TDF Stage 10

[L7]

When he says there's a lot of racing left, it really means that Ullrich's going to suffer a lot more (he looked like shit today, and I doubt he was just playing poker)

POTD!

6789

[InspectorGadget]

Tivo is the ticket! Just finished watching the morning broadcast - simply amazing.

And as a side note, does anyone else find it strange that guys that used to drive the train for Armstrong now cannot keep up. Heras was off the back while Discovery still had 5 guys pulling.

I don't know if it was Phil or Paul, but one of them made mention of the difference between setting the pace for Armstrong and setting the race pace. They may get it down in the future, but Lance's former team members don't have what it takes to lead.

[TeleAl]

These guys are unreal. I rode last weekend at what I thought was a decent pace- 18 miles of constant 4-5% constant incline, about 9-10 mph... totally drained me. These f-in' guys were climbing at 33 km/hr, or about 20 mph up the 6.5% incline- after already knocking out 90-100 miles that day. Wow.

Let me put in perspective this way:
I live at 1264m. The valley below me is at 400m.
I ride down the mountain as fast as I can on my road bike and average around 44km/hr.
The average faster in the TTT.

As for Lance not looking good, he looked great. He was no doubt working.
And his work paid off as rider after rider fell off his group.
They were holding an unreal pace.
The "Alter of Lance" reference is classic.

Rasmussen looks great too. Go Dots!

[hev]

It's a bit disapointing to see the competition falter so quickly. I wanna see Lance battle it out for a seventh, not another yellow jersey parade. Lot's a racing to come, I personally am hoping to see some strong challenges. Impressive stage no doubt.

[Artie Fufkin]

This is why Lance powered through today. He saw this guy and received devine motivation.

This is from the Disco spokeperson Dan Osipow from thepaceline.com:

"Funny story regarding Tom Shaw, aka, head of the Cutters. Shaw and his merry men hadn't yet made an appearance at this year's Tour until yesterday. The last handful of years, the Cutters, known to scream, yell, sing, carry on, dress up as Uncle Sam, carry a Shamu blow-up and paste everything (and sometimes everybody) with USPS priority mail stickers. They basically turned the quaint and docile Tour de France crowd into a tailgate party at a rowdy college football game. Loud and obnoxious they were, but they were our loud and obnoxious guys. A solo Shaw, sans buddies, showed up yesterday with his Cutters t-shirt (a clean one to boot) and stationed himself in the last few kms up in Courchevel. Shaw busted out the old Uncle Sam uni and when Lance came by with the three other leaders, ran alongside and screamed encouragement. A photo of Shaw doing just that - in full shout - appeared on the wire services last night and made it to the back cover of the newspaper, France Soir, today. According to Shaw, as he ran alongside Lance, Armstrong looked over and said - "I was wondering when you were going to show up." This in the heat of battle, in the final few kms of a monster stage, gunning it for the line. Nice to see Lance take the time to greet an old friend despite the chaos around him."


That dude is a tool, as are most of the "fans" that run with the riders, but if Lance said that to him at the end of that burly stage, that's pretty cool.