KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 17

All that work for nothing. Great.

Dammit Liquigas!
Other than his comical looks and sense of style, I've never had much against Bradley Wiggins, but I really wanted to choke him, Sky and Liquigas today. This ridiculous sham of a battle for the Yellow Jersey killed the stage today and we were left with nothing. Well, actually Valverde was pretty bad ass today, but that was about it.

We were robbed.
There were plenty of interesting prospects to win today in that leading group that got away early in the stage. Valverde, Rui Costa, Sandy Casar, Egoi Martinez, Jean-Christophe Peraud, Ten Dam, Hoogerland, Vinokourov, Gorka Izaguirre, Leipheimer, Chris Anker Sorensen... This was building up to be an epic (sorry, I had to) battle for the stage, but it wasn't to be. Why? Because in the main bunch Liquigas kept the tempo so high they brought the break back. One by one, until only Valverde was left.

And what did Liquigas get in exchange for suffocating the stage? Oh, yeah: Nothing. Not a thing. Nibali actually lost time. Thanks guys.

It got worse.
Ok, so the useless Liquigas shenanigans neutralized the battle for the stage. I was already resigned, but at least the Yellow Jersey group would go for the stage themselves and we'd have a small, little, tiny race for the stage, right? WRONG. Froome, once again stronger than his leader, could have, should have dropped his ass and chase Valverde down. Could he have caught him? Passed him? Taken the stage? We will never know, because Sky (or Wiggins, depending on who you believe) didn't want it to happen. Why? Why on earth wouldn't he be allowed to? Wiggins has more than 2 minutes on him! There was no way Froome could have taken that in the last 4k!

"Why wait on Bradley when the yellow jersey not in danger?" -Sean Yates

Damn this Tour!

Still...
I want to highlight two riders, not only today, but throughout the last week or so.
- Thomas Voeckler, of course. He deserves that Polka Dot jersey, he earned it with his sweat. The barrage on poor Kessiakoff today was striking. Also, the Tour that
- Chris Horner is having has been astonishing.

As far as I'm concerned the Tour is over. Thanks for coming.




Ok, I'll see you guys here tomorrow.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 16

Johan Museeuw would have guys like Wiggins for breakfast.

Pessimist and Negative.
I have been accused of being a pessimist and negative when it comes to cycling today. I prefer the term "jaded," but yeah, I'm hard on the sport these days, and yes, I long for a time when cyclists had a little more... panache. Today I saw what's still great about the sport and what's killing it.


The Stage.
The race for the stage into Bagnères-de-Luchon today was simply amazing. It was a real cycling race, a true slugfest between guys who were depleted and drained. The contenders? Thomas Voeckler, Jens Voigt, Chris Anker Sørensen and Alexander Vinokourov. The average age right there is about 64. Old school, stubborn hard men, in the vein of Johan Museeuw, Ludo Dierckxsens, and, well and Alexander Vinokourov. That Gorka Izaguirre, and Brice Feillu also fought in there gives me a little bit of hope for the sport. For the sport, yeah, but for the Tour? If today had been a one day race it would have been one for the ages, but it wasn't. It was a stage in a rather uneventful Tour de France.


The GC "Battle"
While the real cyclists were in an all-out war up in the front of the race, the "favorites" (whose favorites? They aren't my favorite anything) were back there sitting on each other's wheel. It got SO boring that Cadel Evans actually fell asleep. That's why he started to yo-yo in and out of the bunch; the dude could hardly keep his eyes open.
Ok, so the fact is that Evans lost time today, because he obviously isn't in great form, not because he was attacked, or put in any kind of difficulty. Nibali did try. Twice. For a total of 36 seconds of excitement. UK Postal (™Gage+DeSoto Industries) has been so dominant during this Tour that it has chocked the beauty out of it.


To Hell with the Tour!
Pretty much every year, around this time, I decide that the Tour is too commercial and pretty for me and that the Classics is where it's at. But every spring I watch an awesome Giro, get all excited and BAM!! I get hit with the Tour de Prance™reality stick.


Tomorrow?
I give up on the GC. I officially do not care what Wiggins or Nibali do. Especially since they won't do anything. So, all I care about now is the race for the stage, and tomorrow should be a good one! Can't wait!

Should be an awesome stage. Let's just hope the cameras don't spend too much time on Wiggo.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 15

Mr. Beechcroft, the hamster, made a run for it last night.

My girlfriend's hamster escaped last night and I had to get up at 7:30am to move furniture and look for him. We eventually found him, but I missed most of the stage. What did I miss, I wondered? Nothing at all, was the answer.

Rest day tomorrow? Good, I need a rest from all this crappy "racing."

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 14

Puns.
A-tack. Karpets tacks. Tack-y. All hilarious puns made after today's disastrous stage. By hilarious, of course, I mean stupid. And I do not mean disastrous because of the tacks.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize.
The whole ordeal with the tacks on the summit of the Mur de Peguere is a real bummer. It had been a long time since something like this had happened in a Grand Tour and now I'm afraid there will be copy cats out there trying to replicate the stunt in other races.
As shitty a situation as that was, let's not lose sight of what the real problem was with today's stage: Nothing interesting had happened up until that point and chances are nothing interesting would have happened. Nibali, Evans and their teams didn't try anything all stage. Even Froome was hardly on screen. So, when Evans first pulled over with a rear puncture, I thought: Game on! Finally something is gonna happen. Nope. Wiggins rightfully neutralized the stage and we were back to status quo. Unfortunately for me, that status quo in this year's Tour has been anything but exciting.
Now, I am not saying that Liquigas or Lotto-Belisol should have attacked, or that what Sky did was wrong, but what I am saying is that even when I thought I was gonna get some awesome racing, I didn't. Until later when I saw the Tour of Poland stage. It was brilliant.

Poor ol' Pierre Rolland.
Let's give this dude a break. He went for it, but went back to the peloton. End of story. Listen, last time I checked, the Tour was a race. Not a parade of "gentlemen" riding their bikes through France, advertising national lotteries and banks. Let's ask ourselves a question: Do we think that Merckx would have taken advantage of that situation? I'd like to think he would have. That's why he was the "Cannibal" and not the "Gentleman."

I understand good sportsmanship, but I also understand not giving a rat's ass about it. In my eyes, if Rolland would have gone for it and ended 6th in the GC, I would not have had a problem with that. If Van Garderen and Brajkovic didn't react, that's on them, not on Rolland. The race between Nibali, Evans and Wiggins, was the one that was affected by the retards with the tacks.

“I lived a very different cycling, at the beginning of a sprint, I felt like a gladiator, ready to do anything to keep my place." Cipollini, a man's man.

  

When the Lion King roared.
Maybe cycling is gotten way too gentlemanly and the grit and brutality, which is what attracted me to the sport in the 80s, is disappearing. To quote one of my favorite riders of all time, the Mighty Super Mario Cipollini: “In five hundred years or more, human beings might have both sets of genitalia, male and female. I don’t want this evolution to have started already in cycling…” Let's try to ignore the not-so-subtle sexism in the comment. The message is clear, nowadays cycling has gotten too soft. But there's always an excuse, isn't there? Stages are shorter because of TV rights and stages aren't as hard because the season is longer, and this and that, and sponsors and big contracts and big money and we end up with boring races and 200 gentlemen prancing through the fields of France making sure no one's feelings are hurt.


Do You Like Prancing? Tune in Tomorrow.

I'll be tuning it to watch the last 5k.

Anyway.
On a lighter note: my brother, the master mind behind Cycling Inquisition, posted a gem for all of us. It's his view of today's madness. Do check it out here.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 13

Cadel Evans, Jurgen Van den Broeck and Nicolas Roche: tiny little dig on Mont Saint-Clair

You May be Right, I May Be Crazy. 
Ok, I'll admit it, I was partially wrong yesterday. Today's stage had more than 10 minutes of action. It had 12. Still, not much to be said. With the "climb" so far from the finish the GC contenders didn't do much, except for a small acceleration by Cadel Evans and Jurgen Van den Broeck on Mont Saint-Clair.

I expected more craziness from Vinokourov

Alexander Nikolaevich Vinokourov.
Crazy Vino put in a nice dig along with Michael Albasini at the end of the stage and it almost paid off, but for Lotto-Beli-Soul Train.

The Final Sprint.
Lotto-Belisol pulled for the last 10k at dropped the last remaining weaklings that were still hanging on to the tail-end of the peloton after the final "climb." Greipel looked to be in the best position with the strongest lead-out train (with Sagan just behind as a sneaky stowaway.) But at some point with 2 or 3 kilometers to go, Lotto disappeared off the front and Wiggins started to lead Boasson Hagen out. Then, the Gorilla woke up and beat Sagan on the line. Good sprint, good finish to another bore-fest.

The Gorilla barely beat The Tourminator. God, those are awful nicknames.

The Pyrenees!
The high mountains return tomorrow. Three categorized climbs, two of the them 1st category. The first one, Port de Lers, is over 11 kilometers, but my guess is that the fireworks won't start until the main group get over the summit.

If I were Nibali. 
If I were the leader of Liquigas-Cannondale, I'd go on the attack as soon as the descent of the first climb starts. Put Team Sky on the defensive from early on. Give it full gas and try to get a minute on them by the time the Mur de Péguère starts. While shorter, this climb is steeper and this should help Nibali, since Wiggins isn't the best in this type of ascents. It's almost 40k to the finish from the top of the Mur de Péguère, but most of it is a technical descent, once again favoring the Italian.

If I were Evans. 
Well, if I were the Australian, I would pray. First, I would pray and Froome and Porte have a bad day. I'd pray that Nibali doesn't have the balls (or legs) to do what I described above. If my prayers were to be answered, I'd send a few teammates up the road (maybe even van Garderen), attack on the last climb, catch up with them go balls-out to the finish.

If I were Froome.
Simple: I'd put some serious laxatives on Bradley's breakfast porridge and destroy everyone on the first climb.

Hopefully Evans and Nibali will attack Wiggins.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 12

Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal. You can all thank me for not using an image of earwax sculptures.

Did anyone see where I put my shotgun? I want to shoot myself.
Remember when I said yesterday that today's stage was being run backwards? And that anything interesting that could happen in the early climbs would be over by the time the stage ended? Well, even I, with my perpetual negativity, could not have predicted just how BORING this stage turned out to be. The grupetto caught back up with the peloton 80 kilometers out! 80 kilometers left to ride and the sprinters were back in the main field. WHY ON EARTH BOTHER WITH THE TWO CLIMBS THEN?

The stage was SO boring, the highlight of the Eurosport broadcast was Carlton Kirby and David Harmon discussing earwax sculptures on matchsticks and Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal. I don't even want to think about what Liggett and Sherwen were talking about! Wait, they were probably on a commercial break or some stupid, useless segment sponsored by SRAM. Never mind.

Anyway, do you think the topics of Naïve art (earwax sculptures) and Naïve architecture (Palais Idéal) would have come up if the Col de Grand-Cucheron and the Col du Granier, had been in the LAST 80 kilometers, instead of the FIRST? Of course not.

Tomorrow's stage is going to suck, too. It has a cat 3 "climb" with 23k to go that may provide about 10 minutes of excitement. It does, after all, climb to a WHOPPING 159 meters! I can spit farther than that.

I hate the ASO and they can kiss my ass.

217 kilometers of pure, unadulterated boredom. Woopty friggin' doo!!!

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 11

Today Richie Porte and Chris Froome showed, again, why Sky is the strongest team in the Tour.

Race within a race.

Even though I hate when cycling commentators use that phrase to describe "lesser" classifications within a race like the Tour de France, I will use it here, because that's exactly what was happening all over the Alps today. The stage was simply fascinating. There was the race for the stage, The KOM classification, the White Jersey and the General Classification, of course. All on, all at the same time.

The Stage.
When the last 1st Category climb started, there was still no clear favorite to take the stage. It was impossible to even guess if the Yellow Jersey group would catch Kiryenka., Chris Anker Sørensen, Rolland and Kessiakoff. And since no one knew who was between the leading group and the reduced peloton, the mystery was even greater. Then, as we got closer to the finish, and the GC battle was on full effect, Thibaut Pinot, Christopher Froome, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, and even Vincenzo Nibali became candidates for the win. Pierre Rolland, even with a crash on the descent off the Col du Mollard, was the strongest (smartest?) at the end and took the second victory for Europcar in as many days.
 
Climber's Pride.
Apparently yesterday's hero, Thomas Voeckler, killed his legs in his valiant efforts to take the win in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. It was pretty obvious from the first climb today (Col de la Madeleine) that Voeckler was not going to defend the Polka Dot Jersey, especially since the man in second place, Fredrik Kessiakoff had gotten himself into the 31-man break further up the race. To make matters even more interesting the man in third (Scarponi) was also on the break and the man in fourth (Froome) had the job of bringing Wiggins up the climbs, all the while reducing the size of the break and therefore getting himself more points. Add to that a ballsy performance by Pinot (who came in with 16 points), and you had a very interesting and exciting race for the Dots.The Swede Kessiakoff added 48 points to his tally and now leads Pierre Rolland by 11 points.This competition is just now starting.

Tejay in White, but how long until his boss costs him more time?

See? I told you so.
I mentioned in yesterday's post how the race for the White Jersey was heating up, and today proved to be a great battle. Normally a rider like Tejay van Garderen has very little chance to fight for the White Jersey. Simply put, he has to sacrifice his chances to work for his leader, in this case Cadel Evans. It can be frustrating, I'm sure, but that's cycling. Cofidis' Rein Taaramae and FDJ's Tibaut Pinot don't have this burden. Still, van Garderen was doing well and kept trading the Jersey with Taaramae a few times. Well, today, the Estonian cracked and the White Jersey seemed to belong to the American. But not so fast. Pinot (having the Tour of his short life), was riding like a champ and Tejay was forced to stay back and pace Evans up the last climb. He lost over a minute to Pinot, who now sits a mere 1:54 back. What happened to Taaramae, you ask? I think he's still on the slopes of La Toussuire. I hope someone leaves the light on.

And the big boys?
Evans attacked early with Tejay van Garderen, but Cadel could not keep up. Nibali attacked twice up the last climb, but Froome brought him back. Team Sky has been performing very well. Especially Boasson Hagen, Porte, and Froome. Froome is so strong, in fact, he dropped Wiggins on the last climb and had to basically drive back down the mountain to pick him up. After today's implosion of Evans, and Nibali's failed attempts, I think the only rider strong enough to take the Yellow from Wiggins is Chris Froome. And how awesome would it be if he did?

One thing is for sure, Evans' and Wiggo's lieutenants are in better shape than their bosses right now. Can't wait to see what happens.

Chapeau!
Aside from the obvious, I'd like to remove my proverbial hat to Vasil Kiryienka, Jurgen Van Den Broeck, and Chris Horner for an amazing stage.


Tomorrow.
Stages like these piss me off. They are racing it backwards. The Col de Grand-Cucheron and the Col du Granier are going to waste that early in a stage. Anything half-way interesting that could happen on the slopes, can be neutralized 10 times over in the 4509kms after. Meh.

What a waste of perfectly good first category Cols.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 10

The Tour will cross the Col de la Croix de Fer tomorrow after 93kms of racing.

Finally. The real Tour begins.
The Tour went over its first HC climb today (Col de Grand Colombier), and for the first time in this year's race, I was really excited. Was I excited because Liquigas played a really good strategy sending Sagan up the road and later helping Nibali on the descent off the Gran Colombier? A little. Was I excited because Richie Porte and Boasson Hagen are two of the the best domestiques Wiggins could have asked for? A little. Was I excited because Van Den Broeck went up the front and tighten the screws 4 or 5 times? A little. However, the reason I was really excited was that RadioShack refused to wear the stupid yellow helmets as leaders in the team classification. Good for you RadioShack-Nissan!

The Youngens.
Remember last year's quest for the White Jersey? Uran, Taaramae, Rolland, Coppel, Jeannesson... All with a good chance, all fighting for it. And remember this year's Giro? Uran, Henao, Brambilla, Caruso, Ulissi...
This year Tejay and Taaramae's battle looks to be getting pretty exciting, too. Thibaut Pinot, in third right now, could provide another contender if the two leaders have a bad day. Not to jinx anyone here, but both of those guys have had bad days already, so anything could happen.

The Not-So Youngens.
I'm sure Jens told his legs to shut up more than once today. The German rode a gutsy stage, only to come in third, after Voeckler and Scarponi.
Today's battle between old man Voigt (40) and old man Voeckler (33), was actually the battle between two of the hardest and most stubborn men riding a bike professionally these days. It was amazing.

"Shut up, legs!"

Sad, But True.
Sorry for that lame Metallica reference. I guess it can't be the Tour without cops and suspensions and arrests and other dopping related shenanigans. Remy DiGregorio of Cofidis was forced to retire from the race because of some shit he did or didn't do while in Astana. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

Tony Martin also left the race along with Lampre's Matthew Lloyd. That brings the total of retirees to 23. The worst affected teams are:
- 4 Euskaltel-Euskadi
- 3 Garmin-Sharp
- 3 Movistar
- 2 Lampre-ISD
- 2 Rabobank
- 2 Argos-Shimano


What's Next?
Well, the Cols of la Madeline, la Croix de Fer (I call this one the Col de Motorhead, since it translates to the Pass of the Iron Cross), Mollard and La Toussuire. Should be another exciting one, epecially with the mountain-top finish.
Let's hope for continued attempts by Liquigas and Lotto, and, if we are lucky, BMC. Tomorrow is the last chance to attack before we go back to medium mountain and back to flat stages.

Col de la Madeline will open the festivities tomorrow.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 9

Wiggins rode his bike really fast today. Alone.

Today, Cancellara went really fast. Froome went faster. Wiggins went even faster. Cadel Evans didn't go that fast. A whole bunch of other dudes tried to go faster, but didn't. They all wore funny helmets.

The end.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 8

There were more French riders in the break today, than at a Peugeot/Citroën sale in Saint-Ouen.

Vive la France!
Never mind that Thibaut Pinot won today's stage, and in so doing, he spared Marc Madiot an annurysm, the fact is that France had to wait for the Tour to go to Switzerland to have a great stage.

With 30k to go, there were no fewer than six French riders with a legitimate chance at the stage and two seriously chasing the White Jersey. Thibaut Pinot, Tony Gallopin, Jeremy Roy, Blel Kadri, David Moncoutie: Sounds like the starting line-up for Nantes. It has become a bit of a joke just how bad the French do in their National Tour, but among the names above there's a few young, upcoming quality riders that may (just may) be the future of French cycling. And, yes, I'm well aware that "the future of French cycling" has been announced innumerable times since the days of Hinault.

Marc Madiot narrowly avoids a heart attack as Pinot crosses the line in Porrentruy

Other Heroes of the Day
Yes, the French had a great day and Frederik Kessiakoff of Astana rode like a beast, but you know who surprised me today? The Lotto-Belisol duo of Jurgen Van Den Broeck and Jelle Vanendert. On the last 1st category climb, they went up to the front of the Leader's group and destroyed it, reducing the gap to breakaway by 40 seconds in just over 5k. Van Den Broeck jumped 4 spots in GC today, and now sits in 8th, 2:11 from Wiggins.

Euskadiko Hondamendi Izugarri
(Terrible Disaster for the Basques)
Just one day after losing Txurruka and Astarloza in the crash into Metz, today Euskaltel-Euskadi lost Gorka Verdugo (due to injuries suffered yesterday), and Olympic Gold Medalist Sammy Sanchez due to a nasty crash with 98k still to go in the stage. Early reports were that Sanchez had fractured a wrist and his clavicle, but apparently, the collarbone is just bruised. Whether or not this academic difference is enough to keep Sanchez's dreams of defending his Olympic Gold alive, is yet to be seen.

Of Note
Thibaut Pinot is the youngest rider in this year's Tour. Second youngest, Peter Sagan. Between them, they have won half of the stages so far.

One Last Thing
Unless something amazing happens tomorrow (no, a change in the top 5 on the GC does not mean "amazing" in my book), I have a feeling my report of the TT will be very brief, since, chances are, I'm not gonna watch it. Yawn... getting sleepy just thinking about it.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 7

Guys in the crash yesterday thought they'd had it bad? Look at MY hand!

I have to apologize for posting so late in the day. I know many of you await my daily recaps so anxiously, that diarrhea and strokes have been reported. The cause for the delay? Two pretty bad things happened to me today. Allow me to explain.

While riding my bike with friends early this morning, an asshat driving a crappy Impala got all pissy cuz we were riding side-by-side (which is 100% legal in Pennsylvania), and decided to "teach us a lesson" (his words). He proceeded to drive into me, hitting my handlebars with his mirror and running me off the road. I crashed into a ditch and landed on my right hand, breaking the 5th metacarpal. The cops got there, they were cool, I'll be seeing Mr. Impala in court soon.

But remember, I said two bad thing happened. The second is far more tragic: Because of the accident I was unable to watch today's stage live on Eurosport, and I had to settle for the shitty U.S. coverage with Phil and Paul on the NBC Sorts Network on DVR. It was brutal. There were so many commercials and so many names were mispronounced or completely wrong (I didn't know Magnus Backstedt had come out of retirement and riding with BMC), that I'm surprised I actually saw Froome cross the line and that he was not identified as Ramunas Navardauskas. Painful to hear Phil Liggett these days. Painful.

What a stage!
Luis Leon Sanchez smacked a moron spectator with 30k to go, Cancellara showed what he's made of, once again and we finally got a real climber wearing the polka dots.

Sure, Spartacus lost the Yellow Jersey today, but he went up that last climb like a champ. He came in only 1:52 back, and alongside Van den Broeck, Vanendert and Rui Costa. Not exacty climbing slouches. The Swiss beat Valverde, Scarponi, Weening, and even my pick for the stage Kiryienka. Hats off to you, once again, Fabian Cancellara.

Finally, a climber wearing the ugliest jersey in the Tour.

Now, on to the Kenyan/South African/Brit sensation Chris Froome. Hadn't heard much from him since he almost won last year's Vuelta, but boy, did he show himself today. It's not very often that a domestique works his ass off, puts his man exactly where he needs to be, drops him off and takes a stage win. You know what they say about domestiques and their days... speaking of that, isn't crazy how stacked Sky really is? Chris Froome is considered a domestique! He could be leading most of the other teams in the Tour. I wonder if Evans was shaking when Tejay (his last teammate) started to struggle and Wiggins still had 4 dudes with him.

One last thing about today's stage: Rein Taaramäe. This little shit can ride. When is someone gonna pay attention to me and get him off that horrible team he's in!


Tomorrow?
Plenty of Cotes and Cols to go around. Breakaways for sure. If in good form, look for Hoogerland or Kiryienka (I know, I know). But don't pay attention to me. What do I know? My fantasy team is doing so bad, FDJ and Saur Sojasun are making fun of me.

Bums and lumps all the way to Switzerland.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 6

Fatty in Yellow (left) had the best seat in the house today.

This is not the type of excitement I was asking for, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

Let's get the obvious out of the way: Peter Sagan (and his little bell) is the real deal, but he's not in my fantasy team, so the hell with him.


Carnage?
Nope. Even with the massive pile-up, today's crash hardly qualifies to be described as "carnage." Thankfully, there was no major injuries, no blood and no severed limbs.


Who were the winners (aside from Sagan, of course) on today's stage?
 - Fatty in Yellow (see above). He witnessed the whole thing from the first row.

- Evans, Wiggins, Menchov, Van den Broeck, Sanchez and Nibali; they stayed up-right and didn't lose any time or spent any nervous energy chasing.

- Me. I was a winner, cuz I finally got something interesting to look at.


Who are the losers?
- Is it over? If your name is Ryder Hesjedal, yes, it is. The Canadian lost over 13 minutes today, and retired after the stage.

- For Gesink, Valverde, Frank Schleck and Brajkovic, Scarponi it may not be. They lost 2:09 today (a bit more for Gesink), but if they have the form to crush it in the big mountains, any one of them can get back into it.

- KMC looked like SRAM when Vacansoleil's Marco Marcato's chain broke on the final sprint. (Thanks to my brother Klaus for pointing out Vacansoleil doesn't ride Shimano chains.)

- The following riders retired as a result of today's crash (I still wonder if Fatty in Yellow had something to do with it):
   - Oscar Freire (broken rib, punctured lung)
   - Tom Danielson (separated shoulder)
   - Wout Poels (torn kidney, splene, bruised lungs and three broken ribs)
   - Davide Viganò (who might have been the one who caused the crash)
   - Amets Txurruka (collar bone)
   - Mikel Astarloza (dislocated elbow, no fracture)
   - Imanol Erviti (cuts on right leg)
   - Ryder Hesjedal (broken heart)

- Not yet retired, but pretty banged up:
   - Gorka Verdugo (10cm cut in his leg)
   - José Iván Gutiérrez (knee)
   - Johan Vansummeren (see pic below)

Vansummeren looked all types of messed up. Will he start tomorrow?

Maybe Fatty in Yellow (on right) can really tell us who is to blame for today's melee.

So, tomorrow... Finally something to talk about
The medium mountain stage won't  decide the Tour or anything like that, but I'm hoping for the favorites to show themselves in the last climb to Planche des Belles Filles (translation: "Plank of the Pretty Girls," which incidentally is what I call my back porch.) The climb is just under 6km long, but averages 8.5% gradient, with a 22% stint in the last 500 meters. That's steep, ladies and pretty girls.

Last day for Cancellara in Yellow?

The two 3rd category climbs may give a breakaway a chance, but I'm predicting the stage will be decided by a small bunch with all the favorites. If a good, strong climber, without GC aspirations (a Kyrienka, for example) can hang on to the leading group, he may take the stage, but let's not discount Sammy Sanchez. If allowed to go, a finish like this has his name all over it.

The last 6km. Will the winner get all the pretty girls?

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 5

Today's stage felt longer than the 100 Years War

Well, I don't wanna say I told you so, but I told you so.


With the chances of Mr. Cash actually raising from the grave and showing up at the end of the stage to perform any of his hits (or Pablo Urtasun surprising the sprinters) being slim to none, today's stage was SO boring, Carlton Kirby and David Harmon from Eurosport actually said, and I quote "That's how bored we are," while going on and on about the 100 Years War.

Newsworthy?
- Two in a row for Greipel and his  Lotto Beli-Soul Train®. What's your excuse now, Cav?
- J.J. Haedo and Tom Veelers had an awesome sprint.
- Marcel Kittel and his white poopie-shorts abandoned the Tour.
- Farrar gets caught up in a crash, again. He has turned into this year's Denis Menchov. Anyway, he finished dead last, over four minutes down, and then went all cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs after the stage, blamed Veelers for his crash and decided to head to the Argos-Shimano bus and attempt a Carlos Barredo on him. It didn't work.




So, was Farrar right? Who really cares, but here's a video that shows the crash. Pause it 0:03 seconds in, right in the middle of the screen. Is Veelers leaning into Farrar? I don't know. If anything, The two Lampre riders slightly veered right and were the ones who caused the crash. Whichever way, THANK YOU, TYLER! That 0:36 clip was way more exciting than anything else that happened on the road today.





Now that we didn't settle that at all, there's something else I wanted to point out: the word "carnage" gets thrown around way to easily in cycling. Let's not exaggerate, people. Four guys going down, with no fractures, is most definitely (yeah, I know that's redundant) not "carnage." Want carnage? Read some book about the 100 Years War.

Now, I wish I could tell you that tomorrow is gonna be better. I wish I could sing Tomorrow to you all, like the little annoying orphan Annie. I wish I could tell you the sun will come up tomorrow... but sadly, it won't. Get ready for dumb and dumber in the commentary box (whichever feed or language you chose to watch, it doesn't really matter) making up shit to talk about while the rest of us check our email or do the dishes.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

PD: Rob Goris of team Accent.Jobs-Willems Veranda's passed away Wednesday night of a heart attack in his hotel room. He was in France as a guest of VRT (Flemish TV). Goris was 30-years old. Bummer.

Rob Goris. 1982 - 2012

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 4

Yukiya Arashiro, you'll be hard pressed to find a nicer guy in the peloton.

 
Happy Independence Day to all my Yankee readers. Last year US cycling fans celebrated this special day with a Tyler Farrar victory. Today, Chris Horner was the best placed of the Americans in 63rd spot and Farrar came in 4:13 after Greipel, in 185th position. The only thing Uncle Sam can be proud of today is, once again, is Tejay Van Garderen (not to be confused with TJ Hooker or TJ Maxx), who is still wearing the White Jersey.


So, today's stage was, as I had anticipated, pretty dumb, with only five things worth mentioning:

First off, we didn't see Morkov, or his retarded petechiae helmet.

Second, because of my affinity to Japanese riders, it was pretty cool to see Arashiro in the break, winning the Most Combative Rider award and being interviewed after the stage. If you ever get a chance to meet Yukiya, go up to him. His English isn't the best, but he is the absolute nicest of guys.

Thirdly (I just learned that "thirdly" is an actual word), the Lotto Beli-Soul Train®, was awesome today and delivered Greipel to a pretty relaxed victory with only a half-cocked (he is 89 years-old, after all) Petacchi challenging him.

Fourthly (not an actual word), now you can see the need of a team around you, mister Cav.

Fifth, on diarrhea watch: Marcel Kittel finished almost 5 minutes back, and now sits just one spot ahead of lantern rouge Brice Feillu in the General Classification.

Tomorrow? *sigh*
The only thing that can make tomorrow's stage watchable is if Johnny Cash himself rises from the grave and performs Saint-Quentin at the finish line, in Saint-Quentin.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 3

Enough with the Halloween costume, bro. You are not a climber, and we all know it.

This morning I felt like someone switched my morning orange juice with Jägermeister. What happened to the Tour de France? The first week and a half is supposed to be boring, predictable, breakaway-gets-caught-sprinters-sprint type stages! You know, like yesterday's.

Well, as much as I love orange juice (I actually don't), I love me some Jäger.

Before we go and get all happy-dappy over another stage with no mention of the Sky train, or Mark Cavendish, let's get a few complaints out of the way.

It was nice to see Morkov go on the break for a third day in a row, in search of a few more crumbs, but that polka-dot helmet has got to go. Please. It's tacky and an insult to real climbers; guys who have fought in the real mountains in the past, for the honor to wear the hideous jersey. Climbers like Tony Rominger, Lucien Van Impe, Luis Herrera, Federico Bahamontes, and Marco Pantani, have worn the red spots with pride and earned that right with their sweat and pain. For some random track yahoo to come out and cheapen the Dots is a disgrace. Of course, I know that the jersey has to be worn for sponsorship commitments, and of course Morkov is the leader of the competition, but to "over-celebrate" it by wearing the helmet that Sax-off probably created for Chris Anker Sorensen is just lame.

Another very important issue that needs to be addressed is that of Astana's Andriy Grivko's Ukrainian National Champion kit. The ASO and the UCI should not allow the kit to look so different that the rest of the team's. It confuses me and it makes the rest of Astana's riders jealous. "How come Grivko doesn't have to wear hideous teal, but we do?"

On to better things:
- BMC and Evans once again showed to be in pretty good shape and I hope it's a foreshadowing of an awesome face-off in the mountains between the Australian and Wiggins. I just hope Evans doesn't kill all his energy chasing air-time in early stage finishes, like he did today and Sunday.

- Sylvain Chavanel's attack today had me rooting for a Frenchman. That is a hard thing to do. Not because I hate French riders, but because they hardly ever make anyone cheer.

- Peter Sagan is an absolute beast and his running-man celebration today was epic. Not Rapha epic, but "I can show this to my mom and she'll laugh" epic.

Unrelated, Marcel Kittel and his diarrhea (in white shorts), arrived over 16 minutes back.

Tomorrow's stage is probably gonna be dumb.

Dumb? We will see.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 2

Me?

 I wrote the following part of the post last night, hours before the actual stage even started:

"Today's stage was pretty predictable. The French teams showed themselves in the early breakaway, but the sprinter's teams brought them back, and Cavendish won the sprint."

Am I a soothsayer? Did the ghost of Tours de France past visit me? Nope. These early, flat boring stages are so predictable and retarded, anyone can do this at home.

The Lotto-Beli-"Soul Train" delivered Greipel to a pretty close sprint with his former boss.

The only things I could not have predicted were:
- Tony Martin and Anthony Roux's silly-looking dangling right hands.
- The great job the Lotto-Beli-"Soul Train" did for Greipel, making the sprint closer than I expected.
- The sheer hideousness of Morkov's polka-dot helmet.
- The fucken NERVE Saxo-off team has allowing him to wear it in the first place. He has 3 fucken point in the KOM! One, two, three. That's it. A real disgrace to the Dots.
- Anderson Cooper coming out of the closet. Wait, I predicted that 14 years ago.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Stage 1

Yellow helmets make Sky look like Japanese kindergarteners.

After yesterday's snooze-fest, any type of real racing would have been welcome. Imagine my surprise.


Maybe the Tour has learned a little from the Giro and threw a little curve-ball on the "flat stage" concept. Today's finish was pretty awesome. Chavanel's early attack was pretty awesome. Sagan was pretty awesome (was that the Little Teapot Dance?). Cancellara was pretty awesome. I was a little bummed not to see Gilbert further up there, and felt bad for Lotto-Belisol. They did a lot of work, but seemed to me that they went too early and by the time Cancellara attacked, they had already burnt their last guy.  Hey, you can't win them all.

Wiggo leads Team Sky

Speaking of being bummed, whose bright idea was to have the leading team in the Team Classification wear the stupid yellow helmets? It's dumb, it's retarded, it's confusing, it's another thing that these marketing geniuses in the ASO should have left alone. That being said, this is the second year of two great ideas the dudes in suits actually came up with: The idea of only one Sprint per stage (with significant points for the Green Jersey) and very low points being given for 3rd and 4th category climbs, in order to have a real climber wear the Polka-dots in Paris. Chapeau, gents.

Tomorrow's stage looks retarded and boring. The only thing that will keep me awake is the thought of my fantasy team going up a few spots when Cavendish wins.

Lastly those Sax-off™ kits look sweet.

KRUSHING THE TOUR: Prologue

Forget what the "experts" have to say about the 2012 Tour de France. The only opinion that matters is the SkullKrusher's That's why I say: "Never mind the Experts, Here's the SkullKrusher."

"Dude, you are missing it! The riders are coming in one at a time in an endless parade of boringness!"

 I found out a few weeks ago that "prologue" is in fact not French for "boring." Imagine my surprise, since I've always wondered why anyone would care about these "prologues." That discovery and my ever-growing sense of responsibility towards the 14 listeners of my podcast and the 3 readers to the blog, led me to make a very important decision late last night.
I decided to forgo my 16th Brooklyn Lager at the bar, told the sloppy college girl I'd been working on to pay the bill and walked (stumbled) home. I think she followed me for a while, but it was dark, so who knows what happened to her. Anyway, I decided to come home before the sun came up in order to get a little sleep and wake up early to watch this "prologue."

I'll be damned if it's not exactly how I remember them from years and years ago, since I decided that I'd rather eat dry cardboard than watch cyclists, one by one, ride down some street. Ugh. I really, really, really don't get it. How can any kind of timed event in professional cycling be interesting? At least prologues are short in distance so you have a chance (if you try REALLY hard) not to doze off and see your favorite rider go from start to finish. There's absolutely NOTHING exciting about time trials. If watching just one dude at a time was awesome, every pro should record their training rides and sell the DVDs on ebay.

Let's say I were to show you 2 riders complete today's course. I'll pick Sammy Sanchez and Matthew Lloyd. They were both wearing funny helmets and riding bikes your dentist, the triathlete, drools over. Now take away the useless commentary and the commercials, and all you have is a dude on a bike. You will not notice a single difference between Sanchez' and Lloyd's ride, but in reality, the Spaniard took 25 seconds of the Australian. That's a lot of time in 6.5 kilometers. Still, it looked exactly the same. Maybe Sanchez had up to 35 second at some point, but Lloyd came back. Maybe Lloyd started strong and faded, allowing Sanchez to overtake him. THAT would be exciting, but we will never know because they were on course nearly 3 hours apart! Lloyd was showered and massaged in the hotel by the time Sanchez started to warm up on the trainer. Having the guys side by side will forever be more exciting, period. A local cat 3 crit will always be more interesting to me than the best of the best (Cancellara, Martin, Wiggins, et al.) going one at a time, giving me no frame of reference as to how they are "racing" each other. If the most exciting thing that happens in a race is a flat tire, it's not an exciting race.

So, needless to say I fell asleep after 10 minutes of the nonsense and woke up just in time to see Cancellara putting on this year's first yellow jersey. What a shocker. I checked the rest of the times and went for a ride. I was alone, you all would have loved it.

One thing's for sure, while the riders will have 2 days off in this year's Tour, I'm gonna have 4.

Wake me up when the racing starts. YAWN.