Stage 1 Results and Thoughts

As I've told Bob a bunch of times on the BeanCast, the Tour de France is a promotional vehicle. Yes, it's a sporting event (and one I hold near and dear to my heart), but it's also a grand way for companies and brands to get their name out there and connect with a very qualified audience.

Trouble is, the folks using the Tour to market are not really following the first tenet of content or communication - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.

I've seen more ads for stuff that just doesn't fit with a cycling-fan demographic this year and I think we've reached the point where it's now just a 'throw-stuff-at-the-wall' practice. Kinda sad, but was bound to happen as all branding people try to get ahead.

That said, here's the result from Stage 1 and some thoughts on the Tour so far...

1 - The pack is jittery - as happens in the first three or four stages of every Tour de France. Hoping that crashes don't know any of my favorites out of the race. As you saw within 25KM of the finish on today's stage, there were two big crashes. First one had four or five riders down. Second had about 15-20 riders down.

2 - There are really just two teams in the hunt for the Yellow jersey in Paris in a few weeks. These are team BMC and team Sky.

3 - I love how Phil Ligget says 'movie star' when he pronounces Movistar.

4 - At 8KM (after 190KM of a breakaway) the peloton got all back together. Five mere miles from the finish line. When you watch the stages, I urge you to pay attention to the jockeying for postion within the last 3-5 miles of each stage. It really is a chess match.

5 - Amazing finish for this stage - a mad sprint uphill to the finish - AND I'm astonished that Fabian Cancellara of team has kept the Yellow Jersey! Peter Sagan of Liquigas- Cannondale won the stage, but Cancellar came in second and the rest of the peloton was just behind.

Great stuff. I thought the pack would break apart today and once again the Tour de France is a learning process for me.

OH! By the way. If you're DVRing the stages for watching later, do yourself a favor. Add 10-15 minutes to the end of the taping so you don't miss the end of any stage. OR set your DVR to record the second or third broadcast of the stage. As this is a live event, the number of times I've missed the last three minutes of a stage because my DVR stopped is numerous. I'd say it happens at least half a dozen times in the course of a Tour de France.

Thanks for reading. I welcome your thoughts!

Stage 14 - 2011 Tour de France

We're still in the Pyrenees and today's biggest climb - Plateau de Beille - falls right at the end of this 168.5KM stage.

What's going to happen? A complete and utter shattering of the field is what I see. While there might be a small break or two early...desperate moves by riders who know they'll be off the back when the peloton gets to the mountains...we're all going to see either Sammy Sanchez or Cadel Evans (or maybe an inspired Ivan Basso) rock the race to its core with an unrelenting attack on the field up the HC Plateau to the finish.

Here are a few of today's updates I've gotten from my friends at Versus and Eurosport...

20 riders took off early in a breakaway 

Cadel Evans had to stop and get a bike replacement even before the live broadcast began 

There are multiple chase groups between the 20 leaders and the peloton, which is 4:50 behind with 140KM to go.

As I sit here typing, I wonder if it's ever worth the money to buy the Versus "all-access" package for the Tour de France. Mostly because the Eurosport broadcast doesn't start much before (if at all before) Versus. So the only thing all-access might offer you is no commercials and live feed. I'll research this for next year and will let you know if I find out sooner. I just can't see spending $30 for something that's free and off of my clock by 5 hours - making it a great program to grab on DVR and time-shift it.

More coming in a bit...

Cycling Cutlets

In some of my other column gigs, I have created a column format called Cutlets. Just little pieces of Jeff Cutler's mind for you to gnaw on.

So here are some little cycling Cutlets for you...

37.2KM to go. Dry roads. Peloton is only 2:20 behind the nine-rider breakaway.

Cervelo is the code word for today in the IZOD Sweeps. Go here to enter.

I really like the yellow jumpsuits on the guys on the timing motorcycle - a bright yellow BMW.

It's odd how so many of the motorbike riders and passengers drag their feet. Also, I don't think I could ever balance on the back of one of those bikes to wield a TV camera or even a DSLR.

The big climb is coming and I expect that the peloton will blow apart today. Riders are anxious. Commentators are saying Vinokourov could be the winner today. Interesting.

Stage 7 - 2011 Tour de France - Predictions

It's a rainy Friday here in Boston and I'm hoping the riders aren't in the rain again today as they were in yesterday's stage 6. That said, I think the stage today - 1/3 though this year's Tour de France - will actually shake up the GC minimally.

The reason I think this is because today's flat stage will present no real opportunity for the riders who are a bit behind to put some time into the rest of the group. There are no hills to speak of and if everyone stays with the peloton, they should remain safe.

For today, I predict that Cavendish will win his second stage (or maybe Tyler Farrar will do so).

Early highlights have a breakaway of about eight minutes with 140KM to go. I'll be back with a post about other news of the day.

The Other Pundits Make Different Picks

Not that the guys at VersusTV are following my predictions here for the 2011 Tour de France, but they are going fully against my choices for today's podium.

Paul says that Cavendish will win. Bob says it's going to be Philippe Gilbert - same as the guys at on the iPhone apps and on Twitter. And Phil says Tyler Farrar will win.

Here are a few dispatches from the race if you didn't have time to watch...

107KM to go - in the feeding zone - more than three hours gone and more than 100KM ridden. The roads are wet and the crowds are pretty big. I see some sunlight coming out even though the roads look slick.

The bummer (as I've said before) with being in the United States during the Tour de France is that you miss the coverage of the race in its entirety. The TV coverage starts at about halfway through the race or further.

At 95KM to go, the peloton is back by 6:23 and five riders are at the front. It's still raining, even though there was some breaking sky earlier. While they travel east, I think that weather patterns are going with them and I don't imagine that the cyclists can outrace the storm. Worse still, I think they rode themselves into the rain.

I was wrong. You don't hear that often. At 85KM to go the sky has cleared and the riders HAVE ridden themselves through the storm. As most people don't realize, a rainy road is one that is horrible for tires. Not because it's slick - even though it is slick like snot, especially on painted lines - but because any grit on the road sticks to the wet tires and then works its way into the tire and causes a flat. So, while you might not see a ton of crashes when it's raining, you will often see a lot of tire swaps.

At 69.6KM to go, the five riders off the front are down to a lead of merely 2:15. At one point - before they went live on the air, the breakaway was up to 11:35 ahead of the peloton.

29.4KM to go - gap is two riders and it's down to 1:13 with some riders off the back by a couple minutes. The climb at the finish is relatively short, but steep. And the riders who were shaken out of the peloton went there because of intermediate climbs in the race. A category 3 as I recall.

Finish info coming up!

And here are the crashes! 2011 Tour de France

Well, the people tweeting all day about stage 5 were not blowing smoke. They told the truth about crashes, and crashes there were. Here's what happened...

OK, it wasn't at 80KM to go, it was at 104KM to go and Bradley Wiggins was involved in a little incident with about nine other riders. That was the first one.

Next up was a crash at 90KM to go with a Radio Shack rider down and in serious pain. Banged his head and was unconscious when the race doctor got to him. It's rider 71 and I don't think he's going to continue. He didn't. It was J. Brajkovic and he abandoned the Tour after that crash.

THEN at 87.5KM to go, Alberto Contador went down and lost some time waiting for a new bike and milling about seeing if he was OK. Seemed to be, but who knows. Holy crap. Here's a shot of an indignant Contador throwing his bike to the side of the road.

....and we continue....

At 66KM to go, the gap between the peloton and the four breakaway riders was only 0:50 after being up over six minutes.

59.9KM to go - crash all across the road. Bikes in ditches and bikes littering the road. Looks like it happened about 3/4 or more back in the peloton. Two Quick Step riders down in the road, one is Tom Boonen who looks to have hurt his shoulder. He's in a rush to get back on the bike, but the doctors have sat him back down. More to come on this.

At 56.5KM to go, the four riders are back up to 1:30 ahead of the peloton. It also seems to me that I keep spelling peloton a different way each time. You won't notice, though as I'm going back through to change the wrong spellings.

The breakaway was caught at 28.4KM to go. Boonen is still off the back by 5:38 at this point.

20KM to go and the peloton is moving along nicely. There are now two leaders about eight seconds ahead. The two in the lead are Thomas Voeckler and J. Roy - both French riders. Now at 18.2KM to go, they're a minute ahead. Wow, they're cruising.

20KM to go and a rider clipped a barrier and went down. Waiting to see what the result of that crash is. Word is that he's back up and riding.

15.5KM to go and the lead is 1:08 and the guys in the back are 8:56 off the peloton.

AND Cavendish wins the stage.

I can't tell you what happened when the motorbike knocked down a rider. The commentators didn't talk about it at all, but folks on Twitter were saying the bike knocked Boonen down. I'll check the sites around here to see what happened and report it in the next post.

Stage 5 - Carhaix to Cap Frehel

Today's flatish stage 5 is about 165KM and will likely showcase some serious speed. I expect today's winners to be either Schleck brother in a breakaway, Cavendish for his first stage win of 2011 or an unknown Frenchman on a long split from the peleton.

I'm turning into Versus now to watch the stage and will share my thoughts as I watch.

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At 155KM to got, there's a breakaway of a few riders who built up a lead of 1:39 on the peleton. Watching the group, it looks like there's no urgency in the chase and there are almost 100 miles left in the stage, so why would there be.

------------

Aside from a few flat tires, nothing of note up through 135KM to go.

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At 109KM to go, the four in the lead are just about 5:34 ahead of the peleton. Still nothing of note happening on the road except for one or two more flats and wheel changes. The reason I make a point of this is because in the spoilers provided via Twitter today, people talked about massive crashes repeatedly. So, I'm waiting for them to show up. Nothing yet.

Will pick this up again with 80KM or so to go in my next post.

Stage 4 - 2011 Tour de France Lorient to Mur-de-Bretagne

Today's stage is about 173KM and the race began with all 198 riders still on two wheels and racing. That only lasted until the 40KM mark or so when Jurgen Van de Walle abandoned.

If you've seen the Tour in the past - and I'm guessing many of my readers have at least followed it - it's not uncommon to have scads of riders abandon the race before the finish. In some years there are actually very few teams that complete the Tour de France with their entire complement of riders.

We'll see how many more are gone by the time we get to stage 10 or 15.

In the first 60+KM of today's stage, only a small breakaway and no crashes. More info to come in a bit.

Stage 3 - Olonne sur Mer to Redon

Flat. Fast. Open.

Today's stage 3 is 198KM of flat terrain that will likely see a sprinter take the win. This won't mean much for the overall classification. It also won't help Alberto Contador get any closer to the yellow jersey. But it will be fun to watch.

My predictions for the stage are as follows...

Winner will be Mark Cavendish. Thor Hushovd will come in moments behind and retain the yellow jersey for a second day.

There will be two breakaways, but neither will stay away.

There will be one horrific crash where a rider has to abandon - but it won't be any of the contenders.

What say you about today's third stage of the 2011 Tour de France?

*Will blog more after the stage has been decided. Here in the United States I have an Independence Day party to attend. Chat later!

Where are we now? 2010 Tour de France - Stage 12

Yikes.

Faster than Lance, Contador or even Andy Schleck spins the cranks, we've gotten bogged down and lost in a slew of stages, wild results, people actually getting disqualified from the Tour, and a leaderboard that is shaken harder than a James Bond martini each night.

That's right, that's my way of saying, "I'm sorry I've been a slug and haven't given you your daily Tour love on time each day."

I've been watching the Tour, but as I prepare for a two-week journey of my own in the Gulf of Mexico (no, I won't be on a bike), I've been working on other projects and updates here have been limited to a few per stage. That said, here are your wrap-ups for stages 11 and 12, and my prediction for tomorrow's stage 13 and Sunday's MASSIVE, TOUR-ENDING (or at least -rending) STAGE 14.

Stage 11 - The main field finishes together while a sprint at the end sees Mark Cavendish winning and his teammate getting tossed out for blocking the line and nearly crashing the entire sprint group. That's right. If you were watching the sprint and saw team HTC rider Mark Renshaw head butting another rider - that was OK.

The real reason Renshaw was booted from the 2010 Tour de France was because he endangered the entire field - and mostly Tyler Farrar - when a few seconds after the head butting, he swerved dramatically off-line and nearly put Farrar and a dozen other riders into the steel fence along the finishing stretch.

Needless to say, that would have been bloody and crazy. It wasn't. Renshaw was booted. Farrar abandoned in Stage 12 (reasons unknown to me so far). Cavendish got his 13th stage win in Tours de France. And Schleck remained in the lead by 41 seconds.

Stage 12 - Tough mountain finish. Brutal heat. Contador teammate Alexandre Vinokourov looked poised to take the stage but Contador is a baby and rides like one. So Alberto raced past Vino and finished second on the stage. This took about ten seconds out of Schleck and jumbled the field a little bit.

Here's how the overall GC stands now...


1. SCHLECK Andy 11 TEAM SAXO BANK 58h 42' 01"
2. CONTADOR Alberto 1 ASTANA 58h 42' 32" + 00' 31"
3. SANCHEZ Samuel 181 EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI 58h 44' 46" + 02' 45"
4. MENCHOV Denis 191 RABOBANK 58h 44' 59" + 02' 58"
5. VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen 101 OMEGA PHARMA - LOTTO 58h 45' 32" + 03' 31"
6. LEIPHEIMER Levi 25 TEAM RADIOSHACK 58h 46' 07" + 04' 06"
7. GESINK Robert 195 RABOBANK 58h 46' 28" + 04' 27"
8. RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquin 77 KATUSHA TEAM 58h 46' 59" + 04' 58"
9. SANCHEZ Luis-Leon 161 CAISSE D’EPARGNE 58h 47' 03" + 05' 02"
10. KREUZIGER Roman 44 LIQUIGAS-DOIMO 58h 47' 17" + 05' 16"
11. BASSO Ivan 41 LIQUIGAS-DOIMO 58h 47' 31" + 05' 30"
12. VINOKOUROV Alexandre 9 ASTANA 58h 48' 26" + 06' 25"
13. HESJEDAL Ryder 54 GARMIN - TRANSITIONS 58h 48' 26" + 06' 25"
14. ROCHE Nicolas 81 AG2R LA MONDIALE 58h 48' 45" + 06' 44"
15. SASTRE Carlos 91 CERVELO TEST TEAM 58h 49' 35" + 07' 34"
16. WIGGINS Bradley 31 SKY PRO CYCLING 58h 49' 40" + 07' 39"
17. ROGERS Michael 118 TEAM HTC - COLUMBIA 58h 49' 48" + 07' 47"
18. EVANS Cadel 121 BMC RACING TEAM 58h 50' 09" + 08' 08"
19. LÖVKVIST Thomas 37 SKY PRO CYCLING 58h 50' 25" + 08' 24"
20. KLÖDEN Andréas 24 TEAM RADIOSHACK 58h 51' 06" + 09' 05"
21. MONIER Damien 178 COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE 58h 52' 32" + 10' 31"
22. PLAZA MOLINA Ruben 168 CAISSE D’EPARGNE 58h 52' 42" + 10' 41"
23. DE WEERT Kevin 133 QUICK STEP 58h 53' 28" + 11' 27"
24. HORNER Christopher 23 TEAM RADIOSHACK 58h 53' 57" + 11' 56"
25. GADRET John 85 AG2R LA MONDIALE 58h 54' 29" + 12' 28"
26. LE MEVEL Christophe 61 FDJ 58h 56' 10" + 14' 09"
27. CASAR Sandy 62 FDJ 58h 56' 12" + 14' 11"
28. MORENO FERNANDEZ Daniel 107 OMEGA PHARMA - LOTTO 58h 56' 34" + 14' 33"
29. VAN SUMMEREN Johan 58 GARMIN - TRANSITIONS 58h 58' 45" + 16' 44"
30. RIBLON Christophe 89 AG2R LA MONDIALE 58h 59' 56" + 17' 55"
31. SIVTSOV Kanstantsin 119 TEAM HTC - COLUMBIA 59h 01' 55" + 19' 54"
32. ARMSTRONG Lance 21 TEAM RADIOSHACK 59h 03' 17" + 21' 16"

Tomorrow and Sunday are big days too.

Saturday is Stage 13 and has the 196KM ride from Rodez to Revel. It's got a few climbs in it, but nothing compared to Sunday and stage 14.

Sunday is the 184.5KM ride from Revel to Ax 3 Domaines and it includes an HC climb that could shatter the field.

SO - here are my predictions.

Saturday will see someone like Levi Leipheimer finally win a stage by being in the breakaway all day. This will make all the riders tired because both Contador's and Schleck's teams will work all day to keep Levi within a few minutes. This will put Levi in third place and leave Alberto and Andy in the same spots.

Sunday will be the surprise of surprises. Similar to our former friend Floyd Landis' heroic but drug-induced efforts, one Lance Armstrong will duplicate the effort without the help of drugs and will astonish us all with his heart and bravado. He will be in a break that he will then shatter and go on to put himself back into the top 15 riders of this year's Tour de France.

It won't be enough to make him a contender. But it will be enough to cement in viewers' minds that nobody will ever come close to his dominance in this race.

That's it from here. I'll be back Sunday to chat about the week ahead. Please share your thoughts on all this in the comments.

Peleton back together - 2010 Tour de France

Lance is back in the Peleton now and the group is flying up the hill. The breakaway used to have a five-minute lead and it's already down to four minutes.

The tempo in the main field is high and Armstrong is about halfway back up through the Peleton.

There are seven riders in the breakaway that's sitting 3:57 ahead of the main group.

GC after Stage 6 - 2010 Tour de France

Like I said in my most recent post - short and sweet. With many more details to come during Sunday's Stage 8. But after six stages of this year's race, here are the top five riders. *Cadel Evans is in there!

Fabian Cancellara - Saxo Bank
Geraint Thomas - Sky Pro Cycling
Cadel Evans - BMC
Ryder Hesjedal - Garmin
Sylvain Chavanel - Quick Step

You can expect that the folks here in the top five will be shuffled in the next couple days except for Evans. The only possibility is that the power of the yellow jersey might keep Fabian Cancellara around for a few extra days before he's spit out the back.

Prediction for tomorrow's Stage 7... again I'm going with a breakaway including Cadel Evans with him winning it and getting into yellow. Could be wrong.

Bicycling Magazine Confirms my Prediction

Stage 8 will be one of the stages to watch in the 2010 Tour de France. According to their Website...

Stage 8, July 11
Station des Rousses to Morzine-Avoriaz, 189km

This 189km ride from the Jura to the Alps will be a pressure-packed day for the favorits. This is the first test with high mountain peaks, with major climbs in the final third of the stage. A breakaway will likely go free while the favorites wait for the climb to Avoriaz.

I'm excited!

Going with Cavendish again - or Cadel Evans - Stage 5 Prediction

Here we are at Stage 5 of the 2010 Tour de France. There is most definitely going to be a series of breakaways today, and whomever stays with them will probably have a great chance at the sprint finish and the stage win.

Today is a day that I see Cavendish finally getting his first stage of the 2010 Tour. But I can also see George Hincapie and Cadel Evans working together to put some more hurt into the field. If Cadel acts now, there won't be any way for people to catch him later on.

That's what I think. Go turn on the TV and see what happens.

Stage 4 - Prediction - 2010 Tour de France

Stage 4 of the 2010 Tour de France is pretty flat. There are a couple category 5 and category 4 climbs, but nothing that should hurt anyone too badly.

The stage is 153.5KM and goes from Cambrai to Reims. By the way, now we're in France for the long haul.

My thoughts on the winner of this stage? I think it will finally have to go to Cavendish. He crashed out of the sprint in Stage 1, wasn't allowed to sprint in Stage 2, and the cobbles broke the field apart in Stage 3, so he wasn't even in the lead group.

My alternate choice for winner is Cadel Evans. I think the strategy now is for Cadel - a clear favorite to win the Tour de France - to grab more of the lead before the true mountains come. This could be a day for BMC to take a breakaway and then put a bunch of minutes into the field.

Those are my two choices. What about you?

Stage 2 - Prediction - Jeff Cutler covers the 2010 Tour de France

Unless he drops out - and I don't expect that to happen - I think Mark Cavendish will win today's stage. He was unlucky yesterday with a crash in the final 3KM. Today's stage has none of the madness at the finish and he should get a good lead out unless there's a massive breakaway.

We'll see what the first hills - ne mountains - of the 2010 Tour de France hand out.

Tour de France 2010 - Stage 1 - Rotterdam to Bruxelles

This stage is 223KM and is flat. At just under an hour of riding, there is a breakaway group seven minutes ahead of the peleton.

There was one abandon overnight.

Weather is clear, but there is some wind.

My choice to win today is either Robbie McEwen or Mark Cavendish. Who do you choose?

The Radio Ruling

After a sustained complaint campaign by teams in this year's TDF, the race organizers have backed off their plan to disallow race radios during a second stage of this year's race.

The second non-radio stage was supposed to be today's Stage 13, but now the discussion of radio use will take place after the Tour de France.

I think it would be much better to have all teams WITHOUT radios or to have race officials impart less information to the teams during the race.

That way the riders and teams would really have to race instead of relying only on tactics dictated by where every other rider is on the course. Stuff they wouldn't know unless they truly paid attention during the race.

Right now it's almost like the teams operate in an info tunnel until the final sprint. They focus on their strategy and are only shaken out of that tunnel if there's some incident on the road. Those incidents could be crashes, breakaways or attacks.

I want to see the Tour with the racers making their own decisions whether to attack without hearing in their ear whether to go or not.

I guess I'm a new school, old school cycling guy. What would you like to see happen with this issue?

Where's the Power?

Last night - or early this morning - the power went out at my house. More specifically, the CABLE WENT OUT.

It was only down for a grand total of a minute, but that was enough time to wipe out the DVR's memory.

I spent ten frantic minutes trying to remember what channel Versus was on and was completely worried that I might miss the live version of today's broadcast.

At 8:30:17 I finally found Versus HD and hit record. Stage 10 is being recorded as I type and I can now breathe again.

Imagine how fast my heartrate monitor was going this morning. Then laugh at me because it was probably a third of the speed the riders hearts get rolling when sprinting for the line.

The next three stages will end with either breakaways or sprint finishes.

And a prediction, while I'm being so talkative.

I believe that Team Atantà will experience a splintering in the next couple days. It might not be today, but it will happen by the end of stage 11.

Keep watching.

A different way to watch

At past Tours de France, I've been able to watch while enjoying a beverage at a cafe in Paris or while eating picnic food at the side of the road in the Alps.

This year I'm back in the states watching on Versus and I've got the laptop with me as I evaluate the ride.

How are you watching this year?

OK...let's get back to the stage...

SPOILERS AHEAD (or below)

No excitement until about 70KM into the race. The roads became wet at that line and the rain has continued toward the finish.

One crash occurred at that rain line.

96KM from the finish - three leaders are ahead by about 2:30.

On today's stage, the riders head deeper into Spain and this could help Alberto Contador...a Spaniard riding in front of his home country.

Only three riders have dropped out so far. Which AMAZES me. In prior tours I've seen the numbers drop by a dozen at this point.

Maybe having one fewer team has helped keep the crashes down. Some years the Tour starts 189 riders, but for the past couple it's been a count of 180.

Oh - the Versus Cadillac word of the day is RPM.

While watching I can't help but notice that Phil Liggett and others are totally pimping stage 7. They're saying it's the longest mountain stage of the race, that it will shake out the Tour completely.

I wonder if a local BBQ joint is doing their usual 'come watch the Tour at Redbones' event. I may have to give them a call.

Breakaway right now is only 2 Min with 85KM to go. There are now four riders in the front and one is David Millar who would take over the Yellow Jersey if the race ended now. He's only a minute behind the leader.

Still watching. At 64KM to go, four riders ahead by 1:45.

58KM to go and it's dropping fast. Gap is now down to 1:15.

Gap is now down to 1:09, but there's a climb ahead and the commentators are saying the big teams might not want to chase for fear of burning out before tomorrow's stage 7 in the BIG MOUNTAINS.

32KM to go, lead is down to 0:53. But the rains are heavier now and that could break apart the entire field. And the climb is right ahead of the lead group of four.

CRASH! At a roundabout. Four or five riders down. Could be Tony Martin. Michael Rodgers looks to have broken his arm and is out of the Tour. Wet roads!

Will get more info shortly. By the way, David Millar has jumped off the front of the breakaway and is 28.1KM from the finish. Gap is only 0:41.

In just a few seconds, the gap is aready up to 0:55.

Crazy!

At 25KM, the time gap is a full minute.

15.8KM David Millar is ahead by 1:08 and is the leader of the Tour de France on the road.

Will do another post about the finish and my thoughts shortly.

How are you watching or tracking the Tour?

Do you have this site - http://www.itourdefrance.com// - bookmarked on your iPhone to follow the Tour de France? You should!