Another lame tour

Rude Dog

I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however, I
am disappointed this tour looks like it will be as boring as
most have been in recent years (excluding last year which
had some excitement).

Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
everything contained until the mountain stages. On the first
or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties will set
a high tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant
Spanish riders will attack. LA will cover them and then
either set such a high tempo no one else attacks, or launch
an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets competitors.
From that time on, LA will simply follow the wheels of his
competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!

Jiyang Chen

"Rude Dog" <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote in message
news:10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com...
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j!¥4ñg ©H3ñ

Psycholist

"Rude Dog" <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote in message
news:10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com...
> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour,
> however, I am
disappointed
> this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have
> been in recent
years
> (excluding last year which had some excitement).
>
> Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> everything contained until the mountain stages.
On
> the first or second day of the mountain stages, LA &
> Posties will set a
high
> tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant Spanish
> riders will
attack.
> LA will cover them and then either set such a high tempo
> no one else attacks, or launch an attack that takes 2-3
> minutes out of closets competitors. From that time on, LA
> will simply follow the wheels of his competitors and win a
> sixth TDF. BORING!
>

For those of us routing for Lance, it's pretty exciting. Try
it ... or you could try the world poker championships as
Jiyang suggested. At least I think that's what he suggested.

Bob C.

David N. Welton

That's the way it was shaping up when Indurain got his ass
handed to him after cracking up the hill.

I still remember seeing that live in RAI... I was hopping up
and down and yelling at the TV:-)

--
David N. Welton Personal: http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
Free Software: http://www.dedasys.com/freesoftware/ Apache
Tcl: http://tcl.apache.org/ Photos:
http://www.dedasys.com/photos/

James Spencer

In article <10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com>, Rude Dog
<snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote:

> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however,
> I am disappointed this tour looks like it will be as
> boring as most have been in recent years (excluding last
> year which had some excitement).
>
> Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> everything contained until the mountain stages. On the
> first or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties
> will set a high tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few
> errant Spanish riders will attack. LA will cover them and
> then either set such a high tempo no one else attacks, or
> launch an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets
> competitors. From that time on, LA will simply follow the
> wheels of his competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!

Too bad you feel this way; I think you are very, very wrong.
I'm a big LA fan and frankly hope it comes out the way you
are suggesting but I would suggest that if you look at what
is scheduled the last week of the tour, you might figure out
that this race won't be decided until that week. A lot of
folks are thinking Alp d'Huez will decide but my personal
guess is that while the TT will break things up some, it
will be DECIDED the day AFTER Alp d'Huez. At that point, the
most fit and most prepared will win. Personally, I would not
bet against LA and Postal but Ullrich and Hamilton are very,
very strong and I'm not yet ready to count out Mayo and E-E
or even Saeco. Mayo took a bad whack yesterday and today but
if he takes 2 minutes out of Lance on Alp d'Huez like he did
last month on the Ventoux, this is still a race.

In the meantime, winning stages is important in its own
right and there are great battles for jerseys other than
yellow. While I, like most people, may be most interested in
the GC, each day brings its own delights. If you find it
boring, then don't watch but I think you are going to miss
some interesting days ahead given to us by a whole field of
GREAT cyclists.

In this regard, those who feel they can only root for
their favorite, whether that favorite be Armstrong,
Hamilton, Ullrich, Mayo, or any of the other almost 200
riders, by calling the opponents scatological names and
denigrating their honor prove to me nothing except they
aren't really fans. For me, there isn't a man in this race
who doesn't simply blow me away with what he can and will
do on a bike whether it be Armstrong's day-in-day-out
drive to win this race, Hamilton's extreme courage and
perseverence as demonstrated in last years tour winning a
stage with a broken collar bone, Ullrich's all round
strength, Mayo's ability to climb, the sprinters sheer
speed at the end of enormously long stages, the
domestiques strength in coming out day after day to do
work that I couldn't do for an hour much less three weeks,
or those poor devils who crashed during the first stage
and got back up and kept riding knowing that they had
three weeks of pain in front of them and there weren't
going to be any awards probably at any point.

I'll cheer for each and every one of them and I will be
excited when they succeed at whatever it is they succeed at
whether it be Phonak putting in a great time with only five
riders and after Hamilton had to actually STOP for a team
mate, Noval dragging his butt in just under the DQ time so
he can ride again tomorrow, Cancellera in tears of joy and
disbelief after winning the Prologue and the yellow jersey,
or Lance Armstrong (or anyone else who manages to beat him)
riding down the Champs Elysees in victory. Who knows what
joys and excitements this tour will bring but if you weren't
excited last yaer at watching Hamilton climbing Bagargui
last year even though he had virtually no chance of a podium
or when Ullrich won the first individual TT last year while
Lance more or less bonked , or by watching Petacchi's
sprints, or watching the day Richard Virenque, a Frenchman,
broke away and won the first mountain stage then you simply
weren't paying attention.

When I think of the big events of last year, the first year
when I really got to see more of the Tour than a half hour
on Sunday on CBS, very few of those events that stay in my
mind had anything to do with the overall win; it was about
superlative performances by superlative riders on
superlative bikes who on any one particular day make me want
to stand up and cheer. The same will be true this year right
up until the final sprint in Paris; in the meantime, I think
we still might see a very very good bike race for the GC if
if LA is IMHO (you are free to disagree hopefully with
respect) the class of the field in the Tour again this year.
Whatever, it all brings joy to my heart.

Sorry; here endeth the lesson.

--
James P. Spencer Rochester, MN

"Badges?? We don't need no stinkin badges!"

Hank Sniadoch

Very well said !! Go Armstrong !!
"James Spencer" <jspencer78REMOVE@charter.net> wrote in message
news:070720041855270509%jspencer78REMOVE@charter.net...
> In article <10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com>, Rude Dog
> <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour,
> > however, I am
disappointed
> > this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have
> > been in recent
years
> > (excluding last year which had some excitement).
> >
> > Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> > everything contained until the mountain stages.
On
> > the first or second day of the mountain stages, LA &
> > Posties will set a
high
> > tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant Spanish
> > riders will
attack.
> > LA will cover them and then either set such a high tempo
> > no one else attacks, or launch an attack that takes 2-3
> > minutes out of closets competitors. From that time on,
> > LA will simply follow the wheels of his competitors and
> > win a sixth TDF. BORING!
>
> Too bad you feel this way; I think you are very, very
> wrong. I'm a big LA fan and frankly hope it comes out the
> way you are suggesting but I would suggest that if you
> look at what is scheduled the last week of the tour, you
> might figure out that this race won't be decided until
> that week. A lot of folks are thinking Alp d'Huez will
> decide but my personal guess is that while the TT will
> break things up some, it will be DECIDED the day AFTER Alp
> d'Huez. At that point, the most fit and most prepared will
> win. Personally, I would not bet against LA and Postal but
> Ullrich and Hamilton are very, very strong and I'm not yet
> ready to count out Mayo and E-E or even Saeco. Mayo took a
> bad whack yesterday and today but if he takes 2 minutes
> out of Lance on Alp d'Huez like he did last month on the
> Ventoux, this is still a race.
>
> In the meantime, winning stages is important in its own
> right and there are great battles for jerseys other than
> yellow. While I, like most people, may be most interested
> in the GC, each day brings its own delights. If you find
> it boring, then don't watch but I think you are going to
> miss some interesting days ahead given to us by a whole
> field of GREAT cyclists.
>
> In this regard, those who feel they can only root for
> their favorite, whether that favorite be Armstrong,
> Hamilton, Ullrich, Mayo, or any of the other almost 200
> riders, by calling the opponents scatological names and
> denigrating their honor prove to me nothing except they
> aren't really fans. For me, there isn't a man in this race
> who doesn't simply blow me away with what he can and will
> do on a bike whether it be Armstrong's day-in-day-out
> drive to win this race, Hamilton's extreme courage and
> perseverence as demonstrated in last years tour winning a
> stage with a broken collar bone, Ullrich's all round
> strength, Mayo's ability to climb, the sprinters sheer
> speed at the end of enormously long stages, the
> domestiques strength in coming out day after day to do
> work that I couldn't do for an hour much less three weeks,
> or those poor devils who crashed during the first stage
> and got back up and kept riding knowing that they had
> three weeks of pain in front of them and there weren't
> going to be any awards probably at any point.
>
> I'll cheer for each and every one of them and I will be
> excited when they succeed at whatever it is they succeed
> at whether it be Phonak putting in a great time with only
> five riders and after Hamilton had to actually STOP for a
> team mate, Noval dragging his butt in just under the DQ
> time so he can ride again tomorrow, Cancellera in tears of
> joy and disbelief after winning the Prologue and the
> yellow jersey, or Lance Armstrong (or anyone else who
> manages to beat him) riding down the Champs Elysees in
> victory. Who knows what joys and excitements this tour
> will bring but if you weren't excited last yaer at
> watching Hamilton climbing Bagargui last year even though
> he had virtually no chance of a podium or when Ullrich won
> the first individual TT last year while Lance more or less
> bonked , or by watching Petacchi's sprints, or watching
> the day Richard Virenque, a Frenchman, broke away and won
> the first mountain stage then you simply weren't paying
> attention.
>
> When I think of the big events of last year, the first
> year when I really got to see more of the Tour than a half
> hour on Sunday on CBS, very few of those events that stay
> in my mind had anything to do with the overall win; it was
> about superlative performances by superlative riders on
> superlative bikes who on any one particular day make me
> want to stand up and cheer. The same will be true this
> year right up until the final sprint in Paris; in the
> meantime, I think we still might see a very very good bike
> race for the GC if if LA is IMHO (you are free to disagree
> hopefully with respect) the class of the field in the Tour
> again this year. Whatever, it all brings joy to my heart.
>
> Sorry; here endeth the lesson.
>
> --
> James P. Spencer Rochester, MN
>
> "Badges?? We don't need no stinkin badges!"

Tom Kunich

"Rude Dog" <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote in message
news:10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com...
> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour,
> however, I am
disappointed
> this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have
> been in recent
years
> (excluding last year which had some excitement).

You know it wouldn't be half so boring if you understood the
sport at all.

Joeg

Rude Dog wrote:
> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however,
> I am disappointed this tour looks like it will be as
> boring as most have been in recent years (excluding last
> year which had some excitement).
>
> Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> everything contained until the mountain stages. On the
> first or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties
> will set a high tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few
> errant Spanish riders will attack. LA will cover them and
> then either set such a high tempo no one else attacks, or
> launch an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets
> competitors. From that time on, LA will simply follow the
> wheels of his competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!
>
>

Its called DOMINATION!

Marlene Blansha

"James Spencer" <jspencer78REMOVE@charter.net> wrote in message
news:070720041855270509%jspencer78REMOVE@charter.net...
> In article <10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com>, Rude Dog
> <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour,
> > however, I am
disappointed
> > this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have
> > been in recent
years
> > (excluding last year which had some excitement).
> >
> > Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> > everything contained until the mountain stages.
On
> > the first or second day of the mountain stages, LA &
> > Posties will set a
high
> > tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant Spanish
> > riders will
attack.
> > LA will cover them and then either set such a high tempo
> > no one else attacks, or launch an attack that takes 2-3
> > minutes out of closets competitors. From that time on,
> > LA will simply follow the wheels of his competitors and
> > win a sixth TDF. BORING!
>
> Too bad you feel this way; I think you are very, very
> wrong. I'm a big LA fan and frankly hope it comes out the
> way you are suggesting but I would suggest that if you
> look at what is scheduled the last week of the tour, you
> might figure out that this race won't be decided until
> that week. A lot of folks are thinking Alp d'Huez will
> decide but my personal guess is that while the TT will
> break things up some, it will be DECIDED the day AFTER Alp
> d'Huez. At that point, the most fit and most prepared will
> win. Personally, I would not bet against LA and Postal but
> Ullrich and Hamilton are very, very strong and I'm not yet
> ready to count out Mayo and E-E or even Saeco. Mayo took a
> bad whack yesterday and today but if he takes 2 minutes
> out of Lance on Alp d'Huez like he did last month on the
> Ventoux, this is still a race.
>

I've been thinking the same thing, that it'll be the same
predictable Lanceathon. My SO said,"It's like the same
soap opera every day" and I said, "But soaps are different
every day- there never any repeats!" It's like everything
USPS does is so PERFECT... but they do the same thing all
the time, I keep hoping something will happen to break up
their juggernaut. ALready though, poor Mayo is out of the
GC race. He'll have to get stage wins or KOM points. But
he'll survive and come back and do another tour, he's
pretty young.

Raptor

Rude Dog wrote:
> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however,
> I am disappointed this tour looks like it will be as
> boring as most have been in recent years (excluding last
> year which had some excitement).
>
> Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> everything contained until the mountain stages. On the
> first or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties
> will set a high tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few
> errant Spanish riders will attack. LA will cover them and
> then either set such a high tempo no one else attacks, or
> launch an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets
> competitors. From that time on, LA will simply follow the
> wheels of his competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!

Maybe someone will reach over and bump Lance's rear
brake pad.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"

Raptor

Rude Dog wrote:
> I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour, however,
> I am disappointed this tour looks like it will be as
> boring as most have been in recent years (excluding last
> year which had some excitement).
>
> Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> everything contained until the mountain stages. On the
> first or second day of the mountain stages, LA & Posties
> will set a high tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few
> errant Spanish riders will attack. LA will cover them and
> then either set such a high tempo no one else attacks, or
> launch an attack that takes 2-3 minutes out of closets
> competitors. From that time on, LA will simply follow the
> wheels of his competitors and win a sixth TDF. BORING!

To be precise, the second day, Plateau de Beille. Lance will
have ~5 minutes after stage 13. No opponent will be
permitted to close within 3 minutes after that.

Then again, I could be wrong.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"

Hank Barta

James Spencer <jspencer78REMOVE@charter.net> wrote:
>
> Too bad you feel this way; I think you are very,
> very wrong.
[...]
> Whatever, it all brings joy to my heart.
>
> Sorry; here endeth the lesson.

Too bad you couldn't have taken the time to explain why
you like watching the tour.

Just kidding! Very well said. And in any case, the tour
is far from over. Lance is putting his stamp on it
already and, as an avowed fan, that is exciting to
watch. But anything can happen.

Thanks for the reminder of how much fun watching the
previous year's race was.

--
Hank Barta beautiful sunny Winfield, Illinois

Rude Dog

Tom you are such a ignoramus...

you think anyone with a dissenting opinion doesn't
understand the sport. I understand the sport very well
having ridden on a professional team as a Cat 1 and having
promoted over 200 races, I am qualified to make an
observation that this tour will likely be boring.

"Tom Kunich" > You know it wouldn't be half so boring if you
understood the sport at all.<

Pistof

"psycholist" <technico@wctel.net> wrote in message
news:cchsvv$fc85$1@news3.infoave.net...
>
> "Rude Dog" <snjr.spam@charter.net> wrote in message
> news:10eoranbnce2k16@corp.supernews.com...
> > I'm glad Americans are doing so well in the tour,
> > however, I am
> disappointed
> > this tour looks like it will be as boring as most have
> > been in recent
> years
> > (excluding last year which had some excitement).
> >
> > Here is what will happen: Lance and team will keep
> > everything contained until the mountain stages.
> On
> > the first or second day of the mountain stages, LA &
> > Posties will set a
> high
> > tempo. Tyler, Jan, Bobby, Levi, and a few errant Spanish
> > riders will
> attack.
> > LA will cover them and then either set such a high tempo
> > no one else attacks, or launch an attack that takes 2-3
> > minutes out of closets competitors. From that time on,
> > LA will simply follow the wheels of his competitors and
> > win a sixth TDF. BORING!
> >
>
> For those of us routing for Lance, it's pretty exciting.
> Try it ... or
you
> could try the world poker championships as Jiyang
> suggested. At least I think that's what he suggested.
>
> Bob C.

I'm all for Lance but the Dog is correct. It is boring. What
the hell is up with Ullrich? Damn. He's not lost it, but he
does have his work cut out for him... Maybe by Lance's tenth
TdF he will be weak enough to provide us with some three
weeks of fine bicycle racing entertainment!