‘Berto Contador laid a patch about 6km long en route to Verbiers today, leaving everyone — including Texas Maximus — choking on the burning rubber.
The old fella looked like he’d thrown a rod by the time he finally crossed the finish line, more than a minute and a half later, and no wonder. Chasing that skinny Spaniard uphill, a guy must feel like Wile E. Coyote galloping after the Roadrunner. Meep meep — ka-pweeeeeng! Cue the eyeballs hitting the asphalt, ka-plunk.
Saxo Bank had a hand in Big Tex’s undoing, and they claim to have more of the same waiting for Super Spaniard, but they’ll have to catch him first. One dude unlikely to stand in their way is Cuddles Evans, who apparently had the legs of Olive Oyl on stage 15.
He was still better than Tex, though, which must leave Old No. 7 yearning for a cold Shiner Bock and a hot blonde. Tex was huffin’ and puffin’ at the back of the bus, getting a good strong whiff of Andreas Klöden’s farts — that is, until Klöden dropped him too.
Mad Blog Media 
I believe Lance will ride for AC now, because he’s a savvy PR guy and now he can say he helped AC win the Tour. So no more pressue on him and he enjoys the rest of the race. He doesn’t even need to huff and puff up Ventoux very quick. And I doubt he returns next year unless he buys the Le Tour.
Having been a bike racer, I actually buy into the “team sport” of bicycle racing. So, for me, the interesting story is that Bruyneel had this TdF pretty well sewn up two days ago–but now Lance is exposed, Leipheimer’s gone, and Kloden probably can but won’t step into the spotlight. That’s just inside Astana. Then there’s Wiggins and the Schlecks.
For me, this TdF only today became sort of temporarily interesting. However, if Contador wins in Paris, I don’t know if anyone will remember this Tour as anything more than preordained and the second of Contador’s nine consecutive Tours de France.
As for Bruyneel, I hope he enjoys this last taste of victory. He’s thrown his weight behind an aged, former champion. Because of Lance’s return and Bruyneel’s decision to let Lance have his way, Contador will leave after this season and will rule the Tour for a very long time under someone else’s flag.
Lance’s wake swamps all boats.
Have we all have become armchair tour riders? I’m thankful that we even have access to the Tour on a daily basis. Yes there’s an ebb and flow to an event as long as the Tour, but can we label this Tour as boring or uninteresting? This Tour might not seem as great as some of the epic Tours we remember, but how quickly we forget the “baseball” tempo during some portions of those epic Tours. Plus, this Tour is only two-thirds complete and there may be a crescendo that nobody is expecting.
I recall in the 1970’s (I started young), waiting for VeloNews to come out weeks after a Tour stage had been completed to find out what happened. It was mysterious, elegant, and romantic. Strong men with seemingly unpronounceable names (Zoetemelk, Maertens, Criquielion) and even more unusual names printed on the jerseys and bikes (Molteni, Miko, etc…)
No video was available on any USA TV stations except for the occasional 5-minute Wide World of Sports entire Tour d’France wrap-up. Let’s revel in the fact that we have so much close-up media coverage of such a fantastic event. Take two steps back and see how great the Tour is and how lucky we are to be viewing it in real time. With many major races such as the Tour d’Georgia being canceled because of a poor economy, we should be thankful that the Tour d’France is seemingly unaffected. I’m excited about this Tour!
Was it back in ’85 that youngster LeMond dropped an older Hinault on a mountain stage and was asked to slow it down? Hinault still had a lot of firepower in his legs. Will see what happens, but Tex really did look like someone in over his head yesterday.
Jeepers Patrick, tell us what you really think.
One of the things I like about the TdF is that they change it every year. They’re always experimenting. So some years it works and some it doesn’t. Think about L’Alpe D’Huez. If it was the same short uphill time trial every year we’d not get the same excitement from it. Have some of the stages been kind of boring? Well, yeah, but that’s been because of Mark Cavendish’ dominance, which can be kind of hard to anticipate. Overall, though, I’m good with it. I tune in to the Velonews live update, and I like it.
Fuck the bike racing … I want to know how the Castaño was. And the Walla Walla rosé, for that matter.
I think being in the number 2 spot in a 21 stage race at the age of 37….after not racing for 4 years….is pretty respectable. Let me see…..number 2 in the world? Yeah I’d take that. And so will LA so he can spread the word. That being said AC has a kick and speed that I don’t think Lance himself could match 5 years ago. I also think Petro Metro is correct about Bruyneel. He’s a brilliant director who shot himself in the foot unless he dumps Lance for next year and lets AC rule the roost. Fun stuff.
The irony here (to me at least) is that the saying “ride it like you stole it” implies that the riders are going fast, hellbent for leather, on the run, afraid of being caught, etc. And from what I’ve garnered in the three press stories I have read about this year’s ‘Big Bike Race in France during July’ that is not what has happened.
I’ll wait for the newsreel footage to pass further judgement but from the sound of it I’m glad I’m not waking up at o’very dark thirty to catch any of it.
Maybe we could get a critique of Patrick’s food du jour choices instead? It would probably be a lot more exciting if you ask me.
From the sound of the coverage today, sounds like rumors of Tex’s demise might be premature.