Pills, Thrills and Cabernet: It's le Tour de France 2008

KBP's thoughts on the route: first tour in my lifetime that doesn't start with a prologue or a time trial! They're playing up the fact that the final 2km of the first stage is uphill so anyone can win it. Even someone French.

Time trial on Stage 4 before we hit the Massif Central on Stage 6, which thankfully shortens the seemingly eternal opening flat stages somewhat early.

We have the climb up Hautacam this year, which is a personal favourite. (Remember when Indurain and Leblanc went up into the clouds in '94?) And some of our old favourites like L'Alpe-d'Heuz. (They better have Mont Ventoux in '09 if they're starting from Monaco).

Only about 80km of Time Trialling overall! Well!

I'm a cycling fan during that brief time when there's no football, which happily coincides with the Tour de France, but means I've got a year's worth of news that I've mostly missed out on.

What happened to Rasmussen after last year's Tour? Did he actually get banned / sacked? I read that Contador can't defend his tour because Astana haven't been allowed in - is the consensus that he was 'clean' last year, or just lucky to get away with it? Come to think of it: did the Landis thing ever come to any conclusion - has he been officially stripped of winning it in 2006 or not? I saw Cavendish won a couple of Giro stages - is he doing the Tour as well?

Rasmussen - got the sack straight at the same time Rabobank took him out of the tour. We haven't really heard much of Chicken since.

Contador - the usual allegations of doping thrown at anyone who wins the Tour has been thrown at him but nothing really substantial.

Landis - he was officially stripped of the '06 win before last year's tour. And that's pretty much it.

Cavendish - I'm sure he's riding and I reckon he'll pick up a stage somewhere.

JUST DAYS TO GO

NO TIME BONUSES

WHY WON'T THEY LET TOM BOONEN RIDE WHILST COKED OFF HIS TITS??

If speed and brandy were good enough in 1905 they should be good enough for Boonen.

We have the full start list with Cadel getting the No. 1 bib! - http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/tour08/?id=startlist

FOURTY USELESS FRENCH DUDES YAHHHHH

I'm really interested in the race for the Green Jersey. You don't have much of a opening week for the sprinters, just a couple more flat stages in the South. Boonen is coked off somewhere, McEwen doesn't have a team. Rosbifs, maybe your lad Cavendish can mix it up. It's a shame that Stuart O'Grady can't really sustain a three week challenge for the jersey because it would have been the perfect tour for him to do so.

HOURS TO GO before the tour starts and an exciting prologue race against the clock in a sophisticated European city a typical stage in Brittany but with an uphill sprint finish decides the first yellow jersey.

Everyone is hanging shit on Cadel now and saying he doesn't have what it takes to win, but I'm not listening to them!

what the...

http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2505/19888992919426qo8.gif

Let's roll, Aussie. It's time.

http://www.tvmem.com/OZST/tv/A-Z/W/WORLDSER/WSC06.jpg

DON'T KNOCK THE "OCK"

Cav woos the British public

It's on YAHHHHHHHH

SBS still haven't changed their graphics.

The Cav is going to win a Green Jersey.

Just not this year.

How great is SBS? They've padded out 25 minutes without showing any live footage of the race so far.

Now they're showing clips of last year. Soundtracked by Editors. Come the fuck on.

We don't get any coverage for another hour. Only live for the last half hour, fuck ITV.

lol did that other commentator actually use the phrase "time bonufication"??

ITV is getting some live coverage this year??

And that other commentator is an idiot.

Weekends, only, daily highlights, like last year, and like last year the daily highlights will be the last half hour as live rather than the important moves.

Ah. How nonsensical.

Anyway - we've got a group away at 4.45, but with 106km still to go.

The guys in the breakaway really went for that sprint. Now we don't have time bonuses, all they get is Euros. Poor guys.

The perils of watching Le Tour on SBS: so far we don't have any erection problems advertisements during the commercial breaks (maybe it's still a little early for playing piano with an erection), but we've had a first sighting of that absurd advertisement that claims eating meat is causing global warming and the only way to say the environment is go vegetarian. ARE YOU ON FUCKING DRUGS OR WHAT.

By ITV, we of course mean ITV4.

Thought I'd found a stream there, but no I have the traffic camera report in Luxembourg.

Would have worked out fine if they were starting in Luxembourg.

Speaking of drugs, our old friend Chicken has been banned from professional cycling for two years. And won €665,000 compensation for being sacked from Rabobank for being a drug cheat. BECAUSE HE WASN'T GIVEN TWO MONTHS NOTICE. BECAUSE HE IS A DRUG CHEAT. BUT STILL GETS A PAYOUT.

Oh, thank fucking christ. Phil and Paul are on the coverage at last. Talking about chateaus already.

And we've already had a withdrawal just 90km in as a Confidis rider manages to break his wrist at the feed station.

hey! great to see that picture of Evans again. the squareheaded fool.
for people in the UK - Eurosport now have a web streaming service, you can watch the channel on the internet for 4.90 euros a month (annoyingly this is a recurring thing though, so you have to cancel before the end of the month) http://player.eurosport.co.uk/
it seems to work ok, the "go to fullscreen" option is not obvious but is there.

Didn't they say at the end of the preview on ITV that you can watch the whole of every stage live by pressing the red button?

yeh but not on freeview, only on cable & satellite

Ugh, this is going to be your typical flat stage today.

Sure, "anyone" will be able to win yellow today but it's certainly lacking in occasion. Roll on the prologue in Monaco next year.

i did not know that, and given I am hijacking the pub's satellite. I may just do that.

Peleton has almost caught the breakaway with 12km to go...and it's starting to rain.

this fucken bridge better cause some fireworks, they've talked it up enough

"IT'S GETTING GRIPPY NOW"

This looking like serious eye-of-a-needle stuff.

Ah, so much for the bridge then.

Valverde!

VALVERDE!!!

Cheeky bastard!

Helluva finish from him, though, he was lightning coming off that last bend.

i thought kirchen nearly had it there for a bit. but no!

that bridge really was some bullshit though

ITV is soundtracking the montage with "Sleep The Clock Around". Not one word of a fib.

Colour me disappointed with that bridge.

Anyway, I think we can all say that Valverde has peaked! Too soon!

Bonjour, welcome to Stage 2! I'm your host, King Boy Pato and it is looking a bit overcast in Brittany. No, really.

At 108km to go, we've got a two-man breakaway at 5.02 that is FULL OF THAT FRENCH CYCLING PANACHE THAT HAS DOMINATED SO MANY TOURS IN THE RECENT PAST in the form of Sylvain Chavanel and Thomas Voeckler (he might keep that KoM Jersey for about three days or so!).

Bold prediction: they'll be chased down and we'll see Big Thor vs Super Mac vs The Cav in a big sprint.

Caisse d'Epargne are controlling the peleton today for Valverde. Way to conserve that energy, guys!

French tv needs to show a yellow jersey at checkpoint 1 graphic.

ah there it is.. hmm it suddenly seems less exciting.

(hmm Spanish footbal team, Nadal, Sastre?)

Sastre has lost 12 seconds to Evans over that first section.

No, Imlach reckons it's eight, and I trust Imlach more than the BBC feller.

Menchov falling off on the second section, down to 6th, slipped behind Vandevelde.

Evans comes in 7th at the second check. I'm not sure where that puts him in relation to Menchov...

Given how sunny it is, Evans looks white as a sheet.

Kohl now 2 secs down on Cadel, so Evans 1 sec ahead of him overall.

soooooooooooooooooo close

The flying broomstick, Andy Schleck, wins the white jersey unless something odd happens tomorrow.

Evans one minute 11 down on Sastre at the second check.

Sastre's going to do this!

Man, that Rubicon ad doesn't get any less racist, does it?

Menchov still down on VDV, so he's had his chips, one suspects.

Evans carks it in 7th at the line, and Sastre's lapping Schleck. Congratulations, Carlos...

Bernie K comes home ninth, sealing third spot.

Sassie takes it by a minute.

Incidentally, Schumacher takes the stage, doubling up in the time trials in this year's Tour.

1'05" is the final winning margin, Frank Schleck fell to sixth with Kohl, Vandevelde and Menchov rising to 3rd, 4th and 5th respectively.

Nice. He deserves it for the Alpe d'Huez.

Whoah, Kohl shaking and moving on his bike and still getting this great result!

Sastre was amazing, a well deserved win.

Let's hope they don't announce next week that CSC Saxobank have failed a doping test.

I thought Evans looked great for the first few km. Was he worn out from three weeks of racing and couldn't sustain that pace, or did he simply choke? When Sastre came through the first time check only eight seconds behind him, Evans must have realized that he wasn't going to win the Tour and lost his focus to some extent from that point on. He looked pained and desperate over the second half of the course.

KOHL! I figured there had to be some kind of production mistake when they showed a Kohl/Evans split screen with Kohl leading by four seconds near the first time check. Finishing third is pretty impressive considering that his team did jack shit for him all Tour.

I was starting to believe in Valverde again after his recovery in the Alps, but he screwed the pooch again today.

its nice to see someone in polka dots do a good tt. when kohl fell off the starting ramp i thought, "whoa, he's gonna break rasmussen's record for disaster- he's not even gone down the ramp yet." but did you see his temperament? he was totally cool as he gathered his shit back up. nervous rasmussen would have been chicken dancing all over. ride of the day.
vdv, nice one.
menchov, just as always.
sastre, chapeau.
evans- it was written on l'alpe, you didnt answer. good show tho.

I don't think Evans choked at all, he was putting everything into it. His team is just terrible.

better than vdv's, as good as menchov's, as useful as kohl's.

if evans' ds was any less motivational during the tt, he would have caused a rolling blackout.

i was disappointed by the stage to l'alpe because evans did not try to answer until the clock ticked 2 minutes. it was by no means a dumb decision, but it sure was costly.

yep, still shitty tho.

...considering they were meant to be the team that would carry evans to victory.

I was disappointed by the stage to l'alpe because evans did not try to answer until the clock ticked 2 minutes.

I don't know if there's much he could have done ... for instance, if he'd attacked when Sastre was ahead by a minute, then he likely would have been joined by at least one of the Schlecks, who would have then counterattacked and possibly bridged up to Sastre. Evans could have easily found himself alone and trailing two or three CSC guys by the same deficit he'd had at the time of his attack -- putting him in a far tougher situation than he'd started with.

But for the whole TdF, Evans - as they said spot on on the telly last night - was not riding to win, he was riding to not lose. And then - surprise, surprise - he lost.

Key moment: on Alpe d'Huez he chose to stay in yellow Schleck's wheel, while Sastre got away. Calculative riding gone wrong. If he'd wanted to win, he should have at least tried to follow Sastre (like Menchov, who blew his fuse soon after), but didn't do anything, he didn't even try to attack.

ah the parade.. I miss Wegmann and his usual Bart Simpson mask.

Agreed that Evans' strategy, as a whole, was to not take chances and to limit his losses in case another rider attacked. But that said, trying to chase down Sastre at the start of L'Alpe D'Huez wasn't necessarily the best strategy. Sastre's attack wasn't looking like a decisive, Tour-clinching attack at the time, and I definitely didn't expect him to *gain* time on the yellow jersey group throughout the climb. For Evans, waiting for Sastre to crack, or at least to slow down to the point where he would lose maybe one minute instead of two, was a defensible strategy.

CSC are doing most of the work, Big Stewie O is hunting motherfuckers down hard.

Much of the speculation thus far (started on the stream, now watching telly) is that Cancellara will be going off the front for the win at some point.

"Joan of Arc looks down on the main field, and she knows that next time she'll see the main men getting ready for the sprint..."

Last lap! FDJ rider swallowed by the pack, and here come the sprinters with 5K left, another FDJ rider goes for it!

SYLVAIN'S GONE FOR IT AGAIN!

Voigt's seat is... ouch!

Big Jens has lost his saddle somehow. Chavva's back in the bunch. Today, one senses, is not the day for a breakaway.

Millar leads 'em under the 1K, Quick Step leading out for Steegmans...

Steegmans takes it! Champagne Carlos safely over the line, embraces dear old Stewie O'Grady, luvverly.

The whole thing about Evans basically riding in the mountains to limit his losses - that was essentially what Indurain did every year. I guess the difference is that he was far better than anyone at time trials, whereas Evans is just pretty good. Anyway, I found the Indurain years dispiritingly boring, and I would always rather see a pure, attacking climber win the tour than a time trialer who's strong enough to drag himself up a mountain in fifth place all the time just grinding a steady pace. For that reason I loved Chiappucci and Pantani, and in more recent times Landis, Rasmussen and Contador were amazing - it's just a shame that drugs seem to have played a major part in those performances. Which, again, is why I'm hoping we don't suddenly find out in a few days that CSC have been caught doping and the Tour gets awarded to Evans (after a couple of years of legal wrangles).

I would rather see a climber win too.

btw remember Cadel did win the Mont Ventoux stage of Paris Nice this year.

I know Paris Nice is not the Tour tho

Ricco has admitted he took EPO (he admitted it "as a sign of good will"). However, he took it a couple of days before the start of the Tour and he was checked ten times, so now he's wondering why the results were only positive twice.

Turns out Schuey and Piepoli were, indeed, dodgy.

Depressingly, so was Bernie Kohl.

lol

..@ his awesome time trial