Allez! With just a few days to go before the Prologue, time to handicap the field of this year's Tour.

Lance Armstrong: How much does sleeping with Sheryl Crow take out of a guy? Doping rumors: New distraction or same old same old?

Tyler Hamilton: You ride up d'Huez with a broken collarbone.

Jan Ulrich: He has the team to beat Armstrong, but does he have the work ethic?

Vino, Basso, Mayo....

Speak English you unmitigated cheese eater.:p

Originally posted by MavRick
Allez! With just a few days to go before the Prologue, time to handicap the field of this year's Tour.

Lance Armstrong: How much does sleeping with Sheryl Crow take out of a guy? Doping rumors: New distraction or same old same old?

Tyler Hamilton: You ride up d'Huez with a broken collarbone.

Jan Ulrich: He has the team to beat Armstrong, but does he have the work ethic?

Vino, Basso, Mayo....

Vinokourov is supposedly out of the Tour de France after a crash in the Tour of Switzerland.

During a warm-up race for the Tour de France (I believe it's called the Dauphine Libere), Mayo beat Lance by nearly 2 minutes in a mountain time trial, and Mayo went on to win the race. His big question, is his team strong enough to carry Mayo for 3 weeks? Can his team do well enough in the team time trial? I've heard this year there was a rule change that limits the time loss in the team time trial to something like 2 and a half minutes.

Tyler Hamilton came in 2nd in Dauphine Libere, including beating Lance up the mountain time trial (35 seconds back of Mayo). He also won a 5 stage race in Switzerland earlier this year (I believe it's called the Tour de Romandie).

Ullrich did not have a great performance in the Tour of Germany, but if memory serves me right, he did win the Tour of Switzerland.

Another challenger is Lance's former domestique...Roberto Heras. Heras is riding for what used to be known as Team ONCE, and is expected to be the team leader. There is absolutely no doubt that Heras can climb with the best of them. His team is also fairly good, so I doubt the team time trial will be a problem.

Lance's coach says that the time trial up L'Alpe D'Huez is not the most important stage. It's an important stage, but the most important. Apparently the next day is going to be brutal. Lance's coach says it could well be a 7 hour stage with several brutal climbs.

Honestly, I do wonder if Lance can win this year. I think he's had more distractions this year than in years past...what with Sheryl Crowe hanging around all the time, all the commercial shoots, magazine cover shoots, getting a new primary sponsor, etc. I wonder if he's done enough training this year.

My sincere hope: 2 Americans on the podium this year...Hamilton and Armstrong.

Originally posted by Murray
Speak English you unmitigated cheese eater.:p

Shouldn't it be "... du Tour de France"?

Originally posted by jtwcornell91
Shouldn't it be "... du Tour de France"? Digging very deep into my memory -- Oui!

Lance Armstrong: How much does sleeping with Sheryl Crow take out of a guy?

it'd take a lot out of me.:D

Originally posted by rufus
it'd take a lot out of me.:D

moi aussi! (me too);)

Originally posted by Murray
Speak English you unmitigated cheese eater.:p

I didn't know MavRick was from Wisconsin. ;)

Vino is not on the T-Mobile start list, and neither is Cadel Evans, one of their better climbers. Still, the three best teams this year should be Postal, Hamilton's Phonak team, and T-Mobile. Phonak has looked really strong this pre-season, and they should contend for the team time trial stage. The tour organizers put a 2min limit on the TTT loss for this years tour, so that will help riders like Mayo and Heras. Heras also has another former USPS teammate on his roster, Christian Vande Velde, which will definitely help him in the smaller mountains and the TTT.

The Dauphine results were a little skewed because Armstrong wanted to take it easier than the last few years (he won it in 02 and 03) because last year he crashed during one of the stages and was supposedly still in pain from that during the start of the Tour. Apparently he got a time check during the Mont Ventoux TT and saw that Mayo and Hamilton were already flying, so he took it easier for the remainder of the climb. The Alpe d'Huez TT in this years Tour is going to be amazing to watch, it will definitely be alot closer than the Dauphine TT. It is probably the stage I'm most looking forward to seeing.

The day after that, like nanookfan said, will be killer. Long, with two or maybe three (I don't remember) HC climbs ending with a mountain top finish on the HC climb Plateau d'Beille. That has the possibility of being an epic stage, especially with the mountain TT the day before and some riders still spent from that.

I think that this years Tour has the possibility of being one of the best in many years, and my guess is that the top four will be: Armstrong, Hamilton, Mayo, and Ullrich, in no particular order. :)

It was also disappointing to see that David Millar, one of the better TT today was banned from the Tour due to allegedly confessing to doping. He, like Lance, has never tested positive, which raises questions about how he hid the doping from the drug testers, and if other riders are doing the same thing.

J'ai parié que les gens le détesteraient si je parlais en français dans ce fil! :D

Originally posted by Murray
Speak English you unmitigated cheese eater.:p
Being from Michigan I prefer Pinconning Cheese, but if people from Wisconsin eat unmitigated cheese, I'm sure it must be good:p

A few things:

1: I babelfsihed for the thread title.

2. TTT: Yes, there is a 3 minute maximum loss in the TTT. What I don't know is whether there's a cutoff. While I suppose it wouldn't be sporting, a team that concedes 3 minutes in the TTT could effectively take the day off and go on a training ride if there were no absolute cutoff.

3. It's disappointing to see Millar out, but as I understand it, he both had EPO in his house and confessed to using it. I think that's the difference between Millar and Armstrong at this point. Armstrong's soigneur's allegations, however, are the strongest yet.

4. Agree Brianvf's top four; agree the order is unknowable.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MavRick
[B]
2. TTT: Yes, there is a 3 minute maximum loss in the TTT. What I don't know is whether there's a cutoff. While I suppose it wouldn't be sporting, a team that concedes 3 minutes in the TTT could effectively take the day off and go on a training ride if there were no absolute cutoff.

An Anti-Lance rule that is for sure.
I think everyone in the US would like to see Lance win again, but just remember that Lance says that he is usually an 8 out of 10 (for being in shape) when the tour starts - he likes to peak during the tour. So folks, don't panic early on. Also people are worried about the Sheryl Crow distraction and the ad shoots, etc. I believe that Lance is the most focused athlete of our time, cycling comes first. I also think that with all of the new drug allegations, he will be more motivated than ever. GO LANCE!!!

For those interested, here is link to the rules for this year's tour. The TTT rankings can be found in "Article 24", starting on page 16.

Official Rules (http://www.letour.fr/2004/docs/reglement_us.pdf)

Here are the highlights for the TTT:


The procedure for establishing the general individual time ranking is as follows:
Times for all riders are calculated according to the gap between them and the 5th man of the winning
team (scratch time).
If this gap is less than that given in the table below, then the actual time recorded by the timekeepers
will be taken.
If the gap is more than that given in the table below, then the rider will receive the time of the winning
team plus the additional number of seconds indicated in the table below according to the place of
their team.

20’’ for the 2nd team
30’’ for the 3rd team
40’’ for the 4th team
50’’ for the 5th team
1’ for the 6th team
1’10 for the 7th team
1’20 for the 8th team
1’30 for the 9th team
1’40 for the 10th team
1’50 for the 11th team
2’00 for the 12th team
2’10 for the 13th team
2’20 for the 14th team
2’30 for the 15th team
2’35 for the 16th team
2’40 for the 17th team
2’45 for the 18th team
2’50 for the 19th team
2’55 for the 20th team
3’00 for the 21st team

Riders who arrive on their own after the 5th rider in their team will be credited for the general ranking
with the actual time they took to complete the stage.
However, riders finishing outside of the permitted finishing times (coefficient 6) will be disqualified.
As far as the general team ranking is concerned, the actual time of the 5th man in each team will be
the time recorded for this ranking.

Coefficient 6 is described as the winning team time plus 25%.

Originally posted by dude
An Anti-Lance rule that is for sure.

I agree. Strange that this new TTT rule goes into effect the year that he is trying to win his 6th. :rolleyes:

An interesting article on VeloNews.com was talking about how this would have changed last years overall if these new rules would have been in place:


A major change this year is that there will be a limit on the time lost by any team (and consequently by each rider who arrives with the first man to finish in the team) in the team time trial. The riders on the winning team (except for those who are dropped by their team) will all have their actual finish time added to GC, but there will be a maximum loss of 20 seconds for the second team, 30 seconds for the third, then 10-second gaps to 13th place (a 2:20 maximum loss), and then five-second gaps down to 2:50 for the 21st (and last) team.

In 2003, instead of the result being:
1. U.S. Postal
2. ONCE, at 0:30
3. Bianchi, at 0:43

It would have been:
1. U.S. Postal
2. ONCE, at 0:20
3. Bianchi, at 0:30.

Also, 18th-placed Euskaltel-Euskadi, instead of losing 3:22, would have lost only 2:35. If the new system had been in place last year, Iban Mayo would have taken over the yellow jersey at L'Alpe d'Huez, not Lance Armstrong; and Alex Vinokourov would have displaced Armstrong as the race leader at Loudenvielle on stage 14.

Who does everyone think will win tomorrow's prologue and take over the yellow?

McGee, Armstrong, Ullrich, Hamilton??

The course, being flat and very short (6 km), favors a strong, powerful rider such as Ullrich. But maybe an unknown will surprise being that most of the favs will be hoping to peak in about three weeks instead of now. :)

Just watched "Road to the Tour" on OLN. They showed coverage of a press conference with Lance from yesterday where he was fielding questions about the book allegations. One of the writers, David Walsh, was in attendance, and Lance was staring him down hardcore during the questioning. It was pretty sweet. :)

I'm not sure Lance would want the yellow jersey this early in the tour. He has said in the past it is hard to defend the yellow jersey, and defending it from the very start of the race is hard on the team.

If I remember correctly, Lance finished 7th in last year's Prologue, so I wouldn't be too shocked if he wasn't in yellow after tomorrow.

After watching "The Lance Chronicles" yesterday, and the OLN tour preview, it seems a lot of folks are thinking Lance is going to win this thing. I must confess, I don't think he's going to, but during the episode of "The Lance Chronicles" that I saw (when he was talking about the Dauphine Libre), he seemed confident even though Mayo beat him by 2 minutes in the time trial. He said "Two minutes is a lot" but he had this goofy grin on his face as if to say "I know something you don't know." Could he have been sandbagging in the Dauphine?

Interestingly enough, Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and Bob Roll (the OLN commentating crew) all are predicting Lance to win the tour.

I don't know a lot about the sport, but I'll make a bold (all be it wild) guess at the Prologue result. I'll guess Tyler Hamilton. He's a good time trialer, and he's hungry. I think a yellow jersey would mean the world to him. Perhaps tomorrow will be his day.

not knowing who all is riding for all the teams, i'll go with mcgee.