# What the hell is going on?



## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

After three hours the median speed is something like 34 kilometers per hour... Come on people this is the TOUR, for feck's sake. :incazzato:


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## MaddSkillz (Mar 13, 2007)

And that would be what in mph?


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## Keeping up with Junior (Feb 27, 2003)

*$20 Prime*

Perhaps the Tour organizers need to slap down a $20 prime. That always lights up a slow field in my races.



MaddSkillz said:


> And that would be what in mph?


Did you skip math class in elementary school?


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## bas (Jul 30, 2004)

MaddSkillz said:


> And that would be what in mph?


 
34 kph = 21.1266205 mph

>The sun is back! A few rays have poked their way through the clouds, but it's still fairly chilly. Around 16 degrees.

16 degrees Celsius = 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit

>The conditions are pretty rotten for the riders today. Not only is the rain teeming down, but 
>they also have a headwind of 20km/h to deal with. That should turn into a sidewind by the 
>end of the stage.

20 kph = 12.4274238 mph

>The average speed over the third hour of racing is 31km/h. That brings the average stage speed down to 34km/h.


31 kph = 19.262507 mph

Seems like a pretty crappy day to be racing.


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

MaddSkillz said:


> And that would be what in mph?


21. Hell, _I_ could do that. :Yawn:


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

bas said:


> 34 kph = 21.1266205 mph
> 
> >The sun is back! A few rays have poked their way through the clouds, but it's still fairly chilly. Around 16 degrees.
> 
> ...


20kph my ass, it's actually less than 10kph at the moment.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

it's because these are stupid stages-they serve little strategic role other than to eliminate riders due to crashes, 200+km over flat course into the wind...


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

stevesbike said:


> it's because these are stupid stages-they serve little strategic role other than to eliminate riders due to crashes, 200+km over flat course into the wind...


There have been plenty of those the past years ridden at much higher speeds into higher winds than the current 7MPH. This is Giro-esque and very much atypical for the TdF.


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## pedalruns (Dec 18, 2002)

Maybe this is a good sign that some of the PED is less this year.... or maybe the drug supply is delayed.


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## culdeus (May 5, 2005)

Looks like a group I could hang with. Maybe I'll sign up next year. What's the entry fee?


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## DonkeyMan (Mar 23, 2007)

pedalruns said:


> Maybe this is a good sign that some of the PED is less this year.... or maybe the drug supply is delayed.


You beat me to it. Exactly what I was going to say.


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## TyboTy (Feb 27, 2006)

stevesbike said:


> it's because these are stupid stages-they serve little strategic role other than to eliminate riders due to crashes, 200+km over flat course into the wind...


Its a bike tour around France. The entire country is not made up of dramatic climbs, curves, and descents, so we get to see how the racers fare in those stages, after they have spent a good bit of energy touring through the rest of the country, IMO.

That being said, the entire route this year doesn't really support this notion, as it is more of an exhibition through the UK and Belgium, and then a 2/3 counterclockwise run through the more interesting topography.


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## mountaineer (Sep 26, 2005)

I'm sure a bunch of them are sore from the crash yesterday, including Cancellara.

They have elected to have a recovery day.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

riders have complained in the past about these stages (like Boonen). Some say they are whining, but seriously if the tour organizers are going to be so sanctimonious about doping they need to cut down some of these stages. It's just long long hours in the saddle with little overall effect on GC, other than random crashing out and burning out some of the climbers' legs.


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

mountaineer said:


> I'm sure a bunch of them are sore from the crash yesterday, including Cancellara.
> 
> They have elected to have a recovery day.


I want my panem et circenses, dammit! Ride!!! Ride!!!


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## QuiQuaeQuod (Jan 24, 2003)

mountaineer said:


> I'm sure a bunch of them are sore from the crash yesterday, including Cancellara.
> 
> They have elected to have a recovery day.



Exactly. A 2 man break is no threat at all, and there are a lot of people that want to recover from yesterday's crash. Who is going to push the pace? No one. If no one pushes the pace, this is what you get.

So, what do you people think would happen to a team that started riding tempo today? You know, just to make sure everyone suffered a bit? 

That said, this is really boring. But the finish today, that should be anything BUT boring!


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## zeytin (May 15, 2004)

dr hoo said:


> That said, this is really boring. But the finish today, that should be anything BUT boring!



The finish today looks downright sketchy! After yesterday people are going to be edgy too.


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## funknuggets (Feb 4, 2004)

*Welcome to the FR150*

A nice charity ride to support France. 

Yeah, there are a lot of sore people today. You will see them pick this up nicely in the final 60 K. Its the longest stage of the race. They should catch them. But isn't it the norm anymore to let some nobody's get a huge lead... and let the other lesser teams like Agributel or FDJ try and protect it.... 

If they dont catch them, they will at least knock it down to something manageable, like 2-3 minutes, aka pulling a Voeckler... and letting some unknown French dude get some press and make the French people feel good for a few days.


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## weltyed (Feb 6, 2004)

this stage is a michael mann film: long and dull leading up to a climax that will not come. after yesterday's crash, i dont see too many people throwin down the hammer, especially if it is "sketchy," as mentioned above.


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## MaddSkillz (Mar 13, 2007)

Keeping up with Junior said:


> Perhaps the Tour organizers need to slap down a $20 prime. That always lights up a slow field in my races.
> 
> 
> 
> Did you skip math class in elementary school?


No. And I'm sorry you feel that the fact that I don't know something you do is grounds to belittle me.


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## FTF (Aug 5, 2003)

funknuggets said:


> A nice charity ride to support France.


More like the Amgen/pfizer Tour De France.


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## bonkmiester (Sep 23, 2005)

MaddSkillz said:


> And that would be what in mph?


Hey Madd,
If you are using Firefox, get this extension.....

Converter

you just hilite a value to cknvert and right click, a dropdown opens up with the conversion done ..... 

see


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## z ken (Dec 30, 2006)

have anyone checkout the stage 8th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16 and 19th?? all i know it's going to be a brutal 3rd week of racing.


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## Len J (Jan 28, 2004)

*Yea, But.......*



weltyed said:


> this stage is a michael mann film: long and dull leading up to a climax that will not come. after yesterday's crash, i dont see too many people throwin down the hammer, especially if it is "sketchy," as mentioned above.


What a finish!

Len


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

MaddSkillz said:


> No. And I'm sorry you feel that the fact that I don't know something you do is grounds to belittle me.


It's not the fact that you don't know, it's about you being too goddamn lazy to find out.


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## MaddSkillz (Mar 13, 2007)

That finish was amazing!


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## PJay (May 28, 2004)

*in the old days postal would press the pace...*

back in the old days when usps/disco had a strong team organized to support one rider, postal would take advantage of a stage like this and press the pace to be almost 10mph faster. lance would sit in the fabled catbird seat as teams burned up energy and lost opportunities to 'recover.'

so maybe lance was a doper. i don't know. but along with any epo or whatever, here is what else he was 'on' --he was on his team's a** to swear allegiance to him as team leader. --he was on his team's a** to follow the strategy that had been worked out in advance, which included rotating at the front of the peleton to ride the wheels off of everyone's bike, and deflate the confidence of all teams, on these boring flat 140 mile rides. he also was on his team's a** to portray the same efficient, unified team on those scary team time trials rides.

the other riders used to get upset because lance killed their traditional gentleman's agreement to take it easy and be chatting away on these flats.

well, now they can all be happy again. lance has retired, and they can all tell each other he won because of the dope.


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## Keeping up with Junior (Feb 27, 2003)

*Foxworthy*

Just in case you get a chance to win a million bucks with Foxworthy. Learn the _Rules of Thumb_ and that will get you close.

1in = 2.54cm
1cm = .39in Rule of Thumb - a centimeter is a little less than a half inch.
1m = 39.4in Rule of Thumb - a meter is a litte longer than a yard. So a football field including the endzones is about a 100 meters. 
1mi=5280ft
1mi=1.6km 
1km=.62mi Rule of Thumb - a kilometer is about 2/3 of a mile. Think metric century. Cheat and look at the speedometer on your car.

1lit=1.06qt Rule of Thumb - a liter (almost) equals a quart.
1gal=3.8lit

1kg=2.2# Rule of Thumb - a kilogram is a bit more than two pounds, i.e. double
1# =.45kg
1# = 454g
1oz=28g Rule of Thumb - an ounce is (almost) 30 grams

Temp - farenheit - celsius
Rule of Thumb - 20c is the perfect temperature and then go up or down with a two to one ratio.

32f = 0c freezing
50f = 10c
68f = 20c
86f = 30c
212f = 100c boiling

Pi 3.14159265


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

PJay said:


> back in the old days when usps/disco had a strong team organized to support one rider, postal would take advantage of a stage like this and press the pace to be almost 10mph faster. lance would sit in the fabled catbird seat as teams burned up energy and lost opportunities to 'recover.'
> 
> so maybe lance was a doper. i don't know. but along with any epo or whatever, here is what else he was 'on' --he was on his team's a** to swear allegiance to him as team leader. --he was on his team's a** to follow the strategy that had been worked out in advance, which included rotating at the front of the peleton to ride the wheels off of everyone's bike, and deflate the confidence of all teams, on these boring flat 140 mile rides. he also was on his team's a** to portray the same efficient, unified team on those scary team time trials rides.
> 
> ...


What an amazingly incorrect interpretation of the tour.

Please educate us about all the incredibly fast stages that USPS/Disco pulled all day for?

I think the fastest tour stage ever was Cipollini's win in '99. Lance was not in yellow and the team was not pulling that day, as far as I know.


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## svend (Jul 18, 2003)

SilasCL said:


> What an amazingly incorrect interpretation of the tour.
> 
> Please educate us about all the incredibly fast stages that USPS/Disco pulled all day for?
> 
> I think the fastest tour stage ever was Cipollini's win in '99. Lance was not in yellow and the team was not pulling that day, as far as I know.


simmer down Silas, he made no mention of fastest stage just that the tempo was much higher.....and as a generality that I believe to be true....this was the first leisurely stage I've seen in a long long time.....ending was superb, Cancellara has shown again that he is a true champion, what a great finish


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## Pablo (Jul 7, 2004)

SilasCL said:


> What an amazingly incorrect interpretation of the tour.


I think it's the current lack of organization, i.e. a dominant team, more than anything.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

also, the first week is harder than a lot of people acknowledge; the next few days aren't easy with a lot of small categorized climbs and generally rolling terrain, there's no week 1 ITT (which is typically a rest day for all but the GC guys), and the tour goes straight into the alps before a rest day and earlier than usual. Adding the injuries from yesterday, I think teams wisely decided not to burn any matches today on a course that everyone knew would come down to a bunch sprint (or at least a late jump).


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## PJay (May 28, 2004)

*19.9 mph versus 28.1 mph?*

i would have to be creative to figure out a data analysis strategy, and spend a lot of research time, to quantify the "pull" time of usps/disco on similar long, early-race stages. suffice it to say that usps/postal had things well in hand, and it would be ridiculous to say that lance had to worry about his teammates holding their own in the peleton as the peleton decided what breakaways to catch and when to make the move to catch them.

one way to measure this fairly easily might be to look at average peleton times on early, flat stages, and look at the finish line position of usps/disco riders. and maybe look at this for 2004 and 2005. and maybe comapre this to the rival teams. i don't have the time to do that right now.

however:

a quick glance at two long, early stages from 2005, stages 7 and 8, show that on these two stages that were also around 140 miles total, average speeds were, yes, nearly 10 mph faster! 28.1 and 28.8 mph total mph versus the data i could quickly locate for today's stage, indicating 19.9 mph for the 'first four hours.'

since i am just coming up wit this comment in conversation off the top of my head from memory of tdf more than 2 years ago, i believe my statement abt the long. flat stages being 10mph faster was not just misguided hyperbole and not just lance-lust. it is quite close to being literally true. if you and i rode some annual ride one year, and then rode the same ride the next year, and we averaged 8.8 mph slower the second year, it would be a reasonable comment to hear you say we were 10 mph slower this year. i would not quibble that it was only 8.8 mph slower. i would nod my head in agreement and order another post-ride brew to drown my sorrows and help me accept the aging process.

i never said that the times were 'incredibly fast.' i said they were 10 mph faster.


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

svend said:


> simmer down Silas, he made no mention of fastest stage just that the tempo was much higher.....and as a generality that I believe to be true....this was the first leisurely stage I've seen in a long long time.....ending was superb, Cancellara has shown again that he is a true champion, what a great finish


My blood boils circa tour time every year. Lance fan-boys were fine when he was actually racing...Another knucklehead telling me about how tough the good ol' days were (2 years ago) and I'm afraid I'll burst a blood vessel.

To the actual content in your post...this was the slowest stage I've seen in some time. The breakaway stunk and wasn't willing to put in the effort to win a stage. They should've had a 35 minute lead half-way through and demoralized the peloton. So many teams think they're going to win that they're not thinking about stages yet...


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

the breakaway agreed (via their DSs) to ride at a moderate tempo to maintain their lead rather than trying to increase it-a truce was called among the teams, in part to let riders who were injured yesterday to have a recovery day. For a 3 week stage, that is as strategic as battling it out. 

If you are going to talk about the good old days and trying to rip the legs off of climbers during the early stages, at least go back to Bernard Hinault who had this as a team strategy.


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## MellowDramatic (Jun 8, 2006)

I think it's funny that people are on here talking trash about how slow the PRO PELOTON is going. Professionals. They had reasons for riding slowly, mostly because of the crash yesterday. These guys are humans; they can't go all-out every day.


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

Actually, they can. Certain guys rest on certain days and certain guys don't.

The problem was no one was willing to pull a jacky durand style breakaway...the 'who cares how long the stage is, I'm attacking 1k in and going hard for 6 hours' kind of effort.

If the peloton doesn't want to chase, then they don't want to win the stage bad enough and someone else gets to. If no one wants to put in the effort to win, then they're a bunch of p*ssies...


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## iliveonnitro (Feb 19, 2006)

I want to see you guys ride 237km in 6.5hrs. That's flying, especially since they were taking it easy.


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## z ken (Dec 30, 2006)

i think the peloton did the right move by not flying at 30 MPH. why?? i bet alot of them just scare when they saw the road up ahead beginning stage 7th and not to mention what a muderous road in week 3. i would just ride week one like warm up or " training " and trying to stay away from trouble ( crashes, falls ) couple more days the pains will start. Valverde, are you listening??


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## Vandizzy (Jul 11, 2007)

"Just how nonchalant was Tuesday’s stage? The average speed of 35.810 in the 236.5km stage was one of the slowest in recent Tour history. The only stage equally as slow was in the 1998 Tour was in a 205.5km stage between Enniscorthy and Cork in Ireland with an average speed of 35.721kph." from today's velonews live update
just wanted to help y'all out mahalo

live love learn & balance gravitational alteration along the excursion!


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## culdeus (May 5, 2005)

iliveonnitro said:
 

> I want to see you guys ride 237km in 6.5hrs. That's flying, especially since they were taking it easy.


I'd think most cat 4+ riders could hang on the back of that peleton with no problem.


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## Vandizzy (Jul 11, 2007)

I think this is a good explanation from Chris Charmical at bicyling.com,
http://www.bicycling.com/tourdefrance/article/0,6802,s1-7-403-16234-1,00.html
;+Q


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## MellowDramatic (Jun 8, 2006)

I like Jens Voigt's explanation. It's not their job to make the TV broadcast more interesting. This reminds me of the cat 4 riders sitting in the pack telling the people up front to "pick up the pace". The race slows down sometimes. Their goal isn't to get a good average speed.


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## Vandizzy (Jul 11, 2007)

cheers! joe ;+p


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

Actually, their goal is to make the TV broadcast interesting...if it's boring no one watches and their sponsors aren't too happy. Once upon a time, team's with little to win in the Tour took suicide breakaways to get on TV all day. Like every other day, as far as I can remember.

It wasn't that long ago that stars of the peloton (Jalabert, Dekker, O'Grady, Piil, Voigt, etc.) were willing to go in these kind of moves for a chance at a stage win.


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## MellowDramatic (Jun 8, 2006)

I think their goal is to win races, not make the broadcast interesting. It's highly unlikely anyone will win a stage from a long breakaway in the first week of the Tour these days. In the transition stages, it's almost a sure thing that a break will make it...but not in the first week.


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## SilasCL (Jun 14, 2004)

joehartley said:


> I think their goal is to win races, not make the broadcast interesting. It's highly unlikely anyone will win a stage from a long breakaway in the first week of the Tour these days. In the transition stages, it's almost a sure thing that a break will make it...but not in the first week.


Well I think we can be sure Agritubel won't win any stages, why not get some TV time at least?


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## MellowDramatic (Jun 8, 2006)

SilasCL said:


> Well I think we can be sure Agritubel won't win any stages, why not get some TV time at least?


Fair point.


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## rogger (Aug 19, 2005)

joehartley said:


> I think their goal is to win races, not make the broadcast interesting.


You ever hear of a guy called Jacky Durand?


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## PJay (May 28, 2004)

*strike while the iron is hot...*

part of the point of my controversial post was to note one of the benefits of having a strong team organized to support one rider - if you have a decent team, you have guys take turns playing roles; a couple guys press the pace on those days when the peleton in general might want to go slow.

how do you do that without sacrificing your own team? you work as hard as you can to put your #1 guy in an easy position day after day, until the spots where he really has to perform - like a couple mountain breakaways, a couple time trials. you need to have guys rotate in and out of these roles. you need guys who are good on flats, and guys who are good climbers, and guys who can fill any roles in a pinch, as long as they have legs.

its like pro baseball - the main pitchers pitch a game, and take two games off. and you go to the closer in the 7th inning when the main guy gets tired.

last year it seemed like there just was not so much teamwork - like everyone was so scrambled by the change of not having lance, plus all the riders who got yanked at the last minute. this year, it looks like the team concept is really being worked a lot more. still, there is a lot of specualtion -even for disco - about who will be the number one guy. in my baseball analogy, you don't get to the end of season without knowing!


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## Vandizzy (Jul 11, 2007)

cheers pj


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## nenad (May 5, 2004)

DonkeyMan said:


> You beat me to it. Exactly what I was going to say.


I was thinking along the same lines (what's PED short for ?). Organizers want cleaner TdF? They'll get cleaner TdF...oh yeah, riders will go a bit slower, or they will choose to have the rest days to recover.

But this is purely my conviction, of course, I cannot back this up.


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