Tour de France 2009

Preview: Stage 7: 224km Barcelona - Arcalis

We've seen the TT specialists, the sprinters and punchers, and even the breakaway boys have had their stage in this year's Tour. Sitting in the field through all this, conserving their energy and trying not to tip their hand, have been two groups who define the Tour: The climbers and the overall contenders.

Today's stage, culminating in the <i>hors categorie</i> Arcalis in Andorra, should be a coming-out party for both groups. The longest climbing stage of the Tour offers the first big climbs of the race, and a finish at 2200 meters, one of 3 mountaintop finishes in this yeear's Tour.

The race profile this year offers fewer mountaintop finishes than in recent years, and fewer time trial miles. The effect of the change is to amplify stages like today's where riders can build time gaps.

Racers will cover 5 categorized climbs, with a 1st Category 127 kilometers in, and the Arcalis, which is officially 10.6 kilometers or about 7 miles, where we find out a lot more about who has brought their climbing legs among the overall contenders.

Stage 6 on the road

Today's stage is 181.5 miles/112.8 miles, from Girona, where many US cyclists have been based in Europe, to Barcelona.

With Robert Gesink's broken wrist, 177 riders took the start, in rainy conditions.

Two 3rd Category climbs are the first on the Tour, so there's a good chance that Jussi Veikkanen's time in the polka-dots will come to an end.

There's a bit of a sting in the tail to today's stage, with the final categorized climb (if only a 4th Category) at 22 kilometers/13 miles to ride. There's also a 500-meter springboard at 2 k to ride that might play a role.

4th Category Côte de Sant Feliu de Guixols
1) Botcharov, Katusha, +3
2) Zabriskie, Garmin-Slipstream, +2
3) Txurruka, Euskaltel-Euskadi, +1

A 3-man break formed with Garmin-Slipstream's David Millar, Quick Step's Sylvain Chavanel, and Cofidis' Stéphane Auge. These guys are all leaders on their squads, if not necessarily their team's Tour captain.

4th Category Côte de Tossa de Mar
1) Auge, Cofidis, +3 pts
2) Chavanel, Quick Step, +2 pts
3) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +1 pt

Sprint 1, Lloret de Mar:
1) Chavanel, Quick Step, +3 pts
2) Auge, Cofidis, +2 pts
3) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +1 pt

Sprint 2, Sant Pol de Mar:
1) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +6 pts
2) Chavanel, Quick Step, +4 pts
3) Auge, Cofidis, +2 pts

As the peloton neared the top of the race's first 3rd Category climb, Euskaltel-Euskadi's Amets Txurruka, last year's overall most aggressive rider for the Tour, went off the front of the main field.

3rd Category Côte de Sant Vincenc de Montalt
1) Auge, Cofidis, +4 pts
2) Chavanel, Quick Step, +3 pts
3) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +2 pts
4) Amets Txurruka, Euskaltel-Euskadi, +1 pt, at ~:50

Astana has moved to the front on the descent, and Txurruka continued to attempt to bridge to the escape. On the 3rd Category Collsacreu, Txurruka closed the gap, but Auge, looking to take over the King of the Mountains jersey, drove the trio, and they hit the top a few seconds clear, so Auge should take over the polka-dots tonight.

3rd Category Collsacreu
1) Auge, Cofidis, +4 pts
2) Chavanel, Quick Step, +3 pts
3) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +2 pts
4) Txurruka, Euskaltel-Euskadi, +1 pt, at ~:10

On the descent, Txurruka joined Auge, Chavanel, and Millar, and the gap stretched back out to around 1:45.

With 50k/31 miles to ride, the gap is 1:35.

Cardedeu sprint:
1) Chavanel, Quick Step, +6 pts
2) Txurruka, Euskaltel-Euskadi, +4 pts
3) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +2 pts

As the leading quartet approached the day's last categorized climb with around :50 on the field, a crash on a roundabout took down Columbia's Michael Rogers and Tony Martin, Cervelo's Heinrich Haussler, and Garmin-Slipstream's Tyler Farrar. Rogers was very slow to get back on his bike.

At almost the same time, Millar dropped his breakaway companions, and quickly pushed his advantage back out around a minute. Just at 25 minutes to go, Auge and Chavanel were recaptured by the field, but Txurruka continued between Millar and the field.

At the summit, Millar led, with Txurruka close behind, and Cofidis sent Remi Pauriol, apparently to keep anyone from picking up ground on Auge in the KoM competition.

4th Category Côte de la Conreria
1) Millar, Garmin-Slipstream, +3 pts
2) Txurruka, Euskaltel-Euskadi, +2 pts
3) Pauriol, Cofidis, +1 pt

Over the top, Pauriol continued the attack, and bridged to Txurruka, while Astana controlled the pace in the field. Millar pushed his advantage until it again just touched 1:06, making him the yellow jersey on the road. Pauriol and Txurruka rode :45 back.

As the riders rolled into Barcelona, Millar continued to drive it, giving up a few seconds per kilometer. With 11k, he had 1:11. At 7 kilometers, :45. On the run-in, Tom Boonen tangled with a white line (if I had a dollar for every time...), and was out of contention for the day.

Milram and Columbia moved to the front, and Millar's lead continued to erode. With 5k, it was :37; at 3k, :23. Just inside 2k, a 6.6 percent grade did the Garmin-Chipotle in. With 1.2 kilometers to ride, he was caught.

Cavendish was still in the lead group, but it looked to be Kim Kirchen that Columbia tipped today, with Tony Martin providing the lead-out. Around them, the sport's punchers: those guys with Classics-style power and speed, including Pippo Pozzato, Alessandro Ballan, Gerald Ciolek, Thor Hushovd, and Oscar Freire.

Feillu was first to go, tailed by Freire, when Thor Hushovd shot through on the left. Freire and Hushovd drag-raced to the line, with Hushovd getting the win.

It was Hushovd's 7th career victory in the Tour, and threatened Cavendish's hold on the green jersey. Adding 35 for the stage win Hushovd holds 105 points, just 1 fewer than Cavendish. Gerald Ciolek sits 3rd.

General classification is largely unchanged, although David Millar slipped from 10th to 20th, at 2:28.

Voeckler snatches Stage 5

AP Photo by Laurent Rebours

Thomas Voeckler made his reputation in the 2004 Tour de France. As the best-placed rider in a breakaway (alongside stage winner Stuart O'Grady and TdFblog favorite Magnus Backstedt) that finished 12:33 ahead of the pack, he won and wore the yellow jersey for 10 days.

Since then, he's been one of the Tour's most (few?) entertaining Frenchmen, getting in breakaways seemingly every year, and wearing the King of the Mountains jersey in 2005 and 2008.

Today, Voeckler got in an aggressively international break from the starting gun, and rode with Russian Mikhail Ignatiev of Katusha, Dutch Skil-Shimano Albert Timmer, FdJeux's Belorussian Yauheni Hutarovich and France's Anthony Geslin, and Polish Lampre Marin Sapa. The break never got crazy gaps, and it looked like it had little chance of success, so the 6 soldiered on.

With around 60 kilometers to ride, just after a hard crash by Rabobank's Robert Gesink, strong ocean winds got an assist from Fabian Cancellara, and the peloton split. With no major GC contenders caught out, the field reformed a few kilometers later, but Gesink, accompanied by Joost Posthuma, never caught up. He would gut his way to the finish, only to discover a broken wrist that will keep him from starting Stage 6 (really excellent ANP photo from De Telegraafe here).

Several riders described the peloton as “restless,” and a variety of teams took turns at the front, but the pace was never enough to stick a stake through the heart of the escapees. Hutarovich was a threat in the sprint, so Voeckler waited out two testing attacks by Ignatiev, then showed the break his back wheel with a couple kilometers to ride, quickly gaining 10 seconds as the cars were pulled from between the break and the pack.

Ignatiev saw the stage going up the road, and tried to bridge to Voeckler, but it was not to be. Voeckler savored the final 500 meters, saluting the crowd and kissing his wedding ring, as the pack thundered toward the line just a few hundred meters behind. Ignatiev just survived the charge, led in by Mark Cavendish, who increased his lead in the green jersey competition.

With the pack coming in at 7 seconds, there were no significant changes to the standings. Ignatiev takes the red race numbers of the “most agressive rider.”

Ben Stiller: Armstrong's Achilles heel?

So the other day, Astana signed in late, reportedly because Lance Armstrong was hanging out with Ben Stiller, in France with his wife. Astana paid a fine for the late sign in, but Tuesday, Stiller struck again, as the Versus video above demonstrates.

Beating Cav

Cavendish image courtesy Nike

With another flat stage on tap Wednesday, you can bet there's one thought on the mind of most of the directeurs sportif in the Tour tonight: How do we beat Cavendish?

He's 2-for-2 in the sprint, and neither finish was particularly close. I think one interpretation of Columbia's display on Stage 2 is that their “realistic GC goals” are to win the green jersey, and bunches of stages, like they did at the Tour de Suisse.

You can group successful sprinters on a continuum from “pure speed” to ”pure train.” Robbie McEwen may be the current sprinter who is farthest to the “pure speed” end of things. McEwen has often been successful even without a leadout train, by shadowing the guys who have one, and beating them in the final 250 meters. Alessandro Petacchi, on the other hand, is most successful with a long lead-out train that whittles down the field in the last few kilometers, with Petacchi essentially sprinting from the front for many of his wins.

Here comes Cavendish and he's got bushels of both kick and train. Columbia has powerful and experienced porters in Mick Rogers, George Hincapie, Mark Renshaw and Tony Martin, and they've got coal to spare for a formidable train. Cavendish himself has shown he's got a maximum speed nobody can match, and even when he's had to go to soon, he's had the stamina to make it to the line.

So how to beat the Manx Missile?

Since it appears nobody has a kick to match Cavendish, teams are left with two choices. First, disrupt the team's buildup to the line. We've already seen riders trying to get on board the Columbia train, leading to some pushing and shoving, without success. Competing sprinters can't launch their sprint early, because they would have to outsprint Renshaw AND Cavendish. Ocasionally, on a broad run-in, you'll see competing trains, with swirling, snarling tentacles of riders, splitting and joining as the line comes up. I think Milram tried this on Stage 2, leading from about 4k down to 2k to ride, but then Columbia hit the afterburners, and Milram's train disintegrated. We'll see if anybody else gives this a go.

A second approach is just not to let the stage come to a sprint. Send breaks early, and send them often. When they get caught (heck, before they get caught), send some more. We've already seen that nobody wants to help Columbia bring back escapes, so make them do it all day. If they won't chase, there's no stage win for Cavendish. Unfortunately for the pack, after the TTT, Astana would now probably help out with the chase duties, to maintain their stranglehold on the GC standings.

So what do you think? How can the pros stop the Tour from becoming a Cav-alanche?

Also:

CyclingNews | Ciolek: 'Cav Not Unbeatable'

BikeRadar.com | Brains not brawn required to beat Cavendish

CyclingWeekly | Tour de France analysis: Why Columbia must expect to do bulk of the chasing

forum.cyclingnews.com | Keys for Farrar to beat Cavendish at the line?

Stage 4 TTT: Astana firing on all cylinders

If yesterday's Stage 3 was The Columbia Show, today was Astana Hour. Whatever the situation on the team bus, they worked as a single cohesive unit on the twisties around Montpellier, and built time gaps on many of the Tour's GC threats.

Early on, some big names hit the pavement, including Rabobank's Denis Menchov and Lampre's Alessandro Ballan. Four Bbox Bouygues Telecom riders misjudged a bend, and wound up in the rough. Later, Skil-Shimano's Piet Rooijakers broke his arm and left the course, leaving 178 riders in the race.

After the stage, many riders complained that the course was too technical for a TTT.

Saxo Bank's Jens Voigt, one of the hardest men in the sport, said he saw Quick Step take a spill even before they had reached the start line:

“We have bikes worth 10,000 Euro, and in the end we can't use them properly because we're just busy trying to hold balance instead of putting our power on the pedals."

Cadel Evans, who has made a point in the press how much more relaxed he is in this year's Tour, sprinted away from his squad as they approached the finish, leaving his teammates struggling to the line in 49:05, which would be 13th best on the day.

Garmin lost 4 riders in the first 12k, but were left with their five best TT men, who set new best times at the final three intermediate checkpoints, and finished in 46:29.

Saxo Bank, with yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara doing long, draft-horse quality pulls, turned in a very strong 47:09.

Columbia, possibly feeling the effects of that 30k race to the line on Stage 3, came in with a respectable 47:28, but trailed Garmin, Liquigas, and Saxo Bank at every intermediate check.

And then there was Astana. Leading the team competition, they were last to start, and they rotated smoothly with big pulls from Klöden, Leipheimer, Contador, and Armstrong. At the first time check, they were a little slower than Caisse d'Epargne, which had kicked the day off with a jackrabbit start they couldn't maintain, but Astana led at every later checkpoint. Once Saxo Bank finished, everyone was looking toward 46:29, the time that would put 7-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong back into yellow.

Continue reading "Stage 4 TTT: Astana firing on all cylinders"

Tour de Twitter

JV on the Crackberry,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

This is the third Tour de France I've Twittered. In 2007, it was pretty lonely. Last year, we had a core group of fans using the service. This year, Twitter has exploded. Lance Armstrong has been one of the top celebrities to adopt Twitter, alongside Stephen Fry, Ashton Kutcher (I almost typed “Astana Kutcher”), and Barack Obama.

I've developed quite a list of riders, journalists, bloggers, and photographers in preparation for the Tour, and thought I would share it with you.

Continue reading "Tour de Twitter"

Andreu and Armstrong: the history

Frankie Andreu,
originally uploaded by Frank Steele.

There's one Tour plotline that's playing out right in front of our eyes on Versus every day that may not be noticed by many viewers. Lance Armstrong is being interviewed by Frankie Andreu.

Andreu, an ex-pro and ex-teammate of Armstrong's at US Postal (through 2000), does almost all the Versus rider interviews, but he and Armstrong have sparred in the media and in court over allegations by Andreu's wife that when Lance Armstrong was undergoing treatment for cancer, he admitted to a history using a variety of performance-enhancing drugs (NPR story, Armstrong's response).

Armstrong maintained that Betsy Andreu might have misunderstood a discussion with his doctors, and denied (and has consistently denied) that he ever took any banned drugs.

This accusation is also a big part of the feud Armstrong has had with Greg LeMond, who claims to have heard from another woman who was in the hospital room that day that Armstrong admitted to using banned substances. Stephanie McIlvain has maintained in court that she was in the room, did NOT hear Armstrong make any such admissions, and she has refused to speak to the press about the case.

Armstrong, who won the case for which Andreu was subpoenaed, has seemed personable with Andreu on air so far this year. Anyone with further insight?

Also:

forums.cyclingnews.com | Lance speaking to Frankie Andreu?

Cyclismag.com | Frankie Andreu: L'ennemi public No 1 (in French)

LeMonde.fr | Lance Armstrong prend un malin plaisir à s'entourer de ses meilleurs ennemis (in French)

NY Velocity | As the Toto Turns 143

VeloNews | Armstrong, Andreu back on speaking terms - Added July 8

Continue reading "Andreu and Armstrong: the history"

Preview: Stage 4 TTT - Montpellier

One of the expected early-Tour showdowns unfolds today in Montpellier.

As with Stage 1, the 2009 team time trial is being run over a shorter distance than normal, 39 kilometers or about 24 miles. The shorter distance helps equalize for the elimination of the tiered time limits, which kept the weaker TT teams (cough, Euskaltel, cough) from falling hours behind on a 90-minute ride. The leading riders on a team all receive the time of the 5th rider across the line.

The course twists and turns with some rolling country hills and some city streets, and the possibility of more stiff winds like we saw yesterday. This kind of course should favor smart and smooth teams over pure power.

Three time checks, at 9, 19.5 and 26.5 kilometers.

A number of GC contenders aren't looking forward to today's stage. Carlos Sastre's Cervelo Test Team is pretty thin, as is Silence-Lotto, riding for Cadel Evans.

Three teams stand out here, and each has US connections.

Continue reading "Preview: Stage 4 TTT - Montpellier"