The team time trial here in Montpellier, it’s beautiful; speed, strength, skill, trust, unity, honour — everything that makes pro bike racing special.
As my tele kindled up, there was big Den Menchov picking himself up off the tar — it was Rome all over again.
But this time he wasn’t picking himself up to finish in triumph just around the corner — it was only to continue the nightmare that is his 2009 Tour.
Rabobank aren’t having the best of Tours so far.
Tour 09 Stage 4 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 4 Profile.
Just minutes later, BBox raised a dust cloud as they put four men in the scenery — it was a dangerous course.
Thomas Voeckler and a few teammates got caught out on one tricky corner.
And a tough one, as I watched Katyusha spat men out the back.
Katyusha, 6th at 1’23”.
AG2R got round in one piece in respectable fashion but Silence’s day wasn’t the best; Charly Wegelius’s face told a story about how tough it was.
Cadel drove the Silence team hard.
Liquigas were classy, Pellizotti, Kreuziger, Nibali — all good riders and don’t forget that it was the men in green who nabbed the TTT in the Giro last year.
Garmin are rampant; Tyler Farrar ‘blows’ — I was supposed to be talking to him tonight; maybe leave my questions ‘til tomorrow, that man is hurting.
Pate has gone too, so has Maaskant and Dean — they’re down to five already; it’s death or glory with Brad looking hugely impressive.
The Garmin strongmen went so fast from the start they lost four riders early dors.
Lance nods and waves to the crowds at the start, practising for those gubernatorial walkabouts, no doubt.
He’s a magnet for cameras, a sponsor’s dream — but maybe not Spanish products.
Time check two and Garmin go top, just five of them but they’re on fire.
Cancellara and his Saxo Bank train.
Cancellara is leading from the front, he really is a bear of a man; but despite his huge spells at the front, Saxo are only third fastest, 15 down — could Lance be heading for yellow?
No, please, I can hear Viktor already!
Wiggins puts in a huge spell with Hesjedal unable to come through — the big Canadian is under presh, he simply cannot get dropped.
Sean Kelly reminds us that the big problem for the Garmin guys is recovery time; the Astana men have so much more of it with the longer string.
Columbia rode well for 5th at 59 seconds, tired by yesterday’s echelon efforts no doubt.
Check 3 and Garmin are 31 seconds up on Liquigas, Columbia are fifth, that’s the price of yesterday’s echelon.
Saxo; ten to go, they look like a TGV.
Garmin go top, 46:47 — great ride.
But Astana are 38 up at check 2.
Cancellara drags Saxo in, like some yellow clad medieval torturer — to judge by the faces.
Contador looks like a stranger in his own team in that Spanish champion’s jersey.
Astana, winners on the day. LaNce and Bert wanted to put the race beyond as many others as possible today.
A rear shot of Astana, and there are rows of hard ribs poking through every rider’s skin suit; maybe they’re titanium, maybe Lance has replaced the team with Terminator replicas?
Cervelo, 8th at 1’38”.
Check 3 and Lance is maillot jaune virtuelle — this is bad!
Columbia finish, Cav leads them home — fourth.
George is wearing a Camelbak; let’s hope Vik didn’t spot it.
Astana, and Popo explodes; job done as Leipheimer, Kloden, Lance and Bert try to kill each other up the finish straight.
They go top.
Garmin are second at 18 seconds and it’s a tie for the maillot jaune — Lance and Fabian.
This is tense, I couldn’t handle Lance in yellow;: “I see that Armstrong boy is leading the Tour de France!”: – but Fabian’s smiling face reassures us.
Swiss Precision.
“Swiss precision timing!” beams the big man from Bern.
I’ll drink to that, Fabian.
* * *
Al Hamilton
“Armstrong no se corta!” He’s not finished yet!
What a stage yesterday! And after everything that was said: about the end of the “war” in the Astana camp.
He’s not finished yet.
In today’s AS, Astana are playing down what happened in the stage to La Grande Motte, “Contador es el jeffe de filas” insiste Bruyneel. So the boss still thinks Contador is the boss, maybe he should tell the man from Texas!
Alberto is not sure about the team tactics and said “I’m not sure of the value of the team tactics, but you will all come to your own conclusions”.
He was impressed by the team work of Columbia; “El Columbia se organiza muy bien”.
Cavendish maybe the fastest sprinter at the moment, but he doesn’t seem to be endearing himself to the others in the peloton, he referred to them after the stage as “juniors!” “If they race like juniors what do they expect?”
The other day he was fighting with a Skil rider, who he incorrectly named, and I’ve heard there is a rider from Wick who tangled with the man from the Isle of Man in the past.
Looking forward to today’s TTT.
A visitor on the Tour yesterday was Ben Stiller. Lance blamed him for his being late for the sign on and all the Astana riders receiving a 100 Swiss Franc fine.
I’ve not heard Eurosport in English for ten years, so I can only remember “Duffers” and his reminisces of riding tricycles and what he had for dinner the previous evening.
Here on Teledeporte we have Perico Delgado, who knows his stuff, but on every occasion of an attack he has to make trumpet noises like the charge of the Light Brigade.
Yesterday he had great difficulty explaining what was going on, but when Lance directed his men to work; we got another blast!
Bruyneel still maintains that Bert is the Boss.
On the national TV channel, TVE, there was a very nice interview with Carlos Sastre at his house and out training, he talked about the lost years away from his wife and children and the time spent training etc.
He comes over as a very nice person, of yesterday he said “Cometi un error”, but it makes you think of how many more races he would have won if he was a bit of a bastard!
No back page today as Cristiano Ronaldo took over most pages.
Ed's been involved in cycling for over 45 years. In that time he's been a successful time triallist, team manager, and sponsor of several teams and clubs. He's also a respected and successful coach, and during the winter months can often be found working in the cabins at the Six Days. Ed remains a massive fan of the sport and couples his extensive contacts with an inexhaustable enthusiasm for the minutiae and the history of our sport.
Ca va, ca va! Friday, en route the Stage 19 start and it's been hectic. We arrived on Sunday afternoon but by the time we got to Valance, the Press Centre was closed - so it was 'Plan B,' go to the finish at Gap the next day and uplift them. Vital bits of plastic duly collected on Monday morning we headed off up the Col de Manse which is just behind Gap for Stage 16.
Peter Sagan is a breath of fresh air, the accent, the sense of humour, the hair, the bike handling, the speed, the versatility – third behind Cav and Kittel then beating Alaphilippe and Valverde. There’s no one more deserving of the maillot jaune – with all mention of the ‘curse of the rainbow jersey’ forgotten.
After a gruesomely boring stage where one man – albeit latterly assisted by Tommy V – held off the pack for 200 K it was another day of joy for Dimension Data’s Mark Cavendish; just too quick for Greipel, Coquard and Sagan on a slightly uphill finish into Angers. Kittel looked to be well placed at the red kite but got it wrong on the final right hander to finish well out of it. Greipel reckoned maybe he was one cog too high in the finish on 54 x 11 – Cav’s choice of gear was just fine though.
A New Rockstar... Peter Sagan has now won three stages of the Tour this year: two uphill sprints, and a straight-up bunch kick. I’ve already mentioned it, but he’s still got more than ten Tours de France in his future (all things being well). How good is this kid going to be?
Daryl Impey (GreenEDGE & Republic of South Africa) was in danger of always being remembered as the rider who suffered a horrific crash in the final metres of the Presidential Tour of Turkey in 2009 with the yellow jersey on his back – the podium substituted for an ambulance, that day.
One More Sleep! time for the TdF 2010 to Start. We are at the end of Day -1, which is the point where the whole team just want things to start already. Admittedly I’ve been in that mood since Tuesday afternoon when I headed out from the team Service Course in Girona. Now everyone else has joined me in night-before-Christmas-as-a-seven-year-old land.
There’ll be a popular name missing from the Six Day lap boards come the winter of 2020/21, that of Belgium’s Moreno De Pauw, at just 28 years-of-age he’s decided to call ‘time’ on his career and join the police. Over the years he’s been a prolific collector of championship medals – 28 Belgian titles and too many Belgian championship silvers and bronzes for us – or him - to keep track of.
"The 'Rutland' is a bit of lottery!" That's what many riders say; but not 2010 winner Michael Berling. He's been top four three times in the last three years - we thought we best have a word with the man VeloVeritas works for every year at the Six Days of Copenhagen.
It’s ‘all change’ again for Omega Pharma Quick Step’s thrice Irish Elite Road Race champion, Matt Brammeier. He’s a man who shapes his destiny – abandoning British Cycling’s Academy to walk his own path in Belgium. Despite being part of the QuickStep team which dominated one day racing this season, it hasn’t been a great year for Brammeier. He’s hoping for better things with Champion – he took time to speak to VeloVeritas soon after the deal had been done.
Continuing on our recent Irish theme we caught up with Aidan Duff, former Vendee U professional and now owner of Fifty One Cycles – building bespoke carbon frames. 'Fifty One?' we hear you say... The race number for Merckx, Ocana, Thevenet and Hinault when they won the Tour de France. With tales of Jean Rene Bernadeau, Tommy Voeckler and building custom carbon – not ‘off the peg from Taiwan’ - we cover some interesting ground. Let’s go...
We race at the Dwight Yorke Stadium today. "Abraham takes on the world," said the headline in Thursday's paper; USA, Canada, Jamaica, Argentina, Germany, Austria, Switzerland - that's not a bad cross section. But did he beat the world here in Trinidad & Tobago? All will be revealed.
Heading to Lorient today... There's a great old 70's film called, 'The Omega Man'. To cut a long story short, Charlton Heston is the last man left alive (by day anyway) in a post-viral world. He roams this completely deserted US city with not another living thing in sight.
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