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Another Dark Day In The Tour

Say it is not true?
Please, just say it was one of those April Fool’s joke but a couple of months late.

Yet given the speed the Astana bus left last night you can only presume that Vinokourov has a big fight on his hands trying to prove he is not guilty of blood doping. Either that or he comes clean and disappears from the cycling scene as another broken dream.

 I added this picture to my Flickr stream last week, it was a superb picture of a rider at his lowest (well now he has sunk lower) yet would not go down without a fight.
Despite having over 60 stitches in his body he managed to tackle the Alps, then in the Time Trial he wiped the floor with every one. Two days afterwards he had the ride of his life winning his second stage.

Little did you know that this was done using some one else’s enhanced blood work.
Vino’s A sample from Saturday’s Time Trial returned as positive for blood abnormalities.

This is such a let down for the world of cycling, it was turning out to be a good Tour with only Rasmussen and his ‘where were you’ problems rocking the boat. But now the pre-Tour favorite and the entire team have left the camp in a complete disgrace.
I would have really liked Vino to take the win, but then this was when I thought he was a good rider that deserved that break. Now he is another one of those broken hero’s that have totally lost face and heart in their sport.

Whatever the end result Vino obviously made his choice and will have to stick by it, but one person I do feel for is Andreas Kloeden. Kloeden was in a good position overall and if he performed well in the next Time Trial stood the chance of a podium place in Paris, but now thanks to Vino the team and Kloeden are not welcome in the race.

What a Tour

Today saw the first day in the Pyrenees and it is now turning out to be a completely awesome tour.

Since before the Tour started my money was on Alexandre Vinokourov to take the yellow; Robbie McEwen for the green and good old Michael Rasmussen for the polka dot.
Vino deserves the tour win, for so long he has sat in the shadows of some one else and now with time against him this could have been the last Tour to make his own.
McEwen is just an awesome sprinter and seems to have this ability to just appear from nowhere on the sprint to take a win.
The climbers jersey; well is there any one else that can climb like Rasmussen and consistently at that; two years running so far, seems only right to make it three.

Yet accident’s and strange team tatics have made a mess of my predictions.
On the the first stage McEwen was invloved in a crash just before the end, some how he managed to make it back up to the front and win the stage But it would later turn out to be worse then it seemed as in a mountain stage he failed to finish within time and was eliminated.
Then on Stage 5 Vino was in a accident which ended up with him having nearly 60 stitches in knees and elbow has since left him dragging at the rear of the peleton.
The only thing going for me was the reliable climber from Denmark, except that he is not only in the polka dot jersey but currently posing in a nice yellow outfit!

It all happened in the mountains; as it always does, on Stage 8 into Tignes Rasmussen went off on one of his solo rides dropping every climber in his wake. Unfortunately Vino had now dropped 8 minutes and it looked like he was out of the standings.

One name that was on my lips just before the tour was Contador. After the prologue that name was slightly higher on the list as this Spaniard can Time Trial as well as climb.
Since the Tour has been turned on it’s head each day I kept my eye on Contador and thought this could well be a Tour winner for the future. After todays stage I have a strange feeling that this boy could well be making an extreme start to cycling, it is his first Tour and as well as holding onto the White jersey he is now second in the standings.
Whilst he can climb, and very well at that I do not think he will have legs to take on Ramussen head to head but if it comes down to the last individual Time Trial then he should have the upper hand.

It would be awesome to see Contador win, with Discovery calling it quits after this year they could do with a positive exit and since Armstrong’s retirement I think they have lost the way a bit.
But then this year’s Tour has just been one confused mess after another shocking accident so expect everything to change and one of the complete outsiders will clinch the win on the line.
Here is to some good cycling.

British Cyclosportive

On Sunday the 7th July the Tour de France will start her in old Blighty; the prologue taking place around London with Stage 1 on Sunday starting in London and heading 190km down to Canterbury.

Last Sunday was the turn of the dedicated, serious or down right sucidical cyclists out there in the world. The British Cyclosportive was the chance for every day cyclists to have a go at the very same stage the pro will tackle seven days later.
Spaces on this event are limited to only 5,000 riders but Viv and I applied back in February and had secured our places.

It was a very early start, we needed to sign on in Greenwich Park before 6 in the morning for a start time of 6:30. This meant that we needed to leave Viv’s house at 4 in the morning to ensure we got to the big smoke in time.
The good news is that at this time in the morning the roads are pretty much our own, meaning we could make really good time; despite the Dartford bridge being closed and not being able to get on the A2 to get into London!

After some expert map reading we arrived, only to park next a car of riders from Ipswich!
We walked into the park to find the registration tent and sign on. Upon arrival we were given a package containing a promotional tee, some literature and a transponder for our bikes.
This clever device sits on your front wheel and will acrruately measure the times we set.
Enough of this time for a cup of tea and possibly a bacon sandwich.

After fueling ourselves we finally got our bikes ready and put some spare clothes on a transport lorry to be delivered to the finish line awaiting our arrival.
By this time they had started sending riders off; the plan is to send of around 40 riders every minute from 6 - 8:30. We finally hit the start line at around 6:40, making us about 1400 in the field. When the count down finished we were off. There was a quick tour of the park and then we finally made it out onto the main roads and on our journey down into Kent to to Canterbury.
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