2005 Calendars

Get your 2005 cycling calendars now with World Cycling Productions! Only $15 each. History of Tour de France or current cycling.

Stage Seven

Stage seven of the Tour de France was won by Italian Filippo Pozzato, who was in a breakway that broke away at 2 km to go and opened up a 15-second gap. He is a Tour first-timer and the youngest rider in the race.





There was another breakway that was caught well before the finish line with just two riders, Dutchman Erik Dekker and Belgian Thierry Marichal.





The overall standings remained the same with Voeckler retaining the overall lead 9:35 ahead of Lance, 10:11 over Tyler, and 10:30 ahead of Jan Ullrich.
There were more crashes, but the main contenders were not hurt.

It happened again! (TdF News)

Well, Tyler Hamilton crashed again, but at least he hasn't broken any bones yet. He landed on his back and got "significant bruising", as a Phonak team spokesman put it. Lance Armstrong did crash in an earlier pile up (just 14 km from the start), but is fine except for a few burns from a tire.



As Glen said, Robbie McEwen, the guy leading in the sprinter's competition, crashed, has bad abrasions on both hips and arms, and is out of the Tour.


Tom Boonen won the stage in a crash-marred uphill finish.



Voeckler is still the yellow jersey.



Read more here.

Wondering what it all means?

I found this easy to understand FAQ section at cycling news.com wtih some of the basics for us who are new to the T de F.

Hamburger or pizza

After the massive pile-up at the 1 KM mark, I saw Robbie McEwen's leg and thought--"hamburger". The creative writing staff on the official T de F web site put it this way: ". . .Robbie McEwen who slid along the tarmac long enough for him to tear a big hole in his green knicks and make his powerful quadriceps look more like a pizza cooked up with the dangerous combination of speed and gravel."

It was amazing to see Juan Antonio Flecha so far in the lead for such a long time. What happened demonstrated how this is so much a team sport and not an individual thing. When the peloton swarmed down on him and passed him--I think it was at 8 KM before the finish--it looked like he had all of his energy drawn out of him. PL said it looked something like predatory birds swooping down on him as they approached. It was dramatic.

I hope we get the real commentary from Daniel today. Even though he didn't come over today to watch, he will have the inside track. Daniel--you might want to come over to watch the expanded coverage later today!

LiveStrong

Wear Yellow--

The yellow wrist bands have arrived. I orderd 10, so come by to get yours soon.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is raising money through the sale of yellow wrist bands and its WearYellow, LiveStrong compaign. I have bought 10 of them for anyone who want to wear them.

The cancer connection in our familiy is in our own grandma Pete who is a two time cancer survivor.

Stage Five of Tour

There was a five-man breakaway that gained 16:30 over the field, but the field got back four and a half minutes by the time the break crossed the finish line because there were strong winds keeping the peloton from going too hard.
Stuart O'Grady won the stage, but it was Thomas Voeckler (Brioches La Boulangere) that took the yellow jersey, who was fourth in the breakaway, and started the stage three minutes down on Lance, by more than nine and a half minutes. (Armstrong is not concerned about him, and will not fight to get the jersey back too soon.) It was another raining day, and there was a mass pile-up half-way through the stage, which took down three of Lance's teamates, two sprinters, Alessandro Pettachi and Robbie McEwen, Bradley McGee, and Roberto Heras, a rival of Lance, but Lance himself was not hurt.

Top: you can see that the wind was quite fierce in the picture here because of how the riders are all single-file across the road; bottom right: Portugal's Jose Acevedo, and the Spanish trio of Jose Luis Rubiera, Manuel Beltran and Benjamin Noval go down in a crash, bottom left: the new yellow jersey.

Women in cylcing

Someone was asking about women in professional cylcing on Sunday. There is a Women's Giro 'd Italia that you can read about at the link.

Yes, Steve: I left a really good comment on your post. It didn't show up, so I tried it again. Didn't work a second time either. Just know that they were really smart!

comments don't show up

my last blog states there are two comments, but when I check there are none there????

Tour de France News

Today was the Team Time Trial that USPS won last year and moved Jan Ullrich 43 seconds farther away from Lance. Today? Well, because of a new rule, Ullrich only got 40 seconds farther from the yellow jersey! What I mean is, US Postal won, and Ullrich's T-Mobile team took third. Good news, and another one of Lance's rivals, Tyler Hamilton, his team took second, more than one minute down from USPS. I guess the new rule says that you can only lose 20 seconds from next team up, so Tyler just lost 20 seconds to Lance. Lance now leads the Tour de France, although he doesn't want to defend it yet because it would strain the team too much for the mountains in front of them.

It was a rainy day with a tail wind, which made it very difficult to stay upright on the paint on the road. Tyler Hamilton's team, Phonak, lost 3 or 4 guys due to this (and puntures), so they only finished with 5 guys, the bare minimum.

Here you can see how wet it was for US Postal, which had the worst weather. Lance seems like a really happy guy!

rain nor snow

neither rain nor snow nor fallen comrade will deter lance from winning today. not bad for a postal rider.

Wanna make your own cobble stone road?

This likely is what those cobble stones look like up close:



They are available from Belgain Block Co.