Making Statements Stage 8: Say it ain't so...

Today was a tough stage to watch... Our American hopeful for this year’s tour seemed to have all of the good luck from 7 previous tours reverse in a treacherous Karmic pattern. As the stage went up, the Lance of old was no where to be found. It begs the question: When should heroes call it quits….????

Lance pic: pez

Jordan pic: a popular search engine

Big Day!

Today at the first race of Superweek my teammate Drew Kushnick took the top spot of the podium.

Just as I predicted in an email to my teammates yesterday (see below)

1125 am a spidermonkey rocks the top spot of the podium

Dan Pollard raced incredibley holding top ten postion nearly the entire race crossing the line 5th, about a inch or two behind the 4th place finisher.

I avoided crash after crash to finish with another top 20 (17th) and Matt "DJ Wheel Crusher" Reizman held tough as he works to integrate himself into the competitive Chicago 4's race scene. 

A race report and some thoughts about the Cat 4 crashing problem tomorrow.

Must See Video

Just sharing a quick link that I found today on Twitter (via Neil Road, he's a big deal in the cycling world just ask him!) these are video summaries of tdf stages with great music too!

http://therobbyy.com/2010.html

Sweet Goat Neil!

After posting addition

Neil has asked that I also add his "GQ" picture, so here you go Neil.  Then again he is probably drunk so he won't even remember the request, the Tour De France drinking game got crazy today when we added "drink every time a rider throws a bottle". Check out tomorrow's live tdf chat, its really fun especially on a flat stage

The beauty of a clean sprint finish

Today we were treated to one of the most beautiful displays in sport, a clean sprint finish. The previous three days of the tour were dreamed up by the ASO in order to add suspense, but at what cost? The cost was the pure instantly of a group sprint to the line and today we were reminded of that.

Another factor that made today's sprint incredible was the winner was not inevitable. Over the past two seasons when it came down to a sprint finish we all knew what was about to happen. The HtC/Columbia/High Road lead-out train would get on the front of the race and deliver the monster from the Isle of Man to the line. It would game over once Cav's made his jump from Renshaw's wheel.

Today things changed, the HtC train was intact with 2km to go, three strong men driving to pace setting up their leader (he does wear 11). And then something happened; a bunch of other teams got involved. With 1.5km to go Lampre jumped to the right, HtC tried to tact onto the wheel. Then all the teams starting getting involved. Sky thought they had a chance at a much needed win (screw Rupert Murdoch and his empire), Thor and company started trying to find position to gobble up more points toward his the green jersey defense, not to mention Garmin threw the kitchen sink at the field using all of Farrar's lead-out as sprinters.

For a moment Thor and Cavs bumped as their lead-out men gave a last effort. Petacchi jumped, McEwen followed and it was clear Cav's couldn't match their monster acceleration. Petacchi crossed the line and blew a kiss to the sky.

It was everything a sprint should be, chaotic, tense and unpredictable. We should have more of these in the coming days and I look forward to it. Especially since the result is uncertain now that is no longer a king of the sprints.

Photo credit © Roberto Bettini

Stage 4: Taking me Home

As the peleton rolls away from famous cobbles of the classics, Stage 4 starts the journey away from North France in a flat sprinters stage from Cambria to Reims. It just so happens that a certain suburb near the finishing stretch is where my ancestors call home. Witry-les-Reims is a commune in the Champagne region of France (insert typical joke about ancestors being booze hounds which makes me a booze hound....blah blah blah). However, I feel I'm allowed to play my horn here: toot toot.

Oh yea, the mayor's name is Detrainge Yves...what a stud!!

The King and El Bitcholero

El Bitcholero may be a big winner today, but I think the remaining Shleck and Cadel Evans are the biggest winners. And does anyone really trust Vino?? We are only 4 days in and look at all the fun we've had.....

And although the King maybe down i don't believe he is out, all it takes to change the race is a mistimed flat....

On a sidenote today was not a great day for my rouleurderby bets!

Making Statements Stage 2: Quick Step

Quick Step pulled on some non-blue and white jerseys today as Sylvain Chavanel took the wet and wild Stage 2 out of an original 8 man break including teammate Jerome Pineau. Pineau fired rockets with Matthew Lloyd (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Rein Taaramae (Cofidis) towards the polka-dot banners and claimed the KOM jersey. Something tells me they will have some champagne flowing tonight at team dinner. Chapeau!!

Safe to say Quick Step showed up to make some week 1 statements.

ToInfinityandBeyond will have further 'Making Statements' throughout Le Tour.