Cav & Wiggo - the last time?

It this the last time for Wiggins & Cavendish as team mates?

Luke Rowe, centre, followed by Bradley Wiggins

TdF3 - Mountains, mountains...and Paris

Stage 16 sees the Tour arrive in the Alps.  Supposedly a ‘gentle’ start – the Tour website describes it as ‘medium mountains’ – with just one climb and then a long descent to Gap.

So despite being a mountain stage, the climbers and the leaders of the general classification seemed to be thinking ahead to the ‘high mountain’ stages of the next two days.  Contador did attack, seemingly as much testing out his rivals as anything.  Evans covered every move with an economy of effort that suggests he’s ready to protect the time his has over the other main contenders, pushing on to take 21 seconds out of Contador and Samuel Sanchez and over a minute from Andy Schleck on what’s supposed to be the Schleck’s preferred racing terrain.

But with bigger mountain stages to come Andy Schleck claimed to unperterbed.  Meanwhile that left the door open for breakaway stage win.  Canada’s Ryder Hesjedal led over the final climb, but once Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen, of Team Sky, caught the Garmin-Cervello rider, that gave the pursuing Thor Hushovd the green light to chase down the leaders.  

As a team mate of Ryder Hesjedal, Hushovd would have left his colleague out in front if he was heading for a lone stage win.  But now Hushovd proceeded to give a master class in mountain descending.  Reaching speeds of almost 70mph Hushovd caught the leaders and outwitted fellow Norwegian Boasson Hagen to take the stage, his second of the Tour and his first ever mountain stage victory.  The big Norwegian is starting to rival Voeckler as man of the Tour.  But not quite.  The Frenchman even tried to stay with Contador today and lost just 15 seconds, to remain in yellow.

Tour de France – week two

Oh dear, my last TdF post turning into stage by stage reflections, has made a rod for my own back - guess I’ll have to finish the job now.

But I can think of worse things to do...

So after a rest day, which we were told repeatedly wouldn’t be much of a rest as most of the cyclists would be out on their bikes for an hour or two, just to keep the muscles supple, it was back for another one hundred miles round France on stage ten.

Remarkably both Fletcha and Hoogerland started stage ten, the latter in the king of the mountains polka dot jersey and with thirty stitches in his legs and backside.  Despite a long breakaway and an attempt by Philippe Gilbert to pinch a solo win off the front of the peloton, the stage came down to a bunch sprint and a Cavendish win.  Er, no actually, despite the usual HTC lead out train Cavendish seemed to misjudge the sprint and lost out to former team mate Andre Greipel, who had to leave HTC to get a ride in the Tour.

Greipel, who really ought to be nicknamed ‘the muscles from Rostock’ had plenty to say about being second string sprinter to Cavendish.  Cavendish of course gave as good as he got, on and off the track.  Apparently the two buried the hatchet after Greipel’s win, helped by Cavendish conceding that Greipel had produced a near perfect sprint.

Overall, little changed as the leaders came in together ahead of the Pyrenees.

Mad, bad and dangerous to be in

 A review of week one (and a bit) of the Tour de France, up to the first rest day and it’s business as usual, only more so...

As if determined to hang on to the black skull and crossbones jersey as the sporting event that ‘goes up to eleven’, to slightly misquote Nigel Tuffnel, the Tour de France continues to cross the line between genius and madness like it’s the pedestrian crossing by my local newsagents.

Before it even started, you got a sense that all would not be well over the 3 weeks of sporting sadism that is Le Tour.  At a slightly surreal ‘introduction to the teams’ held in what appeared to an old Roman amphitheatre, defending champion* Alberto Contador was roundly booed.  Why?  Well it’s all in the asterisk.  After last year’s Tour it was revealed Contador had failed a dope test.  The Spanish cycling authorities accepted his claim that it was due to eating some contaminated meat and cleared him to race on.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) weren’t so easily satisfied and wanted a new hearing before this year’s Tour.  Lawyers for Contador got the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing postponed, so he’s free to take part this year, but nobody knows if he’s the defending champion or not!