In yellow – today?

Well – Astana have two teams riding who don’t like each other and as well I don’t believe they’ve ridden together before this week, so probably no.
Cancellara will still be in yellow.

41 seconds (IIRC) is a lot to catch up in a team TT when you consider that Saxo Bank are generally pretty handy at it.

I guess we’ll see in a few hrs…

yup – it’ll still be Cancellara

Evans may well lose a big bucketful of time – which would be good 😛

….comes across as an arrogant twit
aways has done.
“ive won seven times, i think that deserves some credit”

yes, credit you got when you won, now this is a new race, get back in line with the rest of the team, turn up on time and have a bit of respect for the people who come to support you.

tool

not sure how to take cav, hes such a smug bugger, but then again, he derserves to be doesnt he?

is willy waving as bad if its hard earnt?

When he said i think i deserve some credit, he was commenting about not just being in the right place at the right time, but that he knew the wind would cause issues yesterday so it was better to ride near the front and not get caught out.

No Olly it isnt, id be helicoptering like a madman if i was half as good as them 😀

What time does it start today?

And no 40secs is too much…

yes, credit you got when you won, now this is a new race, get back in line with the rest of the team, turn up on time and have a bit of respect for the people who come to support you.

tool

I’d love to see people talk like this to his face. One stare from him, and you’d shit yourself 🙂

Olly yeah like Sastra ‘demanding respect’ from Lance (for his 1 win)? compared 😆

Olly

That’s why le francais never liked Lance

Cav’s good – of course he’s got an ego, but he’s always first to praise his team for getting him up front – I think in Cav’s case ego = good.

Yesterday’s split has been hilarious for the fall-out – much worse than Armstrong’s comments was Christophe Le Mevels about Contador:

‘”If it’s true there were 29 guys in front he must have been 30th and I was 31st. It was him who caused the split,” said Le Mevel, displaying the typically French trait of blaming someone else.’

Plus the whole of Astana was late apparently due to traffic in Marseille, but did still sign autographs etc. ‘for the people’

Cav has every right to be as smug as he likes imho. You bet on yourself as a sprinter every time you go out else you let down your train.. you need a high degree of self confidence I’d have thought.

Plus the whole of Astana was late apparently due to traffic in Marseille, but did still sign autographs etc. ‘for the people’

nothing to do with sitting drinking coffee with Ben Stiller. No, not at all. Traffic. yes, that’ll do it.

Plus the whole of Astana was late apparently due to traffic in Marseille,

No it wasn’t..it’s because they were chilling out with Ben stiller
http://twitpic.com/9iucd

Hijack – but on sprinter confidence:

when the sprinters go for it – do they have time to think that they need to be faster than the next guy or is it always just flat out and forget the world for 2 minutes?

just interested in the psychology, i know that having someone to race against can make me faster, but with the tiny margin of error in the tdf sprints are they racing each other or racing themselves? (once they really push obviously, as i get the psychology of deciding when to go for it)

olly – that’ll be whats called a double standard(smiley face?).
Cav smug, Lance arrogant.
Both may be the sort of people that have certainty of their own ability that most of the time comes across as arrogant. Many sports people have the same personality trate, perhaps it’s part of what they need to perform. Boardman was looked bit like this early in his pro years.
Nether are perfect in their behavior to others who do not come up to their expectation. Cav post Olympics, Lance anyone who ever left his teams. On balance though I look at Cav as young and realising what he can do (lucky guy), and Lance as a guy who can’t give it up because he feels disrespected (mainly by the French), though I do believe he is genuine about the cancer charity. Perhaps he should be mature enough to let his record speak for him but when your a driven type A personality and your paronoid (38 drug tests in 9 months, can you blaim him). He’ll stop when he feels it’s to much effort to compete. If I had ever had his ability and could stay as a rider in the pro ranks ti I was 40+ (like Ekimov), I’d do it. Sorry to go on but I do think Lance need a bit of slack from the press and the doughter, wish I could ride like him.
It’s starting out to be a good race this year.

Live streaming (in Spanish)

when the sprinters go for it – do they have time to think that they need to be faster than the next guy or is it always just flat out and forget the world for 2 minutes?

They’re an interesting animal, the sprinter. They sit in all day, being towed along by the group and their team. All the thinking comes in the organisation of the lead out – two, three guys ruin themselves sprinting from 700m out, and then slingshot the main man for the last 200 metres.

At that point, the thinking is over, and it’s all about nailing that 53×11 as hard as possible. Thery ride with their elbows and brains out. It’s said that the true sprinters don’t see bikes and riders in front of them, they just see gaps.

Cavendish is slightly unusual, in that he doesn’t turn out top wattage (and certainly not compared with the track beasts like Bos, Hoy and Baugé), but he can produce it with perfect timing in the last 200m of a 200km stage.

and he’s small so doesn’t need as much power…

Martin will be in Yellow hopefully if the CHR guys ahvent spent too much yesterday!

and he’s small so doesn’t need as much power…

True.similar to Pendleton – they turn a smaller gear faster than the big guys can wind up a bigger gear.

Over 200m Hoy would thrash Cav. But Hoy would never be able to do the 200km beforehand….

I think Cav’s doing well to get the advice of Zabel (so long as he doesn’t get into Zabel’s medicinal habits). Zabel rode 12 Tours, and won 6 green jerserys….

FWIW, if you want a good insight into Cav, his book ‘Boy Racer’ is a decent read. I don’t think he’s smug or arrogant, just rightfully aware that he’s the best sprinter at the moment but at the same time fully willing to credit his team with doing all the necessary set up work to allow him to do what he does. He’ll admit that without his team doing exactly what he wants, he’d usually find it a lot harder.

the columbia manager was saying that because cavs so small his front on profile is very flat, giving him much better aerodynamics than the more traditional bigger sprinter.

Can’t see any massive changes in the top end of the GC today

doubt it…….however stranger things have happened!

I think Cav is a totally arrogant swine – but unlike Armstrong he always remembers to thank his team and somehow does not alienate people so badly.

It seems to be very rare that you get to the very top of any sport without being a bit arrogant and egotistical. Hoy seems to be one of the few in any sport

not sure how to take cav, hes such a smug bugger, but then again, he derserves to be doesnt he?

You could say the same about Lance surely? 7 tours and all that?

I took yesterdays LA interview (which was hilarious btw) as all aimed at firing a shot across the bows of AC.

warton – how’s your wager on Menchov looking 😉

Armchair’s viewpoint?
TandemJeremy – Member

I think Cav is a totally arrogant swine – but unlike Armstrong he always remembers to thank his team and somehow does not alienate people so badly.

It seems to be very rare that you get to the very top of any sport without being a bit arrogant and egotistical. Hoy seems to be one of the few in any sport

How do you know that Lance doesnt do this for sure? Maybe a disaffected idiot ex-rider might grumble however unless you work in the industry/within his team etc how could you make such a sweeping statement?

hora in ‘someone else talking sh1te’ claim shocker.
pot/kettle scenario maximised.

I think Cav is a totally arrogant swine

From a chap I know at BC… he’s reputedly either totally up on his cycling, going to conquer the world, he’s the greatest ever, etc., or he’s completely down on it, never going to ride again, doesn’t see the point.

Needs a lot of careful management – a “Labrador” style athlete.

Hoy is an Alsation – much more even tempered and capable of looking after himself.

Cav is also only 24 years old so can not be expected to have the maturity or staying power of Hoy – wonder what Chris was like at that age? I certainly would have been more in the ‘let’s do something else’ frame of mind.

pot/kettle scenario maximised.

I feel like a Manga character firing brimston and fire and shouting ‘yaaaaaaaarrrrr’

Cav reminds me of Cipo, only without the dress sense. 8)

The whole pot-kettle interface is so black it became a black hole and sucked hora into a parralel universe where he and TJ combined to produce a viewpoint so outlandish it casued the universe to doubt its own existance. At which point it collapsed into a singularity, which of course wouldn’t have happend if it had been wearing a helmet.

Hora – from the interviews I have seen / read with both of them.

LOL@thisisnotaspoon

I can feel my head imploding as we speak

Hora – from the interviews I have seen / read with both of them.

That would be like me watching a short interview with Hamilton and Raikonnen and summising what they are like as people and within their team. Expanding and assuming based on what they said at the spur of the moment with a camera in their face?

Assumption.

hora what is your point?

Is it not fair to assume that we can get a peek at peoples character from how they are when they speak or is that just absurd?
What do you do when you recruit people at interview then oh magic one Read their palms ?Frenology (Feel the bumps on their heads)?

How can you make an accurate character/situation assesment? 😆 the wonderful world of the internet. Full of experts. fill in the gaps (i.e. make up what you think it’ll be). 🙄

The universe is perilously close to collapse now…