This way, we're of for a very long night...

Great point about Hinault and his last "win"...how soon people forget. Lance does look good, but I am not convinced...yet...that he has the physical ability to win. It is still 5 stages to the toughest days begin and his two key climbers--Rubiera and Beltran--have both had 2 hard crashes today which is good and bad. Good because they still have 5 stages to recover before the big mountains, but bad that if they don't fully recover. Furthermore, Lance's two biggest rivals Ullrich and Hamilton look very strong and may peak better than Lance post stage 10, if lance is not 100% he may have some major problems even if he is at his best ever. Ullrich is the master of peaking when it counts, he has proven this year and year out; he may have lacked something over the years in full year preparation, but he looks physically better than he ever has. One can only question his choice of rear wheels in the prologue and TTT.

Tyler appears to be approaching fantastic form. If he is 1 or 2 % better than last year, look out Lance. I still really like Lance though. However, the discussion about the Postie dominance in the TTT is a little bit overblown. All the other big team had serious problems that cost them time big time. Phonak had five flats and a broken handlebar that left them with only the minimum of 5 riders in the crucial last 10km or so when having a full team makes them go so much faster and they still finished second. T-Mobile has few flats/wheel changes that cost them dearly and of course the decision to not use discs which probably cost them a minute to a minute thirty. The Posties still probably would have won, but it would have been much closer.

Gerard do you do amateur sponsorships with your bikes, but with the P2K, Dual, or Soloist 105?

He (LeMond) was out for 2-3 years after his brother-in-law ( or whoever) damned near killed him, right at the peak of his career.

---

_________________
Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

Yeah, good point! Why isn't LeMond the poster boy for hunting accident survivors?

Looks like the spot for poster boy of getting shot by your brother-in-law and surviving is wide open John. Want to go hunting?

Dave

...for not paying attention, and the bbc "journalist" an E for not saying that the quotes from Hinault were made in June. See http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ring=hinault;#144037

If you read the whole article in the thread above you may look at Hinault comments a different way, may you not?

Isn't it dishonest from the bbc to mix recent results from the race with comments made before the Tour started without saying so?

A 50-50 chance of winning is HUGE! I'm a big Lance fan but I wouldn't give him those odds. Too many things can happen. The riders in this year's Tour have been falling like teenage girls for Brad Pitt. Sooner or later the odds catch up with you.

Anyway, I love Hinault. He's a beast. I love the beast in all of us. That's why we do this, no? To feed the BEAST!

-Robert

---

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

I agree 100%. 50-50 odds makes Lance a clear favorite. With all the things out of his control, even odds is pretty good.

interestingly, for Jalabert, the one that could really annoy Lance in a quest for 6 is Tyler...

Yeah, let me get some body armor first...

I didn't notice that about Hinault's comments coming in June. If that is the case, that is bad journalism. That should explain why he said he hasn't looked that good. Like some people have said, how could you say he hasn't looked good at this point of the tour? Has he had bad posture while he is off his bike? Maybe that's it. But I posted that article trusting it would be good since it came from the BBC. Guess not.

Looks like I opened up a big discussion that may never be solved with all the variables of some focusing on just the tour and some trying to win them all, Lemond getting hosed with pellets and Hinault, Armstrong beating cancer, Indurain being a freak of nature and Mercxcxcxc beating everything (boy does that sound bad?).

However, I'm of the belief that Mercxcxcxcxc (sp?) has to be the best. He was just unstoppable.

Merckx is the correct spelling and indeed, he was just the best ever...even according to Lance...

if Lance win 7 tours, he will be the greatest TdF rider, but the greatest rider ever remains Eddy Merckx...

To be TRULY great, Lance needs as good a nickname as "The Cannibal!!!" or even "The Badger"

It's all about nicknames baby: "The Man", "The Terminator", "The ZenMaster", "The Grip (of Death)", "Herman the German", "The Rocket", "Da Bull"

I don't see one coming.

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I thought he was "The Unaballer"

---

---------------------------------------------------------

"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."

So this guy is waiting for a bus with a friend of his from work. The guy is obvisously uncomfortable, leaning on the Bus Stop sign, shifting his weight back and forth, twisting and turning. His friend ask him waht's wrong.

"I think I hurt my back over the weekend and it's really killing me."

"Why don't you go to a chiropractor?" his friend asks.

"They're all frauds and charlatans. They're not really doctors, they're not even licensed."

"Have it your way, but I see one every six weeks and I have no troubles," replies the friend.

Well, after a couple more days the guy finally relents and goes to the chiropractor. Friday morning he's happy, standing well and actually handing out flyers for the guy who fixed him up.

"I thought you said they were all frauds and charlatans," inquires his friend.

"I stand corrected"

---

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

He does... Lance

---

---------------------------------------------------
"You're guaranteed to miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky

Hinault is a troll, only because LeMond was told NOT TO ATTACK, did Hinault win his 5th.


Eddie even said that if he raced in todays world ($$$) he would do just as Lance and Big Mig and concentrate on the Big race.

---

All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

yeah.....hinault sucks, actually he won ONLY 4 tours, what he crappy rider... :-)

like when he won LBL by 9'24'' in the blizzard...

Yes, he was an arrogant prick, yet in 1985, he was the leader and was supposed to be so until the end...I didn't see anyone question the fact that Ullrich protected Riis in the TdF96 despite being stronger...

Hinault-Lemond 1985: +1'42''
Riis-Ullrich 1996: +1'41''

that's cycling...there is a team leader and it remains this way...imagine that next year, Discovery hires a young rider to work for Lance, and who happens to be stronger during the tour...Lance and rider X are 1-2 or 2-1...do you really believe Lance will not win?
yeah right...

In 1986, I do agree however that Hinault broke the agreement of 1985...yet, after the Pyrenees, Lemond was 4'25'' down, losing quite a bit on the first TT, and essentially due to tactics in the race...guys of other teams were supposed to chase and didn't and therefore Lemond could not counter attack.

Then Lemond destroyed hinault in the first Alpe stage, closing to 40''...but still lost on the second TT...

that reaction of Hinault is exactly why he was a great champion, because he wanted to win so badly...

Uniballer...yup thats what Robin Williams calls him