Road Bike Racing - The Tour de France is over...

Sigh... That's depressing.

At least I'll have my evenings free now that I don't have to watch it anymore.

That statment may be very true.....but there is still 2 weeks of racing left so how can that be depressing!?!? :beer:

velocipedio! What's wrong with you?!? There's plenty left to watch. There will be more battles to come, for the lesser spots anyway. What about the battle for the green jersey?

To tell the truth, I'm really just sick of Bill Patrick's Lance worship. I really don't enjoy the Tour as much as other races. It really is deadly dull. Armstrong reminds me rather too much of Indurain.

Originally posted by velocipedio
To tell the truth, I'm really just sick of Bill Patrick's Lance worship. I really don't enjoy the Tour as much as other races. It really is deadly dull. Armstrong reminds me rather too much of Indurain.
Velicipedio,

I too am sick of Bill Patrick, however there is the occaisional
BOBKE TV to lighten things up. I can't even get away from
BP at work, they broadcast his dreck over the internet!
Gee, who do you suppose coached Lance on riding mountains,
and spinning? there ya go.
but, there's always JaJa to liven things up, at least for this
year.

Marty

You guys are a-holes. Do you put spoilers in the titles to ruin my day? I can't watch the TDF until later in the day.
Once is ok-no harm, but I thought it was all cool and everyone was going to play fair and give some of us that have to work a chance to actually enjoy the race.

Yeah, I second that!

I try reeeeaaaaaalllllll hard not to listen to anything TdF related during the day as I am forced to watch the replay at 9:00 pm est.

For example,
My wife and I went riding last night and afterwards went and picked up our son at the in-laws house. We walked in and the first thing my father-in-law said was, "Boy, Lance really put a hurting on everyone today, WOW, a minute and a half lead" He
blurted it out before we could stop him! AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

L8R

Originally posted by RacerX
You guys are a-holes. Do you put spoilers in the titles to ruin my day? I can't watch the TDF until later in the day.
Spoiler? What spoiler? "The TdF is over" is a spoiler?

In fact, I intentionally waited until the day after stage 11, so it wouldn't be a spoiler. Could you let me know what kind of time margin you require?

As for today's stage; I haven't watched it, and don't intend to.

http://newbie.tscentral.net/images/BullMeter.gif

RacerX, what's your damage?

I don't see any spoilers in this thread.
There's discussion about LA and dominance,
about Bill Patrick being a dork, but
nothing about results.
Did I miss something (again!).

Marty

I'm trying to figure out why the TdF is over after stage 11. LA didn't exactly ride into Paris yesterday.

Why watch the TdF?

1) Mont Ventou.

2) Threat of a bonk. . . see 2000.

3) Threat of a race ending crash.

4) 2-5th place still up for grabs.

5) Green Jersey.

6) Watching the best in his prime.

I remember screaming at Joe Montana in 1984 as he beat my beloved NY Giants in the playoffs, again. I hated that guy, and salivated like a mad wolf when Lawrence Taylor knocked him out of the 1986 NFC championship game.

Now I regret that I didn't watch him more closely. He was, arguably, the best professional quarterback to ever play american football. My dislike for him made me overlook his tremendous skills.

I did the same with Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali and early on in Michael Jordan's career.

Not anymore. I may not always root for Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong, but you can be sure I watch them when I can and try to appreciate their gift.

I'm taping the Tour for friends, anyway. I could always save it for when I get over my distaste for Armstrong and USPS.

Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for the man's abilities, and I'm not sure how to explain why I'm so sick of him [not as a person -- I don't know him -- as an athlete and as a media product]. I may simply be unfairly projecting my frustration at the incessant dominance of America [a foreign country to me] in all things; in which case, it's ptobably not unlike the way one always hates the guy in highschool who's good at everything and gets the homecoming queen. This is not rational, it's visceral, and I don't mean it as an insult to Armstrong's many fans.

The prospect of continuing to watch this race holds little appeal for me.

I think maybe Velocipedio is being a bit gloomy, but I admit it gets to me too. The endless Lance Armstrong worship, constanlty going on about how great he is- it's like he's the only man in the race, and who cares about anyone else? I liken it to watching ball game- even if it's one of my fave teams, like the red sox, if they're leading 12-2 it's a rout so I change the channel or stop watching. I know nothing is ever a given, but I am pretty sure LA will win. There isn't much suspense. I think it's also because, due to various circumstances, a lot of the big contenders aren't there. No Ullrich, or casagrande or simoni or Garzell, etc. They wanted a French tour but instead it's an all american affair, with endless blasting of Lance armstrong at every single commercial break. Enough already! As much as I am glad we have coverage, sometimes I wish we got France2, where at least they might acknowledge other riders.

I know nothing is a given in a stage race, anything can still happen. At least the Giro was full of suspense- you had no IDEA who was going to win. ANd I look forward to the Vuelta, since LA most likely won't be in it and some of the other teams will be!

Ok, this is kind of strange but bear with me.
to start, yeah I'm a Lance fan, amazing rider,
very calculated, and a real inspiration.
However I agree the Lance worship on OLN is
way over the top. Ligget is bad enough
(although he heavily promotes others, i.e.
Robbie Hunter), but this new guy (bill patrick)
is ridiculous.
I have a more than sneaking suspicion that OLN is
pulling for ratings (its a U.S station?) by blasting
Lance all over the place. Then add in all the
sponsors who are riding on lance's success like
Beloki on his wheel (sorry couldn't resist) and
its LANCEMANIA . . .
Totally agree with Wabbit, the field is a little skewed
without Garzelli, Cassagrande, Simoni (and his nose!)
and lest we not forget Cipo to heat up the green jersey
competition.

Marty

How come there are so few Canadian riders in the TdF? I just checked the Tour website and they listed only 3 Canadians ever participating in the Tour: Steve Bauer, Gord Fraser, and Alex Stieda.

I know there are a lot of good Candian racers out there. Why so few in the Tour? There's a healthy contingent of our Northern neighbors on this forum, maybe they have some ideas.

Not too sure. I can honestly say that having lived in Ontario and BC 90% of the people I know and were friends with refered mtb. This could possibly be because of our massive amounts of offroads and fireroads. Otherwise I am not too sure.

As for OLN, I believe it is Canadian. It is unfortunate about the LA worship. We as Canadians tend to drift to American athletes as our idols so I can see the focus being on LA as benefitial but to be honest I have many many other complaints about canadian sports television in general. We suck :) (I wish we had espn2 for example or something similar)

What many of your are complaining about really isn't LA's fault. I'm not sick of Lance and his amazing ride - but, rather, his hangers-on. Chris Carmichal makes me sick, if you must know. He's riding his Lance-mobile as far as he can and OLN lets him unashamedly promote himself. I hope OLN is getting lots of $$$ for Carmichal's self-promotion.

Then there's Frankie Andreu. He'd be laughed off ESPN, or the major network's sports programs. If he sucked up to Lance any more. . . get a real journalist to interview the athletes.

Lance vs. The World. Imagine me sticking my index finger down my throat.

Armstrong oversaturation isn't his fault. He's been pretty low-key with Andreu's interviews (I think LA is even embarrassed by Frankie's stupid questions). Lance is doing his job, it's the media that are shoving LA down our throat at every opportunity.

Yeah, I'm rooting for Lance, even hoping he gets a couple more in the coming years, but I'm hoping OLN gets the broadcast right one of these days.

Canadian sports broadcasting does indeed suck- it's terrible Fox Sports world canada is terrible- they have nothing but soccer and the hosts of Global sportslink are total goobers who know nothing about sports. One of them keeps mispronouncing names: "JOHN kirsipuu." Good thing Michael Boogerd didn't win anything, yikes.

But enough of this lance worship. Can't they just tone it down? That shmuck patrick said, after today's stage, "I guess this shows ho much better Lance armstrong is than the rest of the world." Give me a break. Why bother watching then?

The Tour de France is over?

I didn't hear the fat lady sing. (I certainly heard her warming up - but she hasn't sung yet.)

WOW, I'm be believing not what I am reading yes!

Some of you actually think Lance is or can be overpromoted? :confused: There is nothing that can be said about LA that doesn't do cycling as a whole a great deal of good and cycling as a sport can use all the promotion it can muster.

Michael Jordon was overpromoted.

Tiger Woods is overpromoted - Quick, who's leading the Britsh Open - chances are you don't know, but you probably know that Tiger is 2 strokes back.

I apologize to anyone I offend if I've misread the intent of this thread, but Armstrong is amazing and cycling as a sport needs to ride his wheel for as long as he can pull.

As other riders "cracked" yesterday, this superb athlete "danced on his pedals" up a grade to steep to classify. Yes, Heras was super, but almost every rider that blew up had a wheel to follow too, so don't take to much away from Lance's effort.

Rant ended

The reason why there are no Canadians in the Tour is that the sport of cycling has no profile at all in Canada. There are a whole lot of great Canadian cyclists -- Charles Dionne, Mark Walters, Dave Barry and others -- who could quite well in European races, but there are not Canadian teams to develop them for grand tours. US Postal is hardly going to waste its time developing a Canadian like Barry for Tour leadership; that would hardly suit the sponsor.

And the bottom line is that cycling is a sponsor-supported sport, right from junior development. Without that support, there are no great Canadian hopes. Ironically, it costs rather little to fund a team. I'm sure Air Canada and Molson's could get the 2.5-3 million together to field a pretty good Canadian Div. 2 team.

Threadend, it might just be one of those things that you notice when your media content all comes from another country, but yes, Armstrong is way over-promoted. As I've said in the past, he's an extraordinary athlete, and I admire him greatly. However, he's become a kind of media product. The Lance vs. the World thing is part of it, as is the whole cancer survivor thing. Have you noticed how the American media constantly pull out the cancer survivor card, like its one of those up close and personal segments they have in the Olympics?

I suppose I'd be better able to tolerate it if it was just a great athlete doing great athletic things, but its being played as The Lance Armstrong Story [clean-clut, drug-free heroic all-American boy battles back from cancer to show those corrupt and decadent Euros who runs the world].

Yes, admittedly my view is jaded, as a United Statian, I'm very pro Armstrong and I readily recognize I feel the same way about Jordan and Woods as you do about Armstrong. But the money and recognition Mikey and Tiger bring (brought) into their respective sports is huge and something that cycling needs.

As a cyclist I feel the sport of cycling should take full advantage of LA's accomplishments. Call it blatant promotion or whatever you want, but if done correctly maybe cycling will earn a higher profile. Perhaps sponsors will start to take notice and spend money to get their name on a cycling jersey. Yes, the "Molson Draft" sounds like a great name for a cycling team, but without spectators to be swayed away from Labatts, Molsons promotional division isn't going to pull NASCAR sponsorship funds for a bunch of spandex clad guys / gals riding around on bicycles.

What if North America sponsored a race series, would 12 million people show up to watch? That's how many are expected to see the tour live this year. Would 3.5 billion tune their TV sets to the race like in France? Now Molson has to start thinking maybe they would want a banner at the finish line and their name on the winning teams jersey. Promotion is necessary for these things to happen.

I have 7 nephews at the "active in sports age", 2 years ago at a family gathering in early August just after the tour had ended I posed this question to each of the nephews individually.

"Given a chance to spend the day with one of the follwoing athletes, would you choose to:?"

Shoot hoops with Michael Jordon
Play golf with Tiger Woods
Ride bikes with Lance Armstrong
Play soccer with Renaldo

I don't remember the exact tally, but I remember Lance didn't get choosen by one of the kids and Jordon received the most picks and he was retired at the time!!

Ahhh, what a relief. I have been keeping my mouth shut because my views parallel those of Velocipedio's and Wabbit's and I was afraid that criticizing Lance Armstrong would be rather like criticizing George Bush on 13 September of last year.

But, I have to say, as I saw him take off at the end of stages 11 and 12, I thought, yup he's unbeatable. But what a pity. What boredom. But, what struck me most was the way that Armstrong didn't even crack a smile as he won stage 12. He didn't even seem to be enjoying himself. Granted he'd just been working his arse off for the previous 6 hours, but still there seemed to be no pleasure in his victory. More like he's just trying to prove a point. It left an unsympathetic picture in my mind. I am sure he's a likeable guy; the picture in the New Yorker was downright charming. But, I just can't warm up to his victories the way I did with Greg LeMond.

As for Chris Charmichael, I think that he is every bit to blame for the over-promotion of Armstrong. He is milking that cow for everything it's worth and then some.

As to the promotion problem, linking cycling too much to one person is kinda like a tourist economy--once Armstrong retires (once the tourist leave at the end of the Summer), it'll fall back into oblivion. To promote the sport, the USCF needs to do what AYSO/FIFA did for soccer when I was little. Look at the results for both men and women in the last few years. Sure Armstrong is good for the sport, but I think it is of limited duration.

Cheers,
Jamie

McEwan and Zabel are equal on points for the green jersey. If you really think it's over for the GC, why not watch for the green battle?

If your only reason for watching is to see who'll win General Classification, you've missed the point. There's a lot more going on than the battle for yellow.

Why not just watch it as a series of one off races to see who'll win each stage? Watch it for the breakaways. Watch it to see if Jalabert can hang on to the climbers jersey in his final Tour.

Well said Threadend!

I as most of us respect Armstrong's character and abilities.
As to Lance worship, I suggest we don't get confused with how the US media treats Lance and how it treats any of its favorites. The US media thinks personalizing stories and playing on American homilies sells itself... I agree, the mainstream U.S. media sucks at everything it does and certainly it role of informing is a dismal failure.
I just ask ourselves- are we taking that out on Lance Armstrong? We all to often fall for our media's sucker punches and accept it conclusions.. Many of them turn out to be false, but not all..
From what I read Lance Armstrong is a generous individual. I hope he is sincere. He did not invent his cancer, afterall. Probably would have preferred it not come his way.
And so your comments about our media make me, slightly less miss not having OLN during the Tour De France. Our cable company does not offer it, unles I receive another 50 channels that I do not want- other than OLN..
And then the package I do subscribe to, I have chosen channels that help me to avoid the mainstream U.S. media.. Further more, I can watch the Tour De France on France's own 'channel 5.' that I much more enjoy even if my French is so very limited..

I don't think anyone can deny that LA has done a lot for cycling in North america, especially in the US, wheree thanks to him, OLN now airs cycling coverage. In Denmark, cycling became huge afater Bjarne Riis won the tour, and cycling in germany has taken off exponentially thanks to the success of Jan Ullrich and Erik Zabel. It's true what jamie said, that daring to say, "hey, I don't think the guy is god" is like daring to criticize Bush after Sept 11 (I never had toruble with that- the guy was a moron then and even before sept 11). I actually noticed the same thing at the stage win- it's like LA didn't even seem excited, like it was just another day. I too can't feel terribly excited about his victories because they just seem so much part of a big, corporate master plan- Lance Inc. If he doesn't seem surprised or excited, why should I? I think it's because we're always being told how we should feel about the guy, how much we should admire him- like that sappy coverage at the olympics, and the brave athletes, etc... that usually has the reverse effect and alienates me, and I start hoping the americna athletes will trip and fall. I know Armstrong nearly died, but let's face it cycling is full of comebacks after horrible crashes, near deaths, etc. I think it's time they stopped milking it and eased up on that stuff a bit- it's the tour de France, not ER! We don't have to hear about it every commercial break!

One thought is that perhaps armstrong doesn't seem surprised or excited because really, he knows that a lot of the major competitors aren't there and it's not quite the same battle without Ullrich, Casagrande, Garzelli, Simoni. He's just wiping up everyone and there's no suspense for him, no surprise. For me, I'll just ignore the whole Lance, Inc. thing and focus on the green jersey battle and Jaja's last tour!

Personally, I really enjoy watching each stage no matter who is going to win the entire thing. These guys are the best in the world and it is really inspiring!

http://www.denversearch.net/images/BuddyIconRevised.gif

Originally posted by SteveE
How come there are so few Canadian riders in the TdF
Frankly, up until the last 10 years, there've been precious few Americans. The first US rider was in, what, '83?

I still have trouble believing that US cyclists are now key riders on a couple of European teams (CSC - Hamilton, Rodriquez; Telekom - Livingston, Julich; RAB - Leipheimer).

Edit:
ImaDummy. Rodriguez rides for Domo.

Originally posted by jmlee

But, I have to say, as I saw him take off at the end of stages 11 and 12, I thought, yup he's unbeatable. But what a pity. What boredom. But, what struck me most was the way that Armstrong didn't even crack a smile as he won stage 12. He didn't even seem to be enjoying himself.
Cheers,
Jamie

That's because the crowds were shouting "doper" at him; as in blood doping.

Is that really true that they were shouting "doper" him? Hard to believe. Armstrong himself said before the Ventoux stage that he was relieved that no one had yet raised the issue this year.

Frankly, I wonder why Armstrong has such thin nerves on the doping subject. We have all heard how angry he is about the accusations. The French press has surely pushed the subject well beyond what the evidence supports. But, if he is innocent (and I do believe he probably is), then why doesn't he just ignore it and concentrate on winning? With the rigor of testing these days, it's hard to cheat. He should just refer anyone who asks to his test results. Alas, with his anger, my thoughts grow Shakespearean here: Me thinketh he doth protest too much.

In any case, in this household, the Green jersey is the main question. When told about Zabel's passion for collecting bike and when shown a picture of his smile, my fiancée became a total Zabel fan. That makes two of us.

Cheers,
Jamie

Originally posted by marcuselo
Personally, I really enjoy watching each stage no matter who is going to win the entire thing. These guys are the best in the world and it is really inspiring!

http://www.denversearch.net/images/BuddyIconRevised.gif

I'm with you. I think it's great to see cycle racing. And the tour is always an event even if someone runs away with it.

Anyway, there's still a long way to go, illness, crashes etc could change everything.

I fear that once LA retires OLN will retire from the TdF as well, unless another strong american rises to contention - if not domination.


Go Floyd, Levi, Tyler!!

Originally posted by WoodyUpstate
I fear that once LA retires OLN will retire from the TdF as well, unless another strong american rises to contention - if not domination.

My fear as well. But I am somewhat assuaged by the fact that OLN is doing/has done the "Lance-less" Vuelta and Giro live, and at least tape-delay on the spring Classics. I hope this results in enough of a viewer expectation that OLN will feel compeled to continue regardless of the nationality of the major names.

Didn't OLN air the XC and DH National Championships last week on Thursday night?

I fear the same thingl. Lance was was encouraged OLN to air the tour, and without him, they may say the hell with it. Of course, here in canada OLN shows nothing but crap anyways. But I was hoping that the success of the tour would encourage the morons in canada to show more cycling. Instead, they'll probably figure without armstrong no one will care, and knowing american sports fans, they may decide they dont' care anymore either and go back to watching NASCAR and baseball.

However, it's true they do show the Giro and Vuelta, neither of which armstrong ever does, and spring classics like Roubaix- all of which are rarely won by americans, and they still show MTB, so they may stick with it.

I think it's important for the viewers to keep campaigning to make sure the networks don't drop cycling. Start emailing OLN and tell them that even without Lance, you want to keep watching the tour and all the races. Maybe if they think they have enough of an audience, they'll keep going. Listen, if there's an audience for Fishing shows, there has to be an audience for the ALps classic!

I share Velocipedo´s opinion.
This was one of the most boring TDF I have ever seen ! Lance Armstrong here, Lance Armstrong there... I almost can´t stand it any longer. To be honest, I don´t like Armstrong and I don´t like USPS either. Ullrich was missed badly this year, he seems to be the only one who can compete with Armstrong. We all should hope that Ullrich and some other riders come back as soon as possible so that next years TDF might become more interesting.

It is sad, although if you want memories just go rent the Tour for the past for years from your local bike shop. I go down to Exeter Cycles and sign a few hours worth of tape out and it gives me the excitment just like I'm watching the Tour Live! The only difference is I know Lance is gonna win, so it's really not a difference at all because I knew he was gonna win anyway...try that and just enjoy every second of it.