Plateau de Bielle

Ullrich won't find his legs, he's finished, even though he's only 30. He'll loose 10 minutes tommorow.

Ullefan said:

Ullrich won't find his legs, he's finished, even though he's only 30. He'll loose 10 minutes tommorow.

Hey now, don't lose the faith yet! Jan is a champion athlete. He had a bad day, but he'll right back at the grind tomorrow. Heck, just last June, Lance finished a couple back on Mayo at the Dauphine Libere.

LA or Mayo. If Mayo, then LA with the same time.

USPS will control the climbs again putting pressure on to see who has recovered from La Mongie. If any GC contenders faulter LA will be off the front to gain more time again, otherwise they will control all their contenders. It looked to me like JU and TH were spent today. I doubt either will have recovered from today's stage and they will most likely both loose more time. I'm sure Ivan and Lance will mark each other as I don't think either man was at their limits today. Not sure about Levi.

If JU has another bad day and Kloden has good legs again then certainly he must go as the team leader.

Voeckler put in a huge effort today and I would imagine he will not be wearing yellow tomorrow, but then wearing yellow does strange things.

This has now become the crucial stage - either LA will cement his 6th or it will be up for grabs - in the 2004 TDF.

My reading of it is that LA, despite being very impressive today, did not appear to be emphatic today.
Quite frankly he looked bolloxed at the end of the stage.
It is not surprising that he was tired but I think that this would not have been the case in prior years.

Jan Ullrich has been in this position before and could well regain time.
I wouldn't write him off just yet, although he won't win the TDF.

Hamilton looked very very tired today and he hasn't gotten in to this race
at all.
I think he's just a 12 months past his best and I think that showed today.

I made two predictions at the outset - I said CSC will be the team of this TDF
and so today confirmed this.
I said that I believe that neither JU or LA will win this TDF.
I still think that neither will win it.
I am still not convinced about LA's total dominance.
Maybe tomorrow might prove me wrong.

Mayo - I said at the start that I thought that he flattered to decieve and
I still think that this is the case.

Watch Sastre tommorrow and I also suggest watch JU and Kloden too.

This is 1990 and 1996 : the era is changing.

At least the US coverage showed that Chechu was not used very much by LA (a little bit). Bruyneel has previously said that Chechu is in good shape for this tour. While Chechu is probably intended to be used before Azevedo, I'm wondering whether Chechu is being "saved" a little bit for tomorrow.

Lance will sit at the front with the USPS controlling things again. If any one cracks, Lance will take advantage. I don't think Lance had plans to win at the start of todays stage, when he saw JU and TH drop off he kept his own pace and gained time. Lance is much better prepared this year than last. He will definitley be looking to win the L'Alpe Duez TT.
I sure wish Tyler was closer today. I would like to see him podium this year. Hopefully he can find his legs with just less than half the tour to go.

KGnagey said:

Lance will sit at the front with the USPS controlling things again. If any one cracks, Lance will take advantage. I don't think Lance had plans to win at the start of todays stage, when he saw JU and TH drop off he kept his own pace and gained time. Lance is much better prepared this year than last. He will definitley be looking to win the L'Alpe Duez TT.
I sure wish Tyler was closer today. I would like to see him podium this year. Hopefully he can find his legs with just less than half the tour to go.

Yes, I have to say that seemed to be the case.

It was like the USPS was just upping the tempo to test how the other GC contenders were doing. As they got onto the last climb, people just peeled off, and well Lance just kept his tempo and ride onto a gap in timing ....
At least it didn't seem like there was a huge effort to attack really. But more like trying to gain time.

At least that was what the 'live' coverage looked like ....

Today on La Mongie and the Tourmalet was a day for Armstrong to take a [censored] out of the armor of his GC contenders, but not a day to lay them to waste. Tomorrow will be much harder, and I think Armstrong and the others are looking forward to tomorrow to make a big statement. If he does the same as he did today every day, he will win the TdF 2004, but I think he wants to win bigger. Tomorrow, I expect we will see more explosiveness out of the big time climbers. Today was a day to help them get their legs and avoid red lining too much. Tomorrow they will come back stronger.

I am proud of the young Voeckler. He is showing tremendous courage in the Pyrenees. Perhaps he will hold yellow one more day before he inevitably gives it up, perhaps first to Virenque and then to one of the true GC contenders.

tcklyde said:

Hey now, don't lose the faith yet! Jan is a champion athlete. He had a bad day, but he'll right back at the grind tomorrow. Heck, just last June, Lance finished a couple back on Mayo at the Dauphine Libere.

Lance sandbagged that Ventoux TT to play with his rivals minds...it worked great.

musette said:

At least the US coverage showed that Chechu was not used very much by LA (a little bit). Bruyneel has previously said that Chechu is in good shape for this tour. While Chechu is probably intended to be used before Azevedo, I'm wondering whether Chechu is being "saved" a little bit for tomorrow.

You viewing is wanting - Eurosports 5 hours live coverage showed Rubiera on the front a lot.

As with Armstrong - he looked bolloxed at the end of the stage as well.

Eurosport are showing todays stage live again - another 7 hour session.

limerickman said:

Hamilton looked very very tired today and he hasn't gotten in to this race
at all.
I think he's just a 12 months past his best and I think that showed today.
.

What didn't ring true about this statement was that he was so on form in June in the Dauphine Libere and Mont Ventoux. Clearly, this was not a matter of being 12 months off his prime, but instead of falling victim to a back injury on stage 6 when he landed on his back on a pedal. He has hidden the pain well enough to have us forget that he was suffering the whole time. But now, in the mountains, he cannot hide the pain any longer. He needed more use of his back in the climbs, and it is not strong enough now to be there for him.

limerickman said:

You viewing is wanting - Eurosports 5 hours live coverage showed Rubiera on the front a lot.

As with Armstrong - he looked bolloxed at the end of the stage as well.

Eurosport are showing todays stage live again - another 7 hour session.

Armstrong could have won La Mongie, but he and Basso agreed to work together, and LA honored Basso and his cancer ridden mother by allowing him the win into La Mongie. He was not bolloxed, and this is apparent with the following day's performance and stage win, Basso a very strong second. Basso is a very strong rider. I was beginning to wonder whether he was strong enough to be classified as such ahead of Bobby Julich. Clearly, he has shown worthy of his leadership role.

You cannot loose weight without loosing muscle mass. In a short amount of time, it is almost certain that most of the weight that was lost was not fat but muscle. Fat takes longer to burn than muscle. To burn fat, you have to keep eating healthy and go for long rides at a moderate pace, this will tell your body to use fat as a energy source. I'm beginning to feel like this is the case this year for Jan. I imagine that in order to loose that weight in the spring and early summer, he trained hard and ate few calories, resulting in his body burning his hard earned muscle mass to fuel his training. Its sad really given he has a supposed team doctor there. And you can expect a less than par performance in the TT's because of that, if it is true, which I think it is. Jan is a great rider, it has nothing to do with his ability, but the way he goes about doing things, it's not his fault, I find it hard to believe that he didn't have the desire to win this year.

🙁 🙁 🙁

In my very humble opinion the race is for second. I do not see who can challenge Armstrong (in terms of both mountains and TTs) at this point.

As an Italian I am overjoyed to see that Basso (appears) to be riding at his potential. 😎

Hope that he can hang in there for the rest of the tour. 😄

Is there any possibility that Basso could fight for first? Maybe he could try and take some time out of the Alps and try to limit the damages in the TT. I agree though, it now seems like a battle for 2nd.

gntlmn said:

Armstrong could have won La Mongie, but he and Basso agreed to work together, and LA honored Basso and his cancer ridden mother by allowing him the win into La Mongie. He was not bolloxed, and this is apparent with the following day's performance and stage win, Basso a very strong second. Basso is a very strong rider. I was beginning to wonder whether he was strong enough to be classified as such ahead of Bobby Julich. Clearly, he has shown worthy of his leadership role.

I said Rubiera looked shattered.

gntlmn said:

What didn't ring true about this statement was that he was so on form in June in the Dauphine Libere and Mont Ventoux. Clearly, this was not a matter of being 12 months off his prime, but instead of falling victim to a back injury on stage 6 when he landed on his back on a pedal. He has hidden the pain well enough to have us forget that he was suffering the whole time. But now, in the mountains, he cannot hide the pain any longer. He needed more use of his back in the climbs, and it is not strong enough now to be there for him.

I thought he looked knackered from very early on in the race.
He never got in to the race as such.
I never considered him as a realistic contender - simply because of his age.
He is missing that 1% in my opinion.
Of course that fall didn't help but even before that I had never considered him to be a real contender.

keydates said:

Is there any possibility that Basso could fight for first? Maybe he could try and take some time out of the Alps and try to limit the damages in the TT. I agree though, it now seems like a battle for 2nd.

I dunno. Realistically, I doubt it. He seems to be doing extremely well. He did acceptably well in the Italian championship TT, but up against a motivated Armstrong? Hhhhm. Either he pulls something out of his hat in the mountains, or he is going for second (I would love to be proven wrong and have Ivan win the Tour! 😄 ).