Tour de France: Stage 17 Live Thread (Thursday, July 20, 2006) Col de Joux-Plane

VeloNews.com ^ | July 20, 2006 | VeloNews.com

[leilani]

LoL. With the "suffering on the Iron Cross" comment yesterday & your haiku there, they're going to have to come out with a new, revised edition of that "Dancing on the Pedals:The Found Poetry of Phil Ligett" book!

[NittanyLion]

Well, in the first time trial Landis put more than a minute into Pereiro and Sastre...so it should be pretty interesting on Saturday.

[gopwinsin04]

17:21 CEST
Pereiro was probably regetting his "Let him go, he'll die in the hills" tactic on the Col des Saisies. But he still leads the classification by 11 seconds from Sastre and 31 to Landis.

[green iguana]

Saturday's TT:

[commish]

Total complete shock at the moment. What an amazing ride by Floyd today. From out of the tour to :30 back in one stage.

He put 1:10 on Sastre, and an ungodly amount on Perreiro Sio in the first time trial.

With over 2 minutes on Kloden, Floyd is right back in the drivers seat for Saturday.

Tomorrow whould be interesting. Will Kloden and T-mobile try to attack, or will everyone behave and wait for Saturday?

[green iguana]

And on Sunday - racing 'til the end!

[Vision]

Floyd looks great in the post race interview. Says he wants it all.

[Ready4Freddy]

Notice that I didn't say 'inconcievable'! I know better, of course, because...:

'Boss, I do not think that word means what you think it does!" LOL!!!

[leilani]

Holy Cow! Floyd looks fresh as a daisy! I think the angels must have been pedaling for him today.He looks ready to go for another spin!

[bwteim]

Heheh.

Phil is Phab;)

[kevkrom]

Tomorrow whould be interesting. Will Kloden and T-mobile try to attack, or will everyone behave and wait for Saturday?

Can anyone else in contention allow Landis to be within 2' going into the ITT? They'll have to attack, unless there are other team goals to be met.

[gopwinsin04]

Didn't Lance have like a 1:20 lead going into Paris on one of his tours and no one bothered to attack?

[Ready4Freddy]

1'20" is pretty compelling, esp w/ the typical short parade route into Paris

[Eurotwit]

Amazing effort today.

I am speechless.

[commish]

Holy Cow! Floyd looks fresh as a daisy! I think the angels must have been pedaling for him today.He looks ready to go for another spin!

What is amazing is that Floyd has done this his way too. he did not break the backs of his teammates like others have done. Yes, he used them on the first climb, but then it was all Floyd Landis, and Saturday if he is to win, it will be all Floyd Landis.

It has been said many times that he didn't have the killer instinct to shred his team to pieces for himself. Well he found a way to do it without doing that.

[gopwinsin04]

Stage 18: Morzine-Avoriaz to Mâcon - 197km

Course: Although there are Cat. 2, Cat. 3 and Cat. 4 climbs in the middle section of this 197km stage from the Alps through the Jura mountains to the Saône Valley, the whole course is on wide routes nationales. The stage is likely to open with constant attacks before a breakaway establishes itself on the hills in the middle part of the stage. The last 50km are almost completely flat before the 400-meter final straightaway in the northern part of Mâcon. More

[gopwinsin04]

I'm sitting in my chair and still can't believe what I just saw.

[Ready4Freddy]

I've been thinking all day - now, this is gonna make people sit up & take notice of this Tour's 'forgotten stage', tommorow's. I bet it won't just be the sprinters out there trying to snag the last few points!!

[af_vet_rr]

Not only that, but at that point of the race, the sprinters/flat-landers are exhausted and way out of contention (if they weren't completly dropped, since there are cutoffs at certain points). What you end up with is the long-haul/mountain types and it's not often that they can make up that much time against similar riders on a flat stage.

Even though the ITTs are not as tough as say today's stage, in the past Lance, and now Landis, did well in them because they were able to pace themselves a lot better than other riders. I don't know how they can do it.

[Ready4Freddy]

TT's are a total 'inside job' (as was Landis' ride today)