Dauphin Libre is on this week - usually a good indicator of form before the Tour starts.
Allesandro Valverde won today’s stage with Hushovd, Evans, Leipheimer, Voeckler and Zubeldia all competing for the stage one.
Not much in the way of time differentials so far but if those guys are sprinting for a stage at this stage it promises for good mountain stages all week.
Did Evans look strong? He is 5/2 favourite to win the tour. Not sure they are great odds. Real conservative rider who does nothing brilliantly but does most things well. Following odds from bet365. Not sure who I’d go for.
Cadel Evans 2/1 Bet
Denis Menchov 4/1 Bet
Alejandro Valverde 6/1 Bet
Carlos Sastre 7/1 Bet
Andy Schleck 8/1 Bet
Damiano Cunego 10/1 Bet
Oscar Pereiro 25/1 Bet
Haimar Zubeldia 30/1 Bet
Mauricio Soler 30/1 Bet
Thomas Dekker 30/1 Bet
Samuel Sanchez 30/1 Bet
Yaroslav Popovych 30/1 Bet
Frnck Schleck 35/1 Bet
Stijn Devolder 40/1
Ah, the Laryduff and Rocko thread starts again. Just thought I’d reply here to break it up a bit. You may continue lads. 
Out of that list I’d like Schleck or Zubeldia to win but don’t see either of them doing it. Having said that it’s a really weak field. No great allrounders.
Not sure how the CSC guys have been doing this season. Sastre is going in the DL this week so we can gauge his form from that. Backed him last year and he’s good value for a bit of aggressive riding but don’t know about his longevity. With Sastre and the two Schlecks they look very strong, especially with no Astana.
Menchov looked very strong in the Giro up until the last week and I suspect he was keeping something back. More used to seeing him as a secondary rider though so might be a bit exposed as a leader in his own right.
I’ll wait until nearer the start in case anything happens in the meantime but at the moment Pereiro would be my each way bet out of that bunch.
[quote=“therock67”]Out of that list I’d like Schleck or Zubeldia to win but don’t see either of them doing it. Having said that it’s a really weak field. No great allrounders.
Not sure how the CSC guys have been doing this season. Sastre is going in the DL this week so we can gauge his form from that. Backed him last year and he’s good value for a bit of aggressive riding but don’t know about his longevity. With Sastre and the two Schlecks they look very strong, especially with no Astana.
Menchov looked very strong in the Giro up until the last week and I suspect he was keeping something back. More used to seeing him as a secondary rider though so might be a bit exposed as a leader in his own right.
I’ll wait until nearer the start in case anything happens in the meantime but at the moment Pereiro would be my each way bet out of that bunch.[/quote]
CSC have had a poor year so far. Riis isn’t involved (in a hands on capacity at least) and they didn’t do great in team time trial at Giro. In fact they didn’t really figure other than Voigt who got a stage in an otherwise forgetable Giro for him.
Disagree on Menchov. Thought he was poor in the Giro and his lack of delivery in last week was more to do with lack of talent than lack of effort. In mountain time trial he really look to be in pain and lost a couple of minutes.
Would like to see Sastre do it but he will probably lose too much time in time trials and he was disappointing in mountains last year. Well done to Le Tour anyway for sticking by their guns and not inviting Astana. Giro took the easy option in inviting them. Will be the cleanest Tour in years I’d say.
They’re getting a new sponsor for next year and I think Riis is going to be more involved then. Weak enough team they sent to the Giro, not sure what Sastre has been doing. Schlecks rode the Tour of Luxembourg (home tour) I think but not sure they’ve done much else.
We’ll see on Menchov. Didn’t see all the Giro so hard to be definitive but I got the impression from early on he was aiming for Le Tour as his main one and I still think that.
Yeah fair play to Le Tour too, no help from McQuaid but they’ve held firm.
Will any Irish riders get a ride in Le Tour this year? Philip Deignan put in a fairly strong showing in the Giro and only just faded when he got sick the last week.
Deignan and Nicholas Roche are both possibilities. Roche had a very good Giro last year and could be competing though not sure if he will be injured. Would be good to have an Irish rider competing all right.
Nicolas Roche is in the reckoning with Credit Agricole. He was selected for the Giro provisionally but then his team didn’t get in. And he’s done well since then so reckon he’ll probably get the nod.
Deignan had a good Giro alright until he got sick but that’s two decent enough performances he’s put in in the big tours.
Valverde won the mountain time trial today very impressively. Moves him into yellow ahead of Leipheimer in second with Evans third. Evans took it very handy apparently because it was wet.
Think he’ll close out the win now. It’s just mountain practice at this stage and he’ll climb as well as any of them.
Valverde in at 5/1 to win Tour Now. Might back him at that after I do a bit of research. Think he could come in from that price.
I am on Damiano Cunego at 12/1.
Why did you go for Cunego?
To be honest Lar, I know nothing about cycling but a mate of mine knows Sean Kelly and he recommended him to back Cunego, said that was good enough for me, I wanted an interest in the event. Is he a big climber?
He’s mainly a climber which is how he won the Giro a few years back when he was still early 20s. Since then he’s tried to become more of an all-rounder. Not sure how he’s doing at that because he didn’t race this year’s Giro. He didn’t ride the Tour last year - he opted for the Giro then instead.
This year he’s focusing on the Tour - no idea how he’s been doing in the smaller races but presumably Kelly does.
Tour of Switzerland is on this week and it’s good mountain practice for those who weren’t in the Dauphin last week.
Big names include:
Frank Schleck
Andy Schleck
Andreas Kloeden
Damiano Cunego
Riccardo Ricc
Kim Kirchen
and sprinters:
Robbie McEwen
Oscar Freire
Erik Zabel
Should tell us an awful lot about TdF contenders when we see what sort of form the CSC boys are in. Cunego will be up there too obviously and Ricco and Kloeden won’t be riding in the Tour so this is a big chance for them to get a victory for the season.
Big mountains on Thursday and then a mountain time trial on Saturday.
Significant enough stage today. Frank Schleck got away on his own and was joined by Markus Fothen near the end. Schleck fell on the last descent though and ended up losing a couple of minutes. No big injuries so he’s fine for Le Tour but would have been interesting to see him in yellow.
There was a main sort of bunch (hills more than mountains today) with Kirchen and Andy Schleck about a minute behind the stage winner. But Kloeden and Cunego didn’t stay with that group and lost 20 seconds and 57 seconds respectively.
Deignan finished alongside Cunego by the way and is a more than decent 59th overall (150 odd in total) not far behind Jens Voigt. He’s third in his team standings so far.
Larry - Ricco didn’t start the first stage for some reason, have you heard why?
Super performance from Deignan yesterday. Attacked on the first climb and got away in a group of 10. Then pressed on with another lad and the two of them went away on their own up to the last climb. He was caught near the end and eventually finished two minutes down but that’s a serious performance.
Kirchen won the stage and moves into the lead overall. Kloeden, Andy Schleck and Cunego were all within 30 seconds of Kirchen. Frank Schleck finished a small bit back with Deignan’s group. He did alot of attacking yesterday but nothing came of it.
Time trial now on Saturday. Interesting to see how the Schlecks fare against Cunego and Kloeden and the likes.
Neither Deignan nor Roche are riding in the Tour this year by the way. Roche is sick, not sure why Deignan isn’t taking part.
I saw a clip on Setanta Sports News of that Shleck fall and it looked very bad. He just misjudged the width of a corner and toppled over a barrier going head first down into a ditch that fell downwards. His bike just lay there as other riders rode past.
I think a lot should be made of any time differences which riders make or gain on the tour of switzerland. Though it might not seem big the likes of Cunego losing twenty seconds to his rivals on a stage would put me right off backing him.
No idea about Ricco rock but will find out tomorrow if I can.
In an upcoming interview with Procycling magazine, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has tipped Cadel Evans as one of his favourites for the 2008 race, which starts in less than three weeks time. But with much of Armstrong’s life in retirement spent away from the European cycling scene, the Texan said he no longer follows professional racing as much nowadays.
“I follow enough to be able to say that I do like Cadel Evans,” said Armstrong. “He had a good ride last year, is riding well this year - that could be a good or a bad thing. I was never able to have a great spring, a great Classics season, and then be competitive in the Tour. It would be super-cool if someone could, so if he’s able to do that and win the Tour - hey, that’s great! I mean who else is there?”
On the subject of other Tour contenders, Armstrong was cool on the prospect of Damiano Cunego taking the Tour title back to Italy. "He’ll never win the Tour. Those Tour climbs… he can’t climb like that. And he can’t time trial like that. And that’s not a slap at him. He’s a little guy. I just don’t think he’s a Tour rider.
"If I could pick one guy and say ‘let’s make this a project’, I would pick Stijn Devolder. I think he can win the Tour some day. He can climb well enough, and he’s lean, skinny, certainly can time trial. Tactically, I don’t know, it’s a little different from winning Tour of Flanders, but he’s got a good team and smart guys around him so that should work.
“As far as the Americans go, I’d say we’re at least a couple of years away. Those riders referred to as the Great White Hopes haven’t really panned out. That’s not a criticism of them, it’s just that European cycling is just very different than the Tour of Georgia or Redlands or a VO2 test in the lab.”
Asked about the exclusion of Astana from this year’s Tour - the team managed by his former directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel - Armstrong described the decision as “a Johan Bruyneel/Lance Armstrong penalty”.
“It’s their race so they can do whatever they want,” he said of Tour organiser ASO. "As for the decision to leave out Astana… at the same time they’re allowing in a lot of other teams that are in the same situation, or certainly potentially in more of a ‘devious’ situation, or certainly more of a history. Astana 2008, aside from the sponsor, is certainly not anything like Astana 2007.
"That’s simply a decision they took as a Johan Bruyneel/Lance Armstrong penalty. And if that’s the way they want to run their event, they’re going to be managing a very small group of people real soon. You can’t make those decisions in world sport.
"And they have double standards by keeping in the CSCs and the Rabobanks, all the guys that have a laundry list of problems. If you want to kick one out, kick them all out. They’re just playing games, and that’s a disservice to the sport, to the fans, to the media, certainly to a guy like [2007 Tour winner] Alberto Contador. It’s not fair.
“If they want to play games like kids, then play games, but the record will show that I think ASO and the sport of cycling was fairly, if not very, prosperous during our time winning seven. And the record will show that since then it has not done well. And I’m not taking any credit, I’m just saying, for the record, the facts are what they are.”