maalea

Go find a bridge that you can't climb but will crawl under, troll.

Laggard

Wow, the amount of crap being spewed in this thread is simply amazing.

"Oh, and nice job not being in yellow until the last week. Fewer drug tests that way."

" I do think Evan's highly strung personality, extreme sensitivity and paper-thin mental toughness contributed to his poor time trial. "

Unreal.

PeddlingPilgrim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FikzgWE3t0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fe79ZuDKfk

you can tell his left shoulder is injured, from the crashes probably, in both of these videos. anytime someone goes near the left shoulder he brings up his hand to hold it defensively and goes off. makes you wonder if the media was testing him just to see how bad off he was.

it's just amusing and surreal to see cadel, a grown man, p**sed off and carrying around the stuffed lion while the father like body guard pushes him along.

epobuster

What Evans did was rather more than rudeness. He lashed out at the reporter not once, but twice. Secondly, the head-butting incident, considering the speed Evans was travelling, could easily have resulted in considerable injury for the person behind the camera. These and the punching of the motorcyclist, if I was any of the victims I would press charges - Evans could hardly deny them.

I would like just one person here to state that this type of behaviour is worthy of a top cyclist.

classic1

Farkin-A it is, and there should be heaps more of it. Hinault and Fignon used to do it all the time and they rule. Cippolini too. I can even remember Roche whacking reporters and photographers. This type of behaviour is awesome. The likes of stupid gutter journalists, dumb protesters and fat motorbike cops deserved to be punched, smacked, kicked in the nuts, spat on and set on fire at every opportunity. The world is turning ghey and French cycling has been pussified since Fignon hung the bike up. This is just the sort of kick in the arse the Tour needs. Evans is just trying to emulate his heroes from the past IMO. He's still got a lot to learn about the art of being a prick like the greats but will improve next year I'm sure. Go Cadel. Aussie hero.

Thylacine

*cough*Landis*cough*Hamilton*cough*

Hitchy

Seppo's going on about personality disorders...that's rich, coming from the country that is one huge personality disorder of its own!....perhaps Cadel should be more like Lance, (BTW which anorexic Olsen twin is he rooting this week, or has he gone back to the chick that looks like his Mom...no 'issues' there!)...or maybe Cadel can aspire to be like 'roid Landis, get over it 'roid, you're guilty, noice chin BTW...or maybe Tyler (no really , it wasn't me , it was my twin) hamilton....or maybe...oh, forget it....nect you'll be electing some senile old man president...ohh, you already did...geez I'm glad we have no oil, otherwise we might be in line for a good 'liberating' as well!

Matt888

Victims! Pressing charges! Thats priceless. Go epobuster, world police. You the man.
You haven't been following sport for very long have you?
Give yourself an uppercut son, and press charges on yourself.

DogBoy

l' alp de blue mounds road!

lotek 

great, now we can discuss world politics, maybe in P&R but not here. lets leave that crap out of this.
Folks need to calm down a bit I'm thinking, maybe go out and have a pint or two, or
even go ride a bike, do ya wonders.

crash66

The discussion is officially over: Cadel has withdrawn from the Olympics due to a knee injury.

See, that's why he stunk up the joint in the TT--he was injured.....

I'm not sure when or why this became a US vs. Australia death match, but I know I'll be cheering for Cadel to make another courageous effort next year. That's all we expect of him, right? Winning is for suckers.

40 Cent

I like it. Very good point. Hinault was a bad ass on and off the road. He'd punch a reporter before breakfast, bloody his yellow jersey, take a stage sprint and kick a reporter before dismounting. Machismo like this can only help the sport of cycling in the days of spandex and flourescent colors.

Cadel needs a bit more of this during the race. He knows his strengths and weaknesses and did the best he could. And god knows second in the TdF two years running is incredible. But racing the way he does, even if he were first, he wouldn't have won it grandly like others before him. He's very measured. But on the Alpe d'Huez, he failed to factor in the margin of error for the TT, the margin he'd need if Sastre had a good day and he had a bad one. He did jump out front but a bit too late.

crash66

I'm sure Cadel would rather be known as a bad-ass who actually won the TDF, than a poor sport who never did. And that's exactly what it's going to take to turn "poor sport" into "bad-ass".

cobba

did you actually see the incident?

Cadel was riding past a team car on the left hand side when the motorcycle policeman who was riding in front of the car decided to move over to the left hand side of the road, he obviously didn't see Cadel coming as he rode straight across in front of him, it was raining, they were probably travelling at around 50kph and the roads were slippery. Cadel didn't punch him as the media would have you believe, it was an light open hand slap on the chest to get his attention then he signalled to him to keep his eyes open and watch where he was going.
This incident isn't worth talking about or receiving the hype that it's getting.

If you'd just ridden a couple of hundred km's with a sore and painful shoulder then a camera man comes charging at your shoulder while looking through a viewfinder, or a reporter comes charging at your shoulder with a microphone held out like a jousting lance, you'd most likely push them out of the way or head butt them if your hands weren't free.

I think your reading too much into some statements, he didn't imply that Sastre was using any illegal products.

After reading the posts on this thread, I'm convinced that some of the posters on here seem to have a lot more personality disorders/psychological problems then Cadel has, and they are defiantly doing a lot more whinging and whining than he ever has.

crash66

The original post didn't come from a country, it came from an individual. However, the rose-colored defending of Cadel, now that definitely seems to be coming from a country. But which country? Seems like a lot of Australians here are acting quite a bit like the French. You know, the country that much prefers their riders to make a long, courageous effort that ultimately ends in failure.

I'll offer this quote from Bernard Hinault in the TDF preview edition of VeloNews:

"Another astonishing rider is of course Cadel Evans. Based on what he demonstrated last year, he can definitely be considered a Tour favorite, along with Cunego and Valverde (I have less faith in Sastre, despite the strength of his team.) But, in order to win, he'll need to be more aggressive in this Tour. A yellow jersey doesn't just fall from the sky. If he remembers that, Evans could be the first Australian to be crowned at the Tour."

It appears The Badger accurately placed Cadel, Cunego and Valverde on the same level, and the only guy to go out and GRAB the tour was the guy he discounted. That's what those of us on this side of the argument are saying.

40 Cent

Well, same level... I think in retrospect, there's a little daylight between Cunego/Valverde and Evans. They're both far more risky and exciting riders, and I was pulling for them, but oth of them were overhyped too early in their careers. Cunego for his Giro win still nearly in his adolescence, and Valverde for showing such promise in 2005. And they're both young and there are many classics and probably a TdF podium in their future. But coming out of last year -- and with no Astana -- no one could discount Cadel in '08.

But Sastre was a bit of a surprise. He's hovered in the top 10 for several years. And since being a team leader, he hasn't been as boring as Evans but he hasn't been the first name to pop in your head when you think of exciting riders either, so I for one wasn't pulling for him.

Suzie Green

Best plan I've heard all week!!

classic1

epobuster is a pommie. Thats even worse IMO. You owe the whole of the united states of seppotania an apology.

Thylacine

Great avatar Marty!

I think I need that on a t-shirt. Do you have a larger rez version?

roadgator

Isn't this what the high-profile body guard was for?

Suzie Green

Not the best, but try here:

https://api.ning.com/files/dSwSTNf1HW...w/bikelove.jpg

You can also find it in several places by going to google (images) and searching for "bicycle love"

lotek 

hey tiger boy, I have a JPG version of it that blows up nicely (no pun intended )
let me know where you want me to send it (send email addy via PM).
nice to see you guys around here again, even if it is just to take the pis* out of us and
do a bit of seppo bashing. keep it up and I'll sic koffee on ya!
and for what it's worth the best aussie in the tour was Stuey, no doubt!
marty

marin1

Great post

rufvelo

As Robbie McEven correctly pointed out after Evans' sad little excuses, the strongest guy won after 3 weeks. This was polite, plus he knows that you can win races, sprints (as he has shown himself) and even Tours, without having the strongest team.

key

ROFL... you have got to be kidding me ? i would like to of seen lance win his 7 tours if he had no team. good luck winning the tour with no team mates. did you watch him going up alp du huez ? team csc had about 4 riders along with Evans who would close down every attack made, good luck doing that by yourself