Columbia steps in it

George Hincapie was justifiably disgusted after stage 14. He began the day 5:25 behind the yellow jersey, got into a breakaway had a lead of 9 minutes at one point, only to finish 5:20 ahead of the peloton.

The only reward for finishing stage 14 five seconds out of the lead is a bitter taste in the mouth.

The post-race chatter leads to the fact that Garmin helped Ag2r push the peloton to close the gap, so the speculation is that the rivalry between the two American teams just got turned up a few notches of ugly.

There is no denying that Garmin did help close the gap, and I don't see any explanation. If they did it out if spite or stupidity, it makes no difference; the damage is done. But as Poseur says, "tough noogies." Cycling is a cut throat competition. As I like to say, if you have to rely on another team to do your work for you, maybe you didn't really earn it. But Garmin's not the only factor that spoiled Hincapie's day.

Astana. They've been helping Ag2r push the peloton all week. Astana isn't blameless here, as they did help narrow the gap under 7 minutes with 20 km to go. But they also rode an easy tempo much of the race to allow the gap to grow large in the first place. They played a bit part, but a bit part is significant when we're talking about 5 seconds.

Then there is the Columbia team itself. First, Hincapie. As the gap dwindled in the last 15 km, he tried to increase the pace, but had a hard time keeping the group organized. Really, the group might have been stronger if he had been able to split the passengers from the workers. He couldn't. Once he got to the 3 km he should have just gone all out. Ivanov was already off the front and the chase was disorganized. I bet if he had it to do all over again, Hincapie would have gone solo at that point rather than dallying with the group.

Columbia shot itself in the foot on the approach to the finish too. They certainly didn't have the long train of guys leading out Cavendish for a couple km like a normal sprint finish, but they did push the speed hard in the final 1.5 km. It was just a couple days ago that Columbia didn't give Cavendish the long lead out; Cav just followed THOR!'s wheel and passed him at the line. They should have done that again; they take some of the blame for spoiling Hincapie's bid for yellow.

Columbia compounded their problems with a bad sprint for the line. Cavendish was penalized for squeezing THOR! into the barrier. Although Cav beat THOR! to the line, he got zero points. Instead of closing the gap slightly, he got another goose egg and THOR! stretched the lead to 18 points. It was a bad day for Columbia.

On the other hand, Nick Roche nearly screwed things up for Ag2r. He was in the breakaway with Hincapie. He had every reason to be a passenger to protect his teammate in yellow. No one would blame him for sitting back. Instead, in the final 10 km, after Ivanov launched his stage-winning attack, and with the group disorganized, Roche attacked. TWICE. This moron ran the risk of speeding up the group and helping Hincapie overtake his own teammate. He didn't even get close to catching Ivanov and winning the stage. This was colossally stupid. If I were Ag2r's manager, I'd force Roche to ride at the front up the Alps tomorrow until he falls over and vomits.

By the way, Ivanov got his second ever Tour stage win and the first for team Katusha. Is that team sponsored by the Russian weapons manufacturer?

OK, I'm glad this week is over. Tomorrow they hit the Alps. Game on! Time to expose the poseurs.

A plethora of small items after stage 13

The hopes that the cat 1 & 2 climbs in stage 13 would shake things up among the contenders fizzled out. There was no change today, except for Levi Leipheimer dropping out because of a broken wrist. That sucks. It's also the second time in his career he crashed out of the Tour. Vuelta for Levi in September?

Rinaldo Nocentini still has the yellow jersey. He's had it more days than Cancellara did, if you can believe it.

Despite the lack of yellow jersey drama today, two jerseys changed hands today. The mountains relegated Mark Cavendish to the autobus, but THOR! stayed in the peloton and was 6th to the line, good for 15 points to Cavendish's goose egg. THOR! now has a 5 pt. lead. There aren't a lot of sprint finished remaining; it might still be a close race on the last day.

The polka dot jersey moved from Egoi Martinez to Franco Pellizotti. Franco leads 98-95, and the third place guy is 60 points back. Pellizotti was a tad bit stronger than Martinez on all the little climbs in stage 12 and a lot stronger on stage 13. I was thinking that it would be ironic that a Euskaltel rider finally getting the KoM jersey would cough it up as soon as the race got to the Alps, but Egoi did one better and lost it before the Alps.

I don't care how much the TV commentators kiss his butt, Sylvain Chavanel is weak.

Finally, more fun from Bernard Hinault. ESPN reports from an interview he gave with L'Equipe. "I couldn't care less about Armstrong. If he's at the Tour or not, it changes nothing. We have nothing in common. There's also the language barrier, so we've never been able to speak man to man," Hinault said. "He would have impressed me if at the height of his career, he raced the Giro [d'Italia], the classics. He is the champion of the Tour, nothing more."

OK, this is really, really similar to my translation of his previous interview. I've never even met Hinault, and I'm no psychologist, but it's almost like he ghost-wrote that post for me. Hinault is definitely a petty and bitter man who is either a pathological liar or delusional. Over the years Armstrong learned French. He's not great at it, but I've seen him answer questions in French in post-race interviews. All those years when Lance was winning stages and yellow jerseys, Hinault was there shaking his hand and chatting with him at the presentations.

There's no denying that Lance didn't race the Giro or Vuelta while winning all those Tours, but it's not as though he's unique in that. Can you name anyone who contends for multiple Grand Tours in the same season. In the last 20 years only 3 men have won two Grand Tours in the same year and one of them (Marco Pantani) was caught doping shortly thereafter. But planning to skip one Grand Tour to focus on another isn't new. Eddy Mercks used to do it back in the 60s & 70s.

And as for Armstrong only being champion of the Tour, nothing more (like that's no significant accomplishment!), someone should tell Hinault that Armstrong also won The Tour of Switzerland, the Dauphine Libere, the World Championship, the Fleche Wallon, and the San Sebastian Classic.

Hinault is such a putz.

A substitute blog for another boring stage

Stage 11 was boring too. Cavendish won again. THOR! was 5th, so he relinquishes the green jersey back to Cavendish.

Fortunately the good people at VeloNews put the transcript of an interview with Bernard Hinault on their website to help us overcome the lack of excitement. Here are some highlights. In a few cases I have taken the liberty of translating from Frenglish so that you can better understand what Hinault means. Segments from the VeloNews interview are in italics.

VN: We’re seeing some polemic between Armstrong and Contador, was that similar to you and LeMond in the 1980s?

BH: No, no. There was no polemic between Greg and me. In 1985, I was designated to win the Tour and in 1986, it was his turn. And it happened just like that. What we’re seeing now is that two want to win. It is quite the opposite.

The record shows that for stage 12, on July 15 1986, Hinault attacked in the Pyrenees and put over four minutes on LeMond. The very next day, in order to correct this mistake of overtaking his teammate who was designated to win the Tour, Hinault attacked again to put a couple more minutes on LeMond, who later bridged the gap and passed Hinault, though not by enough of a margin to take the overall lead from Hinault. In the Alps, LeMond finally got into yellow. But even then, Hinault attacked again, forcing LeMond to chase him down on the Alpe d'Huez.

That's what the record shows. Decide for yourself if Hinault is full of crap. Or maybe I'm silly and attacking your yellow-jersey-wearing teammate really is consistent with the idea of designating him to win.

VN: What do you make of the Armstrong return?

BH: Pfft … I couldn’t care less in the end. It’s not my problem.

Translation: Damn. This guy cast a shadow so long it shades my ego. That is a problem for me, so I'm going to pretend it's a problem for someone other than me.

VN: Don’t you think it’s impressive that he’s been able to return to the top level after being away from the sport for three years?

BH: But what is his motive for coming back? Is it to win? To fight cancer, or something else in the future? To one day be the governor of Texas? I think at this moment, the Tour serves him more than what he serves the Tour.

OK, here Hinault is losing it. You can tell when he mentions politics. To the French, the best thing to support a political career is to have an affair. Launching a political career by cycling is just silly in any country. And Armstrong is already a soap opera of romantic affairs. To win? Imagine that. Next thing you know, Armstrong will be trying.

VN: Do you think his return is good for cycling?

BH: I am not convinced that it will be good for cycling. One speaks a lot more about him and the Astana team and the politics between the two of them than about any other riders. It’s necessary to remember that there are other riders who exist. The media should look at everything.

Well, maybe the TV audience, crowds, and sales of goodies can indicate if Lance Armstrong is good for cycling or not. But let's translate from Frenglish again, particularly that bit about remembering other riders: Don't talk to me about Lance Armstrong. All he ever won is the yellow jersey. I won 5 of them myself, you know. I could have had 6, but I was a better teammate than Lance and I helped my younger teammates. He should take a lesson from that. I didn't need to win more Tours. I'm Bernard Freaking Hinault. I won all three Grand Tours, just like Contador. Only I won each one at least twice. Who else has ever done that? Nobody! Not even Teddy Merckx. That's right, I'm the man. These lazy, pampered phony champions of today should stop resting on their laurels and piles and piles of cash so they can appreciate what I did. Yeah, ME.

Stage 10 was boring

Stage 10 was probably the one stage that sports fans who don't like cycling but tune in once in a while just to see if they can get into it happened to see. And based on that, they can consider their opinions of cycling as twice as exciting as watching paint dry justified.

Cavendish won the stage. THOR! was second. THOR! retains the green jersey by 6 points over Cavendish. Tomorrow, if THOR can finish second again, he can hold on to a one point lead.

Side shows on center stage

With the big climbs in the middle of stages 8 & 9, there were no battles between the suspected contenders for the yellow jersey. Luis-Leon Sanchez of Banesto won stage 8 and Pierrick Fedrigo of Bogus Telekom won stage 9 by a nose.

It was the second career TdF stage win for each man, and also the second win of this Tour for Bogus Telekom, so they are having their most successful tour since Voeckler wore the yellow jersey five years ago.

In another surprise success story, Egoi Martinez took the lead in the King of the Mountains competition today as a reward for being in so many breakaways in the mountains. For the first time in many, many, many years Euskaltel has a result to brag about. This team has been a bump on a log in the peloton for years. I think that prior to Martinez getting to wear dots, the team's last success story was a stage win on Alpe d'Huez by Iban Mayo in 2003. Talk about a long drought. The goofy course (with the big climbs 50+ km from the finish line in the Pyrenees) is having the effect of delaying the yellow jersey race and warping the KoM race. No one has pulled a Richard Virenque and scooped up all the points on the early mountains to build a big lead, and the yellow jersey contenders haven't bothered to race up the mountains to gain time and pick up points as a byproduct. The result is that several different men are picking up moderate points, not big points. The polka dot jersey has been on new shoulders each of the last 4 stages. Martinez has a 19 point lead, and is likely to keep the jersey for several days now as the course turns flat, but there are still several people who can catch him in the Alps.

The other big development came in stage 8, when THOR! joined a breakaway in the mountains to pick up intermediate sprint points. He won both sprints, good for 12 points. Mark Cavendish got none, as the incline turns him into a junior cyclist. The coming week will probably determine the green jersey, as the third week is mostly mountain and time trial. THOR! has an 11 point lead, which isn't a big margin over a guy who destroys everyone on the flat sprint finish.

Stage 7: more drama for the Astana team bus

Stage 7 was an enigma. The bottom line is that Alberto Contador attacked the peloton with about 1.5 km remaining, picking up 21 seconds on the other contenders and jumping into second place, 6 seconds off the yellow jersey. That sounds awfully familiar to what Armstrong did in stage 3, beating the contenders by 40 seconds to climb the leader board.

But this was a mountain top finish, not a flat stage. Picking up 40 seconds on the contenders is unexpectedly high in a flat stage. Picking up 20 seconds on them in a mountain stage is a small gap.

More substantial is the politics of team Astana. After the stage, the riders and even the manager were telling the press that the plan was not for Contador to attack, but that they weren't surprised that he did. The line dividing those comments from publicly ripping him in the press is very fine. Even before Contador attacked something on the road was very telling. When Cadel Evans attacked, Contador and Lance both responded, Contador on the left and Lance on the right. A few moments later, Kloden came up on the right side and offered his wheel to Lance. I could have been wrong, but my immediate reaction was "Kloden rides for Lance." Shortly thereafter Contador attacked and none of his teammates went with him.

From a team perspective, the way the stage finished is good in that there are now two men within 10 seconds of the yellow jersey. Hooray for Astana! The good news for the team ends there. Whatever effect the distraction of team cohesion (or lack thereof) was before, it has been magnified--big time. Assuming the talk is correct that Contador didn't have the green light to attack, Bruyneel is going to be ticked off by his insubordination. Armstrong and those teammates who favor him are going to be pissed off, and there may even be other teammates upset by his do-your-own-thing attitude. The public airing of dirty laundry is going to irk Contador, and this could snowball into something even worse.

Nevertheless, Contador's actions are defensible. You don't win the Tour by refusing to use your advantages. Contador has the best uphill acceleration in the race, and no one could match him. He doesn't have to apologize to anyone for being too fast. After the race Armstrong was playing the wounded teammate card, saying he refused to chase for the good of the team, but having seen Contador sprint away from him, I won't believe Lance can match him until I see it. Only Lance knows how much he had in the tank when Contador attacked. If Contador put doubt in his mind, then that's more valuable than the 21 seconds he picked up. Hopefully it will take all month for this to play out, because it's fun to watch.

By the way, Brice Feillu of Agritubel won the stage and Rinaldo Nocentini of Ag2r took the yellow jersey by 6 seconds over Contador. Yeah, and Italian is wearing yellow for the first time in about a decade.

Stage 6

I assume Poseur hasn't posted his thoughts on Stage 6 because he hyperventilated while watching David Millar get robbed of a stage win in the last kilometer. We don't dislike Millar. On the topic of redemption, I appreciate the fact that he fessed up to his doping, did his suspension time, and returned on a team whose m.o. is robust dope testing. Still, part of his punishment is having people poke fun at him. And it is funny that he got passed in the final km. I'm not being malicious, and I know he can console himself with piles of money from his professional sports career.

The finish was a big deal beyond Millar Schadefreude because the pesky little hills in Barcelona denied Cavendish a victory on flat road. He finished 16th and only got 10 points. Thor Hushovd won the stage for 35 points, leaving him 1 point behind Cavendish (106 to 105). No one else has as much as 70, so the green jersey really is a two man race as we hit the first set of mountains. That's twice as competitive a race as it was yesterday.

Tomorrow is a big day. After Contador put his foot down in stage 1 it seemed like Lance really is a step or two behind his teammate. The next couple stages made us think otherwise. All along, though, we've known that the mountains will tell all, and tomorrow is the first look at the Pyrenees. Young Bert Contador may be trigger happy to let everyone know he's still the man, and I won't be surprised if he comes out with guns blazing tomorrow. One thing to remember though...Lance Armstrong made a career out of destroying his competition on the first day in the mountains.

Stage 6: THOR!

THOR!!!!

There are certain riders we champion here. Jens Voigt, of course, but that’s only because he’s awesome. I made fun of Voeckler in my preview, but I honestly really like the guy. But if we have an unofficial mascot on this blog, it is THOR!

In fact, we refuse to refer to the god of thunder by his common name, THOR! Hushovd, and instead will always call him by the name I yell at the TV whenever he appears: THOR! Strangely enough, today’s win was not a ride of bad-assery, but of racing smarts. Cavendish has utterly dominated the green jersey competition, so much so that we’ve sort of given up hope on it being interesting. And then THOR! comes along and attacks on an uphill finish to rocket back into the race. It’s now a one-point differential. THOR! made it a race in one friggin day.

He did it the old fashioned way. By attacking Cav’s weakness: climbing. Now, no one is going to confuse THOR! with Contador, but he doesn’t suck at climbing as much as Cav does. THOR! saw a weakness, and he exploited it, even though it’s not his strength. Oh, on the same day that he crashed. In a crash that knocked Rogers out of the race, THOR! got back up, got back in the peloton, caught David Friggin’ Millar, and almost won the green jersey. That’s why THOR! is the friggin’ man.

On the flipside, we’ve wasted a lot of bandwidth ripping on David Millar. I like attacks, and I especially like solo breaks. So it’s gonna be hard for me to rip on Millar today, but I’ll try, because that’s how much I dislike him. Millar is now going to be unable to support his GC man (Vande Velde) tomorrow, in a selfish run for a singular stage win. Let’s face it, VV needs all the support he can get. If you’re gonna make a solo break that screws your team captain, you better win the damn stage. Whoops.

One more time: THOR!