[asmith]

The official TRT Tour De France thread (Possible spoilers)

OK. I know there are at least a couple of us who are interested in the tour. Lets keep our discusion here!

How about Tyler Hamilton riding todays stage with a broken collarbone! That guy is a true athlete! I don't think he will make it the full three weeks though. Speculation is that he is going to try to get through the Team Time Trial and will blow himself up supporting Sastre.

Lance seems to have made it through the stage one crash without any major injuries! Hopefully his team can protect him from any future crashes and keep him safe and sound.

Tyler looked to be in serious pain at the end of the stage today.

Andrew

 

[Geoff]

if you want www.eurosport.com has live audio coverage of the tour.

Andy-do you ride?

who else rides!

i try and ride at least 1000 miles a year. i have been slack this year.

poor Levi- out with a broken sit bone, OUCH!! try riding 2000+ on a broken butt!!

G~

 

[Geoff]

if you are on a mac, or just want to go directly to the live audio feed using realplayer, this is the address:

rtsp://realserver.tf1.ext.imaginet.fr/eurosport/live/tdf2003/tdf0.smi

G~

 

[SouthernReefer]

tour de lance

well, since i live in austin, there is only 1 person i'd like to see win the yellow jersey for the fifth straight time! lance is going to be unbeatable again. he is a phenom... with a heartbeat of 30 when resting.... 30 beats... if i had a heartbeat of 30... i be rushing my butt to emergency room!

 

[Geoff]

the scary thing is, just about all of the pro riders have resting heart rates that low! well what do you expect when they ride around 25000 miles a year!!! when they are riding they stay around 160 bpm. when getting on it they can get above 200 bpm!!!

the thing that makes him enbeatable is the fact that his body does not produce lactic acid in the muscles, so he does not get the crazy soreness the rest of the world gets. he also has a highest vomax of any body ever recorded. his body processes oxygen better than anybody else. in a sport like cycling to be the absolute best, you need to have to be a mutant of some kind.

G~

 

[asmith]

Yes I am a cyclist, although I have not ridden hardly at all this year. Thanks for the link to the live audio. I have been refreshing the log over and over again.

I too think Lance will win again this year. My only major concern right now is losing him in a crash. There have been too many falls already this year.

 

[Geoff]

i think Jan will be a big factor. i do not think he will beat Lance, but in the later parts of the tour i think he will be a great ally.

i think this tour has the highest percentage of first time participants. something like 55 in number. i think all of the crashes are due to this. i think after the first mountain stage things will settle down a bit.

G~

 

[Mrs Smith]

Geez, and that crash today?!? Ow. Can you say "road rash?"

I am also a cyclist, although I don't have the time to devote to it at the moment. (Hm... 12 hours at the hospital, go ride? I wish I had the energy!) I'm planning to do the MS150 as I do every year, even though I might be hurting by the end of it. Thankfully, running keeps me sorta in shape - but I don't have time for that either! Heck, I'm lucky to catch the highlights of the tour every night.

I think that we'll be hearing a lot more from Jan once we get into the mountains... not to mention all the other big names.

Tyler Hamilton must be on one hell of an endorphin rush. I'm really, really curious if he's getting any painkillers - we all know how much scrutiny the cyclists are under. If anything, it's probably just Tylenol or Motrin. Any of the narcotics would slow him down, and they're probably banned anyway. I can't even imagine...

Oh, and I thought Lance did produce lactic acid - it's just that he has a superhuman tolerance for it. (Now that I think about it, he'd have to - I don't think there's an alternate pathway for anaerobic respiration in muscle...) Anyway, I think we've already established that he's superhuman.

 

[Geoff]

i had to go check back in his book. he produces very little lactic acid! much less than the other competitors.

maybe we can get a group to do BRAG (Bike Ride Across Georgea) next year. this is my big ride of the year. this year was my 10th.

all kinds of silly crashes. i miss having the huge sprinter teams in it this year. there is nothing like seeing Super Mario's team pulling the peloton at 60kmh for the last 5km! and then seeing the Lion King come flying by everyone in the last 100m! i think that that was more exciting than the chaos that is going on now.

G~

 

[Geoff]

how about those distances back in 1903!!

stage three was over 400k!! stage 2 was almost as long at over 360k! i think the tour has gotten easier.

G~

 

[asmith]

how about those distances back in 1903!!

stage three was over 400k!! stage 2 was almost as long at over 360k! i think the tour has gotten easier.

G~

I don't think it has gotten easier. I think there were a few days of rest in between each stage at the beginning.

How about that TTT today! USPS has the top 8 spots in the GC and another postie is sitting at 11th!!! This is where the real fun begins.:beer:

 

[asmith]

I just read on LanceArmstrong .com that Victor Pena Hugo is celebrating his birthday tomorrow. What a way to celebrate! He gets to wear the yellow jersey!

Andrew

 

[Mrs Smith]

Go Posties!

 

[Geoff]

Tricky Ricky wins again!!

the last time he wore the yellow jersey was 11 years ago!!!

G~

 

[asmith]

What is the deal with Patacchi? He wins 4 of the first 6 stages and completely bonks out and drops after the first mountain stage?! Everyone was talking about how he was going to replace Cipo as a sprinter. At least Cipo has the ability to make it to the finish! I was looking forward to more of him in the later stages. I guess he is not a great as he looked at first.

Andrew

 

[asmith]

Lance is in Yellow with a 40" lead over Beloki!!!!!

 

[Doug1]

40" lead?

 

[SouthernReefer]

lance rules! now the fun begins! i wonder how much of a lead lance will finish the tour de france with? conisidering he's made up and gained soo much in previous years...

 

[asmith]

40" lead?

40 seconds. ' = Minutes, " = seconds

Andrew

 

[Geoff]

i do not think Chipo has ever finished the tour. i will need to check on this to be sure, but think he usually pulls out whenever the road goes up. this is why everyone is saying Patacchi is pulling a Chipo!

G~