More cycling babble
Jul. 7th, 2009 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayMy father hasn't watched yesterday's stage yet, so I have nobody to express my glee to. Woe.
This is definitely a sport where you can't predict anything. It should have been a simple, big bunch sprint. That's what the route was designed for and that's what it looked like we would get.
Then there was a corner, a cross-wind and suddenly 27 riders had gone off the front including most of Team Columbia, the yellow jersey and a certain Mr. Armstrong.
It felt like I blinked and suddenly the simple race had turned into a big break with the service cars pulling between the break and the peloton. Yikes. I am really impressed with the work that Columbia did to keep that break going and they absolutely deserved to have Cav win the stage. With the head wind, I wasn't entirely convinced they'd do it particularly as Hushovd was still there and he has a lot of experience. Cav and Columbia timed it perfectly, though, and it was brilliant.
Even more impressively was how well Armstrong read the race so that he was in the right place when the break went. On paper, Contador should be the winner and I'd love to see him do it. Armstrong's experience and tactical knowledge could be key, though. The mountains are going to be utterly fascinating.
I was quite chuffed to see that Cancellara also made the break. It would have been sad to see him lose the yellow as a result of a freak break like that.
In fact, Cancellara being in yellow and Armstrong leap-frogging Contador in the overall is going to make today's team time trial fascinating. In the past, Saxo-Bank (CSC) have been very good in the TTT. Astana can't be anything less that brilliant with the preperation they've made. It's going to be seconds rather than minutes between them and that's going to make the outcome impossible to predict.
Oh, I'm so excited :-) I shall sit down with my recording this evening, some popcorn and some knitting and thoroughly enjoy it all.
Er, I also need to remember to time myself for an hour to compete in the TTT on the Ravelry TdF KAL. It could be interesting...
I love July :-)
This is definitely a sport where you can't predict anything. It should have been a simple, big bunch sprint. That's what the route was designed for and that's what it looked like we would get.
Then there was a corner, a cross-wind and suddenly 27 riders had gone off the front including most of Team Columbia, the yellow jersey and a certain Mr. Armstrong.
It felt like I blinked and suddenly the simple race had turned into a big break with the service cars pulling between the break and the peloton. Yikes. I am really impressed with the work that Columbia did to keep that break going and they absolutely deserved to have Cav win the stage. With the head wind, I wasn't entirely convinced they'd do it particularly as Hushovd was still there and he has a lot of experience. Cav and Columbia timed it perfectly, though, and it was brilliant.
Even more impressively was how well Armstrong read the race so that he was in the right place when the break went. On paper, Contador should be the winner and I'd love to see him do it. Armstrong's experience and tactical knowledge could be key, though. The mountains are going to be utterly fascinating.
I was quite chuffed to see that Cancellara also made the break. It would have been sad to see him lose the yellow as a result of a freak break like that.
In fact, Cancellara being in yellow and Armstrong leap-frogging Contador in the overall is going to make today's team time trial fascinating. In the past, Saxo-Bank (CSC) have been very good in the TTT. Astana can't be anything less that brilliant with the preperation they've made. It's going to be seconds rather than minutes between them and that's going to make the outcome impossible to predict.
Oh, I'm so excited :-) I shall sit down with my recording this evening, some popcorn and some knitting and thoroughly enjoy it all.
Er, I also need to remember to time myself for an hour to compete in the TTT on the Ravelry TdF KAL. It could be interesting...
I love July :-)
