The Hautacam went as expected today. A couple of waif Italians off the front, crying tears of success over the line. Cadel, tried his mountainbiker best to get in there and he held a respectable placing to the summit. By default, we now get to see him wear the yellow. Surpisingly, Vandevelde rocked it and now hovers around the Yellow as well. He’s smooth. Not so stupid as to try and keep with the attacks. I for one, would rather see Vaughters team nab it.
And it definitley goes without saying that a realitively non-doped tour makes for some boring climbs. No more tweaker-esque desperation. No more 2 kilometer long attacks. Now, everyone is suffering and looking at each other.
It might as well be a Saturday group ride.
Otherwise, handlebarsandwich has more skinny on the Crazy 88 which now includes free home-brew for the finishers. One more reason to do it other than it will be a bitchen ride.
The rains were in full effect around Phlagstaff this weekend which made for an abrupt halt to an attempted overnighter with Sad Cow in the inner basin. Instead, we had some killer riding around the “realignment” and elsewhere on Sunday. Suprisingly, the realignment is getting a ton of weekend traffic. Interesting. And I also finaly got a pic of the “Slayer” graphiti up in the I.B. That pretty much makes my Summer.
Comments
12 Responses to “Monday…”
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John on July 14th, 2008 10:41 am
No more tweaker-esque desperation.
I’m going to miss that.
KG on July 14th, 2008 1:46 pm
I don’t know… Rico has a good set of balls on him, with or without the patch.
Sad to see Kim lose the green, now I’ll have to root for Vandevelde.
Mikey on July 14th, 2008 1:58 pm
Guys-
That kid Ricco is only 24 years old. He and Piepoli are badass climbers. And they ride cool bikes! Ha!
Mikey
Arjai on July 14th, 2008 2:33 pm
Just a point in the interest of correctness. The Stage winner is Italian, his partner, Juan José Cobo (Saunier Duval-Scott) is from Spain.
BTW, I thought it was the best Stage, so far, and I was glued to the TV throughout.
BTW, Ricco called it again. He said he would do all he could to help his friend and teammate, Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval-Scott), win the Stage. He essentially burned out helping to break the others for him. Cobo, got there because of him also and was pumping on Pride alone near the end. Hautacam is pretty close to Spain and he wanted a good showing for his country and their fans that could be seen in the crowd at the Summit.
Alright, my two cents worth is spent. Vive Le Tour!
KG on July 14th, 2008 3:13 pm
Lose the green? I mean lose the yellow, does he still have the green?
Zen on July 14th, 2008 4:05 pm
Menchov will win, I have received a sign:
(Shameless plug for Blog)
http://thezenofcycling.blogspot.com/2008/07/support-your-not-so-local-bike-racer.html
MP on July 14th, 2008 7:46 pm
You guys should have taken a picture of your bikes loaded with your camping stuff by the “No Camping in the Inner Basin” sign.
Gnome on July 14th, 2008 8:02 pm
I do not recall. Can you repeat the question?
bikesgonewild on July 14th, 2008 10:45 pm
…vandevelde wins the “most inspirational rider” jersey…whadda ya mean there isn’t one…there oughta be, after his strong intelligent riding so far, don’t cha think ???…
…& gnome…while i’m not gonna be cheering for yer little aussie to ride into paris in yellow, the man rode the stage w/ balls today, especially in light of yesterday’s crash…i was even touched by his show of emotion in donning the malliot jaune…i say, props to the man…
…that emotion is “just sayin’” something serious about the long, winding road from dreaming as a kid to riding w/ & matching the best in the world, in the toughest bicycle race in the world…
Gnome on July 15th, 2008 7:27 am
Yar. Cadel is worthy. He may be the first Aussie to nab the jersey. That might be cool.
cs on July 15th, 2008 9:52 pm
FUCK YEA;SLIPSTREAM MOTHERFUCKER
dirtybiker on July 17th, 2008 2:30 am
i stood on the Hautacom and watched those skinny fucks go by and one thing is for sure is that the fans here could care less about the doping once those riders hit the base of that climb. i was at the 3km mark in a sea of orange shirts and basque flags when one guy said to me “it doesn’t matter about the drugs, these men are our heroes”
game.set.match.
i will send jonny some pics as soon as i can figure out these french computers
until then… go ride!!!!