HomeDiariesLe Tour de France 2009 - Stage 18: Annecy, 40.5km ITT
There’s a little breeze fluttering the trees in Annecy, it’s mild at 25 degrees but rain is forecast – chrono day. The thing about a Tour time trial is that the conditions I have just described might prevail for first starter, at 11:10, F des J’s Belorussian champion and lanterne rouge (now that Kenny has gone home) Yauheni Hutarovich.
But when Bert bumps that Trek down the ramp at 16:47, the conditions could be completely different.
Our game plan today is two fold; drive the course, behind Garmin sprinter, Tyler Farrar, then do a ‘before and after’ on the Big Guns.
It’s 12:40 am now; need to finish this after sleep.
Bon nuit.
Later…
A long but exciting day on Thursday – we did our following car ‘thing’ with Tyler Farrar and then spent all afternoon looking at how the big GC guys fared.
What’s not, is the running around it takes to get the precious “stee-kerr” for the windscreen that enables you to enter the hallowed start area, then follow your rider.
You run around daft, have all sorts of language hurdles to jump; then you meet the right guy, who speaks perfect English, sticks his hand in his pocket – ‘et voila!’
A part of the day I really enjoyed was getting to the start; to get there we had to drive the second part of the course – there’s so much joy, fun, expectation and sheer glad to be alivedness evident.
Lance; for sure he generates interest but for me the minders, the tweeting, the ‘spin’ against Alberto and then, on the day the Spaniard confirms his dominance, to announce his new team – it’s all against the grain.
But I’m 54 and grew up when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Bert’s dignity and professionalism are in marked contrast to LA’s tweeting, PR, and invideous remarks. Did you notice even Bruyneel doesn’t wear Astana gear? It’s all Livestrong teeshirts and polemics.
Alberto, on the other hand is a pro; as Philippe Brunel says in L’Equipe; “The Spaniard avoids the politics but his gestures are eloquent…
In other words, he talks with his pedals.
There’s a photo in L’Equipe which sums it up. Three Astanas warm up on the turbos for the test; one has a Livestrong thing on, one sports an anonymous vest, but only one wears an Astana top – Alberto.
Yes, if he does the ride of his life, tomorrow; he’s only nine seconds behind Lance, but in turn, he has Kloden just two seconds behind him, with climbing ace Frank Schleck just 23 seconds down.
The Tour and cycling makes it big on the back page of today’s AS, first Contador is in the good section with congratulated on his securing his victory by taking more time, then in the bad section we have the failure of Armstrong who lost time and fell off the podium and De Luca is also in the bad section with his positive for CERA at the Giro.
AS headline.
Also on the back page is an argument over why Contador stopped his attack on the Schleck brothers on the last climb yesterday, there is more about this on the inside pages.
AS says: “Heroica etapa que no gan Contador porque Bruyneel le frene”. So the reason he stopped was orders from above!
The attacks had dropped Wiggins, Armstrong and eventually Klöden, but it looks like the time loss of Lance was more important than a stage win or more time in the bank for Alberto?
Bruyneel is leaving Astana at the end of the year, maybe to set up the new “Team Armstrong” which will probably not include Contador, so….
Spanish paper AS does a great job of race coverage.
Are you happy with things before the time trial? Contador is asked; “now I have more time between me and Wiggins I have a little more tranquillity.
The time trial in Annecy is long and Klöden and Armstrong are specialists”. Have you won the Tour? “For nothing are the next two days the key, the time trial and Ventoux…I keep my feet on the ground”.
Other quotes: Sastre: “Attacking is my only option”
Nibali: “I collaborated with Lance in the final kilometres; I hope to gain some time in the time trial”:
The President of France, Sarkozy: “Contador is magnificent”.
Bradley Wiggins also thinks he will do well in the time trial; “I hope to recover my place on the podium in Annecy”.
Last bit of news; and if you saw Jens Voigt’s crash you won’t be surprised to hear that the doctor in the Grenoble hospital that treated the German said “the helmet saved his life”.
Ed and Martin, our top team! They try to do the local Time Trials, the Grand Tours and the Classics together to get the great stories written, the quality photos taken, the driving done and the wifi wrestled with.
Endura Racing Team's Gary Hand topped a near perfect day for the Scottish UCI Continental squad with a solo win in the second round of the Super Six Series - the Duncan MacGregor Memorial Road Race over 80 miles around the "Rigging of Fife." Team-mates Gordon Murdoch and Duncan Urquhart took second and fourth respectively, to make it a quality day for the men in red and white. Spoiling the party just a little was Rapha-Condor's Matt Cronshaw, who, despite a severe working-over from the winners, grabbed third place.
I braved the tourists and human statues up on Edinburgh’s High Street to see if I could get Monday’s L’Equipe in the International Newsagents – it’s the one for all the good Tour stats. But alas, no dice – I had to settle for Sunday’s Observer and Monday’s Guardian where it’s wall to wall Christopher and Sky.
On a freezing, grey, Sunday afternoon on the frost hardened grass and mud of Dundee's Caird Park, Scotland's newest professional, Ross Creber gave his sponsors, Plowman Craven their first national cyclo-cross title. The slim mountain biker was head and shoulders above the rest; a gutsy ride from Greig Walker (Edinburgh RC) gave him the silver medal ahead of junior, Kenta Gallacher (Team 777) who took bronze.
Roadside at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and KBK 2018. The first classic weekend of the year has been and gone and safely back in a rather snowy Scotland I've got time to reflect on the Classic season opener. The glorious Belgian sunshine all weekend could not lift the thermometer and the riders endured bitterly cold conditions for both Het Nieuwsblad or Kuurne Brussels Kuurne.
Jan Bakelants today, but they couldn't resist it; "Tour de Farce" trumpets the headline in the Sunday Times. I'm not really a Times man, my dad wouldn't have approved. But I wanted to see what David Walsh had to say about Stage One.
Just turned 19 years-old, Louise Garbett finished the biggest race in the world on the Champs-Élysées in Paris and was escorted to the podium along with Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond to receive the overall White Jersey for the first ever Tour de France Feminine.
The 'Devil' had just started in Day three of the Rotterdam Six Day 2012 when I wandered down the stairs in search of bottles of water (still - no gas), and by the time I got back what should have been ‘just another race’ had become another of those episodes which remind you that as well as being glamorous, the sport is also a very dangerous one.
Giro d'Italia 2007. Sardinia is hot, damn hot, real hot, but our Peugeot 107 has air-con and a CD which plays John Hardie's 70's compilations just fine. It's 09.10 and we're north-bound to catch the ferry from Palau out to the island of Maddalena, where tomorrow's TTT takes place.
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