Tour de Suisse : 2006

limerickman said:

Looks to be shaping up in to a very interesting race : Boonen, Bettini, Ullrich, Kloden, McGee, Jaksche among the big hitters.

Boonen looks to be going well in the early stages.

But the latter stages are going to be difficult :

Predictions : watch for the likes of Totschnig.

Boonen got shot out the back on a shortish Cat 3 climb today when Ullrich attacked.
How is that looking good?
How is he gonna get the green jersey if he cant make it over mountains?

bobke said:

Boonen got shot out the back on a shortish Cat 3 climb today when Ullrich attacked.
How is that looking good?
How is he gonna get the green jersey if he cant make it over mountains?

he got back on without too much trouble, though that Cat 3 is way different than some of the big mountains in the tour.

Its an interesting route this year. One mountain top finish where it will be shown whose in contention, then three more mountain stages which all have downhill finishes. I guess then its up for everyone to attack the lead lots of times in those three stages to try and take the lead away. Whatever happens, its going to be a very hard race to control in those three days. Thens there's an ITT to finish it off. Could be interesting.

bobke said:

Boonen got shot out the back on a shortish Cat 3 climb today when Ullrich attacked.
How is that looking good?
How is he gonna get the green jersey if he cant make it over mountains?

As movie said Boonen got back on.

Of course you miss the original point entirely : Boonen did well in stage 1 and I expect that Boonen will actually complete TDS.

Stages 6 and 8 look brutal in terms of profile - and I think that this is where the real shakeup will be in terms of overall TDS result.

limerickman said:

Predictions : watch for the likes of Totschnig.

The rumour is: his form is great... We'll see tomorrow and the days after... The other rumour: Cadel Evans has a great form as well. A certain guy called Jan (that fat guy with the pink jersey) is getting better every day....😄

limerickman said:

Stages 6 and 8 look brutal in terms of profile - and I think that this is where the real shakeup will be in terms of overall TDS result.

These stages and the 3 days of additional stages are two reasons Jan chose the TDS.
The other reason is obvious.

limerickman said:

Stages 6 and 8 look brutal in terms of profile - and I think that this is where the real shakeup will be in terms of overall TDS result.

Yes they are brutal, i was at the Furka pass last year (it was at the last stage of the TdS 2005, Ulrichen-Ulrichen) and most riders didn't look good at the Furkapass... Furka is in stage 6 this year.

moviekindoflife said:

he got back on without too much trouble, though that Cat 3 is way different than some of the big mountains in the tour.

He got back on because Jan sat up to let Linus Gerdeman go away!
When the big boys shpw up to play, it really shows what a complete rider Bettini is, does the classics, stays with the big boys on the climbs.
The pure sprinters just cant handle it.

bobke said:

He got back on because Jan sat up to let Linus Gerdeman go away!
When the big boys shpw up to play, it really shows what a complete rider Bettini is, does the classics, stays with the big boys on the climbs.
The pure sprinters just cant handle it.

yea, the more i see of bettini the more and more i respect him and enjoy watching him. I finally saw the 2005 world championships and his setup of the final attack which included vino was really exciting.

bobke said:

He got back on because Jan sat up to let Linus Gerdeman go away!
When the big boys shpw up to play, it really shows what a complete rider Bettini is, does the classics, stays with the big boys on the climbs.
The pure sprinters just cant handle it.

In the tour of Romandie this year he was continually on the attack, breakaways, sprints, up the mountains just behind the climbers - great rider!

Bettini's two wins at the end of last season - show what a quality act this man is.
He won the Championship of Zurich and Giro di Lombardia : he's a class act.

Can someone explain exactly where I can find live streaming?😕

Ullefan said:

Can someone explain exactly where I can find live streaming?😕

i'm watching it on cycling.tv right now. I had to pay for it, but it is worth it because i can see every stage live and if i miss it i can go back and see a repeat later on.

moviekindoflife said:

i'm watching it on cycling.tv right now. I had to pay for it, but it is worth it because i can see every stage live and if i miss it i can go back and see a repeat later on.

I just thought there was free live streaming on www.tds.ch but I can find it.

I won't be able to watch today's stage until I get home from work, but I did notice that Kloden finished in the Grupetto. Who made the comment about Kloden being like a swiss watch (if everything is working, he is awesome, but if one little thing is wrong, he is worthless)?

FWIW Kloden did quite a lot of work on the flats before the climb started, he was the most active of the magenta boys there. Once the climb started Ulle put his team up front and they controlled the pace until 1k was left LSW (oh right, Wurth) launched an attack. At this rate Ullrich has a good shot at winning the race IMO. The challengers wont win by sitting on his wheel for sure.

Remember that Klöden was pretty mediocre prior to last year's TDF, and we saw what he did on the Col de la Schlucht, heading into Gerardmer.

oh, and those Sporza commentators thought Van Goolen looked stronger than Morabito on that final climb. I suggest everyone take a look at the cyclingnews photo of the two together, and then tell me who looks stronger 😄

Dead Star said:

Remember that Klöden was pretty mediocre prior to last year's TDF, and we saw what he did on the Col de la Schlucht, heading into Gerardmer.

oh, and those Sporza commentators thought Van Goolen looked stronger than Morabito on that final climb. I suggest everyone take a look at the cyclingnews photo of the two together, and then tell me who looks stronger 😄

Well I watched it.....my memory is getting short.....hans de clerq said that Morabito had a better sprint and has more power......

Btw you live in enqland, right? How come you can watch Sporza........??