A few more random Tour de France thoughts
Aug. 1st, 2011 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99What will happen first, the journalists stop saying that Cavendish is English or he punches one of them. Really dudes, he's vehemently Manx. The lack of tail should be a clue.
One day, the mainland European riders will learn how to time trial, and then things could get interesting. According to Sean Kelly on Eurosport, the general problem is that they see their time trial bikes twice on every grand tour, hop off and hope they never have to see them again. Pierre Rolland and the Schlecks would be so much more terrifying if they were even mildly competent at time trialling, rather than merely not quite as bad as Cunego.
Because of the continual growth of twitter, and the fact that a fair few of the riders tweet (I recommend Cavendish's twitter if you want pure, unadulterated straight from the horse's mouth tweeting, but warning, he's very, very NSFW), there's been some fantastic portmanteau words being coined such as Frandy (for the Schleck brothers) and Cadeleton (for the peleton containing Evans).
You've also had wonderful things like Carlos Sastre who wasn't riding because his team didn't get a wild card, tweeting a picture of the road sign near the top of the climbs with the names of the people that had won there, his and one other. It was sweet, because he must have won so many things, and yet it still matters to him.
As you know I tend to like the sillier side of things so I give you Eurosport's Blazing Saddles tour blog's round up of the Tour - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blog/blazin-saddles/article/2593/
He's mostly right, particularly the part about Contador's punching of the idiot spectator doing more for his standing in most people's eyes than an innocent verdict (when CAS eventually get round to it) on the drugs charges will do.
And also the bit where Saddles goes of on one about the choice of Sauj-Sojasun getting the nod ahead of Geox, the team with Denis Menchov (previous Giro and Vuelta winner) and Carlos Sastre (previous Tour winner). Now I am totally cool with the organisers giving wild cards to French teams, because that's what the other grand tour organisers also do, but Sauj-Sojasun did nothing with it. The other French wild card teams seemed to get that they needed to do something to pay the organisers back (see also FDJ putting a rider in pretty much every breakaway that got away) but they did nothing.
And to finish the round up, I bring you Eurosport's compilation of the "funnier" things that happened on the tour - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/watts/article/88/
Yes, you did see whatever it was you thought you saw. Particularly the tractors.
One day, the mainland European riders will learn how to time trial, and then things could get interesting. According to Sean Kelly on Eurosport, the general problem is that they see their time trial bikes twice on every grand tour, hop off and hope they never have to see them again. Pierre Rolland and the Schlecks would be so much more terrifying if they were even mildly competent at time trialling, rather than merely not quite as bad as Cunego.
Because of the continual growth of twitter, and the fact that a fair few of the riders tweet (I recommend Cavendish's twitter if you want pure, unadulterated straight from the horse's mouth tweeting, but warning, he's very, very NSFW), there's been some fantastic portmanteau words being coined such as Frandy (for the Schleck brothers) and Cadeleton (for the peleton containing Evans).
You've also had wonderful things like Carlos Sastre who wasn't riding because his team didn't get a wild card, tweeting a picture of the road sign near the top of the climbs with the names of the people that had won there, his and one other. It was sweet, because he must have won so many things, and yet it still matters to him.
As you know I tend to like the sillier side of things so I give you Eurosport's Blazing Saddles tour blog's round up of the Tour - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blog/blazin-saddles/article/2593/
He's mostly right, particularly the part about Contador's punching of the idiot spectator doing more for his standing in most people's eyes than an innocent verdict (when CAS eventually get round to it) on the drugs charges will do.
And also the bit where Saddles goes of on one about the choice of Sauj-Sojasun getting the nod ahead of Geox, the team with Denis Menchov (previous Giro and Vuelta winner) and Carlos Sastre (previous Tour winner). Now I am totally cool with the organisers giving wild cards to French teams, because that's what the other grand tour organisers also do, but Sauj-Sojasun did nothing with it. The other French wild card teams seemed to get that they needed to do something to pay the organisers back (see also FDJ putting a rider in pretty much every breakaway that got away) but they did nothing.
And to finish the round up, I bring you Eurosport's compilation of the "funnier" things that happened on the tour - http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/watts/article/88/
Yes, you did see whatever it was you thought you saw. Particularly the tractors.
