Tour de France 2011

[mongers]

Interesting stage today, quite a few nervous run-offs on the down-hills.

[mongers]

Excellent courageous ride by Jérémy Roy today, pity he got caught in the last couple of kms, but at least it was by the god of hell-fire, Arthur Thor Hushovd. 

Despite what people have said about cheating in the sport, looking at the start of that misty high speed decent, many of these riders are very brave sportsmen.

[Sheilbh]

Thor hit 69 mph on the descent today

[mongers]

Thor hit 69 mph on the descent today

Yes, astonishing, doesn't bear thinking about if you come of at that speed.

Incidentally if he was on the flat, he'd have to generate 3860 watts of power just to over come the air resistance.

[mongers]

Thor hit 69 mph on the descent today

If you look at this cycling aerodynamics website:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/aerodynamics1.html

Assuming he's 180 lbs, very heavy for a cyclist, then to be doing 69 mph down a hill, with no head or tail wind and he's not pedalling, then the slope would be nearly 9 degree or 15.5%, scary stuff.

[Liep]

Great stage today, go Thor!

And Contador seems to be back, maybe the Spanish reign will not be broken after all.

[Admiral Yi]

Watched a little bit of a highlight show last night.

Man it drove me fucking nuts watching the fans walking around the course and pumping their fists and waving their flags right in the riders' faces.

Of all the regularly recurring situations that call for pretty girls to be selected (auto shows, Olympic medal ceremonies, boxing ring girls, etc. etc.) I think the Tour does the best job.  I've never seen a flower girl up on the stage who is not a total stunner.

But WTF is the deal with the stuffed animals??

[Liep]

What a ride by Andy Schleck, and as the commentators here said: "We haven't seen an attack on the yellow jersey like that since 2006 back when Floyd Land.. but we'll not talk about that now".

[mongers]

Excellent break by Andy S. , but Cadel Evans was superb grinding out the climb and dragging the others up the 8000 ft finish. Heroic performance by Vockler, giving it his all to keep the Yellow by 8 seconds over Andy S.

[Sheilbh]

Tommy

[mongers]

Tommy

From the interviews I've seen I think he's quite happy with what he's achieved, he comes across as a very modest man. He may be my favourite cyclist on the tour.

Looking forward to today's time trial.

[Liep]

Evans! :w00t

[mongers]

Thoroughly enjoyable tour, Evans was mr consistency and him hauling back those 2 minutes from A.Schleck the day before yesterday was impressive.

Hopefully we Cavendish wearing the green jersey in Paris tomorrow, probably the first British jersey for 20 odd years.

edit:
even longer than I though, Robert Millar who was King of the Mountains in 1984.
And that's the only other jersey a British cyclist has ever won on the tour.

[mongers]

Top Ten Moments from The Tour de France 2011, The Independent:
http://tinyurl.com/3oak6n3