OFFICIAL 2021 Tour de France thread

Wobbie

While I don't think Lance is necessarily the best single rider this year, his team is fucking formidable. he'll be hard to beat if he emerges as the team leader. rooting for radio shack ("the shack :roll: ) is like rooting for the yankees...

Kloddz

I don't think Lance is strong enough in either the mountains or the time trial to beat Contador, who to me is the runaway favorite to win it again. Me of course, I'm rooting for my fellow countrymen, the Schleck Brothers!

Thoughts_Arrive

I reckon Lionel Messi


Nah, go Cadel Evans!
I watched this 2 yrs ago every night live, awesome scenery of the French country side and alps.

BLACK35

Does anyone actually care about this event or is it the scenery your all watching. I think this race is even more boring than soccer IMO

Thoughts_Arrive

No the racing can be great.
Especially those uphill climbs to the finish line when there are a few leaders fighting it out.
And yes the scenery is great.
I am a bit of a cycling fan and love bike riding in summer

Wobbie

BLACK35 wrote:

Does anyone actually care about this event or is it the scenery your all watching. I think this race is even more boring than soccer IMO

it wasn't so boring at yesterday's finish. :shock:
i love the event. even if nothing's happening at a given moment, you've got the scenery and you've got Phil and Paul.

polaris_x

i love this race ... the only shitty thing about it is the rampant doping ...

aside from that - i can't wait for the mountain stages ... with 2 cdns riding as domestiques - not sure who to root for right now ... there is a toronto-backed team (cervelo - but they seem only interested in winning sprint stages), there is one cdn on garmin who i think is the only team for sure riding clean ... right now, i guess i'm rooting for andy shleck ... but the race is gonna come down to 3 or 4 guys ... andy shleck, contador, armstrong and maybe bradley wiggins if he can bounce back ...

with only 2 TT's - it's all about the mountains this year ...

Kloddz

polaris_x wrote:

right now, i guess i'm rooting for andy shleck

Wobbie

yeah, the schlek bros are cool.

only things i DON"T like about this thing are named ventura, hummer, andreu and vaughters. tools, all of them.

Wobbie

polaris_x wrote:

... right now, i guess i'm rooting for andy shleck ... but the race is gonna come down to 3 or 4 guys ... andy shleck, contador, armstrong and maybe bradley wiggins if he can bounce back ...

just found these odds:

Alberto Contador 1/2

Andy Schleck 7/1

Lance Armstrong 5/1

Ivan Basso 25/1

Bradley Wiggins 20/1

Cadel Evans 30/1

polaris_x

imalive wrote:

just found these odds:

Alberto Contador 1/2

Andy Schleck 7/1

Lance Armstrong 5/1

Ivan Basso 25/1

Bradley Wiggins 20/1

Cadel Evans 30/1

yeah ... the top 4 are the same as mine ... but in breaking news ... it looks like andy shleck's tour may be over ... he just crashed and is already 2:30 behind the favourites ... not sure if he can afford to give up this amount of time and he could be hurt ...

crikey - this early stage is turning into some drama suprisingly ...

edit: looks like andy is only a minute or so behind armstrong and contador ... slightly more reasonable ...

edit2: phew ... looks like the shleck's are ok and are back with the favourites

Wobbie

i seem to remember this chavenel (sp?) surviving a solo break before. :think:

Pats54

polaris_x wrote:

i love this race ... the only shitty thing about it is the rampant doping ...

aside from that - i can't wait for the mountain stages ... with 2 cdns riding as domestiques - not sure who to root for right now ... there is a toronto-backed team (cervelo - but they seem only interested in winning sprint stages), there is one cdn on garmin who i think is the only team for sure riding clean ... right now, i guess i'm rooting for andy shleck ... but the race is gonna come down to 3 or 4 guys ... andy shleck, contador, armstrong and maybe bradley wiggins if he can bounce back ...

with only 2 TT's - it's all about the mountains this year ...

Looking forward to the third stage as there will be cobbles added this year. Adds a different twist early on. Love the Mtn's as well. Crazy stage today

norm

a lot of wreaks so far...hopefully the rain subsides

Kloddz

Weird first 2 stages this year... Too bad Andy has lost over 40 seconds to Contador today due to the fall, these things might prove costly at the end. :? I just hope he's alright (seems like he hurt his elbow) and can take the start tomorrow. Cobbles ahead, yeehay, I just hope they won't be too wet, or else we'll see some more guys going down... :(

polaris_x

Kloddz wrote:

Weird first 2 stages this year... Too bad Andy has lost over 40 seconds to Contador today due to the fall, these things might prove costly at the end. :? I just hope he's alright (seems like he hurt his elbow) and can take the start tomorrow. Cobbles ahead, yeehay, I just hope they won't be too wet, or else we'll see some more guys going down... :(

they caught back up with the leaders ... andy didn't lose any time to contador or armstrong today ...

norm

Lance from Twitter: What a day...crashes everywhere and I don't use the term "everywhere" lightly. Most of the GC guys hit the ground myself included. Got some good "road rash" on the hip and elbow. Bike mangled, cleat on the shoe completely cracked in two. Hope it's dry tomorrow.

Wobbie

norm wrote:

Lance from Twitter: What a day...crashes everywhere and I don't use the term "everywhere" lightly. Most of the GC guys hit the ground myself included. Got some good "road rash" on the hip and elbow. Bike mangled, cleat on the shoe completely cracked in two. Hope it's dry tomorrow.

you are so cutting edge! :ugeek:

Wobbie

amazing how much juice the leader has....cancellara drops back, tells an official he is going to get 190+ guys to finish as one, rides back to the front............and they finish as one.

polaris_x

imalive wrote:

amazing how much juice the leader has....cancellara drops back, tells an official he is going to get 190+ guys to finish as one, rides back to the front............and they finish as one.

controversial stage today ... not sure what the heck was going on ... i hear there was oil on the road and with about half the field crashing, i think they just decided to not sprint finish as they didn't want to see more carnage ...

looks like contador initiated the slow down to allow the shleck brothers back into the pack ... unwritten rule amongst the GC guys i suppose ... that's cool ... hopefully, he's just scraped up and is good to go with another dangerous stage tomorrow ...

Wobbie

polaris_x wrote:

looks like contador initiated the slow down to allow the shleck brothers back into the pack ... unwritten rule amongst the GC guys i suppose ... that's cool ... hopefully, he's just scraped up and is good to go with another dangerous stage tomorrow ...

funny how they honor all these unwritten rules of fairness....................and dope like crazy at the same time! :shock:

Kloddz

polaris_x wrote:

Kloddz wrote:

Weird first 2 stages this year... Too bad Andy has lost over 40 seconds to Contador today due to the fall, these things might prove costly at the end. :? I just hope he's alright (seems like he hurt his elbow) and can take the start tomorrow. Cobbles ahead, yeehay, I just hope they won't be too wet, or else we'll see some more guys going down... :(

they caught back up with the leaders ... andy didn't lose any time to contador or armstrong today ...

Yes, now I saw that, too - the 40 secs are just in the GC, still from the first time trial.

polaris_x

imalive wrote:

funny how they honor all these unwritten rules of fairness....................and dope like crazy at the same time! :shock:

soooo true!! ... haha

good stage today ... there is a slim possibility a canuck could be in yellow by days end! ... woooohooooooo ... he's in the lead group now but will need 4 mins on the peleton ...

looks like this canuck (ryder hesjedal) will assume team lead for garmin with vandevelde not starting today? ... crazy ... although i assume garmin is now riding for farrar in the sprints ...

polaris_x

it's pure chaos right now! ... flats all over the place ... looks like frank shleck is out of the tdf ... amazing stuff ... go RYDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wobbie

every day so far (except the prologue) has been chaos! these dudes are tough. you just know some of them wanted to say "fuck THIS!" today.

Kloddz

Bad day for Luxembourg with Frank crashing out, looks like his shoulder is pretty fucked up... :( But hey, we still have one Schleck brother in the race, and did a pretty good job today! Go Andy!

Pats54

Kloddz wrote:

Weird first 2 stages this year... Too bad Andy has lost over 40 seconds to Contador today due to the fall, these things might prove costly at the end. :? I just hope he's alright (seems like he hurt his elbow) and can take the start tomorrow. Cobbles ahead, yeehay, I just hope they won't be too wet, or else we'll see some more guys going down... :(

Saxo was tough driving the pace. Radioshack was no where to be found. LA losing 1 min to AC is a crusher. AC is a monster in the Mt's and will put more time into him.

polaris_x

Kloddz wrote:

Bad day for Luxembourg with Frank crashing out, looks like his shoulder is pretty fucked up... :( But hey, we still have one Schleck brother in the race, and did a pretty good job today! Go Andy!

it'll be interesting to see how andy rides without frank pulling him ... i suspect the mtn stages will have all the gc contenders riding together with one by one cracking ... it'll take a lot of cajones to attack the main guys ... i'm hoping its possible ...

Pats54

Kind of funny how Saxo demanded that the peloton slow down and ride tempo in stage 2 to let Andy Schleck catch back up. Schleck's tour would have been over if not for this. Yet yesterday they drove a torrid pace as some GC contenders had mechanical problems or were caught up in some crashes. AC will crush them in the Mt's.

polaris_x

Pats54 wrote:

Kind of funny how Saxo demanded that the peloton slow down and ride tempo in stage 2 to let Andy Schleck catch back up. Schleck's tour would have been over if not for this. Yet yesterday they drove a torrid pace as some GC contenders had mechanical problems or were caught up in some crashes. AC will crush them in the Mt's.

i'm a bit torn on that ... half the peleton crashed with many of the GC guys ... contador wanted to wait for the shlecks too ... part of the reason for the crash tho was the motorcycle leading the tour crashed and spilt oil all over an already slick road ... making it virtually impossible to stay upright ...

i think cancellara's/saxo's opinion is that if you are gonna slow down and let everyone catch up - then there shouldn't be a sprint at the end which i kinda agree with ... also, cancellara was the big loser in all of it because he lost his yellow jersey at the time ...

yesterday's stage was different because flats are part of the racing day ...

as for AC in the mtns ... yer probably right but my understanding of this years climbs are that it favours the guys that can go up steady and the guys like contador who have a third lung don't necessarily have that huge an advantage ... or so i read ...

Kloddz

An interesting article I read today has Andy with one advantage over Contador, and that is Lance's support. Given the brooding animosity between Lance and Contador, once Lance has lost enough time to not be a contender himself anymore (which some might say he has already), he might tend to helping Andy catch up on Contador's escapes in the mountain stages rather than letting the guy just get away without contention. Just pure speculation of course, but worth looking at once the mountain stages hit.

Anyways, today is the sprinters' turn to show off. I hope it will be a safe arrival this time!