Cyclysm

Lance Armstrong had a "face plant" in the Tour of California and had to drop out. Check the results of that crash here: Just when I thought I couldn't get any uglier
And he has responded to yet another drug allegation: Lance Responds
Can't wish Lance get well soon because he is anyway already back riding even after that kind of an crash/injury but Lance do stay out of trouble, need you there for all of those 23 days in July :-)

Never Stop!!! LIVESTRONG

An amazing ad. I watch this time and time again...
Happy New Year!!!

TdF

Le Tour is done, those 23 days in July are over. Lance Armstrong's comeback was the highlight for me. His charge on stage 16 after falling behind on the climb to Col du Petit-Saint Bernard gave us a chance to see the old Lance...amazing!

Other highlights were getting to see the climb of Mt Ventoux for the first time. The stage that day itself was a little let down for me as it did not produce much excitement. There was too much strategy of the defensive kind on that climb and less of the risk taking and fireworks. Alpe d'Huez still remains my favorite TdF mountain. Another find from this year's tour was finding a really beautiful vacation spot. The tour this year passed through a really beautiful lake town, Annecy. Check it out here...Annecy.

TdF remains one of my favorite sporting events. Don't know why, maybe it is the sheer brutality of the event or the fact that it is the ultimate example of what an unwavering spirit can accomplish. Or is it Lance Armstrong? Unlike other things in life which you really start to get into only when you dig deeper into the subject and start to appreciate the nuances, TdF had me hooked from the beginning. The first time I watched TdF I knew there was a human by the name of Lance Armstrong riding in it and it was probably why it hooked me but this happened without me knowing squat about cycling or much the event itself...

Getting back to this year's TdF, the Schleck brothers were amazing. Andy Schleck is just 24, compare that to Lance Armstrong who is 37. If I want anyone else other than Lance to win next year it would be Andy. They both need to improve their individual time trialing ability. Can't wait for next year, can't wait to see what shape Lance will return in. Can he still remain in the top 3 and make a run for the top spot??? I sure hope so, can't wait to see the head to head between Andy and Lance...

Floyd Landis has failed a drug test. Of the two samples that he gave on the day of his spectacular rebound on a tough mountain stage, one sample has excessive levels of Testosterone.

What is wrong with professional sport, this drug thing is so widespread, take football, cycling, athletics, baseball all these professional sports and many others have strict drug tests but at regular intervals people get caught.

Floyd's performance was so good, people were impressed and talking about him, the Discovery team wanted him, he had gained respect the hard way but looks like it wasn't...

Floyd wins it!!!

Floyd Landis with a really amazing performance on the mountain stage 17 and with a fairly strong performance in the individual time trail on stage 19 won the tour de France. He won over second placed Oscar Pireiro by 57 seconds and over 3rd placed Andreas Kloden by a minute and 29 seconds. Carlos Sastre was relegated to 4th.

Kloden also had a really good time trail and pushed Sastre down to 4th place to take the podium finish. But Oscar Pereiro gave a performance of a lifetime to cling on to second place. It looked as if Kloden would end up 2nd but Pereiro held on.

Overall a good tour because it remained open ended for so long and so many new people had a chance to shine. But since people like Lance Armstrong, Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso were missing the whole tour lacked in experience and acted as school kids on certain stages. Take the fact of Oscar Pereiro gaining 30 minutes in one stage and then Floyd Landis losing 10 minutes on one day and gaining 8 of them back on the next! The Peloton lacked leadership in such situations and acted a little immaturely in letting these things happen. If the big guns had been there they would have never let such things happen...

In closing, Floyd (who hails from San Diego and has an Amish upbringing) completed Le Tour '06 in 89 hours 39 minutes and 30 seconds covering 3657.1 kilometers (including two mountain ranges, the Pyrenees and the Alps) at an average speed of 40.784!!!

TDF 2006

The tour has crossed the Alps and in those 3 days the race turned upside over its head and then came back straight up again!

On Tuesday on the legendary L'Alpe-D'Huez climb the top contenders separated themselves. All of them made it through without much damage and Floyd Landis regained his overall lead. But on the next day on Wednesday Floyd Landis cracked. On the La Toussuire climb Floyd gave up 10 minutes. And Oscar Pereiro had the yellow jersey. Floyd and his team Phonak will be ruing the day when they let Oscar Pereiro, who was 28 minutes behind at one point, gain 30 minutes on a flat stage. The 10 minute loss put Floyd roughly about 8 minutes back from Pereiro.

In any case on the next mountain stage Floyd redeemed himself. He broke out around the 50 kilometer mark and rode all by himself through about 5 climbs and about 150 kilometers. He won the stage and pulled off one of the most amazing rides. He showed real courage and managed to pull back almost all of the 8 minutes. Floyd had managed to do the unthinkable.

Now only the individual time trial (TT) remains (on Saturday) as a stage where the lead can change. Going into the time trial the podium places are almost decided. Only Andreas Kloden who is about 2 and a half minutes behind has an outside chance to upset the top 3 riders who are: Oscar Pereiro (leader), Carlos Sastre (12 seconds behind) and Floyd Landis (30 seconds behind).

Floyd is good at TTs. The other 2 are not that great but on that day anything might happen. It is going to be a very exciting day...

This tour has been really topsy turvy. There have been 7 wears of the Maillot Jaune (means the yellow jersey, 'my-oh jhohn') and it has all been terribly exciting :)

23 Days In July

That’s how long the tour de France lasts. I am reading the book "23 Days in July" these days while the tour is going on. The book outlines Lance Armstrong's 2004 tour win and it has been fun reading it alongside the current tour.

So stage 11 through the Pyrenees did throw up a clear winner, Floyd Landis (Phonak). Floyd became the overall leader of the tour leading the other contenders by more than a minute. Such a lead would have been enough for Lance Armstrong to win the whole tour but Floyd's team Phonak allowed a lesser known rider who was some 28 minutes behind Floyd to make up 30 minutes on Stage 13. This allowed Oscar Pereiro (Illes Balears) to take the overall lead by about a minute and a half.

Pereiro is expected to relinquish the lead in the mountains but still it’s so dangerous to give up 30 minutes to anyone. Lance describes how once an unknown rider gave him a real scare like this once. The thing is that when you are the overall leader and wear the yellow jersey it is really hard on the team. The team of the wearer of the yellow jersey has to do the entire pace setting defend against attacks and lead from the front, I think Phonak was just preserving its riders but 30 minutes is huge...Every Second Counts!!!

Today is a rest day before the tour now heads for the Alps...really grueling stages coming up including the famous L'Alpe-D'Huez stage which ends with a 13.8 kilometer climb to the finish at a gradient of 7.9% (category H climb)...

Le Tour

The Tour de France has one of its toughest stages today. 5 HUGE climbs, one category H (!!) and 4 category 1 (!!!!!!!) climbs. Today is stage 11.

Km 75 - Col du Tourmalet - 18.3 km climb to 7.7 % - H Category
Km 105 - Col d'Aspin - 13.0 km climb to 5 % - 1 Category
Km 136 - Col e Peyresourde - 9.7 km climb to 6.8 % - 1 Category
Km 161 - Col du Portillon - 7.9 km climb to 7.9 % - 1 Category
Km 204.5 - Puerto de Beret - 13.0 km climb to 5.5 % - 1 Category

The tour is really open this time because Lance Armstrong retired and the top 3 riders were disqualified because their names came up in a doping allegation and their respective teams had to pull them out. 10 stages are done and still there is no clear contender. The current overall leader is Cyril Dessel from the AG2R team.

Yesterday was the first tough mountain stage (nothing like today's though) and still it did not throw up any clear contenders. The contenders Floyd Landis (Phonak), Andreas Kloden (T-Mobile), Christophe Moreau (AG2R) and some others are still there off the leader by 3-4 minutes. The biggest casualty so far is probably Iban Mayo (Euskatel - Euskadi) who is down and out sitting in 153rd position 24 minutes away from the leader.

George Hincapie who was by Lance Armstrong's side through all his 7 Tour wins is surprisingly 6 minutes down from the leader. The discovery team does not have a clear leader and that is a little scary.

But after today's stage I expect the picture to clear up significantly. Not only should it bring the contenders for the tour to the top, it will probably also decide the respective team leaders for teams like Discovery and T-Mobile who have a few riders near the top but not a clear team leader...

One by one they all fall down...

Stage 10:
What a stage it was, Lance Armstrong's team didn't worry about early escapes and later on as a complete team set such a scorching pace that only 4 riders including Armstrong, finished in the first group out of the 40-50 sized group that was together at one point. It was a sight to see as the threats faded, the riders falling behind with their tanks below the empty mark.
Armstrong finished with Valverde (team IBA) at the top with the other 2 riders coming 9 seconds back.
Vinokourov finished 5 minutes 18 seconds behind. Ullrich finished 2 minuets 14 seconds back thanks to his team mate Kloden who helped him during the last kilometers. Basso was the only one who kept some respectability finishing a minute back.
It felt like you were seeing something special the way Lance rode the last section.

Stage 11:
One category-1 climb and 2 category-H climbs on this stage...
Vinokurov set out to prove himself and did that by finishing first on this stage. Armstrong’s team didn’t really chase him down abut kept a high tempo and limited the final difference to about a minute and 15 seconds.
The downhill ride was breathtaking with the riders hitting speeds in the excess of 60 kilometers an hour.

Stage 12 and 13 are fairly flat, ;-) at least compared to the previous two stages (10 & 11).

Stage 10 - Here come the Alps...

Stage 10 of the Tour De France will take place today.

Lance Armstrong lost the yellow jersey to Jens Voigt on stage 9. Armstrong is currently third but Voigt and Moreau (currently 2nd) are not mountain climbers and are expected to drop in the coming days. Armstrong maintains his lead over Vinokourov (T-Mobile), Ullrich (T-Mobile) and Basso (CSC).

Today's stage (192.5 Kms) is extremely grueling. First real test on the Alps and sorting of the front-runners is expected to start. There are two category 1 climbs with the second one leading right up to the finish. Here are the details of the climb they are both longer than 20Kms and have a gradient of about 6%.

Km 118 - Cormet-de-Roselend (D.217-D.902) - 20.1 km climb to 6 % - 1 Category
Km 192.5 - COURCHEVEL (Altiport) - 22.2 km climb to 6.2 % - 1 Category

Very exciting day in the tour…

Tour De France 2005

The tour started on Saturday with a bang! David Zabriskie who is not even the leader of his team CSC came first riding the 19 Kilometers in 20 minutes 51.840 seconds. Lance Armstrong came in 2 seconds behind on Saturday's individual time trials. Both men had an amazing ride with the 3rd place rider finishing 51 seconds behind.

This is Lance's last year and he plans to retire. He has already made good start building about a minute of lead over his main rivals...LIVE STRONG!

The Tour Live