Tour de France favorites train on the cobbles

Doobz

images courtesy of VeloNews











last one is caption tastic

RichN95.

I see Geraint hasn't had his jersey delivered yet.

frenchfighter

Nice. A bit surprising to see them all there at the same time, unless they were over several days or something.

frenchfighter

dupe

yourpaceormine

frenchfighter wrote:

My money is on the guy behind
Getty

The guy behind is a Bertie Contador fan, note the pistol salute

greasedscotsman

Doobz wrote:

Has that Saxo rider nicked LA's helmet?

calvjones

Shouldn't the thread title read 'Tour de France favourites and Lance Armstrong train on the cobbles'?

bigmat

That last picture in the OP, I thought for a minute Radioshack had introduced a "furry shoulder" design for their jersey!

Doobz

calvjones wrote:

Shouldn't the thread title read 'Tour de France favourites and Lance Armstrong train on the cobbles'?

I see what you did there!

deejay

RichN95 wrote:

I see Geraint hasn't had his jersey delivered yet.

Nah, that's the picture of him training for the championships.

Pross

So they've all gone out and trained on the cobbles on nice dry, sunny days - shame the weather's on the change and it's going to pour down and blow a gale

fungus_the_muffin_man

Surely LA would be better off training with the whole team in front of him so he knows what it will really be like on the day with spartacus and co making him eat dust.

greasedscotsman

Fungus The Muffin Man wrote:

Surely LA would be better off training with the whole team in front of him so he knows what it will really be like on the day with spartacus and co making him eat dust.

Interesting that Basso didn't seem to have the whole Liquigas team out like the other teams, just rode with Kreuziger.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... ce-cobbles

I would have thought it's as important to get everyone a look at the cobbles rather than just the team leaders. Maybe they just weren't show in the photos?

Also Kreuziger seems to be using a Ksyrium ES up front, thought that was supposed to be a light, climbing wheel?

Doobz

greasedscotsman wrote:

Fungus The Muffin Man wrote:

Surely LA would be better off training with the whole team in front of him so he knows what it will really be like on the day with spartacus and co making him eat dust.

Interesting that Basso didn't seem to have the whole Liquigas team out like the other teams, just rode with Kreuziger.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... ce-cobbles

I would have thought it's as important to get everyone a look at the cobbles rather than just the team leaders. Maybe they just weren't show in the photos?

Also Kreuziger seems to be using a Ksyrium ES up front, thought that was supposed to be a light, climbing wheel?

maybe he dropped them?!

bilirubin

Cobbles!!! , I dream of cobbles (using my best Monty Python accent)

I don't know what all the fuss is about, send them all down to train on the loop I use in Kent and the pot holes will sort the men from the boys.

Sheptastic

Pot holes? LUXURY....

The training loop I use around Worcester is more like the strada bianche, in winter..

magicrhodes

MatHammond wrote:

That last picture in the OP, I thought for a minute Radioshack had introduced a "furry shoulder" design for their jersey!

+1 It was a real WTF is that moment!

magicrhodes

How big a disaster will the cobbles be?

iainf72

magicrhodes wrote:

How big a disaster will the cobbles be?

I could be interesting. It could be lame. Remember in 04 the damage was done before the cobbles.

Someone could suffer bad luck and lose a fist full of time. People will be mindful they've got 3 weeks to go.

Sundays stage, if there was a lot of wind could be worse for some people. Look at the Giro.

camerone

i am hopeful they will be important. There are lots of riders who need to make time up on Contador before the mountains, and rightly or wrongly they feel the cobbles with be a weakness for him.
if certain riders really get their teams on board to put the hammer down there could be incidents in the sections entering cobbles with the race to be in front.

I hope Sky use Flecha and Saxo use Cancellara and Ogrady( how many teams would that duo on that stage) to apply pressure, whether Contador has a weakness on cobbles we are yet to see but without pressure the other GC contenders will never know

Kléber

The trouble is the obstacle is so obvious. Contador merely has to get himself sandwiched between Vino and Iglinsky and then ensure the three of them stay right near the front, preferably keeping a close eye on the other contenders.

Whilst everyone will want to be at the front, remember the stage is shorter than a typical Paris-Roubaix, riders won't be cracking because of the distance and there are not so many cobbled sections. Yes it'll be exciting but that's perhaps more in anticipation than anything else.

redddraggon

greasedscotsman wrote:

Also Kreuziger seems to be using a Ksyrium ES up front, thought that was supposed to be a light, climbing wheel?

Heavy alloy wheel, a "light, climbing wheel"? Nope. Not when Mavic produce the Carbone Ultimates and R-SYS Ultimates.

bilirubin

Sheptastic wrote:

Pot holes? LUXURY....

The training loop I use around Worcester is more like the strada bianche, in winter..

Aye, but we are happy!

bilirubin

magicrhodes wrote:

How big a disaster will the cobbles be?

It could cause havoc with Cancellara's triple AAA batteries

iainf72

Also, it will be in Saxo's interest to keep it tranquilo, because I don't know if anyone has noticed, their GC guys aren't the worlds best bike handlers.

godihatehills

re cancellaras batteries

surely he has prior experience of duracell's resistance to vibration ?!

camerone

iainf72 wrote:

Also, it will be in Saxo's interest to keep it tranquilo, because I don't know if anyone has noticed, their GC guys aren't the worlds best bike handlers.

equally they dont want to be want to be wallowing in the middle of the pack behind potential accidents..? i guess if canc is with them he can always drag them back