Stage 2: Challans - Les Essarts

[Guest]

Stage 2: Challans - Les Essarts, 181.5 km


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[kokodeselavy]

Robbie.

[Devil]

Boonen.

[TheKidd]

Boonen.

agreed.

[pedex]

angry lawn gnome

[Devil]

angry lawn gnome
McEwen?

[pedex]

McEwen?
yep

[scroz]

Ullrich - needs to get time lost to LA back already... can't do it in the mountains, can't do it in the TT (apparently), so...

Alright, I will face it - he's buggered.

[pedex]

Ullrich - needs to get time lost to LA back already... can't do it in the mountains, can't do it in the TT (apparently), so...

Alright, I will face it - he's buggered.

why?lots of racing left, Ullrich isnt the only GC out there, and little tex has to finish the race..........odds are not in his favor that he will have 7 straight years of good luck, wouldnt shock me if he DNF's. Considering todays TT winner already has one GT's worth of racing in his legs whats that say about little tex?Didnt Zabriskie ride in the giro de Italia?

[georgiaboy]

There is alot of racing to go. CSC and Phonak are serious contenders. Too bad Tyler Hamilton is not participating.

[Bikeophile]

CSC, and TMOBILE have absolutely amazing teams and several people on each team who could contend GC (Especially TMobile)...

Lance couldn't have asked for a better start to the Tour, but what I am interested in seeing is the constant attacks in the mountains. Sure Jan hasn't been able to match Lance in the Mountains...But if the other teams get their acts together and you get some rapid attacks from Vino, Heras, Guerrini, Kloden, Landis then it will make for some interesting stages.

[Gustaf]

Hushovd!

[Trsnrtr]

McEwen

[my58vw]

Boonen, although I would like to see Ullrich in there with a flat stage (effectivly) sprint finish.

[Laggard]

McEwen
Boonen
Nazon

[skinnyone]

Boonen..
Cancellara..
Mcewen..

[girl27]

McEwen
Boonen
Nazon
Though not in that order... ;)

GO TOM BOONEN!

[lotek]

Boonen.
The break will be by Chavanel who is chasing the
ghost of Jaja who will not be caught. Slvain unfortunately will.

[gcasillo]

Hushovd
McEwen
Boonen
and every other fuggin' Aussie bringing up the rear :D

Kirchen, Kroon, and Astarloza will be in the break which gets reeled in. Boonen, sheesh, what's he doing rattling off a 22:40 TT in stage 1? That's either a good sign or perhaps he did too much?

[auricpoe]

im saying Boonen

[Laggard]

The obvious is that Bouygues Telecom wants this stage and will thus try and get a couple riders in the inevitable early break. Look for Rous, Brochard or Pineau. Quickstep, Lotto and CA will then chase and a bunch sprint will ensue.

[gsteinb]

CSC, and TMOBILE have absolutely amazing teams and several people on each team who could contend GC (Especially TMobile)...

Lance couldn't have asked for a better start to the Tour, but what I am interested in seeing is the constant attacks in the mountains. Sure Jan hasn't been able to match Lance in the Mountains...But if the other teams get their acts together and you get some rapid attacks from Vino, Heras, Guerrini, Kloden, Landis then it will make for some interesting stages.


isn't that assuming anyone can keep up? last year only Basso was able to hang around. The only thing that's beating Lance this year is a stomach bug or a broken collar bone. And Ullrich can't even lead his own team. He'll be working for Vino.

[Smoothie104]

Boonen has a toothache, the destist said he cleaned out some infection from 2 teeth with out sedating the area.... ouch.

[Bikeophile]

Its nice to see Voekler getting some air time again this year! I would love to see some antics like he had last year! That kid rode some inspired miles last year!

[Bikeophile]

Speaking of Voekler! Polka Dot!! I love that kid!!

[darrencope]

Boonen!

[skinnyone]

Boonen!

That was nice sprint... And Voeckler.. That guy is tough...

I think I need to start betting on my predictions :p...

[alanbikehouston]

"Stage Two" goes to: Boonen. And, Zabriskie is still wearing the yellow jersey.

From now until July 12th, some of the sprinters and the "one day" wonders will be enjoying themselves. Until about July 12th, when the Tour de France will get serious on the slopes of Courchevel. Then, the fun is over, and the men get down to serious racing.

Sprinters are the "heart and soul" of the Tour de France? Please, gimme a break. They hide in the middle of the Peloton until the last two minutes of the stage. When the race gets hard, many of the sprinters will just up and quit. Most of the sprinters that make it to Paris won't finish in the "Top Fifty"...yup, THESE are the guys the Tour is all about.

Or, maybe the Tour is about the guys who ride hard, when the riding GETS hard. And, the Tour gets REALLY hard on July 12th.

[KleinRider]

^^^ guess that's what I get for not refreshing the page! :rolleyes:


****Spoiler****







Boonen!

[KleinRider]

^^^^

Agreed!!!!

What happened to the "Who cares what Sheryl Crow thinks?" comment.

[Bikeophile]

I deleted it :)

[Laggard]

Boy, Alan - way to be dismissive of the sprinters. These guys have the biggest cajones of all riders and what they do is simply amazing. The only reason you see them as "one day wonders" is because you only tune in in July.

And the Tour actually started on July 2.

[pearcem]

i agree that the sprinters deserve a lot more credit than they get, especially the ones contending for the Green jersey because they have to get over all the mountains and through the TT's as well. They don't get to drop out when the road turns up, and a lot of the times the tour organizers put an intermediate sprint just before the base of a climb.

[gcasillo]

Nice tactical move by Voekler to take the maillot pois.

Almost had the top 3 right. Just move Boonen to the top and bump everybody else down.

Four or five out of the last six years, the green jersey competition has been far better than the GC. I'll take the sprinters, thank you.

[Dolomiti]

i agree that the sprinters deserve a lot more credit than they get, especially the ones contending for the Green jersey because they have to get over all the mountains and through the TT's as well. They don't get to drop out when the road turns up, and a lot of the times the tour organizers put an intermediate sprint just before the base of a climb.

Well they just try to save everything and stay within the time limit in the mountains. They're there to win the lesser prizes that weren't even ment to be prizes in the first place. The original Tour organizer would even disqualify a rider if they backed way off on stages to save energy for one particular stage win. ;)

Though it is fun to watch.

[gmason]

Speaking of Voekler! Polka Dot!! I love that kid!!
Absolutely! Just look at his face during the race, and on the podium, and in interviews. He genuinely loves what he is doing, and reacts to all his laurels as surprises.

In the nationals, BTW, he was in the lead break of eight for a long time. He dropped back on a climb about 40 Km from the end, but got back to the group. It was within a couple of Km of the finish before he finally lost all hope of a repeat.

And Pierrick Fedrigo, the new French champ, seems to be cut out of the same cloth.

[gmason]

What happened to the "Who cares what Sheryl Crow thinks?" comment.
She was on the Village Depart show on France 3 this morning. Every stage after the first has about an hour of review of the prior stage, local history and color, guests, etc.

Today it was her, and following days will have a rider's wife each day. Guests today included Bernard Hinault and Bernard Thevenet, who are both connected to the race (as ASO rep and France 2/3 commentator), local cycle club organizers, etc.

She is OK. And they did an interesting thing. She spoke in English, and wore an earpiece which seemingly provided simultaneous translation to her. It worked out well.

They also have one of our favorite French TV people - Vincent Ferniot - every day. Think of him as the Thomas Voeckler of good living - mostly food. Two people who really love their jobs, who would have thought it was possible? :)

[Smoothie104]

Thats cool that you get all that in France, All we get is A-hole Trautwig, and Sheryls babbling nonsense. Thank God for Phil and Paul, and espcially Bob Roll. and I love Frankie, but seriously, does Sheryl have any relevant information regarding anything?

[Bikeophile]

You know what...Sheryl actually made more sense and gave more valid information today than Al did today

[240GL]

Hushovd interviewed by Norw. media right after the finish:
"With around 250 meters left to go, Kirsipuu went to the wrong side. He was blocked, and I had to go around him. If he had come out of the turn with me on his tail, I would have taken it. ... I am happy to see that my legs are better than what yesterday's disastrous race indicated. But when I see that I could have won, I still get a bit disappointed. ... I was the one going fastest at the finish, and that proves I'm in shape. That's what is most important right now. ... The stage was great for our team, with Bodrogi in the early break we could go easy and save our strength."
(My poor translation, sorry. Don't blame Thor.)
Erling.

[gmason]

Thats cool that you get all that in France, ... but seriously, does Sheryl have any relevant information regarding anything?
That is one of the reasons we moved here (among all the others :rolleyes: ). Obviously, the French are very proud of their national treasures, including the TdF. The day actually goes something like this:

1030 or so, Village Depart - as described before, and about an hour long.

1330 (or earlier, based upon stage coverage) Legendes du Tour - stories of one or two legendary riders with original film, later interviews, etc.

Followed immediately by the stage coverage, to the end, usually around three hours give or take. Some days - usually on the weekends and the big climbing stages whenever they are - it starts earlier and essentially the whole stage, after they are warmed up, is presented. Interestingly, because of channel commitments, some days finds the coverage shifting between France 2 and 3 several times, but never a second of coverage lost. The same people are there, just shared between the two channels.

Immediately after the stage comes March du Tour which is the podium ceremony mixed with interviews of that stage's players. That is about a half hour.

Following immediately is Velo Club with many riders, team staff, press, commentators, and others. They do recaps, interviews, features (today was Polar's recording HRM and computer display with interpretation as used by one team). They also ride with a team in the DS's car during the stage, and show a summary of the stage from that point of view. They usually have a short preview of what to expect in the following stage.

We usually are done at about 1900.

What we find really interesting is that the French national TV stations do not cover the pre-prologue introduction evening! For that there is Eurosport, where the commentators never shut up to let you hear the intros. :(

As for Ms. Crow - she sings pretty well. Actually she seems to have her head screwed on straight, but is always very guarded, seemingly in fear of saying something that could be misinterpreted re LA. She has a good sense of humor too. And lots of road rash on her elbows, shown in response to a question about her riding skill. :)

[ljb61]

Thor looked very strong, I hope its a close battle for the green jersey.

[gsteinb]

and I love Frankie


oy vey

[gcasillo]

Anyone know why Lance was wearing a funny-colored yellow jersey?

[thewalrus]

I've noticed that team Discovery's AMD sponsorship logos are larger and more prominently placed this year - As a fan of the Athlon64/Opteron CPUs this pleases me.

[BigJetMech]

CSC, and TMOBILE have absolutely amazing teams and several people on each team who could contend GC (Especially TMobile)...

Lance couldn't have asked for a better start to the Tour, but what I am interested in seeing is the constant attacks in the mountains. Sure Jan hasn't been able to match Lance in the Mountains...But if the other teams get their acts together and you get some rapid attacks from Vino, Heras, Guerrini, Kloden, Landis then it will make for some interesting stages.
Kloden is D.O.N.E.!!

[jbhowat]

Wait wait wait. This morning after I watched it live i looked on both the TdF site and the Cyclingnews site for the overall standings. I didn't think they would change much, but it looked like Ullrich had ridden up behind the sprinters, thus finishing with the same time as them (9 seconds up from the peloton). This moved Jan up to 6th place with a time of -0:58. Now I look at its as if the 9 seconds is gone? What is going on. You don't get a time split between the sprinters and the main pack? He was obviously up there to get some time back, and he wasn't trying to sprint, just hangin safely on the back, sitting on the hoods. I dunno why he would do this if not for the 9sec advantage, which both cyclingnews and tdf gave him (OLN moved him up to 8th I have no idea what they are doing though). Now both sources list him back at 12th with no time gain from today. What gives?

[Bikeophile]

Anyone know why Lance was wearing a funny-colored yellow jersey?


Lance was wearing the GREEN Jersey which is reserved for the leader of the Points competition (This is the Jersey that the sprinters try to get). Zabriskie was leading in this competition after stage one, but because the YELLOW Jersey is obviously more important than the Green Jersey, the second place person wears it (Lance).

Lance will be in the normal Discovery Jersey tomorrow since he is neither he nor Zabriskie is leading in the Green Jersey competition anymore.

[Laggard]

Seeing as he posts here all season, I'm pretty sure gcasillo was joking about the green.

[Bikeophile]

I was wondering