Contador Comes A Cropper

So the Vuelta a Espana came and went, and due to a poor turn-out in fantasy-land I couldn't be arsed with the blogging. I did have quite a good time playing the Road.cc fantasy game though, although it was a bit complicated with the transfers - I generally seemed to have the knack of either transferring someone into the Bile Beans the day before they crashed, or transferring them out of the team the day before they won. It all turned out well enough in the end though, and I managed to finish in the top 70 or something.

I'm still out riding my bike every once in a while, as you can see from this eye-catching piece of roadkill I spotted the other day.

Cycling's OK I guess, but I'm always looking for something hip and new to try. I'm thinking cycling is a bit past-it after I noticed these guys doing their thing in the park the other day.

It maybe hard to tell from my poor camera work, but they have some big signs that they're throwing up in the air and spinning around and catching and shit. They were engaged in this activity for at least an hour and seemed to having some sort of fun. I don't know what they call this exciting pass-time, I'm thinking its either 'signing' or 'tossing', probably the latter.

Anyway, to the reason that actually brings me over here to my dusty and neglected blog. It seems Alberto Contador has tested positive for clenbuterol from a urine sample taken on the Tour's second rest day. Now being a former analytical chemist, who may have even analysed a beta-agonist or two in my time, I can declare the 50pg/ml detected to be firmly at the "fuck all" end of the spectrum, but a positive is a positive and it's all another black cloud hanging over cycling. His tainted meat excuse does sound a bit far-fetched, but it is least vaguely possible - check this out for some science stuff.

Anyway, I best be off. I've got to do some more fine tuning on my cyclo-cross stead ready for my first race on Saturday. It's been a hot and sweaty summer in Atlanta, but the weather finally broke last weekend and we've even had a bit of rain to make for some authentic 'cross conditions.......time to get reminded jsut how bad I am at cross.

Velogames no-show forces Vuelta Variation

Like a bicycle with two flat tyres and a rusty chain, the blog has suffered from some neglect since the end of July. It's been a while since all the excitement of the Tour De France. I'd like to pretend that I was busy on the lucrative post-tour criterium circuit, and making this scale model of a mountain stage from this year's TDF.... but it wouldn't be true.

As the Vuelta a España starts in Sevilla with a short Team Time Trial on Saturday, it's time to get things up and running again. So consider this the blog equivalent of a top-up of air and a drop of oil.

Like Carlos Sastre, I might be ready for my third Grand Tour of the year, but I'm not sure that George 'Velogames' Chapman is quite so willing. If you pop over to the Velogames site now, you'll see that there's no rider list and you can't pick a team yet. George let us down last year with a Vuelta no-show, so I've decided to go with a plan-B and find a Fantasy Veulta game elsewhere.

Yes, I present to you the Road CC Fantasy Vuelta game. Like Velogames, it's free to play once you've registered, and there's even some prizes to be won, (not that I'm expecting to win anything). Unlike Velogames there's the opportunity to make transfers in and out of your team as the race goes on - it sounds a bit like hard work to me, but we'll see how we get on.

Anyway, I've got the Bile Beans picked - or at least the initial Bile Beans line-up. And I've set up a Tour De Pance minleague. So let the fun begin.

Your league was created and its ID number is 16357. Give your friends this ID to allow them to join your league. You have automatically been added to your own league.

Stage 20 - Cav wins stage, Contador wins Tour

Much to no one's surprise, Mark Cavendish won yet another stage of the Tour in Paris. It wasn't enough to get hold of the green jersey though, which went to Petacchi after a closeley fought battle with Thor Hushovd.

In the overall classification it was a closer run thing than expected, but no one should have been surprised to see Alberto Contador getting the better of Andy Schleck - who did have the consolation prize of being the best young rider. Maybe 2011 will be Andy's year?

Some Frenchman won the mountains jersey and team Radioshat won the team competition in order to save some of Lance Armstrong's pride.

The final Velogames scores have yet to come in, but I think I can safely say, that unless there's a big scoring cock-up from George then the Gherkins will win. So congratulations to Ged for picking a classy team that performed excellently.

I'm still on my travels, so normal blogging service has not resumed yet. Keep an eye on the blog for more stuff when the final scores are in. And remember that the fun starts again in September for the Tour of Spain.

Also for those of you in York, I should be doing a Pancernal appearance on the 30th of July. Most likely involving a trip to the Tap & Spile and a nearby curry house.

Stage 19 - Cancellara Crushes Competitoin

It all went much as expected in the time trial yesterday. Cancellara won, some beefy Germans from HTC-Columbia were shortly after, and Brad Wiggins was underwhelming. Contador did enough work to keep Schleck in check and make sure he had enough time over him that the chain thing made no difference in the long run. In the fight for third place, Sammy Sanchez lost out to the superior TT abilities of Denis Menchov, which is a bit of a pity if you ask me as I like Sammy.

Those Velogames scores are too confusing for me to work out. The minileague currently looks like this.

Rank Team Directeur Score


1 The Gherkins Ged K 4329
2 Team BBC David Ward 3744
3 Bile Beans Vestan Pance 3704
4 down & out Neil Boonham 3399
5 Dickies Dirty Devils Richard Ginn 3378
6 Team O.Y.F.B denspeck 3310
7 Maillot Jenn Jennifer Harmer 3302
8 The waca racers Warwick Anderson 3292
9 Romanian Riders Matei Victor 3265
10 Evil ChanBots ChanBot 3101
11 The Achilles Squad dave 3073
12 Barmbyworld Clive Jeffery 2804
13 Smugblokes Mark Philo 2795
14 Charlton and the Wheelies Andrew 2723
15 Miffy`s Random Riders Helen 2562
16 Harrisons Pharmaceuticals Richard Harrison 2559
17 KN Kadence Kings Kevin Norman 2423

I'm not quite sure how this relates to the spreadsheet, which is now running a few days behind. It doesn't look like I'll have a chance to update it soon, so I've allowed some trusted Directeurs to edit it if they see fit.

Stage 20 is the last ever stage of the 2010 Tour De France and I'm crying so hard that I can hardly type this. It's pretty much the same every year. The bunch will have a relaxed ride to Paris, drinking champagne and engaging in some light-hearted high-jinx. Then the racing will start when they hit the Champs-Élysées and they'll go round and round a few times before there's a bunch sprint that Cav will win.

Stage 18 -

Sorry about the recent poor coverage of the Tour. I've been travelling and the like you know. At the moment I'm in the wilds of Norfolk and normal service may not be resumed quite yet.

Anyway, as I predicted Cav won another sprint yesterday. While Petacchi got the Green jersey back.

Stage 19 is the much anticipated time trial. It's long and flat. It's happening right now in fact.

Stage 17 - Tourmalet Torture

Before we start, lets check out Lance all pissed and moody after not winning stage 16. Don't get in his way. He might run you over



The hot weather that the race has been experiencing came to an end today and it was wet and a bit cold at the start. Wet roads make for crashes, and today it was the turn of Sammy Sanchez to hit the tarmac. He was soon on his way again though and finished well. Carlose Sastre meanwhile, spent most of the day out in no-man's land between the break and the buch. I'm not sure why, it looked like hard work and he eventually finished way down.

In case we hadn't already noticed, the two best climbers of this year's Tour appear to be Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. Andy did his best to get away from Bertie, but they seemed as evenly matched as two people riding the same bicycle, up the same mountain can be. Contador had the decency to let Schelck take the stage. But he won't bw winning the race.

After all the action today, the GC men will be taking it easy and resting up for the time trial on Saturday, when we get to see just how much time Andy Schleck will lose to Contador. Tomorrow's stage to
Bordeaux is one for the sprinters, and any breaks are likely to find themselves reeled in before the finish. If you're lucky there might just be enough time to get down the bookies and put some money on Cav.

Rest Day 2 - Schleck Promises Schowdown On Tourmalet

There's not much going on at the Tour today, as the riders kick-back and take a well-earned rest. Not a lot of news to report then.

Andy Schleck seems to have forgiven Contador for that chain-thing, but he's not going to forget and he'll be out on the attack tomorrow. I fear he won't be able to get the better of Bertie on the Tourmalet. And even if he does, he'll be very lucky to get enough time not to lose any advantage in the time trial.

A look at the profile shows it's another though day. It starts off a bit flat though, so maybe Thor will try and get in a break to get those sprint points. It soon gets pretty hilly, although most of the real action is likely to happen on the Tourmalet itself.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to my former homies in York, some of whom will be out on Ged's annual TDF ride tomorrow. I'm sure he's got a lovely route planned out, with some nice little climbs in the North York Moors.....followed by the Tour on telly and some nice grub. I'm sure you'll have a lot more fun without me racing everyone on all the hills and then trying to steal the best spot on the sofa.

Stage 16 - Fedrigo Goes Well

With all the fuss about "chaingate" it seems that the biggest bit of unsportsmanlike behaviour yesterday was mostly overlooked. I am of course referring to the refusal of  "baldy French climber" John Gadret to give his team-leader Nicholas Roche a wheel after he punctured.

The much discussed "unwritten rules of cycling" state that when your team-leader, who is doing well on the GC, needs a wheel, you give him one and wait at the side of the road for a replacement. Not so for Gadret, who said 'non' and kept riding. To make matters worse for Roche, when he did get a wheel from the Mavic neutral service car, the change took forever and they gave him an R-Sys wheel - which is mostly famous for exploding.

So incensed am I by the injustice done to Roche, (he's in my team you know) that I have been searching for some way of letting my displeasure be known to Mr. Gadret. You've probably noticed the presence of some yellow writing on the road courtesy of the Nike Chalkbot. So I composed this message, in the hope that it will be seen by the French bastard.

I'm not sure that this message is 'motivational' enough however. And it seems that I may have fallen foul of some swearing filter, as I didn't get a confirmation email. I may have better luck with this message, but I'm still not sure it fills the motivation requirements - at least there's no swearing.

Compared to yesterday's controversies, today's stage was pretty uneventful from a GC perspective. The race favourites decided to take it easy and wait till Thursday and the finish atop the Tourmalet. So, while the big boys started resting a day early, there was a break that was up the road fighting for the stage win. Among the group of nine was Lance Armstrong, but his attempt to salvage a stage win from a disappointing Tour came to nothing. Pierrick Fedrigo was first across the line and Lance a lowly sixth.

If the yellow jersey stayed put today, the same cannot be said of the green jersey. After hanging with the big boys for the day, Thor Hushovd managed to sprint for tenth place and so moved ahead of Petacchi in the points.

Bad news for Petacchi then, but probably not the worst thing that happened to him today. It's been revealed he's being investigated for allegedly taking all kinds of drugs - including PFCs, which despite a few rumours I don't think anyone has been done for yet.

Scores are now in for stage 16 and the minileague now looks like this.

But the spreadsheet tells a different story. And after a bit of checking I think I'm right and George is wrong.

Those pesky Gherkins are still winning, as The Bile Beans, Team BBC and down&out, (not to mention Drew's Druggies) are all battling for second place. And at the other end of the table the Kadence Kings are still in last place.

It's a rest day tomorrow, which should give the bunch a chance to put their feet up and rest their arses before the predicted big showdown between Andy and Bertie on Thursday. I can hardly wait.

Stage 15 - A Contraversial Chain of Events

There could be trouble on the Saxo Bank team bus tonight. Andy Schelck was looking strong on the climb today and launched an attack. Then his chain came off. While he was messing about trying to put it back on, Conatador took the opportunity to kick a man when he's down.



The problem would appear to be due to either operator error, or some dodgy mechanic work. If the mechanic was to blame, it wouldn't be the first time that the Saxo Bank mechanics' abilities have been called into question. Matti Breschel was well-pissed-off at the Tour of Flanders. If only Andy had been rocking a chain catcher on his bike, like this one Cancellara had last year, none this would have happened.

Schelck and Contador both ride pretty much the same bike (a Specialized with SRAM gears). But Alberto has his very own mechanic, Faustino Munoz "the World's greatest mechanic" . He certainly seems to know how to put a bike together and he's pretty good with a roll of bar-tape.



I think Andy obviously needs his own personal mechanic. Now that I've been working at a bike shop for a couple of months, I think I'm currently "the World's second best mechanic". And all that's stopping me from being the best, is the fact that I'm not getting paid big money to work on the Pro-Tour tweaking bikes and providing clean urine. If you don't believe me, check out the sweet job I did on this red Spalding.

The "should Contador have waited?" debate is certainly set to run for years, and has already eclipsed the "should Renshaw have been sent home?" debate. So should he have waited? I'm saying no. The way I see it, it's a race. Schleck attacked, then fudged up a gear shift and dropped his chain. Contador was already responding to the attack and went past Schleck without really knowing what was going on. Menchov and Sanchez weren't hanging around Contador had to follow. It was on the descent and run in to the finish where Schleck lost most of his time, as he was only about 15 seconds behind over the summit.

With all the fuss over the chain thing, it's easy to forget that Thomas Voeckler did a great ride to win the stage. He's always having a go is Tommy, so it's good to see him get in a break and not get caught for once.

If it turns out that come Paris, Andy Schleck has lost the race by less than the 39 seconds he lost today, then he's probably got some right to feel pissed off. But with plenty more mountains and a long time trial still to come, chances are the time gaps between the podium spots will be big enough that today's fun and games will make no difference in the long run. One thing is for sure, and that's Schleck didn't seem very happy with what happened - he has "anger in his belly" so lets see if he can stick it to Contador tomorrow on stage 16.

Stage16 then, will feature the legendary Tourmalet, which I believe is a hill of some kind. The race will also be Tourmalet bound on stage 17 with a finish at the top. Tomorrow it comes at less than half-way through the stage and the peloton will still have the Col d'Aubisque and the descent to Pau to contend with before the finish.

 

Stage 14 - Riblon Rules The Road

If we were expecting a big show-down between Contador and Schleck as the Tour hit the Pyrenees, then we were in for a bit of a let down. The two of them seem to be so evenly matched, that they eventually gave up trying to get one over on each other. And at one point it looked like they had decided to have a track-stand competition to decide the winner.

The go-slow by the top two gave Dennis Menchov a chance to attack, and he was closely followed by Sammy Sanchez. Off they went, and eventually Schleck and Conatador decided to start racing again and gave chase. Come the finish line they only managed to gain 14 seconds over the top dogs and Sanchez kept hold of third overall.

While all this was going on though, hero of the day was Christophe Riblon, who did a great ride to attack from the day's break and solo on to the finish.

It wasn't easy for Riblon, it was a hard ride as he rode through the roadside crowds - including supporters of rival French teams with mullets.

The Tour is one of the few events where the fans can get so close to the stars. Here in the States, if you try that sort of shit you'll get Tasered.



The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed yet another character amongst the "roadside zoo" at the Tour this year. Yes, it's Mr Clean Bottle, who seems to be doing quite well at getting some free TV advertising during the race. Why he's hanging out with Welsh people I'm not sure.

Phil&Paul like to spot him every day. Just in case you didn't know, its a bottle that unscrews at both ends for cleaning and the like. Is it a revolution in bottle technology? The cleanest bottle ever? I'm not sure. But I did happen to see possibly the gayest bottle ever yesterday.

The scores are still lagging a bit behind. We're now up to stage 13 and the mini league table looks like this.

So on to stage 15. More hills. More fun. Bring it on.

Stage 13 - Vino Victorious

You can't keep a good rider down. You may be able to keep him down for two years due to blood doping, but sooner or later he'll be back in the peloton and winning races. Alexander Vinokourov is a good rider. And such is the state of my doping double standards, I actually quite like Vino. We all knew he was dirty, but he's a gutsy rider who's always on the attack. And he has massive calves. He might even have cleaned-up his act, you never know. He came close to winning on stage 11, only to be caught by his own team-mate Contador. Today he sneaked away from the bunch on the run-in to the finish and held on to win by 13 seconds ahead of the sprinters behind.

In the points competition the game of pass-the-jersey between Hushovd and Petacchi continued, with it being Petacchi's turn to win it today. All the sprinters have a tough few days ahead as the race heads for the Pyrenees. Will Thor try and go up the road again for a few points? Or will he try and save himself for the sprints still to come.

Socres for stages 11 and 12 are now up.

Looks like The Gherkins are still surging ahead - especially if you look at the chart on the spreadsheet.

So The Gherkins line surges up like one of the steep Pyrenean climbs to come, while everyone else's line resembles the gentler gradient of an Alpine climb. Except for the Kadence Kings of course, who's line resembles the sort of climb you might encounter on a Sustrans bike path that used to be a railway line.

Tomorrow should make for a nice day in front of the TV, (or computer, or whatever your chosen method of Tour tracking is). The peloton will be hitting the big climbs of the Pyrenees and there's sure to be plenty of action among the GC contenders, especially Contador and Schelck.

Stage 12 - Contador Schlips Away From Schleck

Some critics have been disappointed by my lack of outrage over the decision to kick Renshaw off the race. I do think it was over the top. Last place for the day and a bit of a fine would have been sufficient. For a thorough analysis of the sprint, I suggest you look at this. Whether Renshaw's elimination is part of a French conspiracy, to stop Cav winning stages, I'm not so sure. It's not like a Frenchman is going to win a sprint, so what's the point? All this talk of French conspiracies reminds me of the things Floyd Landis used to say, back when he was pretending he was innocent.

It was a tough old day in the saddle on the Tour today. Firstly, it was very hot, and secondly, they were going very fast. The early break was unusual in both quantity and quality. A big, eighteen-man move containing the likes of Alexandre Vinokourov, Ryder Hesjedal and Andreas Kloden, couldn't be allowed too far up the road, and Saxo Bank had to do a job of chasing. Also along for the ride in the break, was Thor Hushovd, who was after the intermediate sprint points. He bagged enough of them to re-take the jersey from Petacchi, but he could lose it again tomorrow.

He may be a big strong guy, but it seems getting into a can of Coke is a bit tricky for him.



The break eventually fell apart. For a while it looked like Vino was going to survive till the line. It wasn't to be though, and as the peloton hit the super-steep final climb, the attacks started. Joaquin Rodriguez kicked off the action and was quickly followed by Contador. Andy Scheck tried to follow, but couldn't quite get up there. In the end Rodriguez got the win, just ahead of Contador.

So Andy Schleck lost a precious ten seconds to Contador today. Is it a sign that Contador will be stronger come the Pyrenees? Or is it just 10 seconds. It's too early to say.

Still no scores to report for stage 11 and 12. You can always entertain yourself by looking the the spreadsheet and noting that we've lost a few more riders recently. Biggest name departure is probably Garmin's young sprinter, Tyler Farrar. He's been riding with a broken wrist since stage 2 and couldn't cope with the high pace today. Apparently he couldn't even keep up with Lars Boom.

Still to come is stage 13. It should be another one for the sprinters and will be their last chance to get some green jersey points, for the race will hit the Pyrenees soon. Lets see if Cav can still win without Renshaw. And whether Thor can hang onto that green jersey.