All right, it's the end of week one and the riders are enjoying a rest/travel day. We can start making absurd judgements about this year's Tour based on only a few flat stages! Actually, I'm going to resist that temptation, and instead just demonstrate how worthless week one is in relation to the GC.
Lance Armstrong is 9:35 out and sits in 6th place. Do you know how may riders are within 9:35 of Lance? 125. That's well over half the field, so let's narrow it down even more. Second to Voeckler right now is Stuart O'Grady at 3:01 out. It just so happens there's a rider exactly 3:01 behind Armstrong. Richard Virenque, and he's in 58th overall. I'm declaring that three minute gap as the unofficial line between contention and just riding this out. For the record, Mayo is 15:02 out, a good five and half minutes down to Armstrong.
The point here is that the race for yellow hasn't even begun. The first week serves as an elimination test, but nobody can win the race here. This first week was all about the sprinters, and they deserve (and I think received) the lion's share of coverage. With that in mind, here is a collection of random observations from Week One.
- My wife finally came up with a nickname for Alexandro Petacchi: Abandon.
- RAGT's uniforms really do look like something a pizza delivery service would wear. I half expect these guys to weave through traffic to deliver messages to offices.
- We don't have enough people named after gods. I mean, Thor? It's like a Greek kid named Appollo. It's just very, very cool. And he's really showing that he's an incredible sprinter.
- It's time for Mayo to decide what's more important to him, riding for the Basques or riding for the yellow. He's just unable to win with Euskatel. He's accomplished all he can accomplish with this team. He needs to relaize even if he rides for, say, CSC, he can still honor his Basque homeland.
- I think it's cute the way Paolo Bettini aggressively defends his polka dot jersey in these flat stages. He can't honestly believe he'll win it, can he? We haven't even seen a real mountain!
- We love Lance, but could he please quit the whining about the course? We're not big fans of the organizers either, but the sheer volume of crashes has mainly been a function of the rainy weather, something we can't blame on the French. When aren't the early flat stages treacherous? Ask Levi Leipheimer what he thinks of the course this year in comparison to last.
- Jakob Piil just joined another breakaway.
- Erik Dekker just lost one minute in the GC.
- AG2R finally has an indentity with the emrgence of Nazon and Kirsipuu. They are out of the running for this year, but maybe they can go into next year's race training to be a sprint team.
- Team CSC has been awesome. They've dictated the pace even moreso than Postal, and they have three guys who are all legit top ten threats (Julich, Sastre, and Basso). And that's not even mentioning Piil and Voigt, who are having great Tours.
- Happy trails, Cipo.
- Haven't people in Fance ever heard of a leash? How does a dog cause a crash?
- Did Baden Cooke just forget how to sprint? He's just dropped off a cliff.
- Jason and I have little argument about who will attack first in the mountains. I say Mayo because he has to, Jason says Armstrong because he wants to. We'll find out soon who's right. Watch the first attack come from Axel Merckx just to spite us.
- I don't get to watch the action until I get home from work, so I usually end up watching the Roadside Tour instead of waiting for the prime time rebroadcast. So I think I can say, without reservation, that I hope the Cutters are involved in a serious Winnebago accident. What, did OLN do a nationwide search for the most annoying people they could find?
- I'll admit it, I find myself rooting for Tyler Hamilton. It's just that I'm a snob. I'm happy people are following the Tour because of Lance, but do we really have to put him on every magazine in the country? I'm waiting for his mug to show up on National Review and The Nation's annual cross-over editions. We're big fans of overkill, but could we please lay it on just a tad less?
- Adjusted predictions: The podium- 1 Armstrong, 2 Hamilton, 3 Ullrich, Green- McEwen, White- Casar, Dots- Mayo, Team- CSC.
Lance Armstrong is 9:35 out and sits in 6th place. Do you know how may riders are within 9:35 of Lance? 125. That's well over half the field, so let's narrow it down even more. Second to Voeckler right now is Stuart O'Grady at 3:01 out. It just so happens there's a rider exactly 3:01 behind Armstrong. Richard Virenque, and he's in 58th overall. I'm declaring that three minute gap as the unofficial line between contention and just riding this out. For the record, Mayo is 15:02 out, a good five and half minutes down to Armstrong.
The point here is that the race for yellow hasn't even begun. The first week serves as an elimination test, but nobody can win the race here. This first week was all about the sprinters, and they deserve (and I think received) the lion's share of coverage. With that in mind, here is a collection of random observations from Week One.
- My wife finally came up with a nickname for Alexandro Petacchi: Abandon.
- RAGT's uniforms really do look like something a pizza delivery service would wear. I half expect these guys to weave through traffic to deliver messages to offices.
- We don't have enough people named after gods. I mean, Thor? It's like a Greek kid named Appollo. It's just very, very cool. And he's really showing that he's an incredible sprinter.
- It's time for Mayo to decide what's more important to him, riding for the Basques or riding for the yellow. He's just unable to win with Euskatel. He's accomplished all he can accomplish with this team. He needs to relaize even if he rides for, say, CSC, he can still honor his Basque homeland.
- I think it's cute the way Paolo Bettini aggressively defends his polka dot jersey in these flat stages. He can't honestly believe he'll win it, can he? We haven't even seen a real mountain!
- We love Lance, but could he please quit the whining about the course? We're not big fans of the organizers either, but the sheer volume of crashes has mainly been a function of the rainy weather, something we can't blame on the French. When aren't the early flat stages treacherous? Ask Levi Leipheimer what he thinks of the course this year in comparison to last.
- Jakob Piil just joined another breakaway.
- Erik Dekker just lost one minute in the GC.
- AG2R finally has an indentity with the emrgence of Nazon and Kirsipuu. They are out of the running for this year, but maybe they can go into next year's race training to be a sprint team.
- Team CSC has been awesome. They've dictated the pace even moreso than Postal, and they have three guys who are all legit top ten threats (Julich, Sastre, and Basso). And that's not even mentioning Piil and Voigt, who are having great Tours.
- Happy trails, Cipo.
- Haven't people in Fance ever heard of a leash? How does a dog cause a crash?
- Did Baden Cooke just forget how to sprint? He's just dropped off a cliff.
- Jason and I have little argument about who will attack first in the mountains. I say Mayo because he has to, Jason says Armstrong because he wants to. We'll find out soon who's right. Watch the first attack come from Axel Merckx just to spite us.
- I don't get to watch the action until I get home from work, so I usually end up watching the Roadside Tour instead of waiting for the prime time rebroadcast. So I think I can say, without reservation, that I hope the Cutters are involved in a serious Winnebago accident. What, did OLN do a nationwide search for the most annoying people they could find?
- I'll admit it, I find myself rooting for Tyler Hamilton. It's just that I'm a snob. I'm happy people are following the Tour because of Lance, but do we really have to put him on every magazine in the country? I'm waiting for his mug to show up on National Review and The Nation's annual cross-over editions. We're big fans of overkill, but could we please lay it on just a tad less?
- Adjusted predictions: The podium- 1 Armstrong, 2 Hamilton, 3 Ullrich, Green- McEwen, White- Casar, Dots- Mayo, Team- CSC.
posted by Poseur at 3:32 PM
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