2007 tour de france - Page 12

Phanekim · #**111** 07-21-2007, 10:55 PM

its a long way from being done. this year's tour you have 4 critical stages consecutively. toasting yourself in the ITT is a sure way to lose it.

Everyone cracks. Vino has a history of cracking, Contador is too young, Rasmussen is theeretically not in good shape due to one more time trial left.

Its Cadel and kloden. With that said, cadel looks strong...although he might have worked too hard in the alps.

LetItBe · #**112** 07-21-2007, 11:26 PM

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Rasmus put in a big effort, but Vino put in even more, but you all think he'll be fine to go crazy attacking and Rasmussen won't? I'm sure Rasmussen will be smelling his best chance in his life to win the tour and will be putting in max effort the whole rest of the way.

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Rasmussen's team is not as strong, and Vino is a much better attacker than Rasmussen, IMO.

gila · #**113** 07-22-2007, 01:44 AM

Teamwise, the best bets to attack tomorrow are Levi and Vino. Vino, may have blown himself up today, Levi, I am not so sure he did. And obviously Mayo and Valverde will attack, for all they have left is stage wins to go after. Evans really has no reason to attack, he is in the best position, his biggest worry keeping up with Kloden, and, to a lesser extent, Rasmussen. But, although Rasmussen did a grand ITT, that one suits him MUCH better the the last ITT. I would think he would need at least 3-4 minutes on both Evans and Kloden. Astana and Discovery will surely make things interesting tomorrow, for they are in the best positions team wise to attack.

jogsxyz · #**114** 07-22-2007, 10:29 AM

This year's tour site just isn't as good as when Lance was winning. It's not posting the gaps with all the riders in realtime.
Among the leaders only Vino cracked on the first big climb . Don't know if Mayo is still with the main group.

brettkc · #**115** 07-22-2007, 11:55 AM

The "contador is too young" excuse is gonna have to end at some point hes proving himself day after day. Man vino hasnt stayed with the contenders to the end on one mountain stage yet, pretty dissapointing. I hope cantador can keep it up makes it very exciting.

cbloom · #**116** 07-22-2007, 01:19 PM

Wow, what a great race today. Whether or not he can hold on to win Rasmussen has shown he's a great champion. Today Rasmussen and Contador just looked back at the rest of the field and said "you think you can climb? well just try to follow this!".

Discovery definitely showed they have the team edge like I expected. Levi definitely can't attack in the mountains but he has been the most steady of any contender, he's always there, never gets dropped by much, and I suepect he'll be in the top 3 in Paris.

cbloom · #**117** 07-22-2007, 01:22 PM

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The "contador is too young" excuse is gonna have to end at some point hes proving himself day after day.

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The thing about young riders is they never seem to have enough gas in the tank to ride hard for the whole tour; so far Contador is keeping it up, but the proof will be in the next few days. Lance used to day something, I forget the exact numbers, but he'd say you had to have 100,000 miles in your legs to ride the tour. The exceptions are what make it interesting though.

brettkc · #**118** 07-22-2007, 01:25 PM

Levi is so boring to watch and frankly I never see him making the race hes always following. He tried to attack once today and it lasted all of 5 seconds it wasnt anything at all. To me Levi doesn't seem to have that anger that champions have like lance had it, vino has it. landis has it. You can tell the riders who have it but with levi you see nothing.

jogsxyz · #**119** 07-22-2007, 01:55 PM

Cantador can win if Discovery supports him. Rasmussen only has Menchov to help him.

JaredL · #**120** 07-22-2007, 02:08 PM

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Cantador can win if Discovery supports him. Rasmussen only has Menchov to help him.

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Tomorrow should be very interesting. They ran it at least once during Lance's run, it's a beast of a stage.

Here's the profile:

I expect Discovery to be driving the Peloton starting on the second category 2 climb. If Rasmussen has any difficulty at all they could bury him. Same goes for Evans, Kloden and Sastre. If Discovery can set a hard tempo on the two climbs in the middle then they could probably drop a lot of rivals on the HC climb which is brutal. I could also see Astana trying the same tactic for Kloden and Kashechkin if they don't attack. If one of those guys or say Sastre attacks fairly early this could be an amazing stage.

Amazing tour so far.