Tour de France '04

Lets also pray for a lack of heart attacks and drug taking..

I like Ullrich this year.

John

OK - bugger off back to your 'clean' sports like, er, football and athletics then.

Tim (Go Jan!)

Can't remember where I read the quote, or who it was by....was many years ago.

It was a long retired top level woman athelete talking and the gist of the remark was that if you want to play in the top ranks of any sport on the world stage then drugs are mandatory. - this was supposedly said of competition in the early 60's. Then again when you think of it, you had countries wholesale participation in drugging, many of the advancements in steroids came out of the former eastern block....

Have any of the results of competitions gotten worse over the years? - I mean since the widespread ban on anything that could be remotely considered performance enhancing?

So if results are getting better and nobody is taking drugs then what...evolution really gearing up?

regards,

michael

For all you fans of that guy with the loop earring and cute pink bike:

T-Mobile's put their wireless know-how to good use and you can look at live biometric data of their boys in each stage. Go to the team site and scroll about half way down the page for the link.

I haven't checked other team sites to see what goodies they offer, but the full list of links can be found here.

Anyone found a web TV link thingy yet? The Eurosport audio is good, but piccies would be nice.

mykel - good point.

Tim

[This message was edited by Tim Jones on Sun 04 July 2004 at 22:10.]

[This message was edited by Tim Jones on Sun 04 July 2004 at 23:03.]

So, drugs aside, back to the racing, then...

Ullrich looked so lean and mean on Saturday I was amazed. But then he turns in a pretty lacklustre performance. Hmmm....maybe the rapid weight loss has left him a bit weakened and he'll ride himself back into form over the next three weeks. We'll see.

BTW, does anyone think this is one of the oddest, most lacklustre Tour routes we've seen for a long time? It seems as though everything is going to come down to the Alpe TT. Bizarre.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, just seen that Campag are introducing a carbon crankset for the Centaur groupset. Nnnnniiice....

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

I can't really see what the point of winning the Prologue is for a serious GC contender. It just puts them and their team under perssure to defend the jersey through the slippery, nervous first week.

The tubby Teuton will probably ride himself back into fitness at the very moment Lance crosses the line in Paris

I think the route has been designed specifically to make it all more 'exciting', but it does look weird. That team time trial rule where as soon as a team of climbers (ie Euskaltel)lose more than 2'30" they just sit up is a bit mad.

PS This is either very funny or very offensive...

http://www.evilcycling.com/pro_cyclists_suck.htm

Tim

quote:

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Originally posted by Tim Jones:
I can't really see what the point of winning the Prologue is for a serious GC contender. It just puts them and their team under perssure to defend the jersey through the slippery, nervous first week.

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Just looks like another psychological win for Tex, that's all.

quote:

---

The tubby Teuton will probably ride himself back into fitness at the very moment Lance crosses the line in Paris

---

Tubby? Shome mishtake, shurely...

quote:

---

I think the route has been designed specifically to make it all more 'exciting', but it does look weird. That team time trial rule where as soon as a team of climbers (ie Euskaltel)lose more than 2'30" they just sit up is a bit mad.

---

Still have to finish within the time limit, though...

quote:

---

PS This is either very funny or very offensive...


http://www.evilcycling.com/pro_cyclists_suck.htm



Tim

---

Well it IS offensive to anyone with more than a fleeting acquaintance with typography, but it IS very funny

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

Bloody hell, I missed it last night. Had to go out so couldn't watch the early evening coverage on ITV2, but planned to get back to see it on Eurosport. My WH Smith Tour TV guide said 22.00, and when I put the telly on it was poxy volleyball!

I stayed up to watch the late (1am) show on ITV1. These early stages are a bit dull, but it was nice to see Scanlon in a break yesterday, and I think he was at the front for a while on Sunday.

Does anyone else get real nostalgia pangs for the early evening C4 prog from the eighties...?

Tim

PS Volleyball - used to love it, but they're all drug cheats...

quote:

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Does anyone else get real nostalgia pangs for the early evening C4 prog from the eighties...?

Tim

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Absolutely !

Began my whole interest in the sport.
Coverage on C4 was great well into the nineties.

It's basically the same production team and presenters and the same great product.

All we need is a broadcaster, ideally free to air widely accessible, who's prepared to actually transmit it.

BBC2 anyone ?

Losing The Simpsons at 6pm was bad enough but replacing it with yet another house buying programme is really taking the piss.

Rant over

1985 was my first year of C4 Tour viewing - and the first year I did London to Brighton as a 15 year old.

The Simpsons. Followed by TdeF. Heavenly...

Tim

Is there really TdF converage on ITV1? I didn't see it at all in the schedules. Bit peed of that it's not on C4 this year as not having digital TV (and being too tight to fork out for something that I'm hardly going to use ) it looks like I'm going to miss out this year.

Cheers

Matt

Matt - hasn't been on C4 since (?) 2000.

I don't like McEwan. There's something a bit chippy about him and he has a reputation for being a twat in the sprints - what he did to Petacchi a couple of days ago is par for the course.

Shame Brad McGee isn't going better (yet). He might do well in the mountains.

Tim

Matt

We had better get freeview, because it is on ITV2 mon-fri between 7.00 and 8.00 pm with live coverage between 3.00 to 4.30 on Sat and Sun.
ITV 1 has weekly highlights between 1.05 and 2.05 am on Monday - hopefully they will show a bit more the week after.

I miss those C4 shows, it used to be the sporting highlight of my summer.

CNC

Damn


This digital TV malarky. Plenty to watch is there?

Matt

Tim J --

Another reason not to like McEwen is that he mamed his first son Ewen. Way to go, twatboy.

Cheers,

Tim
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Os nid Campagnolo yw hi, dyw hi ddim yn werth ei marcho...

Hahahaha. Yeah I remember. Bet that'll go down a storm on the playground.

Go, er, Voeckler!

Tim

Thanks for the info about coverage on ITV2.

Now the proud owner of a philips DTR1500 (£80 in Comet) and managed to get it going in time for tonight's show. Brill !

As for oher programmes to make it a bit more VFM I do know that BBC4 will be showing The Prisoner this month.

regards
Richard S

can I pick 'em...

I had Petacchi, Cipollini, and McGee on my online TdF team

I hear Tyler got skinned up today -- I cringe whenever I hear of a pile up. I just hope the big 3 get to the mountains in one piece so we can have a proper contest.

cheers,

Dan

Hmm, who did I pick again...

Oh yeah - Ullrich as leader (yay!), Rasmussen and Zubeldia as my climbers, Allan Davis and Olaf Pollack as sprinters (maybe bit of TT with Pollack), and Cioni, Danielson, Michael Creed and Dekker as "domestiques" (Dekker for the breaks, Cioni and Danielsonto help Ulle on the cols, Creed 'cos I ran out of money).

Shockingly I realised there is a pro rider called, er Tim Jones, riding the Tour with Domina Vacanze. Hmmmm.

I don't know if half these riders are even in the Tour any more....

Tim

Is there a way to find out what the steepest grade the Tour will climb this year is? There's an idiot in my office claiming there is a 32% (!) grade. The highest I've been able to find is 8.4% in stage 13.

Best,

Bob

Bob -

There's an 8% in today's stage, and that's only a Cat3 climb - because it's short. When you see a percentage quoted for a climb it's the average percentage. So something which says "Ave 8%" can vary between (say) 5 and 30% over several miles.

Some of the Pyrenean climbs have very steep bits and short stretches of 30% are possible.

Tim

Just found out folks that Nicole Cooke has won the Giro d'Italia ! Whoopee ! Without wishing to tempt fate , a £10 double on her and Paula Radcliffe to bag olympic gold is an increasingly attractive bet.
Glenda