Tour de France

[mtbrider]

Who is watching the Tour.

Friday night up to 2.15 AM and last night up to 1.30 AM.

So cool to have it live every night on SBS.

Really tired now and just started watching tonight. But work tomorrow so will only watch until midnight tonight which will give me about 5 - 6 hours sleep.

By the end of three weeks I will be really stu ffed but worth it.

Watching those guys they are nuts. Jumping traffic islands at 55 kph and going down the Alps at 60+ kph around hair pin bends with 100 metre drops over the side.

They are faster than the motor bikes. But then they have two people and some heavy camera gear to get around those fast corners. No amount of drugs can make you good at that.

Even if you are not a cyclist you should check it out to see some amazing bike handlers.

[MR22ZZ]

not a good day for the Aussies with Rogers and O'Grady both falling and abandoning :(

Rogers was pushing to take the Yellow for the day too as he looked to be running with Rasmussen quite well to that point.

My pick from day one was Carlos Sastre ans I still stand by that.

[thunderbox]

my fav has always been rasmussen mostly because i saw him wihtt hat stage a few years back by 15minutes ona solo break. he is an amazing athlete. but yes a very bad day for the aussies. and the worst thing was, it was the only night i didnt watch it. i was out. and it was the best night to watch it.

[D'Ice]

tour de france SUCKS.... i used to love it and love cycling but not anymore... i still can't believe that they're showing the tour de france instead of the AFC 2007 Asian Cup... maybe that's why Australia has been playin like an Under14s B-team :P

Edited July 15, 2007 by d_ice

[MR22ZZ]

tour de france SUCKS.... i used to love it and love cycling but not anymore... i still can't believe that they're showing the tour de france instead of the AFC 2007 Asian Cup... maybe that's why Australia has been playin like an Under14s B-team :P

Foxtel has the rights to the Asian Cup finals, bought them some time ago in fact.

[MR22ZZ]

my fav has always been rasmussen mostly because i saw him wihtt hat stage a few years back by 15minutes ona solo break. he is an amazing athlete. but yes a very bad day for the aussies. and the worst thing was, it was the only night i didnt watch it. i was out. and it was the best night to watch it.

Don't worry, the mountains are extremely tough this year, so there is still plenty of action to come.

At least Cadel is still there and fighting though the other riders seem a bit ****** off by him because he doesn't do much work at the front of the group and is just a passenger for the most part.

[D'Ice]

tour de france SUCKS.... i used to love it and love cycling but not anymore... i still can't believe that they're showing the tour de france instead of the AFC 2007 Asian Cup... maybe that's why Australia has been playin like an Under14s B-team :P

Foxtel has the rights to the Asian Cup finals, bought them some time ago in fact.

i knowww :( too bad we can't all afford paytv :( now i'm gonna have to go hunt for a pub that'll show the Iraq vs Oman match at 2.30am

[selyaT]

No amount of drugs can make you good at that.

[mtbrider]

my fav has always been rasmussen mostly because i saw him wihtt hat stage a few years back by 15minutes ona solo break. he is an amazing athlete. but yes a very bad day for the aussies. and the worst thing was, it was the only night i didnt watch it. i was out. and it was the best night to watch it.

Have you seen the "rat" with no shirt on. Scary scary he makes Nicole Ritchie look fat.

[mtbrider]

Cadel is back to 3rd after being 2nd. He still has a good podium chance but was beaten last night. I am suss about the leader Rasmussen as he is surrounded in controversy (again about drugs)

He is doing things he is not supposed to be doing.

He has been penalised by his countries ruling body for missing 4 drug controls and has been ruled out of the next World titles and the Olympic games (yet he is still riding the tour). Another rider has said he caught him trying to trick him into bring drugs over from the US for him.

Man this is yet another sad day for cycling. I wish they had a wand like a metal detector at the airport which they could rum over the cyclists and it beeped at the drug cheats.

[smileys]

Whos seen that add where they say cyclists are the real tough guys in sport?

Tour de France = Tour de Sleep

[MR22ZZ]

Whos seen that add where they say cyclists are the real tough guys in sport?

Tour de France = Tour de Sleep

I'll take ya...

Cadel is still in it.

I wonder how much energy reserves Rasmussen has left after his Time Trial and yesterdays effort.

There are still plenty of Mountains to climb.

There have also been questions raised at Rasmussen for the last 3 years since he first won the KOTM so emphatically.

[OMG-16V]

No amount of drugs can make you good at that.

exactly, these professsional cyclists who compete in the Tour de France, and other major cycling opens across Europe, they devote their live's to train atleast 6 hours a day almost through the entire whole week..

Im talking from experience because i use to do competetive cycling as a junior for 5 years.. but im too unfit at the moment to bother doing the sport.

[MR22ZZ]

weeding out the cheats

weeding out the cheats

we will go a-cycling

weeding out the cheats...

[mtbrider]

weeding out the cheats

weeding out the cheats

we will go a-cycling

weeding out the cheats...

It is a sad state of affairs but in the long run if they are catching them it might make them think twice before doing it. Hopefully eventually stop them all together.

I had boycoted watching the tour since Rasmussen did such a good time trial them blew them away in the mountains the next day.I didn't think that was humanly possible for him.

I'm on a bicycle forum and put up a post saying I though he was a cheat. Got flamed like hell but who's laughing now.

I will watch it again now that the biggest cheat is gone. I hope Contadour is clean but they are starting to say stuff about him now.

Did you know that on one of the recent stages the two of them were 1 and a half minutes faster up a mountain than Lances fastest time up (how can you belive that was done naturally).

Anyway Cadel could win but still will be very hard (looks like a podium for sure but)

[MR22ZZ]

I never said it was a bad thing that the cheats are being caught.

It may look bad in the public eye, but I'd rather them caught and shamed then praised as heros.

[mtbrider]

I never said it was a bad thing that the cheats are being caught.

It may look bad in the public eye, but I'd rather them caught and shamed then praised as heros.

Just agreeing with you.

I think the rest of the peleton would work for Cadel Evans if they thought Discovery were trying to do something in the rest of the stages to beat him.

So looks like it is down to the time trial. I will be sitting up late Saturday night. That is for sure.

[Hiro]

The funny thing is Rasmussen WASN'T KICKED OUT FOR USING DRUGS. He was kicked out by his team because he wasn't honest about where he was training in the weeks up to the tour. All entrants are supposed to give their whereabouts 3-weeks prior so that drug testing can be organised if necessary. I'm not ruling out that Rasmussen wasn't using drugs, but there has been no claim or charge whatsoever about that. Vinakurov was kicked out by race officials for failing a drug test, Rat was kicked out by HIS TEAM because he lied to them. Very different story

[MR22ZZ]

there was the Cofidis rider that was kicked out for using EPO, though... so that's still 2 down.

Chicken Legs has either been suspended by his team pending further investigation, or has been sacked. I have heard conflicting reports. The fact still remains that over the last 18 months he has avoided 4 out of competition drug test by not being where he said he would be. This is not a one off occurrence but something he has done on several occasions.

[selyaT]

At least we know the drugs work eh?

No respect for cycling... I pretty much only like ball sports (leaving myself open to homosexual jokes here aren't I)

[mtbrider]

At least we know the drugs work eh?

No respect for cycling... I pretty much only like ball sports (leaving myself open to homosexual jokes here aren't I)

At least cycling is doing something about it and catching the cheats even the big name stars.

If you think that they are clean in ball sports you are kidding yourself. You can guarantee that they are in it in a big way because they have little chance of getting caught.

If a cyclist had a drip put in his arm like the Brisbane Lions were doing in full view at half time they would have been kicked out for two years.

You can look at it in two ways. Cycling is bad they are catching drug cheats all the time or you can say cyling is trying to clean up the sport and catching the cheats what a good job they are doing.

What about the AFL player who went into rehab in the states. Was he ever picked up for having it in him by the AFL - If he was a cyclist he would have gone straight up.

The testing cycling gets would be equivilent to the man of the match and every try scorer in rules or league getting drug tested after each match. That is personally escorted off the field by a drug tester and never left alone until the test was taken. Yes that means peeing in front of them.

Other sports don't come close to the cycling testing.

Please don't say you have no respect for a sport that is actually airing its dirty laundry in public and doing some thing.

[MR22ZZ]

The only sport close to the same controls is swimming, and even then they don't have to tell the sporting body where they will be 3 months in advance in case of out of competition testing were to call on their door.

[MT]

At least we know the drugs work eh?

No respect for cycling... I pretty much only like ball sports (leaving myself open to homosexual jokes here aren't I)

At least cycling is doing something about it and catching the cheats even the big name stars.

If you think that they are clean in ball sports you are kidding yourself. You can guarantee that they are in it in a big way because they have little chance of getting caught.

If a cyclist had a drip put in his arm like the Brisbane Lions were doing in full view at half time they would have been kicked out for two years.

You can look at it in two ways. Cycling is bad they are catching drug cheats all the time or you can say cyling is trying to clean up the sport and catching the cheats what a good job they are doing.

What about the AFL player who went into rehab in the states. Was he ever picked up for having it in him by the AFL - If he was a cyclist he would have gone straight up.

The testing cycling gets would be equivilent to the man of the match and every try scorer in rules or league getting drug tested after each match. That is personally escorted off the field by a drug tester and never left alone until the test was taken. Yes that means peeing in front of them.

Other sports don't come close to the cycling testing.

Please don't say you have no respect for a sport that is actually airing its dirty laundry in public and doing some thing.

i think Tayles wasnt referring to drugs at all with his comments, however the controls wouldnt be in place if there wasnt such blatent abuse of substances within the sport.

AFL has different rules, they still believe in the three strikes rule - in other words TRUST for the players.

As for swimming, well those chinese (wo)men speak for themselves

[selyaT]

Don't care much for AFL or League, I like soccer and cricket. Shoaib Akhtar and another Pakistani were busted for performance enhancing drugs but both got let off (not sure if that was dodgy or not).

My beef would be with performance enhancing drugs, that is, cheating to win. As for the so-called "elite" football players in this country, the fact that any of them drink, smoke or go near illicit drugs is an absolute embarrassment to each game. The thing with that is though, they go out and party and do recreational drugs, that isn't helping their performance... That's just stupid. Ben Cousins was a great player to start with, he got in trouble for illicit drugs, he was heavilly into them and still raking in 30 possessions a game, come back ater re-hab and gets 20 disposals in the first half... sounds like an ironman even while using.

The SBS thing with Robbie McEwan, "Watch real ironmen on SBS" or whatever he said... Yes respect to those who do it without performancing enhancing drugs, but if the people winning are cheats then what the hell... The drug testing wouldn't be there if the drug cheats weren't. It's a shame for the boys who play fair to have to go through all that cr@p.

Anyways sport is for fun :)

[mtbrider]

Anyways sport is for fun :)

Too true. All us punters can do is vote with our feet if we can't stand the cheats. Only thing is we then cheat the clean riders out of their sport.