Discussion: TDF thread

I thought I'd start a TDF tread in case anyone wants to talk about it. Today (Stage 4) was the team time-trail. USP won by a margin of 1'7" on a rainy, cobbled course, with the 3rd fastest team time trial in the history of the tour (avg speed was 54 km/h over 64 km). This moved Lance into first place overall, with americans in the top 3 spots (4 americans in the top 8 when you include Tyler Hamilton of Phonak). USP has 6 of the top 7 spots. Of course the top is very tight and its very early in the race, but Lance and crew seem to be doing just fine. I don't get OLN so I have to watch the web for news. The le tour website has a nice live updates section, and lots of stats and results which are updated in real-time. The pictures are lacking so-far this year though, which is disappointing.

Rumour has it that GHO's Doug Mahoney is cycling around France somewhere and might get to a stage or two to watch. Maybe if Doug is out there he can give us a first-hand account sometime?

Dougie has indeed moved to France to follow Lance aboot. I believe he is doing lots of training although his diet is consisting of nothing but wine and cheese. His goal is to make it onto the OLN on one of the mountain stages which will have nothing but evil Richard Virenque signs.

Tabbed browsers in Mozilla make it very convenient to simultaneously monitor the official tdf site, bicyclingmagazine.com, eurosport.com, yahoo sports, etc. You never know which will be first with the latest update. "TDF spectating : when seconds count!"

Too bad Eddie, the OLN coverage is great as always!

Grrrrrr

you can always listen to the live audio stream from the tour website. I haven't tried it though since I have OLN ;) (and this year comcast has OLN-on-demand, so you can watch previous stages if you missed them)

OLN-on-demand is great! That's the only way I've been able to watch any TDF coverage!

I only get to see the highlights that we receive at work for editing >:-(

Poor Julie :-( I have DVR too, would you like me to record it and send you my cable box via overnight shipping? Although that may get a bit expensive...

I noticed that there are no Canucks in the TDF this year. Is that unusual? I don't know of any famous Canadian cyclists. That seems odd. Did they get any track medals in Montreal in 1976? They did have a road team at the world champs last year in Hamilton - I remember the cool jerseys.

There's a guy named Michael Barry who was 7th in Hamilton, surged into the lead during the last lap for a while. Barry races for US Postal and is usually on their Tour of Spain team, but was thought to still be a bit inexperienced to carry Lance's food and water this year.

We had Steve Bauer racing for 7-11 in the 1980s, held the yellow during two races and looked favoured to win one year. I can't remember what happened but Bauer fell apart near the end and I think it was Delgado won.

Just in case you're wondering about the cool jerseys; major sponsor: Tim Hortons.

Crash!.....No internet updates! .... Reload! Reload! Reload! Ahhhh!!! ... No TV w/ OLN! No sound card!... I'm in a TDF blackhole! Can't ... take... the... stress! Ack! Erk! Bla! ....... Thud (sound of me hitting the floor).

Tom - you jinxed the day as there was a major crash at the 1k banner that brought most of the charge to a halt.

For some reason we are getting OLN for the race - which means we can watch it 3 times with various commentators but the same bad ads. And they cut to an ad today just as the crash must have happened!

I wasn't jinxing... that's the crash I was referring to. It seemed like all the internet typists decided to take a break just at that time! I think I'm going to have to breakdown and get cable just so I can have it 3 weeks out of the year. BTW, does anyone know if any of the satelite distributors carry Eurosport; I'd much rather have that.

WHOA! An unreal finish to stage 17 today. Simply unreal!! I won't give it away (its good news though). *must* get a tape of the OLN coverage for stage 17.

This is just too good, so I have to post it. This is part of a discussion that was up on the main TDF page today:

Floyd Landis is the master's apprentice. And today The Boss - as Armstrong has become known over the past five years - wanted the 28-year-old to enjoy the sweet taste of success at the Tour. Even if Floyd was able to achieve that, it could not have been called a gift. Since joining the US Postal team
at the start of 2002 Landis has demonstrated that he's a capable team player.He's usually strong on the early sections of the high mountains and is then content to get to the finish as best he can. His job description isn't to be in front at the top of vicious climbs like the Col de la Forclaz or the Col
de la Croix-Fry - the two which were tackled by the peloton in the final 50km of stage 17 - but that's where Floyd was. As he led an elite group of five over the final summit, Armstrong turned to Landis and asked,

"How bad do you want to win a stage of the Tour de France?"
"Real bad," came Floyd's reply.
"How fast can you go down a hill?"
"Real fast!"
"So," concluded Armstrong, "run like you stole something!"

Landis didn't need any more prompting. Like a bullet out of a gun he was gone. Real fast was no exaggeration. But, alas poor Floyd, he's not the only one who had the nerves and the energy to ride that way.



Advice for Wyoming...."Run like you stole something!"

eddie,

if you go to the French language version of the tdf site, you can at least see some video from each stage (You'll need to listen in French though).

Go to www.letour.fr, select the French and click on video on the right side.

According to the AP Wires this morning, Lance may not be racing the TDF next year :-(

By the way, the video of the finish from stage 17 IS awesome... we got that much at work :-)

I read the same thing (Lance not racing next year) in the NY Times this morning, I was bummed, real bummed. :-/

Today's NY Times article made me feel better abouth the "Lance and The Tour" drama.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/sports/sportsspe...