In article <[email hidden]>, Rude Dog
Quoted message said:I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however, I am disappointed
this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have been in recent years
(excluding last year which had some excitement).
Here is what will happen:
Lance and team will keep everything contained until the mountain stages. On
the first or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties will set a high
tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant Spanish riders will attack.
LA will cover them and then either set such a high tempo no one else
attacks, or launch an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets
competitors. From that time on, LA will simply follow the wheels of his
competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!
Too bad you feel this way; I think you are very, very wrong. I'm a big
LA fan and frankly hope it comes out the way you are suggesting but I
would suggest that if you look at what is scheduled the last week of
the tour, you might figure out that this race won't be decided until
that week. A lot of folks are thinking Alp d'Huez will decide but my
personal guess is that while the TT will break things up some, it will
be DECIDED the day AFTER Alp d'Huez. At that point, the most fit and
most prepared will win. Personally, I would not bet against LA and
Postal but Ullrich and Hamilton are very, very strong and I'm not yet
ready to count out Mayo and E-E or even Saeco. Mayo took a bad whack
yesterday and today but if he takes 2 minutes out of Lance on Alp
d'Huez like he did last month on the Ventoux, this is still a race.
In the meantime, winning stages is important in its own right and there
are great battles for jerseys other than yellow. While I, like most
people, may be most interested in the GC, each day brings its own
delights. If you find it boring, then don't watch but I think you are
going to miss some interesting days ahead given to us by a whole field
of GREAT cyclists.
In this regard, those who feel they can only root for their favorite,
whether that favorite be Armstrong, Hamilton, Ullrich, Mayo, or any of
the other almost 200 riders, by calling the opponents scatological
names and denigrating their honor prove to me nothing except they
aren't really fans. For me, there isn't a man in this race who doesn't
simply blow me away with what he can and will do on a bike whether it
be Armstrong's day-in-day-out drive to win this race, Hamilton's
extreme courage and perseverence as demonstrated in last years tour
winning a stage with a broken collar bone, Ullrich's all round
strength, Mayo's ability to climb, the sprinters sheer speed at the end
of enormously long stages, the domestiques strength in coming out day
after day to do work that I couldn't do for an hour much less three
weeks, or those poor devils who crashed during the first stage and got
back up and kept riding knowing that they had three weeks of pain in
front of them and there weren't going to be any awards probably at any
point.
I'll cheer for each and every one of them and I will be excited when
they succeed at whatever it is they succeed at whether it be Phonak
putting in a great time with only five riders and after Hamilton had to
actually STOP for a team mate, Noval dragging his butt in just under
the DQ time so he can ride again tomorrow, Cancellera in tears of joy
and disbelief after winning the Prologue and the yellow jersey, or
Lance Armstrong (or anyone else who manages to beat him) riding down
the Champs Elysees in victory. Who knows what joys and excitements
this tour will bring but if you weren't excited last yaer at watching
Hamilton climbing Bagargui last year even though he had virtually no
chance of a podium or when Ullrich won the first individual TT last
year while Lance more or less bonked , or by watching Petacchi's
sprints, or watching the day Richard Virenque, a Frenchman, broke away
and won the first mountain stage then you simply weren't paying
attention.
When I think of the big events of last year, the first year when I
really got to see more of the Tour than a half hour on Sunday on CBS,
very few of those events that stay in my mind had anything to do with
the overall win; it was about superlative performances by superlative
riders on superlative bikes who on any one particular day make me want
to stand up and cheer. The same will be true this year right up until
the final sprint in Paris; in the meantime, I think we still might see
a very very good bike race for the GC if if LA is IMHO (you are free to
disagree hopefully with respect) the class of the field in the Tour
again this year. Whatever, it all brings joy to my heart.
Sorry; here endeth the lesson.
--
James P. Spencer
Rochester, MN
"Badges?? We don't need no stinkin badges!"
