In 1986, there were 10 Americans riding in the Tour. Greg LeMond and Andy Hampsten for Look/La Vie Claire and then practically the whole 7-Eleven team was made up of Americans: Alexi Grewal Davis Phinney Bob Roll Eric Heiden (yes, that one) Ron Kiefel Doug Shapiro Jeff Pierce Chris Carmichael
Wasn't that the year Alexi got hepatitis? I thought it was two years after the olympics. Am I off by a year? Funny story about Alexi. After a race near Denver a bunch of us were kind of sitting around shooting the breeze and Alexi and Ranjeet were there. We ranged from Cat-4 (me) to pros (them) and Alexi was being asked about training by one of my fellow cat-4s. He said he found every hill he could and climbed it "because you got to learn to love the burn, and I do". I don't know how much he really "loved the burn" but he sure intimidated the hell out of a lot of us that day! Anyway Davis and Connie Carpenter-Phinney were there too. She is one of the nicest people you would ever meet and he's pretty nice too (although both were really tough on the course). I remember how open it all was, with people trading tips and really trying to help each other out. It was fun being part of the Colorado racing scene back then because there were so many people that went on to prominence and they were such a great group. I started too late to really be competitive but I had a great time for a couple of years.
Can't remember if Alexi got hepatitis that year, but it might have been because I'm pretty sure he abandoned. I always heard that he was pretty much a prick from people who had met him. I raced at UGA.....came close to moving up to Cat 3 but that was it. Sadly, I'm not able to find the time for the sport anymore.
Yeah, I think that was the year. Alexi was a strange guy, even that one time I was talking about you could tell he was "working it", trying to get the edge. And he would definitely do anything to win. I'll leave it at that. I think that attitude really hurt him when he got sick, because he just didn't have the people around him who were real supportive. Strangely, in about '94 I was working in Boulder and my boss was one of Alexi's neighbors. I think he had really mellowed some by then though. I know what you mean. That's awesome that you came close to getting into th 3s. That's a lot of time in the saddle and a lot of dedication! At the time I was doing it (around the '84 Olympics) in CO if you wanted to move up you needed to be doing at least 200-250 mpw. Even with long rides on the weekend I just couldn't keep up the pace and work too. In addition we had the Olympic development guys that were doing 700. No way I was ever going to compete with those guys.
Thanks for the info - I figured it would've been mentioned in some previews by now if it was the largest number of Americans ever. At least it appears I was right about this being the most number of different teams in the Tour with at least one American rider.
Today is the day!!! Stage 1 begins when the first rider, Ludovic Turpin (AG2R), leaves the starthouse at 15.40 local time (9:40 am EDT). The last rider, Lance Armstrong, is scheduled to depart at 18.48 (12:48 pm EDT). The 19km ride is expected to take the riders somewhere around 24 minutes to complete. There are two intermediate time checks at 9.4 km and 14.9 km. Official list of riders/numbers is here: http://www.letour.com/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/100/coureurs.html The "hill" right at the beginning is the bridge from the mainland, but it's pan flat the rest of the way across te island of Noirmoutier. As for webstreams ... the official tour site has live video but only for residents of France. Supposedly, there is a way to set your proxies to fake it out and make it think you live there. I haven't tried it myself (and it seems illegit), but I saw instructions about it at the Maxxed Football Forum, here (you have to register for the site to see the posts): http://www.********.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25345 Also, FWIW, Italian TV channel RAI Sport Satellite has delayed daily coverage although beware because Italian TV listings are notoriously inaccurate and the link is not always dependable. Tonight, it's on at 23.30 Italian time (5:30 pm EDT). Sunday's stage 2 is being shown there on at 10.50 Italian time (4:50 pm EDT).
American CSC rider Dave Zabriskie won today's Stage 1 individual time trial, beating a surging Lance Armstrong by just 2 seconds. Zabriskie was just 19th out of the start house, and his time of 20:51 appeared to be unapproachable with only a handful of riders even coming within a minute of his time. It seemed like perhaps the winds had changed as even the better-known time trialists couldn't come close. Then Armstrong, last on the road, slipped off one of his pedals as he exited the starthouse. But that was just a glitch as he quickly made up ground on Jan Ullrich, who was next-to-last to start, one minute ahead. Armstrong was 3 seconds behind Zabriskie at the first time check and 3 seconds ahead at the second intermediate time check. He then embarrassed Ullrich by passing him with 3 km to go. In the end, Zabriskie's time held up, and the 26-year-old took the first yellow jersey of the race. But Lance established hefty time gaps over his main GC rivals - 51 seconds over Vinokourov, 1:06 over Ullrich, and 1:24 over Ivan Basso. Meanwhile, George Hincapie finished 4th and Floyd Landis 6th to make it 4 Americans in the top 6 after the first stage.
BTW, there is a 9th American in the race who nobody mentions much anymore, even the OLN guys - Guido Trenti of the Quickstep team. I don't remember his whole story, but he was born in Milan and at some point along the way took up American citizenship.
***Quick Mod Note*** If you guys are gonna talk about the day's stage, can you either please wait until after the first replay west coast time, or put the results in tags. But, if nobody minds about the days results, the ignore this note.
Storming ride by Zabriskie. He just became the first American to win a stage in each of the three Grand Tours.
As I've opined before, I think anybody who doesn't want to see a result should know better than to come here after the stage is over. I checked in here from work once (last year?) expecting tags, got burned and learned my lesson. Even if 99% of the posts are tagged, it only takes one to ruin things. But I'll tag from now on if people really want that.
FWIW, I just noticed the first replay was completed at 4:30 pm, so strictly speaking, I complied with your rule without realizing it.
I'll belabor the obvious here, but Armstrong really made a statement today about the competition. He was the only one to get close to Zabriskie's time. According to the OLN guys, Zabriskie had a lot more help from the wind than the others as well. Armstrong looked very ready (understatement of the day).
At last, its finally started! The only sports event I get truly excited about in the off-season of football. Wow, Armstrong isn't here to groom a team-mate to victory, as many hacks have suggested. That's it from Ullrich as far as I'm concerned, what a huge head-fcuk that must have been for him to see Lance steam past him. Vino looks sharp though. I just can't wait for the mountains
Good stuff Sue as always. Does anyone think that Lance slowed down a bit to avoid the yellow so early, and to allow his friend to win it? Going to ride my trainer and watch replay # 3
We sure as hell can't play soccer but Utah is first & 14th in the Tour! Well, Levi just went to high school here. Once when I was commuting home from work on my bike, I heard a whir in back of me and less than a second later, I saw a blue dot fading into the distance. A friend later told me that was Dave Zabriskie on a training ride.
Stage 2 is underway. www.letour.com (and other sites, probably) has live text dispatches. Here is today's profile - still flat with one climb classified as a Cat 4 probably just so they can give somebody the polka dot jersey. Zabriskie has the yellow and green jerseys (although Lance is wearing green, which must look strange!) while Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara has the white jersey for top young rider. There are 32 riders in the young rider competition this year. Here's the full standing after Stage 1, just for reference as to who is eligible: 071 CANCELLARA Fabian FAS SUI 037 KARPETS Vladimir IBA RUS 00' 03" 007 POPOVYCH Yaroslav DSC UKR 00' 16" 097 SANCHEZ Luis LSW ESP 00' 37" 185 GRIVKO Andriy DOM UKR 00' 44" 131 BOONEN Tom QST BEL 00' 47" 093 CONTADOR Alberto LSW ESP 00' 55" 074 FACCI Mauro FAS ITA 00' 58" 177 LÖVKVIST Thomas FDJ SWE 01' 04" 17 EISEL Bernhard FDJ AUT 01' 06" 056 POSTHUMA Joost RAB NED 01' 09" 108 KASHECHKIN Andrey C.A KAZ 01' 10" 112 ALBASINI Michael LIQ SUI 01' 12" 038 VALVERDE Alejandro IBA ESP 01' 22" 136 SINKEWITZ Patrik QST GER 01' 29" 167 WEGMANN Fabian GST GER 01' 30" 179 MOUREY Francis FDJ FRA 01' 38" 085 GOMEZ Jose Angel SDV ESP 01' 39" 145 GESLIN Anthony BTL FRA 01' 42" 094 DAVIS Allan LSW AUS 01' 42" 147 PINEAU Jérôme BTL FRA 01' 43" 048 VAN SUMMEREN Johan DVL BEL 01' 44" 148 SPRICK Matthieu BTL FRA 01' 54" 176 GILBERT Philippe FDJ BEL 02' 05" 205 GERRANS Simons A2R AUS 02' 06" 033 ARROYO David IBA ESP 02' 08" 073 CORIONI Claudio FAS ITA 02' 09" 204 DUMOULIN Samuel A2R FRA 02' 09" 186 IGLINSKIY Maxim DOM KAZ 02' 10" 155 LOOSLI David LAM SUI 02' 18" 059 WEENING Pieter RAB NED 02' 25" 189 VANOTTI Alessandro DOM ITA 02' 42 Team CSC leads the team standings on the strength of Zabriskie's great ride plus the good times of Jens Voigt (8th) and Bobby Julich (11th). Team Discovery is second by :04 via Armstrong, Hincapie and Rubiera's times. Tuesday's team time trial ought to be an interesting battle between those two teams, with Team CSC perhaps having the advantage of starting last unless something dramatic happens in the next two stages.
No problem. I just remember because this was the year I got involved in cycling and started following the sport fairly closely. topcat, my close brush with being moved up to Cat 3 had more to do with time than lots of top finishes....but it was fun. I miss it.....especially this time of year.
I understand all too well. One of the things my friends and I used to do after a race was get an entire package of "Chips Ahoy''s each and just lie there eating them and talking about the race. Those were the best cookies I ever had!
I cant help 'ing, when thinking about the Danish experts predicting only a week ago, that the Danish team CSC would most likely not win a single Stage in this years Tour (except perhaps Stage 4), since Bjarne Riis mainly had selected a team of mountain climbers in a more or less hopeless attempt to help Ivan Basso challenge Lance and Ullrich... and then Zabriskie win the 1st stage .