Category: Tour de France

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Mark Cavendish: Climb Was ‘Grim, So, So Grim’

Columbia’s Mark Cavendish, asked by Frankie Andreu on Versus whether he took special pleasure in beating Thor Hushovd this morning:

No, not at all. It’s irrelevant. It’s beating the mountains that gives me more gratification. You know that was a hard climb at the finish and it was about getting over that. I put the top of the climb as my finish line, and if I could get there I could get to the real finish. We only had three guys [George Hincapie, Tony Martin, and Maxime Montfort] after it and what a job those three guys did, all three of them emptied the tank the day before Mont Ventoux. That takes guts, that takes determination, that takes will, you know. to put me in the best position to win, and for me that goes down as my nicest victory just how it went with the climb and the way the guys rode. You know, we were on the back foot but we came through.

FA: Talk about emptying the tank, how much did you have to empty the tank to stay on that climb when Menchov was really going?

MC: It was hard. It was really hard, but you know when you’ve got guys staying with you and you give up then it’s not fair on them. I said if the guys stay with me, there’s no way I can give up, I have to go go go until I can’t go any more. It was grim, it was so, so grim at the top, it got really hard, my saddle was going further and further up my ass (laughs) and when I got over, it was a case of there wasn’t time to recover on the descent because we were full-gas chasing, but you know, we did it and it was nice.

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Tour de France: Stage 18 Lessons

Out of the blogging world all day after seeing the last third of the time trial on the tube. The lessons:

Contador is in an amazing place as a rider. At age 25, he’s already showing himself to be the all-around force Armstrong was when he came back from cancer. Who can stop him? The doping cops. Anyone else? Maybe himself, if he insists on stunts like ignoring his team director and dropping a teammate on a decisive climb. Then again, the apparent me-first bull-headedness — if that’s what it is — is reminiscent of Armstrong’s youthful reputation.

Listen to Armstrong when he says that he doesn’t have what it takes to win the Tour. That’s what he said after Contador rode away on the Verbier climb on Sunday. I haven’t been able to decide whether it’s genuine belief or a ratings-driven need to stay on board the Armstrong train, but it’s been fascinating to watch the various members of the Versus TV team pick Lance to win in the mountains day after day after day. No matter that he hasn’t been close even once, and no matter that Contador has shown himself capable of riding away almost at will–the predictions keep on coming. But for all that, there’s something about watching Armstrong in this Tour that gives him more dimension as a man and racer; and there’s something that makes me realize how amazing his domination of this race for so long really was. I’m actually looking forward to seeing him race again next year.

Other topics that could be spun, perhaps will be some day: Wiggins. The Schlecks. Kloden. Bruyneel. Vinokourov. Splendor and Death at the Tour de France. The Armstrong who rides in our heads.

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Tour de France: Stage 17 Notebook

Your Paul Sherwen Quote of the Day: On Astana’s plans for Andreas Klöden: “Over the last couple of days, it appears they’ve been keeping him in reserve as if they’ve been trying to keep him maybe as a protective dark-horse joker.”

‘Paging Cadel Evans’: He trailed from the very start, dangled off the end of the peloton at the top of the first climb, and finished 29:43 behind the leaders. It’s a performance reminiscent of Greg LeMond’s 1992 Tour campaign, which he abandoned. LeMond announced soon afterward that he was suffering from mitochondrial myopathy, possibly related to his 1987 hunting accident. Evans started raising questions about his own health after losing more than 3 minutes on Stage 16. He reported via Twitter, “I don’t know what is the matter with me at this #tdf, obviously I’m not at my usual level. I’m going to a Doc now :o(.” (Yes, with emoticon.) No word on what the doctor might have told him. On his finish today, Evans writes: “My first gruppetto in the #tdf ever. It was… fun actually. Strange talking to Aussie’s while riding, normally have everything to loose!”

The Ox from Grimstad: Thor Hushovd turned in a stunning ride today. The massive, Norwegian, annoyingly nicknamed “God of Thunder” hauled himself across today’s climbs with enough alacrity to beat Evans across the line. Early on, he stayed close enough to dominated the front to win two intermediate sprints and pick up 12 points in the green jersey sprint competition. His nemesis, Mark Cavendish, was nowhere near the front and took zip today; he now trails Hushovd by 30 points — 230 to 200. While being no match for Cavendish in a two-up sprint, Hushovd looks like he’s locked up the green by having a more effective all-around game.

Liggett & Sherwen, Stained Jerseys, and Biscuits: Watching Thor Hushovd go over the second col of the day ahead of all the climbers:

Phil: This rider is still stinging from the words of Mark Cavendish, saying ‘there will always been a stain on your green jersey because you took if from me on a protest down in Besancon, and I wonder if that’s inspired Thor Hushovd today to go out, beat the climbers, win six points, and probably the green jersey with it.

Paul: You could probably say that he’s taking that green jersey to the laundry, Phil, to get rid of that stain this afternoon, because if he can get himself 12 points on a mountain stage, that really does take the biscuit, because this is a very brave move by a man who probably weighs in 10 or 15 kilos more than the guys in the group behind him, the climbers. He weighs in at 80 kilos … which is … I’m not sure … you can do the calculation … multiply by 2.2.

Phil: I will, yeah, when I’ve got time. It’s a lot.

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Jens Voigt: ‘I Was Very Lucky’

 Here's the English version of the Saxo Bank statement (original in Danish) on Jens Voigt's condition. The best news, after seeing the violence of his crash and the way he lay still on the pavement, is that he was able to issue any sort of statement.

Jens Voigt Is OK Under The Circumstances

[21.07
21:56] An examination at the University hospital in Grenoble this
evening has initially given positive reports on Jens Voigt's health
after the nasty crash during today's stage of Tour de France. He has
incurred a fracture of the right cheekbone and a concussion. For now he
is staying at the hospital for further observation.

Jens has sent this greeting to the team:
"I
think I was very lucky not getting severely hurt from today's crash.
Now I hope that you can focus on the race and I wish you all good luck
with the hard stage tomorrow”.

The whole team in France and
the whole staff at Riis-Cycling wish Jens Voigt a speedy recovery and
hope to see him and his strong and joyful spirit back on the team soon.

Even the casual fan of pro racing is familiar with Voigt's toughness and elan. From what you see on the tube and read in the racing press, he's the consummate teammate.

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Tour de France: Rest Day Notebook

Your Phil Liggett Quote of the Day: Uttered during Sunday evening’s recap show in an otherwise entertaining mini-segment on the Italian TdF champ Gino Bartali. Phil needed to explain why Bartali’s two Tour championships occurred 10 years apart. This is what came out: “It was done either side of World War Two. And of course World War Two spoilt many, many millions of people’s lives.”

Memo to Versus sound mixers: Here’s a trend. Versus is using that newfangled “rock and roll” music as soundtrack for some of its rider profiles. Sweet. But it’s mixing the music so loud in some of the segments that you can barely hear what the “actuality”–the person talking–is saying. I don’t think this is strictly a matter of having fogey ears.

Versus ratings: After three years of doping scandals, Lance-less pelotons, and sagging ratings, Versus is seeing a big bump in viewership this year. During the first 10 stages of this year’s Tour, the live morning telecasts have jumped from 270,400 viewers to 479,800 viewers. As MediaPost notes, the ratings are also substantially higher than they were during Armstrong’s last Tour, in 2005.

Enraha! After his show of strength on the Verbier climb that ended Stage 15, Garmin’s Bradley Wiggins got lots of attention. He talked almost manically about his “day by day” focus. The rhythm of “day by day,” the accent, the vehemence: it was all very familiar. It came to me: Wiggins was channeling Scott, the crazed driving instructor in “Happy Go Lucky.” Scott has nicknamed the rear-view mirror “Enraha” as an arcane mnemonic device. His reminders to use–“Enraha! Enraha! Enraha!–are grating in the extreme. (And for the record, here’s part of what Wiggins said: “I never think too far ahead. Eveyone keeps talking to me about what’s ahead, what’s ahead. That doesn’t help my concentration. No, I go day by day. i’ve trained myself mentally as well as physically, and i go day by day, that’s what we do. How can you think three days ahead when you’ve got two days before that? That’s how you crack. That’s how you cock things up. So, day by day.”

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Tour de France Stage 13: Back to the Mountains

Looking forward to today's non-Pyrenees, non-Alps mountain stage. Partly because we're sending a reporter to a cafe in San Francisco where some local riders watch the Tour, and I'm hoping we get a nice radio story out of it. But mostly because the climbs on the stage, which includes one Category 1 pass, the Col du Platzerwasel, have the potential to touch off some fireworks. Here's the course profile, from the Tour site:

stage13profile.jpg

Here are some more detailed look at some of the passes on the route:

The Vosges region.

Col de Platzerwasel (look at the place names as the stage heads east; we're in Alsace); and also here.

And last, here's what one rider had to say about the stage (yesterday, from Agence France-Presse):

Lance Armstrong has warned the 13th stage of the Tour de France Friday could be a source of trouble when the riders tackle the 8.7km-long Col du Platzerwasel’s monster climb.

On paper, the 200km hilly ride from Vittel to Colmar looks easy compared to some of the mammoth climbs during a three-day spell in the Alps which starts Sunday.

But Armstrong says the Platzerwasel, whose summit is 62km from the finish, will sort the men from the boys.

“The climb up Col du Platzerwasel will be difficult, it is a long way and it will be a real stage,” said Armstrong.