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Posts from the ‘Tour de France 2011’ Category

Jul 27

Stages 19-21–Bubbling with Billecart All the Way to Paris

Everyone agrees that this year’s Tour de France was one of the best in years, with its peloton now a dope-free, level playing field. And so, after a most titillating stage on Thursday, I couldn’t wait for Friday to see what might crop up next. A short stage (109.5km) with three categorized climbs, including the hors categorie up l’Alpe d’Huez, Stage 19 was expected to cook the GC, and indeed, it did succeed in stirring up the lees in tanks.

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Jul 20

Stages 13-15 & TEW Takes Mt. Ventoux

Anne Pichon & Voeckler in the Leader’s Jersey

From Pau to Lourdes, Stage 13 circled a part of the Pyrenees in the southwest of France, and ended with a 16.4km hors categorie ascent up col d’ Aubisque. Originally created to classify mountain roads that cars could not expect to pass, the hors categorie climb still separates the climbers and the GC contenders from the rest of the peloton.

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Jul 15

Stages 10-12, THE BAD BOYS: Jean-Luc Thunevin & A Flashback to Jan Ullrich

Jan Ullrich & Three Bottles from Jean-Luc Thunevin

Stage 10 began in Aurillac, just 240km east of Bordeaux, before running south and towards the region of Languedoc-Rousillion. And while there were a multitude of attacks in the final 10k, nothing could escape the force of HTC, a gale that stops short of nothing, when a Cavendish win is at stake. But wait…what’s this? At 400m, HTC peeled off so that Cavendish could thunder and roar, but there came Andre Greipel, the German rider from Omega Pharma-Lotto, riding up inside the center of the storm.  Sneaking inside the silence of the eye, he bypassed Cavendish for a first time Tour win, across the finish line.

I miss Jan Ullrich, another German, from the Eastern side of town…

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Jul 14

The Grape Splitting Storm That Tore Up The Tour – The Tour Part 3

 

Stage 9 & Chateau des Rontets 

     Just as a challenging vintage can make or break a winemaker’s bottle, a particularly mountainous stage or a multitude of crashes can upset the GC or destroy a bike racer’s career. In every Tour de France we expect surprises, and this year, it was Stage 7, a particularly flat route from Les Mans to Chateauroux, that sent Jack from the box to steal the earth from beneath many a bike racer’s wheel.

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