le tour de France

[DAZMCFC]

is anybody watching it. i have watched this magnificant race since about 83/84. i have seen many greats on the telly, bernard hinault, laurent hinault,sean roche, greg lamond, miguel indurain (shit hot won it 5 times),barne riise, jan ulhrich(should of won it more than he did, loved the end of the season more than he should and pigged out),marco pantani(he is dead now, drugs i think)and then there is the best ever Lance Amrstrong 7 times winner, he was unbeleivable. don`t get me wrong, i am not 1 of those people that go out in their cycling shorts and p[edal every where. i just love the way they go up the mountains, the way lance use to excellerate was shocking, marco pantani was the same, he was brilliant. watching the sprints near the end, for f*ck sake they don`t give a shit about anybody else, they are all over the show on their bikes and i love it.

1 of the 1st years i watched it Robert Millar of britain(scottish) won the king of the mountains, atm his son Robert has been in the tour for the last 7 years(banned for 2 for drugs) he has won a few prologues and stages.

[Aries]

I might watch it

[The1exile]

Isn't it "la"?

who knew GCSE french might teach me something useful...

[autoload]

If LeMond wasn't shot in a hunting accident and was not taken advantage of the year before he won, 6 consecutive victories was possible.

For sure 5 victories was doable.

[Z00T]

what 'sport' is there in the tour de france (or any other cycling event) ??
nearly all cyclists have been caught at least 1 time for doping .. armstrong very fortunately (i am very very sorry for being sarcastic here ...) had a cancer on his left testicule which also very fortunately gave the same symptoms in his blood as EPO does ... when ALL cyclists in the mountain courses are soaked to the bones armstrong is dry as a brand new sponge, not 1 single drop of sweat .. if number 2, 3 and 4 are convinced of having used doping, how can number 1 not have ?? superman ??
coluche (a french comic, died in a motorcycle accident) said 30 years ago (!!!); "if they really want to stop people use doping in cycling, the tour de france has to start at christmas to make sure they arrive in paris in july ...."
as in ALL sports involving at 1 moment or another money and specially publicity and sponsors, the money will always prevail over the sport !! the best example are the olympic games; sport players having been convicted for using doping and have been evicted from their sport for 6 months, 1 year or whatever amount of time, are allowed to join the olympics if ever they fall in between the time of their eviction ....
even worse, players having been evicted, were allowed to join international meetings, because without them there was no real 'challenge' and no chance of records being broken, so the public wouldn't show up ...
the tour de france is no longer a sporting event; it has become the challenging ground of international pharmaceuticals, about who is going to find the newest 'undetectable' drug ...

[chessplaya]

no i am not watching it


but i like ZoOTS avatar

[firth4eva]

a horse joined in didnt it

[Z00T]

it did !! just watch ...

[dwightschrute]

Yes I am watching it a little but all Americans are being accused of using drugs.

[DAZMCFC]

in the 1st post, i said his son was called robert, but in fact he is called david . at the time of writing, i had already had a few drinks.

i do agree with autoload about greg lemond, he was told to not challenge for the good of the team. in other words he had to let the team leader win instead of himself.

to exile1, it is Le tour de france.

to Zoot, i have seen the sweat pissing out of armstrong over the years and you can not say all the riders are drugged up to the eyeballs. yes a few have been caught over the years, including david millar for epo. he has servered his ban and is against drugs and there has been a major clamp down with regular testings.

[autoload]

Myself and a Co-Worker usually seem to find ourselves coming up with crazy sports scenarios during Lunch. Here was today's scenario.

A little bit of Background: I'm entering my first Triathlon Aug 11 and bought myself a decent road bike to race in. So all the time I am talking about how much I want to get off work and ride. Also I will crouch down at work and pretend to be on my aero bars and pedal. Some of the non sports people grow tired of this...

Anyways, I am getting caught up in the cycling and my friend asks me what I would do if I was in a Peloton during the Tour and hear that Lance and Floyd are breaking away. He then informs me that Lance and Floyd are on a tandem bicycle. I was caught completely off guard at this and it begun a big debate on whether those two on a tandem would give them an unfair advantage over the rest of the field. I said it would hinder them mainly because of the lack of maneuverability.

Any thoughts on the pros and cons of elite athletes competing on a tandem?

[eyeofdeath]

I have been watching the tour for the past 3 or 4 years. I love watching it.

Honestly, i believe that there are many many people out there using drugs, but i like to hold out hope that there are some who race honestly.

During the tour, i always pretend that nobody is on drugs and they are all just supermen. It makes it a lot more fun.

Did anybody see yesterdays stage??

The rider from T-mobile, whathisname. That was pretty good.

[Djengis Khan]

Yes - I saw the ride with Linus Gerdemann from T-mobile....But that was nothing comparing to the Danish ride yesterday....

The chicken from "tølløse" is he called here in denmark...(Michael Rasmussen)

Simply Amazing....

[DAZMCFC]

Rasmussen blew them all away. when it gets to the pyrenees, will they be able to keep up. i think it was wrong of team astana to tell Andreas Klodden to go back and help Vinikourov, Klodden seems to be the better rider.

[Djengis Khan]

totally agree on you there...finds it very strange...But lets see what will happen today....Maybe he just had a bad day....

But I hope that rasmussen will attack on the last mountain today, and maybe take some more seconds....

Guess he will loose about 4-5 minutes on each of the last two time travels.., so he must have a much bigger lead if he should stay in yellow to paris...

I dont see him as a rider who on one mountain can leave his opponents - he aint good if there is too many accelerations, all that stop and go tactic you often see....His better to the long rides....

So unfortunately I dont think he will be able to do much in the pyrenees, but realy hoping...

ps. - sorry for my gramma - it really sucks...