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

Tour de France website ^ | 7/21/06

[Aeronaut]

Daily coverage of the Tour de France.

[Paradox]

Your husband has a point. It may have beem more an act of desparation than courage. That does nothing to minimize what he did, however. That was simply one of the great Tour rides of all time. It took determination, skill, and willpower. It took guts, in that had he failed, he would have failed spectacularly, and humiliated himself, in his eyes, to his team mates.

So I would say it did take some courage too, but it was more a test of grit and will.

[leilani]

If R4F won't take a whack, I will.I'm with hubby.(Tell him we all say hi, BTW, he should stop by sometime) Not that I think it was a calculated strategic decision per se, I just don't think his mind was even capable of entertaining a choice about it for one minute. If he was going to be able to live with himself for the rest of his life, he had to go for it, do or die.He probably gave about as much thought to it as he thought about taking his next breath. I wouldn't say it didn't take courage, but I think the courage required to get it done yesterday was predicated on a pretty powerful involuntary reflex.

[Ready4Freddy]

Just wondering... what does leilani's blog on her tribute site for Chou-Chou Dessel have to say? ;>)

Every team, every rider and most of their wives or girl friends have websites or diaries, too.

[leilani]

Oops.Looks like R4F posted in the time it took to write mine. Cancel first sentence of post above.

[Ready4Freddy]

In one of the iterviews w/ Landis he said that they discussed the stategy over dinner. Don't forget that the entire Phonak team led him out to the front of the peloton just before he launched.

[BaBaStooey]

I had a good one yesterday of Floyd smiling just after he broke away from the group (they can be seen over his shoulder in the background).

[Ready4Freddy]

He prolly didn't have time to look back. He's probably a Satchel Paige fan, too!

[leilani]

My blog says, translated by Babelfish from the original French, that Chou-Chou, at #7 GC, still has a better shot at yellow on Sunday than lots of other guys who were the experts' fave pics for this rodeo!

[Ready4Freddy]

Plus, that's just not Floyd's style. There's a difference between Lance looking back at Jan when they are the only two around, and Landis looking back into the lion's mouth at the start of his adventure!

[Ready4Freddy]

Getting back to the idea of diff ppl scouring diff sites - let's try to remember to talk about this next late June, and get ppl to volunteer for the various sites. Doesn't really matter to me what sites certain ppl do (tho you may be better for the more obscure blogs, bay), I just know I could do a better job of getting links to the threads if I wasn't looking at 5-6 diff sites all the time.

[BaBaStooey]

(AP Photo/Alessandro Trovati)

[leilani]

R4F: I think I'm going to be awfully busy in June provisioning your Sou'wester for the Ping List Prologue Party on the Thames...maybe we should start earlier?

[Wyatt's Torch]

He might be smiling (makes for a good story) but I'm thinking he is grimacing as he is trying to breakaway on the cimb. Look at the tension in his left arm and left quad....

[green iguana]

Dibs on Cyclingnews...

[ironman]

"Apparently he (Landis) had a flat tire right before the start. Then in the ITT, his aerobars broke off b/c the race organizers had made him lower them just before his start. He also had to switch out his bike. IIRC, he rode the remainder of the ITT on a 3rd bike."

Landis had a cut tire not a flat and they made a choice to go ahead and change it. Afterwards of course he said he wished he had not done that. He did change bikes because of the handelbar problem as noted. I was not aware of any other bike changes. He did changes bikes yesterday due to a broken spoke.

[razzle]

Regrding TiVo of the Tour, I was hesitating to buy TiVo since a hi-def version of TiVo should come out soon, with Blu-Ray already out for high-def DVDs. Of course OLN is not in high-def (too bad the Tour is not on Discovery High-Def channel - wow). I have the tapes of 99 to 04 Tours but never really sat down and watched them again after the first viewing.

[luv2ski]

Yeah, I have tapes (DVDs), too. I keep thinking I'll watch them but the truth is, it goes into that pile of stuff I'm going to do when I am an empty nester (put all the family photos on DVDs, clean out all the closets...) You know, on second thought, I think I'll just travel!

[luv2ski]

I should have known that you would ALL TAKE HIS SIDE! ;-D

Oh well, after 26 years I'm used to it!

Let's get ready to RUMBLE! (cue music...) tomorrow! I am already nervous!