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!"
