Posted on 06/30/2017 5:24:21 PM PDT by Baynative
I ride a Cannondale, too. Its a retro 2.8 with carbon forks Dura Ace 9 spd and great big old man 28 tooth cog. It ain’t getting the kind of miles it once did. (spending more time on the golf course than the bike)
Don’t follow the TDF that closely anymore. But I would say keep one thread, this one
would be okay for the day by day postings and stages. That way it is easier to scan back
for past info. JMO. Take care and thanks for the ping.
Tour de France 2017 — Stages 1-21.
I don't like seeing a raining greasy slick race course for a TT. But this was a dual to remember - USPS v. T-Mobile, Armstrong v. Ulrich ..'01
All that aside, like Tiger Woods the guys making big bucks these days owe much of it to him.
There was a time I could do 100 miles horizontal and a mile vertical in one day, for several days in a row.
Perhaps I’ll get back to that some day.
Would like to try the one formally known as the “Tour of the California Alps”.
Hope someone other than Froome takes it this year.
Does anyone have a sense of the course? It seems low on mountain stages but bob and team were saying the mix was athletically brutal.
“Cymru am byth” - First Yellow Jersey for Wales - Geraint Thomas (Sky) wins the 1st stage of the Tour deFrance.
Done it. 3 times. Took 2 tries before I could complete all 151 miles and 15,000 feet of climbing. Fastest I ever went on a bicycle: 58 mph descending Monitor Pass. Epic ride no matter how you slice it.
Was also originally known as the Markleeville Death Ride. For some reason, insurors didn’t like the title, hence the change to the Tour of the California Alps.
There was a bar in town that had hundreds of brassiers hanging from the ceiling.
Did Durango to Silverton once, ~70 miles, 7000’, about half of “Markleeville”.
Darned near kilt me.
But then, I had 300 miles already on me in the previous few days.
“Heh. I left pieces of my hidenon the pavement all over Northern California back in the day.”
Same here, except in New England.
Towards the end of my career, after seeing way too much, I stopped contesting the field sprints.
I still marvel with Sagan and Cavendish et al, and their COURAGE.
Are you referring to the "Death Ride" that was formerly the Tour of the California Alps? My one trip there taught me to stick to crits!
It was cold in Markleeville but you could feel the temp changing near the top of Monitor Pass on the first climb. At the bottom of the Monitor descent it was over 80 in the Nevada desert and people were shedding clothes. Back up Monitor from the east and it was raining, then the cool descent made the wind shirts go back on.
About half way up Ebbetts Pass people were coming down wearing garbage bags cut like ponchos. IT WAS SNOWING! I couldn't even make an attempt at the final climb.
Yeah, that one.
I’m guessing the dotted lines on the chart are for the shorter/”lite” alternate routes for fat old men like me?
Yep. That's the one. It had everything that made for an epic ride: extremes of altitude and weather, steep leg-melting grades, terrifying descents, unpredictable and inexperienced riders strewn by the wayside and a bar full of brasieres at the finish.
We Have a yellow jersey and now the race begins.
Liège in cycling means a lot of hills before coming to town as Liège-Bastogne-Liège is one of the hardest race on the international calendar but stage 2 is dedicated to the sprinters. Only two category 4 climbs are on the map: Grafenberg after only 6.5km and the côte d'Olne 20.5km before the end. There's something unprecedented on the route: 35 kilometres after leaving Düsseldorf, the riders will come back to the starting town after a visit to the Neanderthal man at the prehistoric site of the Neander valley.
Geraint Thomas will enjoy his first day ever in the yellow jersey ten years after he made his debut at the Tour de France in London. Moreover, Team Sky will savor their domination on stage 1 as they placed four riders in the top 8 of a Tour de France stage for the first time since the foundation of the team in 2010. Germany's Marcel Kittel of Quick-Step Floors was the highest ranked of the top sprinters in the inaugural time trial. It makes him the hot favourite in case of a bunch sprint in Liège but his deficit of sixteen seconds doesn't enable him to move into the yellow jersey throughout the time bonuses as only ten seconds are awarded to the stage winner. His compatriot Nikias Arndt of Team Sunweb rode the time trial just as fast as him. He'll be the local hero on German soil until Philippe Gilbert's fans will take over as the last 48.5km will be contested in Wallonia. Gilbert will race as Kittel's domestique though. The other top sprinters to watch are André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal), world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), French champion Arnaud Démare (FDJ), Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo), Michael Matthews (Sunweb) and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis).
It's a winner for Marcel Kittel after a crash takes down several top contenders. It looks like everyone is OK and will be back in the saddle tomorrow.
The early stages are accident prone as it is and the rain isn't helping.
Tomorrow is long and bumpy. The short climbs are worth some points so plenty of riders will be after Taylor Phinney's polka dot jersey. Sprint bonuses are abundant too.
Thanks for these updates. Dec 27, I crashed a mountain bike and broke my leg in 3 places. Wednesday, Bike to Work Day, was the first time I’ve been on a bike in six months.
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