most impressive riders of the first week

coinneach

Totally subjective, but I'd say

Petacchi
Renshaw
Cancellara

anyone agree?

Anonymous

Farrar.

Still going strong despite his injuries!

shisaa

Thomas surely?

And Chavanel, though unlucky.

gethmetal

Geraint Thomas and Fabian Cancellara.

Tusher

EBH and Geraint

RichN95.

I think Cavendish has been impressive. On Wednesday he was being written off completely, then he has back to back wins.

Monfort and Siutsou have both done huge amounts of work on the front of the bunch too.

eh

Along with some of the ones pointed out above, surely Andy Schleck for an epic ride on the cobbles. He took time out of most of the other GC riders when he was expected to lose time in spades.

unixnerd

Thor Hushovd is having a good tour, powerful guy!

Must be a nightmare for a Norwegian cyclist to keep their fitness over the winter. It's bad enough in the Highlands!

Determination

Cancellara's and Schleck's aggression on stage 3 as well as the rest of the lead group was unbelivable...Just Flat out!!

jamlala

coinneach wrote:

Totally subjective, but I'd say

Petacchi
Renshaw
Cancellara

anyone agree?

I think for (relatively) unsung hero then Renshaw gets it hands down, worthy of a podium place himself for all the work he's done.

mroli

Thomas - doing a Wiggins.
Evans - punchy as ever
EBH - showing some form
Schleck A - riding well in the areas that are not his forte.
Petacchi - 2 wins, blast from past.

Doing what expected:
Cav (should have 3 stages)
Cancellera
Hushovd
Armstrong
Contador
Wiggins

Donnic

Renshaw by a long shot. Driving the HTC train straight to the finish

knedlicky

Dimitri Champion - awarded the red back number after stage 4 and also active today, joining the breakway towards the end.

Thor Hushovd - green jersey confidence.

Maarten Wijjnants - red back number after stage 1, yellow back number after stage 2, charged with environmental pollution after stage 4 (for having thrown his bidon away)

Alessandro Petacchi - tradition

ms_tree

Chavenel
Roche
Hesjedahl (wrong spelling I know)

Doobz

gotta be Chavanel

csp

Jose Joaquin Rojas

amd-sco

Chavanel
Hesjedahl
Lars boom & Robbie Mckewen for their tweets
Ale jet
Chavendish for coming back
Cadel for not blowing up or attacking a journo (yet)

Pokerface

Defo Chavanel after today for taking back the jersey and doing it in style.


And to his teammate Pineau for working like a dog all day to mop up Polka Dot points so he could keep the jersey another day - I say "chapeau".

micron

Chavanel - 2 stage wins, taking the MJ both times and with panache - can't argue with that.

Funny how, as doping controls apparently get stricter, the French riders seem to be doing much better

fastercyclist

Chavanel
A.Schleck

Big gap

Cancellara

I put Cancellara below the gap because he only done as expected so far whilst A.Schleck overcame a widely-held assumption that he would be weak on cobbles. I don't think any rider in the Peloton has been riding on a level equal with Chavanel though.

finchy

unixnerd wrote:

Must be a nightmare for a Norwegian cyclist to keep their fitness over the winter. It's bad enough in the Highlands!

I believe he does XC skiing.

Kléber

EBH and team mate Nordhaug ride in the Norweigan olympic training centre, complete with a giant treadmill designed for cycling. This way they can avoid the grim weather. That said, they also have cyclo-cross bikes with snow tyres and will head out into the cold with these for base training.

Still, surely it's easier to move to Tuscany or Catalonia?

rick_chasey

Chavanel obviously.

To quote the man himself, he has fire in his legs at the moment.

dilemna

Today -

Stuart O'Grady for all his work at the front,

Robbie McEwen for his two crashes and still riding

Chavenal for winning so convincingly.

dilemna

Rick Chasey wrote:

Chavanel obviously.

To quote the man himself, he has fire in his legs at the moment.

I think you have mis quoted him. He said he felt his legs were on fire which means he was feckin' hurting!

rick_chasey

dilemna wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Chavanel obviously.

To quote the man himself, he has fire in his legs at the moment.

I think you have mis quoted him. He said he felt his legs were on fire which means he was feckin' hurting!

From cyclingnews, from LeTour.com

"I think next year I will no longer compete for the month of May, considering the form I've currently got at the Tour. I had legs of fire, and I knew I was on climbs that suited me very well - a gradient of four per cent, hills more than a mountain," said Chavenel to Letour.com.

Close enough.

DaveyL

micron wrote:

Chavanel - 2 stage wins, taking the MJ both times and with panache - can't argue with that.

Funny how, as doping controls apparently get stricter, the French riders seem to be doing much better

Like in 2003 when Virenque won stage 7 and took the jersey?

It was a great ride today by Chavanel but let's not pretend his first stage win and yellow jersey was anything but a gift from Saxo Bank.

mididoctors

DaveyL wrote:

micron wrote:

Chavanel - 2 stage wins, taking the MJ both times and with panache - can't argue with that.

Funny how, as doping controls apparently get stricter, the French riders seem to be doing much better

Like in 2003 when Virenque won stage 7 and took the jersey?

It was a great ride today by Chavanel but let's not pretend his first stage win and yellow jersey was anything but a gift from Saxo Bank.

I think he may still have got the stage... plus the opportunistic attack on stage 7 was pretty damm good so he gets it in my book for rider of the week

andy schleck on the cobbles was pretty surprising... franks wasn't most of the big GC guys did ok there

Lance dug in to limit his loses there... he was real close in bridging to to the cancellara group.. he looks so old on a bike now despite being in pretty good shape..real gnarly old bu66er

inkyfingers

Chavanel and Pineau, both getting justly rewarded for aggressive riding.

Andy Schleck for his ride on the cobbles and generally doing just what he needed to do this week.

Geraint Thomas for a good prologue, a great day on the cobbles and doing some sterling lead out work for EBH.

Cavendish for showing that form is temporary, but class is permanent.

Renshaw for proving what we already suspected, that he's the best lead out man in the peloton.

morstar

DaveyL wrote:

micron wrote:

Chavanel - 2 stage wins, taking the MJ both times and with panache - can't argue with that.

Funny how, as doping controls apparently get stricter, the French riders seem to be doing much better

Like in 2003 when Virenque won stage 7 and took the jersey?

It was a great ride today by Chavanel but let's not pretend his first stage win and yellow jersey was anything but a gift from Saxo Bank.

I don't entirely agree that it was a gift from Saxo. Fab did sacrifice his jersey but that was because he couldn't continue the chase with his team leader so far behind. The fact that nobody else continued the chase was the gift. Saxo had no choice and were in no way altruistic.
I am still uneasy about the evnts of that stage. I tend to think they should have continued racing. It seems to me like because Fab sacrificed yellow he was in a position to make everybody else sacrifice possible gains. If AS had styed upright, or at least with the other GC guys, it would have been a whole different story.

cal_stewart

roche