2011 Cycling Thread

[SRN]

So, anyone else heard that allergations against Mark Cavendish from yesterdays stage? That after his crash he hooked to a car and got driven up to the peloton again? It apparently happened a long way back so it wasn't on television.

[IAceI]

Just people jealous because he's the best and they want to slander him however they can, and no matter how unfound the rumours may be. Pretty sure one of the sprinters told him they hadn't said anything and didn't know where it had all started.

No one likes him because he's the best sprinter in the best sprint team and the rest know that if they want to stand a chance of beating him they need to cling onto the HTC train and try and get a jump on him / have someone box him in if possible.

He's just too bloody fast, proven again in todays stage. Super Cav.

[SRN]

However, this isn't the first time he is accused of it. There was stuff going on in Giro d'Italia about that exact same thing as well. But okay, let the Cavendish fellatio continue.

[Cactus Drags]

If anyone has an Android phone, the free official TDF app is quality.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

It was Rojas who claimed it and Feillu (Cav had slagged him off about his dangerous sprinting earlier in the Giro) who claimed it in the Giro. Hardly two guys who want the best for Cavendish. Cav's defence is a sound one though - he says that whenever he's dropped a camera bike follows him for the rest of the day. Smaller name riders could possibly get away with it but bigger names just can't. The only thing he grabs onto is Bernie Eisel's back wheel.

Rojas said that Gilbert was also claiming it when he went to talk to the race director's car the other day but Gilbert says that he wasn't and that it was about the intermediate sprint or something.

Glad Basso's doing well. The guy's been great this last year. It's to do with training with a new trainer he had recently who's legendary. The trainer died early this year and Basso had told him that he would try to win the Tour for him.

[IAceI]

The fellatio never stopped to dismiss the accusations.

Rojas and Feillu can't beat him in a sprint so they look for other excuses. Although we probably won't really see much of Cav now until the final stage.

Will be ecstatic if he can hold onto green. Not only for him but for Eisel, Renshaw, Martin, Goss and the rest of HTC. All work hard for Cav and he's quick to let everyone know how much they help him out.

Still hoping Andy Schleck will put some time into Voeckler in the Alps but I don't think he will. He could have a few stages ago and ended up taking two seconds out of the lead, the surge he went off on in the last few hundred metres could have been done with about a kilometre to go surely. I'm just worried Contador or Evans are going to start kicking on and once again the Schleck's will be left in their dust with Andy saying how he's working for Frank to end up in the yellow and Frank saying he's working for Andy.

Get ya fingers out.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

If Voeckler gets up Alpert d'huez with the GC guys then I'll eat his sweaty podium hat.

[IAceI]

Hmm, I sort of got my wires tangled writing that. I think Schleck will put time into Voeckler, but I assume so will everyone else to the point it won't necessarily put Andy in the yellow.

I assume Voeckler will drop off pretty sharpish now, and he's had a good run in the yellow, but I don't think it'll be passed onto either of Schleck's.

[Sandars]

CSAMH... can Voekler time-trial? Andy Schelck is still my choice.. no-one wants to play

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

If it was the Time Trial tomorrow then the top three would be:

1) Cadel Evans

2) Alberto Contador

3) Samuel Sanchez

Frank and Andy can't time trial though Andy is getting a bit better. Cunego can't time trial either. Basso is extremely average. Voeckler is not known for him time trialling at all but in the past the yellow jersey holder has time trialled better than usual.

The time trial is long enough that a couple of minutes could be lost.

[IAceI]

Watching Frank time-trial is like watching someone reverse on a bike. It's uncanny.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

He's as bad as Michael Rasmussen used to be.

If you watched the team time trial in stage 2 you'll have seen Cancellara doing about 40% of the work for the whole team while Frank Schleck just sat on the back of the group out of the way. He didn't do a single turn at the front. When guys dropped back from the front they just slotted in in front of him rather than behind. Even pretty poor time triallists tend to give 5% of the work in a team time trial stage.

[EddieG]

I don't watch a lot of cycling, but god I remember that and laughing my ass off even if he drove for a Dutch team.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

As Mark Cavendish plays down talk that he secured the green jersey with his stage victory on Sunday, his closest rival for the prize, Movistar's Jose Joaquin Rojas hasn't given up hope either.

The HTC-Highroad sprinter has a 37-point lead over Rojas and the challenge for the Spaniard road champion is to get as many points at the intermediate sprint as possible as the Tour heads into the Alps.

"We hope to make him suffer in the mountains," Rojas said. "On Sunday we had a hard finish and came close to going out of control. If we cannot win the sprint we have to play other tricks to try to take the jersey... I will never give up."

So sounds like Movistar have realised that they won't beat Cav in a straight sprint so will try to break him in the mountains. I expect that they will push the pace stupidly high up the first couple of climbs in the next couple of days to try and drop Cavendish and hope that he finishes outside of the time limit. Not classy but then what do you expect from a team that blindly backed Alejandro Valverde.

[IAceI]

That's sort of an admission that he isn't as good a sprinter I guess.

Anyways, thank God that horrible day of no racing is over with. Despite the fact they probably all deserved a good rest.

Uphill today but only the one climb, a category 2, Col de Manse, near the end of the race. Not a climb finish though, they still have the descent to do. Intermediate sprint is after 117km.

Thoughts?

[GoN_]

This will be probably a boring stage with a runaway taking the win.

[IAceI]

So far no breakaways are being given room to breathe. Rojas was in one but they barely made 10 seconds ahead before they were pulled back in. Reckoning the peloton are wanting to keep everyone together at least until the sprint. Assuming it'll break apart a bit on the cat 2 climb.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Forget Voeckler, Hushovd is my man of the Tour. :wub:

To enter a competition for some cycling stuff I said that I thought that Evans would win the Tour this year. It's looking good so far.

Overall after the last stage:

1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 69:00:56

2 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:01:45

3 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:01:49

4 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:03:03

5 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:03:26

6 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:03:42

7 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:03:49

8 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:04:01

9 Thomas Danielson (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:06:04

The Schlecks popped big time. Evans, Contador and Sammy Sanchez gained. Sanchez man, SANCHEZ, I've been sayin'!

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Also, how the hell did Cavendish finish 43rd on that stage?!

[Colossus]

He only lost 6 minutes. When I saw him, my jaw dropped