Stage 16 - Tuesday, July 20 2010, Bagnères-de-Luchon - Pau, 196 km

iregk

Nico currently in a group out the back of the main pack. Way down!

alibabba

dastardly00 wrote: »

They are celebrating 100 years of the Pyrenees in Le tour, and the Touremolet is a historic mountain climb. So the organisers thought it'd be a great idea to have it in twice!

Nice indeed

iregk

can anyone who is watching this live confirm where Nico is. The text on eurosport kinda places him in the brakeaway group but the graphic has him in the delayed group.

Morrisseeee

Armstrong goes for it !!

/just saw Roche at 'Ariers de la course' (excuse my mis-spelling!!)

Rovi

Just saw him in a biggish group at the back of the race.

RobFowl

138km - Cunego and Fedrigo are chasing Armstrong, they are 18 seconds behind. None of the men up the road are a threat to the top 10 on GC and the pace has dropped considerably in the main bunch. The peloton trail the Texan legend by two minutes.

No gifts me arse

manafana

roche in group with thor which is chasing yellow group, have laid lance at 2/1 on betfair went too short me thinks 140km out.

ednwireland

dastardly00 wrote: »

They are celebrating 100 years of the Pyrenees in Le tour, and the Touremolet is a historic mountain climb. So the organisers thought it'd be a great idea to have it in twice!

hard enough driving up it ! drove the aspin and the tourmalet they way they are going today,a few years ago just wished i had a bike

contador getting his front mech adjusted there ... paranoid ?

Rovi

Just saw Roche in the yellow jersey group.

Hermy

what's Thor at?:D
From Eurosport: He just needs to get over the Tourmalet then the Aubisque and catch the leaders to pick up the vital sprint points in his quest to reclaim the green jersey.

Gipo3

Rovi wrote: »

Just saw Roche in the yellow jersey group.

I dont think that was Roche??

Rovi

I'm pretty sure I saw number 81 in there, but I've been wrong before...

manafana

if thor made it up roche must be their now too cause his team was pacing that group.

alot work for thor to try get up with this lead group to maybe get some sprint pts.

Morrisseeee

Yep, Roche in yellow jersey group, 3 mins+ behind break group

niceonetom

Yeah, there's only two HC climbs between Thor and some green points. No problem.

Hermy

I think it's a task beyond even the mighty Thor.

Beached

Morrisseeee wrote: »

Yep, Roche in yellow jersey group, 3 mins+ behind break group

woohoo!!!!
What happened i wonder?
methinks Gadret spiked his wheatabix.:p

Gipo3

Beached wrote: »

woohoo!!!!
What happened i wonder?
methinks Gadret spiked his wheatabix.:p

He has been saying in some of his indo diaries that he has struggled at the start of some stages.

Morrisseeee

Hey Beached, hope you're not working toooo hard?

papac

I normally don't condone violence but I reckon Nico should kick the sh1t out of Gadret the little pr1ck.

Gadret is lucky Daddy Roche is in London or he could be in serious bother.:)

Rovi

We're seeing a good few Irish flags out there!

Dodge

papac wrote: »

I normally don't condone violence but I reckon Nico should kick the sh1t out of Gadret the little pr1ck.

As mentioned in other thread, 2 headbutts is the limit.

Am I mad or did Hushovd lead over the Tourmelet before? On one of mad mountain dashes. Almost certain he did

papac

Dodge wrote: »

As mentioned in other thread, 2 headbutts is the limit.

He could batter him with a front wheel after the finish and it would only cost him 200 swiss francs. Poetic justice.:D

Hungrycol

I'm following the live comments on the eurosport website. Right now it looks like roche is in a 12 man group 3+ minutes (nearly 4 mins) behind the pack. Is this right?

corkandproud

Hungrycol wrote: »

I'm following the live comments on the eurosport website. Right now it looks like roche is in a 12 man group 3+ minutes (nearly 4 mins) behind the pack. Is this right?

The Le Tour updates say the same, although these have been known to be wrong...

Rovi

Just saw Roche towards the rear of the peloton; looks comfortable enough.

Beached

The letour and Eurosport race trackers are the same thing, just different comments. The times from the graphics will be the same

BTH

Rovi wrote: »

Just saw Roche towards the rear of the peloton; looks comfortable enough.

Did he just pull up??

DirkVoodoo

Die chalkbot!

BTH

My bad, he's still there.

FrankGrimes

So it seems the LeTour/Eurosport feeds are completely useless and there's no point in even looking at them if they're that unreliable. That http://live.cyclingnews.com/latest.html has decent comments but the interface ain't the best. You'd think Kelly on Eurosport would be aware that there's loads of people in Ireland interested on hearing reasonably regular updates on how Roche is doing.

Where's the weasel Gadret?

not bakunin

According to Shane Stokes on The Twitter;

John Gadret stops...Roche waits for him. Shows who is the bigger person.

Interesting...

titan18

What did Gadret do btw?

Rovi

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Did he just pull up??

Didn't see anything, but I was on a natural break for a few minutes, so anything may have happened.
No mention in the Eurosport commentary anyway.

Added:
Ah, see above!

Hungrycol

@titan Gadret didn't give his team leader (Roche) his front wheel when asked when Roche punctured and just rode on.

Seriously bad form.

Morrisseeee

Peloton just taking it easy now, Roche tanking along with these, break group +6 mins ahead, 90km's left, I wonder will Schleck attack on the next climb, otherwise it will be down to Thursday for the fireworks !

Hungrycol

FrankGrimes wrote: »

You'd think Kelly on Eurosport would be aware that there's loads of people in Ireland interested on hearing reasonably regular updates on how Roche is doing.

We'll have to rely on a boardsie who's watching it on TV to keep us updated. The Live feeds are particularly bad today :mad:

titan18

Hungrycol wrote: »

@titan Gadret didn't give his team leader (Roche) his front wheel when asked when Roche punctured and just rode on.

Seriously bad form.

Ah,ok,that's bad alright, unless he had someone telling him not to in his ear from the team.I thought people were complaining that he didn't wait for him, but hadn't seen what happened myself

niceonetom

Twitter speculation that today's break might be allowed go all the way as a bit of a "gift" to a certain dodgy old man.

Hope not.

Dodge

titan18 wrote: »

Ah,ok,that's bad alright, unless he had someone telling him not to in his ear from the team.I thought people were complaining that he didn't wait for him, but hadn't seen what happened myself

His manager told him to give him the wheel. This is Roche's column http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling-i-wanted-to-smash-his-head-in-i-couldnt-stand-to-be-near-him-2264978.html

papac

Just showed the work distribution percentages for front group. Lance is doing the most pulling. 15%.
In a big group thats way more than his share.Interesting.

FrankGrimes

titan18 wrote: »

Ah,ok,that's bad alright, unless he had someone telling him not to in his ear from the team.I thought people were complaining that he didn't wait for him, but hadn't seen what happened myself

The team manager was roaring in Gadret's ear to stop and honour the agreement under which he is employed by the team - i.e. to help the team leader when told to do so. Dishonourable is too kind a word for Gadret to be honest.

FrankGrimes

niceonetom wrote: »

Twitter speculation that today's break might be allowed go all the way as a bit of a "gift" to a certain dodgy old man.

Hope not.

Hope not too, but am sure the other 9 riders in the breakaway might have something to say about it. Have to say, after seeing how slow Armstrong went up the final climb yesterday (Schleck passed him as if he was standing still when trying to get back to Contador), I did half think that maybe he was just getting through the day with as minimal energy expended as possible to have a shot at it today. Has his time trialling dropped as much as his climbing rate has? If not, he could defo make the break and TT it to the finish. Part of me would be happy to see him get a final stage win, but only if he earns it the hard way.

Dodge

papac wrote: »

Just showed the work distribution percentages for front group. Lance is doing the most pulling. 15%.
In a big group thats way more than his share.Interesting.

He didn't do a tap in the previous group

Rovi

Roche looking comfortable in the front half of the peloton.

FrankGrimes

14:41 CEST (97km remaining from 199.5km)
Through the feed zone at Soulom for the leaders and their lead is up to 5 minutes. The stage winner will certainly come from this group now.

14:47 CEST
The next climb on the menu is the Col d'Aubisque. It's 29.9km of climbing from this approach, as the riders first climb the Col du Soulor and after a brief descent come across to attack the top of the Aubisque. The average gradient of 4.2% doesn't even begin to suggest the true difficulty of this hors categorie climb.

Those are the latest comments from the Live Cycling site - bit presumptious to assume 5 minutes is a done deal on a 30km climb? Can't see them being caught but is certainly possible.

Really hope there's some big breaks on this climb...

ednwireland

niceonetom wrote: »

Twitter speculation that today's break might be allowed go all the way as a bit of a "gift" to a certain dodgy old man.

Hope not.

There are no gifts in the tour de france

who said that again

Hungrycol

Maybe this is were Schleck gets his "revenge".

DirkVoodoo

Give Lance a gift, or else...

greendom

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Give Lance a gift, or else...

Oh I thought the gift was for Moreau, also on his last tour and the oldest guy in the break-away