Le Tour de Pharmaceutical 2014

Cheers, missed that. Only really remember Beloki's crash and Armstrong's heroics in that year's tour.

Yeah, the cornfield escapade deserves a place in history, doping or no doping. Was anyone in that year's top 10 clean? Perhaps not. Sastre possibly, he seemed to work his way up the GC over the years as the cheats were weeded out, and his eventual win was deserved if that was the case. But it was the Alpe d'Huez stage of that year that captivated me, Mayo (another since convicted doper) blew Lance, Ullrich and the others away up the famous bends. Shame the "carrots" of Euskaltel are no more, they were always my favourite team after that day. And also that that climb only seems to be on the route every other year at most now.

Cav also brought Gerrans down although it looks like he is ok with just some skin loss. Can't find any news on the extent of Cav's injuries.
Interesting to see Rogers in the top ten but no Contador.

Stage 1: 190.4km, Leeds to Harrogate
1 Marcel Kittel (GER) Giant-Shimano 4hr 44min 7sec      
2 Peter Sagan (SVK) Cannondale            
3 Ramunas Navardauskas (LTU) Garmin-Sharp            
4 Bryan Coquard (FRA) Europcar            
5 Michael Rogers (AUS) Tinkoff-Saxo            
6 Christopher Froome (GBR) Sky            
7 Alexander Kristoff (NOR) Katusha            
8 Sep Vanmarcke (BEL) Belkin      
9 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (ESP) Movistar            
10 Michael Albasini (SUI) Orica-GreenEDGE

Had a run up to Leyburn to watch todays stage 1 - an amazing experience. Will learn how to host images and post a few early next week. Was just around a 90 degree corner (on the outside of the bend) and got pics of the lead riders and peloton head on coming around the apex, followed by the team support cars etc.

I was especially lucky that although not directly at the front of the crowd, I have no spectators heads or arms in any of the 40-odd shots I got, so at least some of them should be fairly decent.

Well done Growls. Always stand behind Happy, Sneezy, and Doc.

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15.30 Lotto-Belisol and their sprinter André Greipel remain on the front of the peloton who have now caught Jens Voigt. Robbie McEwen, who knows a thing or two about sprinting having won the grren jersey three times, is predicting a win for Marcel Kittel today in Harrogate with Arnaud Démare coming second and Mark Cavendish in third.

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Nice work.

To be fair, he was overwhelming favourite.

Good stuff, Growls.

Apparently* the crowds along the course were as big as any seen in Le Tour.

They were all full of pies.

Some nice scenes of the Yorkie Dales last night (the only reason I watch the T De F) but besides convincing the unbelieving that there are bits of Geoffreyboycottshire that are more visual than Huddersfield on a wet Monday - why is the tour kicking off there?

(First guess - the bicycle was invented in those parts?)

Fred Nerk wrote:Some nice scenes of the Yorkie Dales last night (the only reason I watch the T De F)  but besides convincing the unbelieving that there are bits of Geoffreyboycottshire that are more visual than Huddersfield on a wet Monday - why is the tour kicking off there?

(First guess - the bicycle was invented in those parts?)

A number of different area's & countries submitted proposals to host the Grand Départ & Yorkshire was the most persuasive, presumably.

Cav's collarbone is dislocated but not broken & he will undergo an assessment before the next stage. Cav has admitted the crash was his fault & said he will personally apologise to Simon Gerrans as soon as he gets the chance.

Cavendish will not be starting today. Would've expected Gerrans to challenge Sagan tonight before yesterday... maybe Kwiatkowski or even Cancellara.

As can be seen from BD's graphic on the last page, its a 201 Km stage, and the last 1/4 has 2 x Cat 3 and 2 x Cat 4 climbs. I'll predict with confidence that the peleton will be shredded by the end of it.

As a point of interest, although the stage has just one Cat 2 climb (Holme Moss) - it's the last climb (Jenkins Road) is the most significant in some ways. Only 5 Km from the finish, it is only about 800m in distance and 132m high [b]but[b] whilst the average gradient is 10% or so, there is a stretch over 30% climb - the steepest stretch in this years tour, including the alpine stages.

It's murderous, and after 190 odd Km of racing, anyone with the energy and strength left to attack it and break away will not be caught - so the GC contenders will all be looking to be there or thereabouts.

Good scheduling.

About 75 Km to go today, approaching Holme Moss, with a similar race situation as yesterday ....... a small group shot into a couple of minutes lead within the first few miles, and the peleton didn't bother to chase them.

The leaders yesterday were caught on the hard climbs of Buttertubs and Grinton moor. Todays leaders are slowly being reeled in, the lead is down to about 45 seconds, and the field is beginning to spread out. The only sprint section of the stage was about 70 Km back, and the sprinters look as though they're beginning to hurt - not good for them with a Cat 2, 2 Cat 3 & 2 Cat 4 climbs still to be negotiated.

Another snippet of history for Aussie readers.

From Holme Moss the riders head down to the Ladybower reservoir. The dam at the head of the reservoir has two towers, and was used by 617 Dambusters Sqn as training for the raids on the German dams - they used the dam to perfect their aiming technique to allow the release of the bouncing bombs from the correct altitude (60 feet) and the correct distance from the dam wall so that it hit the wall and sank, as opposed to bouncing over the top and exploding relatively harmlessly away from it.

Keep reading, I'm full of good information like this don't ya know   .

30 Km to go, approaching the Cote de Bradfield, and the field has been utterly destroyed over the last 1/2 ah hour or so. Froome and a few other elite riders head a group of 30-40 at the front, then they're spread out. Kittel in the yellow jersey is a full 8 1/2 minutes back from the leaders, and I've little doubt that gap will increase by the time they cross the line ......

Crazy crowds. Well done Yorkies.

Tough night of TV watching watching sporting events in England - Le Tour, Le Grand Prix and Le Wimbledon.

Sagan's strength is his biggest problem. Had very little help from others, all a bit Cancellara 2011 and his classics losses.

Great stage and great crowds. Apt that one of the few contenders who does anything in Liege Bastogne Liege (along with Valverde) won today. All the top riders looked in form though... think Nibali will look to relinquish the yellow jersey on stage 5.

Looks like it could be a good year. Sky looked strong.

And Tinkoff not very.

Sky didn't even pick Peter Kennaugh, who's just won the opening mountain stage in the Tour of Austria.

Nibali out foxed the rest to take stage two with a well timed sprint to the line. Gerrans who was expected to be amongst the frontrunners for this stage finished well back & is clearly being hampered by the injuries from his crash. Suprising that no action is being taken against Cavendish. I guess they figured that his withdrawal was enough.
1 Vincenzo Nibali (ITA) Astana 9hr 52min 43sec      
2 Peter Sagan (SVK) Cannondale     0:00:02      
3 Greg Van Avermaet (BEL) BMC          
4 Michael Albasini (SUI) Orica-GreenEDGE            
5 Christopher Froome (GBR) Sky            
6 Bauke Mollema (NED) Belkin          
7 Jurgen Van Den Broeck (BEL) Lotto-Belisol            
8 Alberto Contador (ESP) Tinkoff-Saxo            
9 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) BMC          
10 Jakob Fuglsang (DEN) Astana

Todays stage looks like another for the sprinters:

Growler wrote:Another snippet of history for Aussie readers.

From Holme Moss the riders head down to the Ladybower reservoir. The dam at the head of the reservoir has two towers, and was used by 617 Dambusters Sqn as training for the raids on the German dams - they used the dam to perfect their aiming technique to allow the release of the bouncing bombs from the correct altitude (60 feet) and the correct distance from the dam wall so that it hit the wall and sank, as opposed to bouncing over the top and exploding relatively harmlessly away from it.

Keep reading, I'm full of good information like this don't ya know   .

Was there last July

I still can't work out how to put up individual pics, but here's a slideshow of stage 1 on Saturday for anyone interested.

There's 46 pics in total - starting with a few of the publicity caravan about an hour before the cyclists arrive, then the leaders. closely followed by the main peleton. After that come the team support cars, with a few stragglers among them.