Tour de France

My favorite rider nicknames (courtesy of dailypeleton.com)
"T-Bone" Tom Boonen (that picture makes it especially, well, something)
"Gorgeous" George Hincapie (aka The Big Hink)
Alexandre "The Great" Vinokourov
Jan "U-Boat" Ullrich
Levi "Button Fly" Leipheimer
Iban "Miracle Whip" Mayo
Pavel "The Gavel" Padrnos
"Pretty Boy" Floyd Landis
Vladimir "Shag" Karpets
Roberto "Spanish Fly" Heras

Some others that I didn't find quite as amusing:
Thomas "No Doubt" Voeckler
Thor "Don't Call me Loki" Hushovd
David "Friskie" Zabriskie
"Mad" Bradlee McGee
Erik "The Red" Dekker
Stuart "Red Thunder" O'Grady
Lance "El Jefe" Armstrong
Ivan "Bello" Basso
Santiago "The Battler" Botero

[Edited 3 times. Most recently by on Jul 5, 2005 at 01:41pm.]

No changes to the leader board today. The biggest news from Stage 5 was that Lance tried to do the right thing by refusing to wear yellow out of respect for Zabriskie. Many riders, Eddy Merckx and Greg LeMond among them, have chosen not to wear the yellow when they inherit it as the result of a crash. However, the tour organizers had some other ideas:

Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc soon put Armstrong in his place, and he ended up riding the stage wearing both the yellow jersey and his Discovery Channel top.

"There was no negotiating," added Armstrong. He (Leblanc) said, 'if you don't start with that jersey, you don't start (the race) tomorrow'.

"It didn't feel right to take the jersey on someone else's misfortune, but Jean-Marie had other ideas."

complete story

Apparantly I'm not the only one who didn't think much was happening in today's stage. Locutus from dailypeloton.comhad this to say during his live update with 42 km to go: In the middle of the pack, riders slap each other upside the face to keep from falling asleep. Oh wait, that's just the fans, not the riders. Hopefully the racing will pick up as it nears the end.

Hee.

Yes, today certainly wasn't boring. Too bad about Mengin, I thought he was going to pull it off.

Only one change to the leader board, but a lot of interesting things took place in the second positions. Dekker lost his polka dot jersey to teammate Karsten Koon. Koon has 7 points and Stephan Auge also has 7, Dekker is one point behind with 6.

In second place news, Vino moved into second place in the GC ahead of Hincapie, 53 seconds behind Lance. Tom Boonen retains the green, but Thor Hushovd is nipping at his heels. Boonen is at 106 points but Hushovd moved up to 99. The sprinter fight should be interesting to watch as they try to get a few more points before things get hilly.

I can give you a basic overview.

The yellow jersey represents the overall leader of the race. It's based solely on time. In theory, a rider could never win a stage but if their overall time is the best they would win the tour.

The white jersey is for young riders. It works the same as the yellow, based on an individual's overall time. To qualify, the rider must be born after January 1, 1981.

The polka-dot jersey is for mountain climbers. In various mountain stages there are designated checkpoints, kind of like mini-finish lines. If you're the first guy to cross the checkpoint you get 6 points, cross second and you get 4 points, cross 3rd and you get 2. Whoever gets the most points wears the dots.

The green jersey is for sprinters. It's similar to the polka dot checkpoints, but these are on the flat stages. Sprinters can also earn points for stage victories.

Basically, the green and polka dot jerseys are for guys who have only one strength. It also encourages people to break out of the peloton and attack trying to get these points, which makes for a more exciting race.

overall point champ-

No. At least, there's no jersey.

It is also technically possible for a rider to win 20 stages and not win the race (it hasn't happened yet)

Sure. Say the rider won 20 stages, but in one of the other stages they lost 5 minutes due to a crash. They would probably win all 20 by a small margin, say 5 seconds as a generous estimate. 5 times 20 is only 100 seconds, not even close to making up the 5 minute loss from that one stage.

so is it possible for somebody to win all 4 jerseys???

I suppose somebody could be the overall leader and have all the points. But they wouldn't let them do it. For example, if Lance was wearing the yellow and also had the most sprinter points, they would let the guy with the second most sprinter points wear the green jersey.

The red lantern! I wonder who will win that one this year!

Kewl.

420 joe.

[Edited by on Jul 7, 2005 at 07:55pm.]

I watched the coverage this evening. Seeing the video it's even more heartbreaking watching Mengin crash so close to the finish after holding onto his breakaway for so freakin' long. Especially riding into his home town. Poor bastard.

I think both dailypeloton.com and yahoo are updating more quickly than that.

http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=8262

http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/tdf/live/07.html

Nothing dramatic today. Another mostly flat stage where there was some action from the sprinters and a change in the polka dot jersey, but not much from a GC perspective. Fabian Wegmann spent most of the stage out front, and as a result he's the new King of the Mountains. Boonen extended his sprinter lead to 133 points, 11 more than second place Thor Hushovd. Other than that, the big boys are playing it safe in the peloton.

So what were you looking for?

Sweet!

Transponder?

I figured there was something like that, I was just surprised it was that big. A friend of mine ran the Grandma's marathon and they had those. His was small enough that it tied to his shoelaces.

Interesting day today. Team Discovery, to all appearances, fell apart. Much is being made of this by the media and pretty much everybody who follows the Tour. I'm hoping that the Disco boys are laying up a bit to screw with people's collective heads. Otherwise it could be a long two weeks to Paris.

Here's an article that I've trimmed a lot of stuff out of. But with the amount of comments Lance makes about falling apart and hurting and being isolated, it's almost a case of "methinks the lady doth protest too much." This guy has never let on that he's hurting in the past. Unless you count the time in 2001 when he seemed to be hurting, only to turn on the juice and pass Ullrich on a grueling climb up L'Alpe d'Huez; upon passing Ullrich he gave him what will be forever known as "The Look." Here's the article, you decide:

``If it's two more weeks of days like today then you're in trouble,'' said Armstrong, who kept his overall lead after finishing in 20th place.

``Definitely, a crisis within our team on the final climb,'' Armstrong said. ``For whatever reason I was left alone. We had a bad day as a team and that makes it that much harder and I had to cover some big moves myself.''

``You have to pick your fights. You can't cover them all,'' Armstrong said. ``I was trying to do my best and minimize the damage.

``I was isolated, definitely suffering,'' he added.

Armstrong suggested that his team may have overworked itself while protecting his lead and the famed yellow jersey that goes with it in fast flat stages the first week.

``We have some talking to do tonight,'' he said. ``We held onto the jersey, but there's a lot of bruised egos on our team and we have to try and recover.

``But I know those guys, they're going to be just as disappointed if not more disappointed than I am,'' he added. ``So I'll think they'll get better.''

complete story

Another interesting day in the chess game that is the Tour. Lance and the Disco boys let the white jersey slip away yesterday and let the yellow jersey slip away today. But even though Lance losing yellow will be the big media story of the day, other more important things happened. Such as:
Michael Rasmussen rode like a machine today in a solo break that began pretty much immediately and never ended. Even Jens Voight, riding with Moreau, couldn't catch him. It's the second consecutive stage win for Rabobank and another strong indication that Rasmussen wants to keep that polka dot jersey
There were several minor crashes today. The biggest name involved was Jan Ullrich, though he appears to have gotten up and recovered nicely. There should be no lasting issue for him. Other lesser known riders crashed and were forced to abandon. David Zabriskie also abandoned, still in pain from his time trial crash 5 days ago.
Team Discovery seemed to be back on track today, riding together and leading the peloton at a pace that was shedding riders left and right. Words from Discovery Channel's Hincapie:
"Sure, we were caught off guard yesterday. But we are still the same team as we were at the start. So, all the criticism from yesterday made us angry. Today was a much better day. I hope it'll get better and better from here."

Best coverage line of the day comes from dailypeloton.com, as usual:
"Rasmussen just floating up this climb like he's had a helium enema."

Yesterday was a pretty good stage. I like it when the breakaway guys don't get caught. I just read that Ullrich crashed yesterday on a descent. He bruised his ribs but is otherwise OK and finished with the main peloton.

Sheryl Crow, tour groupie

Me either, I've been stuck with yahoo all morning.

Rabobank could move into first place in the team category if CSC isn't careful.