It is not just you.

Yeah, WAHHHH, the descent was hard! I'm officially in the Contador camp for the rest of the tour. At least he attacks when he has it in him. Schlecks, schmecks. Evans is...well, a whiny Yoda. And all the other contenders I like are either too far out or abandoned.

I was in the Contador camp to start with. I've never liked that pair of whiny LeOpards. Actually that whole team is prone to prissy posturing and complaining (especially Cancellara).
If Andy and Frank don't like going downhill they should practice that skill and it should have been obvious to them that their rivals would seek to exploit such a weakness on a wet day like today.

I'm hoping some combination of Evans, Voeckler, Sanchez and Contador manage to keep the Schlecks off the podium.

Whatevs! Cancellara rewlz. He seems to congratulate people when they beat him, like Van Summeren (not Nuyens, wheel sucker!), and initiates incredible attacks, again and again. He's wonderful to watch. He does seem super-confident at times, but I suppose that comes with being a great bike handler and a dominating force. I loved the TTT on stage two: Leopard Trek = Cancellara dragging 8 other guys around.

Anyway, I find it odd that so many fans like Voeckler, but so many of his fellow riders can't stand the way he behaves. I guess that's the difference in watching something and actually being in it.

Here's the thing I couldn't figure out today:

When it was down to Ryder, Thor and BoasenHaggenScmaggenDaz, why is Ryder riding tempo, looking back every two seconds as if he is going to contest the sprint, instead of just head down, hammering away at the front?

The only thing I could figure is that maybe Thor wanted a slower sprint to take advantage of his power versus BoassenSchmaggenVahggen's speed?

Posted By: Jeff OwensYeah, WAHHHH, the descent was hard! I'm officially in the Contador camp for the rest of the tour. At least he attacks when he has it in him. Schlecks, schmecks. Evans is...well, a whiny Yoda. And all the other contenders I like are either too far out or abandoned.

What! Evans is a teeth-gritting fighter! At least since he put those stripes on his sleeve. Dude is fighting this July!

Marc, I think Ryder was waiting for Thor's instructions.

@Marc: I was wondering the same thing. The only reason I could come up with was that he wanted to try to get Edvald's wheel when he came around.

Marc and Jeff,
It looked to me as that was perfect tactics for a 2 on one. The only way Edvar could win is if he could get behind Thor. So firstly as long as Thor was in the rear there was no need to push the pace. Secondly by riding tempo it prevented Edvar from starting the sprint as Thor would have 2 options, staying on his wheel or using Ryder's on what would be the other side of the rode. A third aspect is to keep the group on the right side of the rode so Edvar could take an inside line and use Ryder to block Thor from staying on the wheel.

I rarely feel French, but I'm really biased when I watch the TdF! Chavanel, Chavanel!

Looks kind of like river road

Go Schleck go!

Why aren't they chasing Andy S.?

I think Cadel is the guest on our MB!

BTW, Nathaniel and Patrick should be there on the Galibier today (or tomorrow?). Look for Kissena jerseys!

Wow, wow, wow. Wow. To the stage in general (and also to Nathaniel and Patrick being there tomorrow, have fun y'all.)

I was just thinking how harsh the race jury were about the time cut off today. Riders were given 33 minutes before they hit the DQ cut-off (in this case, so many failed to get there that instead they were docked 20 sprint points). The winning time was 6 hr 8mins, as a percentage, 33 minutes constitutes only 8.9% of the winning time! Savage: they gave them less than a 10% buffer! 88 Riders failed to get in on time. A bit devious seeing as they did a couple of mountains today.

According to this site at least, here is the complex algorithm they use to deduce the time point. Interesting.

http://www.active.com/cycling/tourdefrance/articles/Rules_to_Ride_by_at_the_Tour_de_France.htm

Another big day for the French! (I should be jumping up and down, I'm ashamed).

http://stomachofanger.com/hoogerland.shtml

How awesome is this?

I don't know if this is a case of poor translation, but if Contador wants a bigger fan club, he's going to have to stop saying stupid whiney shit like this:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-says-giro-tour-double-is-possible-with-a-stronger-team

There are two different quotes in there. One uses "strong" and one uses "powerful." If he really said "powerful" and he was talking about the TTT, then I think that's not as stupid and whiney as the headline would have us believe.

Well, I went over to marca.com to see the quote for myself. The word he used was "potente," which not surprisingly means potent or powerful. So yeah, kinda whiney.

"Hace falta que haya etapas favorables para ti, ya sea con un prólogo, una cronoescalada o dos contrarreloj. Pero no una contrarreloj por equipos si no tienes un equipo potente."

Another thing I re-confirmed while checking out Marca: sports coverage in this country blows. If you can read Spanish, put Marca in your bookmarks. Even if you don't care about Spanish soccer, they cover everything from international swimming to women's short-track speed skating.

Well, he's also pretty much correct. His team wasn't that strong. He was often isolated on climbs when LayOpurd, BMC, Europcar and even Liquigas has guys with their leaders. Of course, he didn't need to SAY it in public, everyone could see it for themselves.

I guess what bothers me about the quote in general, is the comment about the nature of the course. Every year, there's someone whining about how this course favored so and so. But they all got they memo, right? They knew what kind of tour they were in store for. Everyone else did. I think Saxo Bank went in assuming that Contador would be able to hold his own in the mountains, and somewhat surprisingly, save for that one stage, he was either neutralized or lost time in the climbing stages. Evans didn't have any help in the climbs, and did alright.

He didn't take as many drugs this year during the tour or during the run up to this tour. Or didn't get the blood transfusion he needed. Simple as that. I'm not saying the other guys were clean, I couldn't know, but Contador's lack of extra power was obvious. He can talk about his team, the course, the Giro. It was the dope. Duh.

He has essentially gotten a free pass on this whole thing. I wouldn't be surprised if another delay happened past November and they just throw the case away before next season.

I watched at least the last hour and a half if not last two hours of every stage this year. From what I saw, there were three GC teams that rode consistently at the front on the flat and transition stages and there were three teams that conspicuously rode at the front into the mountains. The three on the flats were BMC, Leopard-Trek, and Liquigas-Cannondale. The three into the mountains were BMC and Leopard-Trek and Europcar. L-C came with one mountain gregario, and he did pretty well considering.

I bring it up because BMC was first, L-T second, and third, and Europcar fourth. L-C couldn't quite pull it off and was down in eighth, though held fifth for a while.

RadioShack totally failed with their four co-leader scheme--the only rider who rode smartly was Kloden and he was felled by two strokes of bad luck.

Saxo Bank didn't seem to have the wherewithal to hold great position on the flats, though they did manage to come to the front with a few k to go on a number of stages. Saxo in the mountains likewise didn't prove as helpful as the L-T team.

Looking at the rest of the top ten, 6th placed Sanchez came with a team that wasn't going to go all-out for him on the flats, 7th placed Cunego came with a team that could support Petacchi on the flats and give him a little protection. 9th placed Danielson rode at the front to protect Hushovd from the TTT until the Pyrenees, so he couldn't sit back and lose time in crashes, other than his first-stage screw-up. 10th-placed Peraud of AG2R didn't merit team support until the second stage in the Pyrenees.

Looking how how the teams rode, the teams that worked the best for their leaders in the early stages of the race ended up at the top of the individual GC battle. At the same time, in the high mountains, Evans didn't have the support that Voeckler Rolland, Contador, Sanchez, Basso, Danielson, and Peraud had in the high mountains.

Looks like riding at the front on the flat stages to protect the leader was the smart tactical move this year. Maybe Saxo wasn't strong enough, maybe the other teams were unexpectedly stronger, maybe Contador decided riding further back was the smart tactical move and then he was "penalized" with all the crashes he had.

Maybe it was the lack of Spanish beef is what hurt Alberto. Then again, I would have guessed that the Italian anti-doping authorities were going to be more aggessive than the french.

Team Garmin's Tour de France Power Uploads

http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=garmin-cervelo#owner=garmin-cervelo&sortField=relevance&currentPage=1

Vande Velde averaged 276w for six hours and 16,000' of climbing on the stage to the Galibier.

@ JP - do you know what kind of power meter the team was running? I wonder if any of the dudes tested those Vector pedal power meters Garmin purchased.

I just saw a pic of David Millar on the Champs-Elysees. He didn't have an SRM on his bike, so maybe he was playing with the Vector.

Originally, Vector was working with Speedplay pedals, as their axles have already been hollowed out. There was some talk of Vector working with Taiwanese company VP as some of their pedals were spotted on team bikes at a training camp. Not sure the Vector electronics can fit in a Shimano pedal axle unless there's some serious customization going on. I tend to doubt that any racer interested in power would take a chance on the Vector at the Tour, even if they have custom Shimano axles, so it would have to be a rider who doesn't care about seeing power on his Garmin. My guess is nobody was using it, though Julian Dean runs Speedplay pedals. It looked like he had an SRM on his bike.

that power data is very humbling and very interesting

when is their max cadence 180-202 rpm?

Good lord

Hesjedal did 297 for over six hours

Everyone knows those guys are in a different universe but actually seeing the data its astounding

One of these days I'm actually going to write a blog that's been brewing in my head for years entitled:

Power Meters: Dream makers, or dream breakers?