HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 11: Vatan > Saint-Fargeau, 192km
‘Cav sez; “Gotcha!” to Baz’, as the Sun might say if it were to cover Le Tour de France, and today’s stage into Saint-Fargeau. It took Barry Hoban a whole career – two decades – to notch up eight Tour stage wins – but they didn’t all come from bunch gallops.
It’s taken Cav just two-and-a-bit Tours to equal Barry’s record – but every one of those has come from a mass purge for the line.
Mark Cavendish.
Pro cycling is a sport where “ifs,” “buts” and “maybes proliferate, but if Barry had Renshaw and Co. to support him, who knows how many he might have won.
But it was different back then; it wasn’t until Post’s Panasonic team started to make a science of it that we had lead out trains, “as we know them, Jim.”
The Bill Gates of the sprint train was Cipollini; on his day, few were the men who could come round him at the end.
Barry Hoban.
When he won the Worlds at Zolder, every bike rider in the pro peloton had known for a whole year that all they needed to do to wear the rainbow jersey was to come off Cipo’s wheel, at the end.
Neither Robbie McEwen, Erik Zabel or anyone else could do it.
Cav can win the Worlds, if the parcours suits him. And it wouldn’t have to be pan flat; his win in Milan-San Remo proved that.
It’s impossible and improper to demean Cav’s achievement, but I think Lady Luck has paid her part in the rise of Super Cav.
He’s on the scene at a time when there’s not a proliferation of rapid finishers.
Hoban was grazing his elbows against all time greats – Van Linden, Sercu, Karstens, Maertens.
Freddy Maertens.
Not just fast men but madmen – Van Linden and Karstens were of the “win or crash” school.
It’s all a lot more PC, clinical and much less physical these days.
In this Tour, Cav is only being troubled by Hushovd and Farrar.
Hushovd is a great pro but suffers from the “too many cooks” syndrome at Cervélo – the same one that Zabel used to succumb to at Telecom; if you have a GC guy to look after (Ullrich or Sastre), there can’t really be enough horse power left for your sprinter.
There’s no such confusion at Columbia – just like Bruyneel would never contemplate wasting his time with a sprinter at Disco and Postal, when the GC was to be won – there are no overall or KOM notions with Stapleton’s team.
You won’t see Columbia (or Astana) ‘up the road’ there’s only one job to be done; leave the show boating to AG2R, Agritubel and BBox.
Tyler Farrar.
And what about Tyler Farrar? He doesn’t fit in with the typical “hyper” sprinter image; he’s cool, calm, polite and laid back – ’til the flame rouge, that is.
He’s in the Cipo mould, a ‘drag racer’ he needs it to be long and fast – no one knows better than Farrar that if you let Cav get his kick in first, then it’s over.
Farrar’s Garmin guys are fine on the run in; Wiggins, Pate, Zabriskie, Hesjedal – all big strong chrono guys.
Bur when it comes to those vital last couple of kilometres, he doesn’t have a Martin or a Renshaw or a Big George.
Matt White, DS at Garmin says that building a train for Tyler is a priority at Garmin this winter, let’s hope so – we want to see Cav challenged and not making crass statements about; “how easy it is to win.”
Anyway, enough of my sprint based rant – that’s Vik’s job!
Ailsa Craig has just disappeared under the wing tip, off to the right; next stop France – and le Tour.
We’ll be there, live and in full effect ’til Cav wins the last stage on the Champs Elysées – and I promise to try and not rant too much.
Ciao, ciao.
Tour 09 Stage 11 Map.
Tour 09 Stage 11 Profile.
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Al Hamilton
The back page of AS sets the pace for all the “race” reports, yes the ban on race radios, or as they are called in Spain “pinganillos”, of course the photo is quite nice to look at also!
AS’ back page today.
Fourteen of the teams were against the decision to ban the race radios, six were in favour of the ban, but in the end they rode till the last 30 kilometres and then they raced for “Cav’s” stage win, this didn’t stop the fans coming out to enjoy the spectacle.
Carlos Sastre enjoyed the day; he said “today was a journey of tranquillity in the Tour. Without attacks. Without nerves. Without orders.” Maybe he was referring to the fact that they didn’t race till near the end, than not having a radio?
The yellow jersey wearing Rinaldo Nocentini was visited by his girlfriend Manola. She says: “Me llamo Manola y soy la mujer del lider” (my name is Manola and I am the woman of the leader). She has been his girlfriend for five years, likes to wear cowboy boots, rides in the AG2R bus and waits near the sign-on area to be there to the last second.
“La mujer del lider.”
Nocentini has been sharing a room with Spaniard, José Luis Arrieta. Rinaldo says of the man from Navarro “he is very Italian” and “on the day in Andorra he paid for the cava”. The Tour leader loves his football and is a big fan of Milan and of Ronaldinho, the Italian press announced that “Rinaldinho is the leader of the Tour”.
Contador has reiterated that Friday’s stage to Colmar will be the “dangerous” stage, so more wins for Cavendish and then ¡BANK! Looking forward to Friday.
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
The third day, and it's the big one, your actual Saunier Duval Team Launch 2007. I wrote-up my Gianetti and Ventoso interviews in the room first thing then came down for some grub. You can read the interview with Franciso here.
Another great stage yesterday - Peraud takes a giant step, Rafal Majka confirms, Nibali consolidates, Konig stumbles... After breakfast we had a wander round Lourdes; it's one weird place - but I said that yesterday. We decided against the finish col to Saint-Lary Pla d'Adet - dead end climbs are nitemares to get off after the stage and we figured that the action might just start on the Col de Val Louron-Azet. We got up there in plenty time, claimed our spot and waited 'til it was time to grab our caravan swag.
My pal Vik called me this morning; ‘the racing at the Grenoble Four Day can’t be very good if you’re spending so much time taking pictures of boys on the trapeze!’ If I could get him down here it would be different. It’s not just a bike race; if he was here, eating the nice food, drinking champers with friends, with the race whizzing around him and the amazing shows, he'd see things in a new light.
"I knew you'd ask that! With my team mate Gordon Murdoch in second place in the series, there's no pressure on me, and all I would say is that it'll be hard for someone to win who's not in Pedal Power!". Those were the words of Gary Hand in the run up to this weekend's race, and with Ben Greenwood (Rapha Condor-Recycling) pulling out of the second round of the Scottish Cycling Super 6 due to injury, it looked set to follow a similar pattern to the first round; being dominated by Pedal Power.
Kristian House (Rapha Condor & GB) is one of those riders who 'looks the part,' dark skinned and stylish, he just looks like he can win races. When we heard about him riding very strongly in the pre season Bay Criterium Series in Australia, we thought we'd better 'have a word.'
You know you're in Belgium at the Kuurne Brussels Kuurne when the barman is Iljo Keisse's dad - and when there are posters for bike races in the loo! But I'm getting ahead of myself; "live cargo", that's how the airlines refer to their passengers. And that's how we feel: the flight is two hours late and we're sitting on the floor at Prestwick Airport, or 'Glasgow South' as Ryanair would have it, despite the fact that we're 50 kilometres from the city on the Clyde.
Once again we’re proud to bring you an exclusive interview with Olympic Team Pursuit Champion, Katie Archibald where she tells us about her latest triumph, in the World Omnium Championship – and puts us chauvinists at VeloVeritas securely in our box! But we still respect and love the lady.
The last time we spoke to Lewis Stewart was at the Bremen Six Day at the start of 2018 where he was riding the Sprint events and next he's competing in the Tandem Sprint and Kilometre Time Trial on the boards of the Lee Valley Velodrome in London where the Commonwealth Games track cycling events will be held.
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