Warren's Place

Saturday's Stage 19 went as expected. Lance Armstrong has always told of how the wearer of the Yellow Jersey should always do well on the last time trial of the Tour.  Yesterday, Lance honored the Yellow Jersey by proving once again that he is the best man this year. He put additional time into his competition by winning Stage 19.

Today's Stage 20 into Paris was largely ceremonial for Lance. He only needed to stay out of harms way and let the sprinters ride for the stage win.

So this Tour is in the books, and Lance has set a record for TDF victories. We're not sure  if he will return in 2005 to try for a 7th.

I hope you enjoyed my TDF commentary. If you did, please acknowledge this by sending me an email or a comment.

Warren

Tyler Hamilton is one of the elite professional bicycle racers in the world. He was on the USPS team that helped Lance Armstrong a few years ago in the TDF. Tyler, as many good riders do, moved on to another team to be their team leader. Last year, Tyler was riding for the CSC team, and was a favorite to place on the podium. Unfortunately, early in that Tour, Tyler crashed and fractured his collarbone. As is well known by now, Tyler overcame the agonizing pain of that injury and incredibly rode through the pain and finished the Tour. He even won a stage that year.

Fast forward to 2004. Tyler is now riding for the Phonak team as their leader. He was in the best form of his career, and the consensus was that Tyler would be a serious contender for the Tour win.  The early stages of this year's tour were marred by numerous crashes, likely due to the rainy weather and some unfortunate course layouts.  Tyler was again involved in a serious crash, this time he flew over his bars and landed squarely on his back. The resulting injury proved to hinder his power output in the mountain stages to the point where he had to withdraw from the Tour. I was very disapppointed because I was really rooting for Tyler to do well this year.

I've told you a little bit of Tyler's history to give you an understanding of the man. I don't know him personally, but from the interviews the he has given and from his own words through his journals and ride diaries, I've come to admire Tyler not only because he is one of the world's elite cyclist, but because he appears to be a good man with the qualities of courage, humility, perseverance, and genuine niceness.

As if the Tour this year was not difficult enouth, Tyler and his wife Haven found out that their dog Tugboat, had a very advanced stage cancer. Go to the link below to read Tyler's extremely moving tribute to his beloved Tugboat. 

Tribute to Tugboat

Thanks for reading.

Warren

This would have been a rather routine and typical "easy" stage except for one bizarre incident. There has been an ongoing feud between Filippo Simeoni and Lance Armstrong. Filippo is sueing Armstrong for defamation because Armstrong called Filippo a "liar" for testifying that Dr. Ferrari was actively showing riders how to effectively use the banned drug, EPO.

The race was going according to the usual early race selection process. Riders would attack and try to break away from the main peloton to try for the stage win. Since the GC contenders are all taking the day as a rest day before tomorrow's big time trial, the "right" group of riders must be allowed to form a successful breakaway. These riders must all be significantly out of contention to the major players in order to be "allowed". A group of six was finally selected and they began to build up a good sized gap from the main group. Usually, when this happens, the main peloton settles down into a "club ride" pace, fast, but relaxed with no real attacking going on. The team of the GC leader usually rides tempo at the front of the peloton to keep things in line. Basically, nobody does anything without the permission of "Le Patron" (the Patron, Lance Armstrong, the race leader) and his team.

Now, if a GC contender and/or his team decides to attack the peloton, one of the USPS domestiques (workers) would lead the chase to bridge the gap and neutralize the attack. What happened today was utterly bizarre. Filippo Simeoni decided that he wanted to join the lead breakaway group, so he attacked the peloton about midway through the stage. Since Simeoni was way, way down in the GC and not a threat to anybody, nobody would have cared and he would have been allowed to join the lead group.  When Simeoni jumped ahead, none other than Armstrong himself jumped onto Simeoni's wheel and went along with him!  Armstrong was not going to let Simeoni have any glory whatsoever. So now, Armstrong and Simeoni were actually taking turns driving the lead group!

This caused all sorts of confusion and anxiety in the main peloton as teams were now deciding what to do about it. They couldn't let Armstrong extend his lead more, they were obligated to chase down the breakaway.

Basically, the breakway would have been doomed if Armstrong stayed in it. Already, T-Mobile was beginning to spool up their efforts by going to the front of the peloton to lead the chase. T-Mobile had the 3rd and 4th placed GC riders (Kloden and Ullrich).

Apparently, the riders of the original breakaway asked Simeoni to drop back. When he did, Armstrong also dropped back to the peloton, thus restoring order to the race.

In the end, none of the main standings were affected, and the stage was won by Spaniard Juan Mercado, his first TDF stage win.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

Eddie Merckx was known as the "Cannibal", and Bernard Hinault was the "Badger". The two great cycling champions were so nicknamed because of their aggressive and punishing riding style. Merckx would often chase down potential stage winners even though his GC lead was already well in hand. When Hinault congratulated Armstrong today on the winner's podium, he told Armstrong approvingly, "Perfect! No gifts". So, we need an appropriate nickname for Armstrong. I've heard "Terminator", or the "Boss", or "Big Tex".

What do you think?

At the climax of today's stage, T-Mobile's Andreas Kloden was poised for his first ever TDF stage victory when he launched an attack with about 1 km to go. Floyd Landis, the talented USPS domestique was given the green light to go for a win, but on both of his breakaway attempts, he was chased down by Ullrich and Kloden. When Armstrong saw Kloden attack for an apparent win, Armstrong decided to go for the kill with only 250 meters to go in the stage. He edged Kloden at the line by just about half a wheel length for his 3rd consecutive mountain stage victory thus preserving the win for himself and Team USPS. The last time a rider won 3 consecutive mountain stages was in 1948. The last time anyone won 3 stages in a row was none other than the Cannibal himself, Eddie Merckx.

The final stage standings were:

Armstrong
Kloden
Ullrich
Basso
Landis

After the race, Armstrong dedicated the victory to teammate Landis, who was responsible for setting the torrid pace today to eliminate almost all other riders except for the elite few. Landis set such a blistering pace up the last climb that nobody was able to launch an attack. I was impatiently waiting for T-Mobile's Ullrich and Kloden to make their move, but it never materialized.

As a side note, Richard Virenque won enough KOM points today to clinch a Tour record 7th KOM title assuming that he finishes in Paris on Sunday.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

There I was this morning, sitting in front of my computer with my mug of freshly brewed coffee. I eagerly anticipated this morning's Alpe D'Huez stage of the TDF as I turned on my computer speakers and tuned into OLN's live audio web broadcast. And as usual, I found myself staying in later into the morning thus making myself a little late getting into work. It was worth it though. I was once again enthralled by the drama unfolding before me. I alternated between the official Tour website and the Daily Peloton website to read their latest stage updates. I could visualize exactly what the OLN announcers were describing. Today's stage was an individual time trial that was a brutal uphill, 9 mile course switchbacking up the legendary Alpe D'Huez. The course was lined with about 900,000 spectators.

Jan Ullrich turned on his diesel engine today, and showed that he was still a powerful force in the racing world. Jan uses astoundingly long cranks (177mm), and turns a large gear ratio as he powers his way up the hill. Ullrich's run proved to be good enough for 2nd place in the stage. Our man Lance was the last to start the stage by virtue of his GC leadership.

In the end, Lance proved that he was indeed the Boss of the Tour as he overtook his 2 minute man, Ivan Basso, on his way to the stage victory. He once again put precious time between himself and the competition, utilizing his trademark high-cadence spinning style. Speaking of style, I wonder how many bicyclists are already wearing black socks for riding. Black socks were scoffed at by traditionalists, and any color but white was once banned at the TDF.

Okay, I'll let you in on a secret, I started wearing black socks while riding about 2 years ago. So I predated Lance on this one!!! Well, I wore them under my long winter riding pants, so maybe it doesn't count :)

The real race is now for the 2nd and 3rd spots on the podium. And it's going to be an exciting one between Basso, Kloden, and Ullrich. I look forward to seeing how this shakes out in the final stages of the Tour.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

p.s. Drop me an email or a comment please!!!