Tour de France 2013

[TheVoxyn]

Love watching the tour, cycling is a great sport and le Tour de France usually falls in the month where I have lots of time to sit in front of the TV all day  . Anyone following it? The thread I made last year didn't get too much attention, but who knows... Personally I am rooting for Contador and Froome.

Also, please no 'herpaderp I don't like cycling, it's boring and doping' posts. I get enough of that shit from people in my real life surroundings already  .

[jsem]

Why a thread for the Tour but no thread for the Giro.    Giro > Tour almost always. Anyway...

I hope for Purito, but Froome will dominate. Urgh. Skyborgs will sit at the front for like 95% of the race.

[TheVoxyn]

Why a thread for the Tour but no thread for the Giro.    Giro > Tour almost always. Anyway...

I hope for Purito, but Froome will dominate. Urgh. Skyborgs will sit at the front for like 95% of the race.

Because there don't seem to be many people into cycling here and the Tour is the most well known event. And I personally am always busy as hell when the Giro is on .

[Nihil-Morari]

Totally following the tour this yeah, and I agree, I usually don't have much time to follow the Giro, plus: it isn't as well covered by the media here in Holland, so most of the time I just forget about it.

I guess there'll be no stopping Froome, but the stage where they have to climb Alpe D'huez twice could be the key for another major climber to gain time. And since Evans isn't that good usually in the first week, the coming few days could be fun too. He looked sharp yesterday, so maybe he now peaked too early this tour, who knows.

Apart from that I expect a big surprise from the French, it being the 100th edition of the tour. Maybe Rolland. Especially on the Ventoux stage, july 14th. 

[ich bin besser]

A German already won one stage. 

And for those who can understand German: https://www.der-postillon.com/2013/06/gesamtsieger-von-tour-de-france-2013.html#more 

[nicmos]

ich bin besser, your avatar (you?) look like a more German version of Floyd Landis

Le Tour is the most epic sporting event of them all.  It is a shame that it is so challenging that the incentive to dope is so high.  I still like watching, and I hope that the testing has caught up to the cheating enough to make cheating not worth it.  The race would be just as entertaining if we had 100% assurance that everyone was clean.  Although you can ask an ethical question whether it is fair that some people are naturally more talented than others, and whether the others have a right to try to level the playing field through artificial means.  I would love to see it so that those that trained the hardest were rewarded, but athletes who are naturally gifted in some way (see Michael Phelps' huge flipper hands as an extreme example) start out with an unfair advantage.

With that out of the way, I'm looking forward to it all.  I hope Contador can put up a fight against Froome.  Maybe Schleck will surprise, but somehow I don't think his form is there yet.  I also don't think Evans will win, but he'll probably finish in the top 5.  I'd love to see Van Garderen let loose.

[TheVoxyn]

Time trails yesterday were exiting. Too bad quickstep lost with a second, was routing for them. Glad Cavendish won today, dude deserves it.

Really looking forward to when the real mountains start. Hope Contador can make a difference, overall I hope he enters Paris wearing a yellow jersey.

[Nihil-Morari]

I'm rooting for Froome actually. The Sky team doesn't seem as all-controlling as it used to be, so it's more difficult for him, and he just has to attack. I'd love to see this tour blow up on the first real mountain stage, and have a lot of 'every person for themselves' moments. I think the two short individual time trials are cool too. One totally flat, one with two pretty big climbs in it. You really have to be an all rounder to win this. And I guess the yellow jersey will switch places quite a number of times this tour. Maybe even on the second to last day.

[TheVoxyn]

Brutal day, ending with Sky being a complete rape-train. Contador lost 1.45 or so  .

Good to see two Dutch runners in the top 5 though, it's been a while.

[jsem]

Urgh. It might be over already. I hope some guys go ballistic in the coming mtn stages and destroy Sky, but it's unlikely. It's a good thing Wiggo failed brutally in the Giro and we don't have Sky dominating all 3 GTs this year. But remember what Contador did in last years Vuelta though, he attacked on a medium stage and put 2 ½ minutes into J-Rod. I want to remain hopeful.

[nicmos]

Yeah, as expected, Froome is in the best form.  It is a shame the other rivals don't seem to be close.  Schleck, Contador, Evans, they don't seem like they are in Froome's league right now to be honest.  It takes the suspense out of the final 2 weeks which makes the race much less compelling to watch.

It would be nice to see some crazy attacks, a la Floyd Landis (minus the EPO of course) to make it interesting though.

[jsem]

Schleck and Evans were never going to be there to begin with. Schleck has been horrendous since his crash in last year's Dauphine and Evans has fatigue from the Giro. Sad that Contador isn't in his Giro 11 form.

[nicmos]

Today was one of the most exciting stages I've seen in a long time.  When a flat stage goes haywire, it's suspenseful.  I feel really sorry for Valverde though, he finally is looking good in the Tour after all these years, and his puncture just ruined his chances.  He might as well have crashed out.

[TheVoxyn]

Yea, yesterday was fantastic. Also great results, Mollema 2nd and Contador 3rd - I like  . Also, I like Cavendish (even after what happened a few days ago) so him winning the stage was also nice (albeit a Dutch victory would've been better - 2005 was the last time that happened).