ToC

Does anyone know where I can download some recorded tv of this race? After demonoid was shut down, I haven't found any replacement.

haven't been able to watch any of the t.o.c., but have they given any hints as to why bettini looks like he's about to croak?

Wow, what a start to the season for Team Slipstream, they are currently lying 2nd in the Team ratings and have 4 cyclists in the top 15. On top of this and correct me if I'm wrong but the only major difficult stage left is a time trial and David Miller & Zabriskie are pretty good and Vandevelde and Pate ain't too bad himself so perhaps they can take the Team title.

My bet though is that Cancellara will take the gold but it is going to be rather close!

I didn't see the coverage. Was Hincapie unattentive or what? How did Rollin get the drop on him?

Bro Deal said:

I didn't see the coverage. Was Hincapie unattentive or what? How did Rollin get the drop on him?

Seemed like a moment's hesitation from the rest of the break and Rollin just powered away from them. He gained time (I think up to almost 50 seconds ahead of the rest of the break) until Hincapie and Camano realized they weren't going to pull him in without a real combined effort. Once they started working together well, they brought most of that back but in the end he still had 18 seconds on them.

Being from Canada, I got a good laugh from all the talk of him being from the cold North and that being the reason why he performed better in that cold wet stage.

padawan said:

Being from Canada, I got a good laugh from all the talk of him being from the cold North and that being the reason why he performed better in that cold wet stage.

They do have miserable weather this year. Yesterday's stage must have been tough. Driving south from Monterey along Highway 1, there's not a single flat part of the road. You have the ocean to the right and mountains to the left and the road goes up and down to find the 'easiest' way along the coast. If you factor in the rain and wind blowing in from the sea and the long distance of the stage, it ain't pretty.

The coverage is pretty sketchy, only 1 hour on Versus without any reruns I am aware of. When you include all the 'fluff' pieces about riders, teams etc. they throw in during the coverage (and the commercials), there isn't much left. Maybe we see 25 min of actual racing and then the picture often breaks up.

Is there another outlet which shows more of the race? If Versus is the only channel (in the US) showing the ToC, and they do only maybe 25 min of coverage per stage, then the future of cycling coverage in the US looks bleak.

Quoted post said:

Is there another outlet which shows more of the race? If Versus is the only channel (in the US) showing the ToC, and they do only maybe 25 min of coverage per stage, then the future of cycling coverage in the US looks bleak.

cycling.tvcycling.tvOpen ↗

Cobblestones said:

Is there another outlet which shows more of the race? If Versus is the only channel (in the US) showing the ToC, and they do only maybe 25 min of coverage per stage, then the future of cycling coverage in the US looks bleak.

yep, cycling.tv is showing the entire stages, their footage comes from the official video footage but with Martin McCrossan and Brian Smith commentating. The official video stream can also be found live at amgentourofcalifornia.comAdobeTourTracker.htmlOpen ↗, where they have Frankie Andreu and Joe Silva commentating. It seems to be a day-to-day (even minute-to-minute) thing as to which feed is running better, from my experience.

It was amusing yesterday when the plane with the repeater for the motobike video footage had to go refuel (guess they hadn't planned on a 7.5 hr stage?), and there was no video for about an hour ... straight shots of Frankie and Joe talking about whatever they could think of until they decided to show highlights of previous stages instead.

Internet TV coverage of "niche" sports is going to be the way of the future...

thanks for the links...🙂

I wish I had a laptop then...because I don't really have time to sit in my office watching races...🙄

I wonder if Levi had the same dinner he had back in the TDF last time trial?

🙂

Smilf said:

I wonder if Levi had the same dinner he had back in the TDF last time trial?

🙂

Leipheimer blew Cancellara for over a minute on a 24k course... They aren't on same food obviously.

Smilf said:

I wonder if Levi had the same dinner he had back in the TDF last time trial?

🙂

If he did, then Janez Brajkovic was eating from the same plate. The little guy placed 7th!

I know he was an U23 TT champion but I'm always a little surprized when I see a 120 lbs soaking wet rider finish highly placed in a TT unless it's all uphill.

This is Levi's TDF because he won't be riding the real one.

thecyclist said:

This is Levi's TDF because he won't be riding the real one.

That's my thought too. He must have finished off the stuff he was saving for TdF...

Andrija said:

Leipheimer blew Cancellara for over a minute on a 24k course... They aren't on same food obviously.

Millar and Vandevelde finished second and third, beating Cancellara by 36 and 20 sec. respectively. I saw pictures of Slipstream's food (looked like dried tirds) and I don't think it explains those results.

fscyclist said:

Millar and Vandevelde finished second and third, beating Cancellara by 36 and 20 sec. respectively. I saw pictures of Slipstream's food (looked like dried tirds) and I don't think it explains those results.

fs you dont believe those guys are clean?

Guys... this is a serious dent to the "everyone's doping" argument. You have got to believe Millar and Vande Velde are clean. I know they are peaking for this race, but if they are clean, it damages the "you can't compete clean" argument.

I realise that a 15 mile TT may not be the best example of a race requiring dope, but it certainly is going to affect the oxygen carrying capacity if they are on the red blood cell boosters, and the off-season steroid boys would have an advantage. Perhaps these random tests out of competition are working.

thunder said:

fs you dont believe those guys are clean?

I don't know. But I think it is unfair to jump all over Levi for a good performance but give Slipstream a pass (especially when their team is composed of convicted and alleged dopers). I do think it's interesting that all of them beat Danny Pate by 3 minutes. He's not known for his TT ability, but this was a short TT and that is a lot of time.

I know Slipstream is peaking for this race, as Levi may also be doing, so for all of them to beat Cancellara (who may care little about the ToC) isn't a big surprise. Again, I just don't like hypocrisy.

Crankyfeet said:

Guys... this is a serious dent to the "everyone's doping" argument. You have got to believe Millar and Vande Velde are clean. I know they are peaking for this race, but if they are clean, it damages the "you can't compete clean" argument.

I realise that a 15 mile TT may not be the best example of a race requiring dope, but it certainly is going to affect the oxygen carrying capacity if they are on the red blood cell boosters, and the off-season steroid boys would have an advantage. Perhaps these random tests out of competition are working.

Why do you think Millar and Vande Velde are clean? What makes them cleaner than the competition?

fscyclist said:

Why do you think Millar and Vande Velde are clean? What makes them cleaner than the competition?

Just that the whole raison detre of the team is that they are going to be clean. And this being a very early race in their existence... IMO even they would probably want to know how good/bad riding clean fares in the competition.

Call it a hunch... (I see myself as primarily a cynic)... but I think these guys, even if they may end up back on the dark side, are at least going to walk the walk at first... if nothing more than to see how it goes. For them to dope from race number one... makes me wonder if they would be able to sleep at night after all the hullaballoo about their team.