Loyal2TheRoyal's Official Tour De France Preview............J'adore La Tour!!!!!

Alberto Contador: Winner in 2007, missed last year due to the trouble at Astana but its widely accepted that he's the best all rounder in the world. A worthy favourite but from a betting point of view, very short in such a competitive Tour!

Lance Armstrong: Dosen't need an explanation, the closer we get, the more I think that he could do it, it would be a fairytale.

Andy Schleck: Last year's White Jersey winner but the big problem I have with Schleck is he's going to lose a lot of time in the Time Trials so is he really going to be able to drop all the big names somewhere in the mountains? Podium finish for sure, 6/1 each way looks good.

Cadel Evans: Second in 2007 and second again in 2008 and one point take the view that if he couldn't win it last year in a weaker field, how can he do it again?

Carlos Sastre: Last year's winner, looked back to something like his best towards the end of the Giro and sure to be on the premises again.

Denis Menchov: Russian who won the Giro and that will surely take its toll against much fresher riders?

Levi Leipheimer: Flatters to decieve a lot of the time but whilst he's a good rider in his own right, you'd have to agree that Contador and Armstrong are the number ones for Astana.

Others: Kim Kirchen at 66/1 could do well while his fellow countyman Frank Schleck (brother of Andy) could surprise for Rabbobank. He held the yellow jersey for 5-6 stages last year and could do so again. Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas could be another to raise eyebrows in the mountains but it may be his younger teammates who shine - Roman Kreuziger and Vincenzo Nibali. Finally Christian Vande Velde of Garmin is not without his chance.

I still haven't mentioned the sprinters and whilst the climbers are great, I love the power and muscle of the sprinters as they hit 60km/h in the last 200 yards of a stage. Marc Cavendish is the Usain Bolt of cycling and I believe he is hoping to win five or more stages this year which would be great. Then the other usual suspects like Farrar, Cancellera, Frieire, Hushovd and even Kirchen will all be in the hunt for the Green Jersey.

Predictions:
Its such a wide open tour this year, Contador is the one to beat and sure he'll be hard bet but I think someone out there will take it to him, maybe one of the Schlecks or Sastre or his own teammate Lance Armstrong. I'm backing Andy Schleck at 6/1 and Christian Vande Velde at 40/1.

The King of the Mountains is always difficult to tell and given the record of winners testing positive, I'll leave it.

Love the sprinters and in particular Cav but he's such a short price that it may be worth taking a chance on someone else, possibly Tyler Farrar.

Andy Schleck should take the white jersey like he did twelve months ago but Nibali and Kreuziger won't make it easy.

Astana are moral certs for the Team Classification, only Rabbobank, Saxobank and Liquigas are in their league.

All in all, an exciting three weeks to look forward to.

Pretty much agree with you there Loyal, all the sprinters are likely to drop behind or drop out once the mountain stages start (like Mark Cavendish did last year after he won all the flat stages). When it comes to sprinters I've always had a soft spot for Robbie McEwan (sp?) who actually makes it through the mountains as well. Would love to Armstrong get it again, but he hasn't ridden in so long I reckon there's riders such as Contador and Sastre out there who are ahead of him now.

Just got back form 25 miles on my own bike and can't wait though. Bring it on!

Loyal where do you dig up all this stuff

JimWexford wrote:Loyal where do you dig up all this stuff

it's brilliant Jim you can't beat Le Tour

Watch the video Jim, love the bit at the start where the bead of sweat just drops off Lance's chin. Look at the way people line the streets trying to touch the riders as they go by.

Massive respect for these lads, cycling is easily the most physically demanding sport in the world. Have to admire them. Wish I had to try and get involved with a club when I was younger and at least give it go, see if I was any good.

Used to love it - love it ....... absolutely can't take it serious now - its tainted beyond repair for me... sorry!

I watched some of it in the past and found it alright but not very exciting as it sometimes goes on for hours. Would be more interested if Ireland had a leading charge in it.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Watch the video Jim, love the bit at the start where the bead of sweat just drops off Lance's chin. Look at the way people line the streets trying to touch the riders as they go by.

Massive respect for these lads, cycling is easily the most physically demanding sport in the world. Have to admire them. Wish I had to try and get involved with a club when I was younger and at least give it go, see if I was any good.

cant agree there loyal, try running a marathon, or and ultra marathon far tougher than cycling and i if you dont agree with me ask lance armstrong in his own words " it was the toughest thing i have ever trainer for" when he was refering to the marathon he did!!!!

rich dublin wrote:

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Watch the video Jim, love the bit at the start where the bead of sweat just drops off Lance's chin. Look at the way people line the streets trying to touch the riders as they go by.

Massive respect for these lads, cycling is easily the most physically demanding sport in the world. Have to admire them. Wish I had to try and get involved with a club when I was younger and at least give it go, see if I was any good.

cant agree there loyal, try running a marathon, or and ultra marathon far tougher than cycling and i if you dont agree with me ask lance armstrong in his own words " it was the toughest thing i have ever trainer for" when he was refering to the marathon he did!!!!

yeah but you dont do 24 marathons in 24 days.

Jayo Cluxton wrote:Used to love it - love it ....... absolutely can't take it serious now - its tainted beyond repair for me... sorry!

Very good analysis Loyal, but I have to agree with Jayo. I first became aware of Le Tour around 83/84, properly became an avid fan when Roche won in 1987, and I've closely followed pretty much every tour since. Unfortunately my interest is now one of morbid curiousity, as Le Tour has been tainted to the point of being a farce.

I marvelled at Virenque, Pantani, Ulrich and Riis in the 90's, and watched live as Floyd Landis made a superhuman recovery (one day after being destroyed in the mountains) to 'win' in 2006, and thought that Tyler Hamilton was the toughest man alive after he rode 20 stages with a cracked collarbone. The names I've just mentioned are like a who's who of cycling in the last 15 years. They were all drugs cheats.

You know that something is rotten when teams boycott stages in protest at successful drugs raids on their rivals, claiming that it is an invasion of privacy. Cycling is, and has always been, dominated by drug cheats. I'd love to see that change, as Le Tour should be one of the finest sporting specatacles int he World. Instead it has become the saddest.

how many people are kicked out of the olympics each time. Alot. Granted it covers a vast amount of sports, but why does it be potrayed as the greatest show on earth when it is also riddled with cheats.

samin10 wrote:how many people are kicked out of the olympics each time. Alot. Granted it covers a vast amount of sports, but why does it be potrayed as the greatest show on earth when it is also riddled with cheats.

The Olympics is not, as you put it, 'riddled with cheats'. Some events like track sprinting and power field events have problems, but most don't. Just did some research and there were 48 positive drugs tests in total in the last 2 Olympics, from 14,000 participants (0.3%). Compare that to 5 out of 180 (2.8%) in last year's Tour, virtually 10 times more than the Olympics.

More relevantly, it is the stars of cycling, virtually all of them, who are being caught. Petacchi, Vinokourov, Di Luca, Rasmussen, Boonan, Piepoli, Mayo, Basso, Musseuw, Simoni, Andreu, Zulle, Moreau, Dufaux, Casagrande, Brochard, Abdoujaparov, Zabel, Frank Schleck, as well as the names I mentioned earlier.

There is hardly a top cyclist in the last 20 years who hasn't been implicated (please don't say Armstrong). Professional cycling is in a total mess, and seems reluctant to help itself.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

samin10 wrote:how many people are kicked out of the olympics each time. Alot. Granted it covers a vast amount of sports, but why does it be potrayed as the greatest show on earth when it is also riddled with cheats.

The Olympics is not, as you put it, 'riddled with cheats'. Some events like track sprinting and power field events have problems, but most don't. Just did some research and there were 48 positive drugs tests in total in the last 2 Olympics, from 14,000 participants (0.3%). Compare that to 5 out of 180 (2.8%) in last year's Tour, virtually 10 times more than the Olympics.

More relevantly, it is the stars of cycling, virtually all of them, who are being caught. Petacchi, Vinokourov, Di Luca, Rasmussen, Boonan, Piepoli, Mayo, Basso, Musseuw, Simoni, Andreu, Zulle, Moreau, Dufaux, Casagrande, Brochard, Abdoujaparov, Zabel, Frank Schleck, as well as the names I mentioned earlier.

There is hardly a top cyclist in the last 20 years who hasn't been implicated (please don't say Armstrong). Professional cycling is in a total mess, and seems reluctant to help itself.

Why not mention Lance Armstrong or Indurain. The two greatest cyclists of the last 20 years. Neither have been proven to be drug cheats. Innocent to proven guilty. They are both as innocent (or as guilty) as Aidan OMahony

Yeah TC and JC make some good points, very hard to argue with a lot of them. Sadly thats the way it is.

But I'm happy to assume that all the top riders are clean this year. A lot of the time, its allegations that are made because Cyclist "X" was assiocated with Doctor "Y". Frank Schleck was cleared of all wrong doing last year, all the fuss was over some bank transfer or something. Most of the time, there is nothing to a lot of these allegations or at least nothing that comes out to the public that incriminates the rider properly.

For example, L'Equipe published a story yesterday saying seven riders would be banned from the Tour before tomorrow. We'll see today how right they were.

Physical advantages
At the top of his career, Miguel Indurain had a physiology that was not only superior when compared to average people, but also when compared to his fellow athletes. His blood circulation had the ability to circulate 7 litres of blood around his body per minute,^[1] compared to the average amount of 3-4 litres of an ordinary person and the 5-6 litres of his fellow riders. His Cardiac Output is 50L a minute, a fit amateur cyclist's is about 25L a minute Also, Indurain's lung capacity was 8 litres, compared to an average of 6 litres. In addition, Indurain's resting pulse was as low as 28 BPM, compared to a normal human's 60-80 bpm , which meant his heart would be less strained in the tough mountain stages.^[2] His VO₂ max was 88 ml/kg/min; in comparison, Lance Armstrong's was 82 ml/kg/min and Greg LeMond's was 92.5 ml/kg/min.


Some times there are scientific explanations as to why some athletes have an advantage

samin10 wrote:
Why not mention Lance Armstrong or Indurain. The two greatest cyclists of the last 20 years. Neither have been proven to be drug cheats. Innocent to proven guilty. They are both as innocent (or as guilty) as Aidan OMahony

Ah yes, Lance. The same Lance who has himself been implicated in drugs scandals; who didn't fulfil his promises re. transparent and regular testing during his comeback; who organised the protest against the drugs raids; who's doctor for a long time was Michele Ferrari (most infamous EPO supplier in the history of cycling); who recovered from cancer to destroy, year after year, the very finest cyclists in the world, almost all of whom were proven drugs cheats.

In his analysis, Loyal said that an Armstrong win would be the biggest fairytale in sport. Unfortunately, I think that his previous 7 wins were also unbelieveable.

Samin, we had this debate on another site a few months ago. You are a big fan of Lance, whereas I'm a fan of cycling, but not necessarily it's top stars. Let's agree to disagree on this one.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

samin10 wrote:
Why not mention Lance Armstrong or Indurain. The two greatest cyclists of the last 20 years. Neither have been proven to be drug cheats. Innocent to proven guilty. They are both as innocent (or as guilty) as Aidan OMahony

Ah yes, Lance. The same Lance who has himself been implicated in drugs scandals; who didn't fulfil his promises re. transparent and regular testing during his comeback; who organised the protest against the drugs raids; who's doctor for a long time was Michele Ferrari (most infamous EPO supplier in the history of cycling); who recovered from cancer to destroy, year after year, the very finest cyclists in the world, almost all of whom were proven drugs cheats.

In his analysis, Loyal said that an Armstrong win would be the biggest fairytale in sport. Unfortunately, I think that his previous 7 wins were also unbelieveable.

Samin, we had this debate on another site a few months ago. You are a big fan of Lance, whereas I'm a fan of cycling, but not necessarily it's top stars. Let's agree to disagree on this one.

I'm a fan of being presumed innocent untill found guilty. He should have just quit after he recovered from cancer or else came in at the back of the field to avoid suspicion. Who gave Aidan OMahony his inhaler, does that mean all his patients are drug cheats? Lance Armstonrg is one of the most tested men in sport for drugs, always passed (apart from once where he put cream on his arse)

Cavendish............different gravy!

The number one sportsman worldwide now.

Yeah until he gets to the mountains and the armagh sniper picks him off !!!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So close. Armstrong missed the yellow jersey by a few hundredths of a second.

Bit of a ****-up by the peloton today.

Should be a very good stage today, don't think it will suit the sprinters like Boonen, Cav and Farrar. I have have the God of Thunder to win at 11/1.

Any good sites for coverage or for live television

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:I have have the God of Thunder to win at 11/1.

Well it is Thorsday .........

samin10 wrote:Any good sites for coverage or for live television

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] will have it or you can watch it on ITV4/TG4/Eurosport, well worth watching especially in the final 20km!