were markedly slower than previous years. That tells me a lot.

As not to highjack another race thread. See my response in new thread. Tour De France issues. Thank you

Dodge

No need to thank me. I won't be reading your patronising posts. You've posted the same thing 10 times a day for the past 2 weeks