Tour de France: Stage 18 Live Thread (Friday, July 21, 2006) Morzine-Avoriaz to Mâcon

Tour de France website ^ | 7/21/06

[BaBaStooey]

And now, I am off for a petit déjeuner

[Ready4Freddy]

Usually 1 bike length is enough to screw you out of peloton time.

[leilani]

Jeez that was anti climatic.

Seriously,watching their last rest day at the hotel was more fun.(I was able to get a lot of stuff I'd been slacking off on done tho.)

[Ready4Freddy]

We had more posts on the Rest Day thread, didn't we?

[Ready4Freddy]

No, only 114 on Rest Day (but it was more fun! :)

[Vision]

Tomorrow will be exciting.

[yobid]

If Floyd is Wheelie the winner!!!

[Ready4Freddy]

Speaking of trying to create excitement where none exists - just think what all the pundits are faced with now, having to write their wrap-ups of today's stage!

[luv2ski]

Yeah, but we had a series debate going on mulligans! ;-D

[Ready4Freddy]

LOL!! I LOVED that 'article'!!!

[green iguana]

Thanks.

[Ready4Freddy]

Thank you!!!

[luv2ski]

All Star Barbecue!!!! ;-D

[Ready4Freddy]

Looks like all rcv'd peloton time of 8'00", up to #132 @ 9'13" behind. I get the feeling it's more art than science, esp w/ the longer stages.

[Ready4Freddy]

LOL, I understand this time....

[luv2ski]

OK, back to the Tour: my husband and I have a (friendly) debate going about Landis' performance yesterday. I said that I thought it took incredible courage for him to attack yesterday so early, especially since he ended up doing nearly the entire ride alone. my sweet hubby thinks that he really didn't have any choice. He was as low as he could go and had nothing to lose. I suggested that if he had failed in his attack it would have even been worse than the day before b/c he would have been utterly defeated/ destroyed. Plus, he could have quit- abandoned even. He could have said his hip hurt and this wasn't his year, blah blah blah.
I'm not looking for you to agree with me- just to participate in the debate.

[Ready4Freddy]

I took the trouble to draft Phil's, Paul's, and Bobke's Stage Reports for today:

"See you tomorrow."

;>)

[Ready4Freddy]

I think you're both right!

Hubby's right, and I think Landis may have said it himself - he had nothing to lose, and he knew that he had to make the break early, saying that he knew there was no way to make up the time he needed on the last climb. Everyone always has a choice - he chose victory.

And you're right, luvvy - it took incredible courage to do what he did. He knew that he had it in him, though, so it wasn't a fool's courage by any means. I think he has too much respect for himself, his team, the Tour, the sport of cycling, and his fans to have just blindly embarked on a suicide mission.

His winning combination of the best of some of Merckx' / Hinault's / Armstrong's legendary rides aside, I really think the most impressive part was what we talked about earlier in this thread - the peloton knew what he's capable of, they knew he might well try something, he knew they knew, and he did it anyway, making the break at the only time he could possibly make it stick (while the peleton is still trying to figure out what's going on), then made it work! I saw one review that described his ride as essentially a ~170km Time Trial through the mountains.

...and I didn't even mention his hip, and the fact that this may well be his last Tour...