USA Today Knows Cycling

Every year, I try to give a shout-out to the best coverage of cycling found in daily newspapers. When Sal Ruibal is on the job at USA Today, his paper takes the title easily.

Here he is writing about the radio-free stage 10. He's the rare journo to point out that the upcoming, currently scheduled to be radio-free stage 13, is the stage that nearly derailed Lance's bid for a seventh victory in 2005.

His blog is a decent read, too, though filing daily stories and blogging should result in overtime pay. How's he going to ride and enjoy the eats with that kind of workload? (you can read the fatigue in his writing "velodrome track sprints"?)

18 Pedal Strokes

Team Columbia gives an incredible leadout. They ride fast enough to keep the other sprinter teams on the ropes in the final few kilometers and then drop Mark Cavendish off at the perfect spot every time. on the flat stages that moment was at 200 meters to go. on stage 11's uphill finish, it was at 150 to go.

Cavendish still hasn't taken more than 20 pedal strokes in a sprint. Today, it was only 18 before he stopped pedaling short of the line, victory assured.

No one is going early to disrupt the Columbia train. Some one ought to try it because no one has the jump Cav has. If they wait for Cav to jump before jumping, they're going to lose every time.

Brute Force!

It's a great noir. Skip the next CGI-infused thriller and check out this old flick instead.

Despite what writers at Sports Illustrated think, Bernard Hinault, not Lance Armstrong, is the multi-time Tour de France champ who is not afraid to speak his mind. He may be from "old europe," but the 55-year old, who won the last of his five Tours in 1985, is still The Badger.

in an interview with Velo News' Andrew Hood, said, "There is nothing but brute force that can win a race. The only thing the head is good for is to help endure the elements, because there are some riders who are not so strong in the head and not so good at that."

While Hinault had a rep for grinding his opponents into submission, he also was a pretty savvy racer. Still, he supports Cadel Evans for trying to make the race hard on the Astana juggernaut and suggests that making the race hard is the only way anyone will have a chance to beat Contador, Armstrong, and company.

Cadel Throw in Towel. Is it a bluff?

"I can't win the Tour de France this year, says Cadel Evans" So leads a story in The Australian.

Since Lance is known for bluffing off the bike, is Cadel taking a page from his playbook? The Aussie challenger isn't as far back as Sastre and is a better time trialist and has finished second in the two previous tours, despite a weak team both times.

Sastre likes it Tranquilo, benefits from Astana Feud

No doubt the 2008 Tour champ likes things low-key. He was a forgotten man at the Giro and surged at the end to finish fourth. While in the race as the defending champ,he has been largely ignored by the press. And he seems to like it that way.

20 Pedal Strokes to Victory

That is Mark Cavendish's game. His team drops him off at 200 meters to go and he takes 20 pedal strokes and it's game over. David Jordan of DJ Coaching pointed this out to me and he seems to be right. Watch this video.

The only way another sprinter is going to win a gallop against Cav is to get him off his game. Hushovd, Farrar, Freire, even Boonen need to get their team up there and open up the sprint early because once Cav gets started, none can match him. It also helps Cav that he's smaller than the other guys and sprints in such a compact style. A big rider like Hushovd or Boonen has a hard time getting a good draft from such a small rider.

For an old-fashioned day, an old fashioned game

In honor of the radio-free stage today, I give you Leader 1, a cycling-themed board game. No screen, no keyboard, no mouse. A board and icons and luck. Seems like a nice respite.

'I want my guys eating real food' in a Clif Bar Ad

While it lacks the humor and panache of the latest Dos Equis ad campaign ("I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis"), Clif deserves kudos (maybe even a Kudos bar) for running an internet ad where the main spokesperson, Garmin-Slipstream physiologist Allen Lim, advocates eating "real food" as much as possible.

SWF Desperately Seeking Hook

Sort of. Leave it to those Examiner correspondents/contributors/whatever to stretch the bounds of tie-ins. This story, by a single examiner, relates to food and love, and unfortunately, cites He's Just Not That In To You. Fortunately, crepes come into the picture as well.

Riis thinks Lance already missed his chance to win the race

From the Plain Dealer: "I'm not going to see him in the yellow jersey. I don't think so. I think it would have been something very special for him to have the yellow jersey, but I think he missed it. He missed the opportunity." Bjarne Riis, former TdF champ and director of Team Saxo Bank.

You don't need to go to the Tour to get your message on the road

Nike has a Chalkbot to do it for you. It's a robot that can write (? stencil? transfer?) messages in chalk on the roads of France. All you have to do is: "You can submit your very own message by texting "LIVESTRONG," followed by your message, to 36453, or by visiting the official site."

I want the thing to pick up swag for me from the caravane and send it home, or maybe there's a swagbot on the job for that.

We're hoping for No Earpieces Tuesday

Race radios have been a fixture in pro racing for the past decade or so. It's an innovation thanks to Motorola's sponsorship of cycling. They started providing radios to the team in 1990 or 1991 and as they got smaller, and the fruits of the change could be seen, more teams wanted it. As an observer, they seem to have changed racing. It's much harder for riders to benefit from confusion. Chase-downs of small breakaways seem to have become more successful. There was always an art to the chase, but now it is really well-defined. Maybe more importantly, stages in the mountains don't break up the same way, and when they do, they can be more decisive.

While the racing is different with the radios, I'm excited about seeing two stages radio-free at the Tour. It allows for riders with race-reading skills to shine.

The team directors are complaining because they claim the radios make racing safer. I'm not sure how true that claim is, but it's a macguffin. The real reason they want the radios is for better control of the racing, for greater assurance that the result is what they want. The Tour has actually met this objection by making a race channel available to all where they can get safety information. Though once they allow this, I would think the riders could secretly tune into their team's channel. Hope the Tour is threatening time penalties to the cheats.

American critics are playing the anti-French card, as the first of the two radio-free days is tomorrow, Bastille Day, and French riders are expected to go all-out to win on Bastille day. They figure attackers will benefit from the ban. I don't know if that many French riders really go for it. Yes, we do typically see long attacks that include French riders on Bastille Day, but then again, we see French riders in long breaks just about every day. I think there are 45 French racers in the Tour, more than any other nationality, so it shouldn't be surprising that we see French riders in just about every move.

No radios on stage 10 could be good because it will be interesting to see how the riders do without their directors yelling in their ears a day after a rest day, on a stage that while not hilly, isn't flat either. The other stage where there are supposed to be no radios, Stage 13, is mountainous, so you have both the hex of 13 and the hard stage to see how well racers think for themselves.

Tour Twitter Fiend Amits Addiction

Didn't think people really paid attention to tweets from the Tour. Thought wrong, as this woman from the Salt Lake Trib details her "problem."

Politics in the Peloton? At The Tour?

Cadel Evans tried to make the Tour interesting on Saturday's Stage Eight. He attacked the peloton and got away on the first climb of the day. It could have been a grand escape that took him to yellow or at least shook up the favorites a bit and made them race on a day they were set to take for granted. That's the kind of surprise that Tour fans love.

Instead, he got chewed out by his colleagues and scorned by team directors. The riders in the break he joined wanted an easy run to the finish without fear of being caught and thought they had the perfect move. Then Evans intruded on their party. What's surprising to me is that both Cancellara and Hincapie seemed opposed though his presence could have been a help to both of them. Cancellara had team leaders Andy and Frank Schleck behind, so he could have sat on, and Astana would have driven the chase and if the move was good, one of the Schlecks could have attacked up to the move on the last climb. Hincapie could have benefitted because Thor Hushovd was also in the move and he was there to take the green jersey from Hincapie's teammate Mark Cavendish. Hincapie would have had another reason to sit on.

Of course Bruyneel was critical. Astana would have had to work. All race favorites ahead of Evans want him to stay down where he is for as long as possible. The longer they wait to ride hard, the better it is for them. And, the less likely it is that Evans can move up far on GC.

While I've been critical of Evans for his seeming preference not to attack, he gets rough treatment from the press and fellow racers regularly. While five-time Tour champ Miguel Indurain pretty much won by amassing leads in time trials than hanging on to the best climbers in the mountains, the tactic isn't so popular when you're a second-place rider trying to win by hanging on in the mountains and then killing in the time trials.

The Dallas Cowboys of Pro cycling: Astana

I love the conclusion of Tour de France 2009: is team Astana the Dallas Cowboys of cycling? "This team, under Bruyneel's direction, could be an unstoppable force. Commend Astana for their commitment, courage, and competitiveness. Give these guys some pads and toss them a football and my money would be on them thrashing the Dallas Cowboys at their own game."

Nice.

Not exactly a surprise to me, as I think most football players are pansies compared to the average pro cyclist, but it's great to see the sentiment from someone else.

Lance Knifed in the Back?

"As if set in a Shakespearing drama, he was knifed in the back by his own teammate - Alberto Contador." says Joe Oneill of the Bleacher Report.

My feeling is climbing is a game for the strong. If Lance could have gone with Alberto, he would have. That Contador gained any time on a climb that didn't favor him was impressive. The headwind facing the riders effectively flattened the climb, making drafting possible thus giving those who follow a big advantage over the rest. If Contador could take time into a headwind, then he should be able to get gobs of time on steeper climbs.

Oneill's conclusion: "I don't think Contador will go for that (letting Lance win). I think he wants to take down Armstrong because nobody else has. But what a story for Lance Armstrong. Even if he doesn't win, it has me wondering if, perhaps, he was clean all those years?"

2006 Tour Champ Pulls out, Inspires Silence

Oscar Pereiro, the 2006 Tour de France champion, pulled out of the Tour today, 100km into the eighth stage. Almost nobody noticed. Here's the Reuters story to give you a feel:

"ST GIRONS, France (Reuters) - Spaniard Oscar Pereiro, the 2006 champion, pulled out of the Tour de France during the eighth stage on Saturday, organizers said.

Pereiro got off his bike after some 100 kilometers in the 176.5-km stage from Andorra to St Girons.

"Oscar Pereiro, the 2006 champion, has pulled out," organizers said on their website (www.letour.fr)

Pereiro's Caisse d'Epargne team were not immediately available for comment."

The guy has had a hard year. At the 2008 tour, he had a dramatic crash where he flipped over a guard rail and fell some 30 feet onto the road below, breaking an arm in the process.

Want to Bet on the KoM Jersey? Here's a Guide

Betfair wants fair wagering. So they offer up a guide to who's who in the polka-dot jersey competition. Here's the big takeaway: "This market is probably best grappled with in-play, when the instructions and motivations of the various contenders become clearer."

Find the "market" here: http://www.betfair.com/Index.do?mi=100634859&ex=1&rfr=3013

There are moments I hate Phil and Paul

I'll see if I can find the final 5k video and commentary from Anglo commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. When today's stage winner Luis Leon Sanchez won, they called him a deserving winner. It's as if they forgot four of the final five kilometers. When Vladimir Efimkin attacked, Sanchez sat at the back and refused to chase with Mikail Astarloza and Sandy Casar. He spent four K shaking his head as the other two took hard pulls and looked back at him for help. Then, with less than 1K to go, he went to the front. Savvy racing, but he cheezed off his fellow chasers when it counted. To me, Astarloza and Casar were more deserving; they never skipped a pull. Casar got dropped on the last mountain and chased back and Astarloza put in some good attacks.

Oh the Tour, it's related to this story, sort of

"Area riders spending summer pedaling the world on one, two, and three wheels"

It's in the first three sentences, then "While the international cycling superstars climb the gut-busting peaks of Europe, some bold local cyclists are tackling challenging bike tours of their own, on trips across the United States and in Africa and Croatia."

While I understand a rationale behind designating May as Bike Month in the US, it seems that when you look at the media, Bike Month is July. As with the story above, it's because of the Tour.

I've been arguing for years that the bike community should piggyback on the Tour and make July bike month. So far, they're not listening, which is a pity. Most of hte media seem to be scraping for whatever they can to make a Tour story somehow with their content.