Going nowhere, on two wheels
Posted by Mark on July 26, 2007 under doping | 
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There’s a good article by David Harmon on RoadCyclingUK.com today.
I think a few more people need to pull no punches and start dishing out some harsh, honest truths.
Interestingly Ned Boulting from ITV came straight out with it in an interview with Rasmussen the other day too. You can hear Ned’s questioning in the ITV podcast. Good on you Ned!
Posted by Mark on July 25, 2007 under doping | Be the First to Comment
Well, it was only a matter of time before it all kicked off good and proper in Le Tour wasn’t it? Michael Rasmussen has been withdrawn from the 2007 Tour de France!
Completely unbelievable. I’m in utter shock about this years race.
Posted by Mark on under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Well there we go – another selfish bastard means a whole team leaves the 2007 Tour de France. This time the Italian Cristian Moreni has caused the whole of Cofidis to leave. This, of course, means our own [if you're a Brit 
] Bradley Wiggins is going home.
Makes the Mouvement pour un cyclisme crédible a bit of a farce too, eh, since Cofidis were one of the founding seven teams.
*sigh* It’s far from over, isn’t it?
Posted by Mark on July 24, 2007 under doping | Be the First to Comment
Bloody hell! Quite literally – Alexander Vinokourov has returned a positive test for blood doping in the ITT on Saturday!
Cycling News have just reported it
VeloNews has an article on Homologous blood doping.
I’m astounded these guys keep trying to get one past the testers. Surely this ‘old school’ technique would be the furthest from their minds? Saying that, I’m jumping to the conclusion he’s guilty. Pah, who am I kidding, of course he is.
Posted by Mark on July 23, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Crikey, what an awesome weekend!
Vino’s stunning time trial, followed by the brilliant action on the Plateau de Beille.
After my last post it’ll come as no surprise that I was glad to see Evans cracked. He never makes any effort to lead up the climbs, let alone do something as brave as make a break himself. Watching Rasmussen, Leipheimer, Contador and mostly Soler wear him out was justice if you ask me.
Interesting comments by Contador at the end, saying Rasmussen broke an agreement they had about working together to rule out Evans. Contador claimed Rasmussen attacked him, after they’d agreed to work together. Of course, we’ll never know what the exact words were that were exchanged between them, but from my [TV] spectators point of view it looked awfully like Contador got bored of leading Rasmussen and complained. At which point Rasmussen then took the lead. After that they seen to be squabbling over taking the lead. Odd.
Oh well, it worked. Contador up to second, Evans in third three minutes off the lead.
In the ITT on Saturday Contador only pulled 37 seconds out of Rasmussen. With one ITT left, and a lead of 2 minutes 23 seconds on Contador, does this mean Rasmussen is our 2007 winner? I’d certainly like to see it that way. It was a complete surprise, to me at least, to see Rasmussen take the yellow jersey, and his effort in the ITT on stage 13 was stunning (41 seconds slower than our own Bradley Wiggins, not bad!) compared to his past ITT efforts. His climbing has been fantastic, and his tactics smart and calculated. A worth winner? In my mind, yes. Roll on Paris.
Posted by Mark on July 17, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
What a great few days racing! A very exciting weekend, with a fabulous ride by Rasmussen.
I’d never put him as a GC contender, what with his renowned time trialling ability (or rather, lack of it), but with GC contenders dropping like flies, can he really boost himself enough to afford some losses in the time trials?
Getting kinda bored of Cadel Evans being discussed as a GC contender too. Yeah, so he’s up there, but only because he follows the right wheels. When has that whiny so-and-so actually done anything on his own? (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall him winning any stages in recent years, or even initiating a break). I was also stunned to see him get upset by Ned Boulting’s comment on ITV (British TV) coverage the other day. When Ned happened to say “you’re getting a lot more mentions now” Evans said “now eh?” and promptly wandered off into the bus. What does he expect? He’s a wheel follower.
Posted by Mark on July 13, 2007 under opinion | Be the First to Comment
Here’s a quote…
“Astana manager Marc Biver when questioned whether he still held hopes of his team winning the Tour: “‘I don’t think so,’ he told reporters. ‘Let’s be realistic. Kloeden is not in the best conditions to ride. Nobody can say if they are in a position to finish the Tour, let alone the stage. It does not augur well. That’s life, that’s sport. There are moments of glory, moments of defeat. We’ve been struck by fate. Today we hope for better news.’”
My money was always on Kloeden, so what do I think now? Could this be Valverde’s year I wonder?
Posted by Mark on under sport | Be the First to Comment
Astana’s Andreas Kloeden might well be out of the Tour today. Pity, my money was on him from the start.
Posted by Mark on July 11, 2007 under sport | Be the First to Comment
All my Christmases came at once last Saturday, when the Tour de France started in London.
Although Le Tour has been to the UK on a couple of occasions before, the last time in 1994 (when I saw the finish in Portsmouth), they were never going to be as spectacular as the Prologue starting in London.
The route had fantastic backdrops at every turn – Whitehall, Westminster, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and The Mall – and luckily, great weather! The crowds turned out in the hundreds of thousands and lined the route the whole way. The support for every rider was fantastic, but for the Brits in the peloton the crowd noise was amazing.
We managed to get a great pitch outside Green Park gates, opposite Buckingham Palace, and ‘guarded’ our position all day I managed to get a few pictures, these are my favourites.
It was a shame Wiggins or Millar didn’t get a podium position, but Brad’s 4th place was a great effort – P1 next year Brad!
Posted by Mark on July 3, 2007 under doping | Be the First to Comment
CyclingNews.com has this detailed admission from Jorg Jaksche’s interview with Der Spiegel. It makes for scary reading. Is any part of this sport clean? How do the clean riders cope with competing against this sort of manipulation?