TDF 2013 Stage 18 L'Alpe d'Huez *Spoilers*

alihisgreat

adr82

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Who else?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7rbKn-Jkc&fb_source=message

Say what you want about him, he's an entertainer :P

davidof

Parents in law spent day on Dutch Corner and said it was fantastic with the double climb and riders stretched out all over the hill.

Gran purchased Yellow Jersey for grandson from the caravan but asked "don`t you have it in another colour?". Doh!

Honestly ADH must be the closest thing to the ancient games of Rome.

GiantMike

davidof wrote:

Honestly ADH must be the closest thing to the ancient games of Rome.

Just need some lions to get rid of some of the fans. Actually, a sniper would be more use.

I was amazed at the utter lack of respect for the riders and the sport displayed by some of the 'fans' yesterday. Having ridden 18 stages and ADH twice in a day, some pr!cks think it's OK to run in front of riders just to get on TV. F'kin idiots.

dolan_driver

frenchfighter wrote:

Froome did well not to mow this boy down. Where is his mum?! I suppose if he looked ahead rather than at his top tube he would have seen him. Porte did really well to stay upright when that dickhead pulled his bars with the flag.

In Froome's defence, he took his eye of the road for a split second to talk to J-Rod and Quintana and the little lad ran out at just the wrong time. Thankfully no harm done. In that photo, it looks like the spectator on the right is about to biff the little tyke on the chin!

DD.

ddraver

Dolan Driver wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Froome did well not to mow this boy down. Where is his mum?! I suppose if he looked ahead rather than at his top tube he would have seen him. Porte did really well to stay upright when that dickhead pulled his bars with the flag.

In Froome's defence, he took his eye of the road for a split second to talk to J-Rod and Quintana and the little lad ran out at just the wrong time. Thankfully no harm done. In that photo, it looks like the spectator on the right is about to biff the little tyke on the chin!

DD.

Suspect there'a a lot of telephoto lens shortening too...

dish_dash

ddraver wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Froome did well not to mow this boy down. Where is his mum?! I suppose if he looked ahead rather than at his top tube he would have seen him. Porte did really well to stay upright when that dickhead pulled his bars with the flag.

In Froome's defence, he took his eye of the road for a split second to talk to J-Rod and Quintana and the little lad ran out at just the wrong time. Thankfully no harm done. In that photo, it looks like the spectator on the right is about to biff the little tyke on the chin!

DD.

Suspect there'a a lot of telephoto lens shortening too...

Froome did make contact with the kid, or so it looked like on Eurosport... brushed against him and looked really shocked. He had been busy chatting with purito/nairo...

davidof

RichN95 wrote:

The cheese:

BTW that is a Savoie cheese not one from the Dauphiné. It would be like putting Scotch Whisky as a symbol for the Yorkshire prolog next year.

Can I suggest

bleu de Vercors / Sassenage



and Murçon served with lentilles



both available in good restaurants of ADH

maybe with some local beer



and Oisans honey



maybe finished off with some Chartreuse



You must remember that the Dauphiné and Savoie are old enemies and the Savoie only joined France in 1860 and is still considered a bit of a colony.

frenchfighter

Ah Chartreuse...last time that past my lips I was visiting the monks set-up!

rick_chasey

Just watched this.

Few random thoughts.

1) Froome's semi bonk thing was odd. Didn't really slow down all that much, considering.

2) Porte was really very impressive. I find their pairing decidedly attractive, despite not liking sky.

3) interview with ten dam at the top. Never seen him so miserable. Not even when he smashed his face in.

4) Belgian commentators, not even de Cauwer, (my hero) flagged up the potential penalty for the feed. An unusual miss for a pairing who have blown me away this Tour. I've been watching the stages after they've happened and they call it right so so often. Potential problems, risks, what the tactic is etc. Very impressive.

5) alp is mental. It's grown into its own hyper garish circus monster.

6) I judge tejay for not measuring out that effort better. Maybe it's inexperience.

7) wasn't it nice seeing Andy do his thing for all of 5 minutes? ??

8) confirmed that Contador is growing on me. He is so mentally tough, and when he's not winning that manifests itself intl a particularly sporting and attractive attitude.

9) I SO much prefer Froome in interviews and on the bike to Wiggins. The more I think about it the more I respect Froome's 2012 Tour.

mididoctors

Rick Chasey wrote:

Just watched this.

Few random thoughts.

1) Froome's semi bonk thing was odd. Didn't really slow down all that much, considering.

2) Porte was really very impressive. I find their pairing decidedly attractive, despite not liking sky.

3) interview with ten dam at the top. Never seen him so miserable. Not even when he smashed his face in.

4) Belgian commentators, not even de Cauwer, (my hero) flagged up the potential penalty for the feed. An unusual miss for a pairing who have blown me away this Tour. I've been watching the stages after they've happened and they call it right so so often. Potential problems, risks, what the tactic is etc. Very impressive.

5) alp is mental. It's grown into its own hyper garish circus monster.

6) I judge tejay for not measuring out that effort better. Maybe it's inexperience.

7) wasn't it nice seeing Andy do his thing for all of 5 minutes? ??

8) confirmed that Contador is growing on me. He is so mentally tough, and when he's not winning that manifests itself intl a particularly sporting and attractive attitude.

9) I SO much prefer Froome in interviews and on the bike to Wiggins. The more I think about it the more I respect Froome's 2012 Tour.

Yeah I think most of that was touched on

we had him marked as penalised straight away too... I think the judgement on TJ is a bit harsh. very hard to measure your effort in a long break where you are responding to attacks and conditions. its not a controlled training situation because it comes on the back of an entire days racing...

even at the front end of the GC hey all went into the "unknown" and its really good when they do because you are going to see people suffer and crack

I think riblon deserves a fair amount of credit for not giving up as well, but in this case you may be right. Its the sort of day he has more experience of

the alp stages seem to have jumped the shark... and there is a part of me that despairs at it all. but somehow the absurdity of how bad it is makes it a good bad...

the combination of drunken revelry taking place millimeters from a tiny section of humanity making the most concerted physical effort on Earth(literally!) transcends the sport.

on that day there were no other human beings pushing out so many watts for so long anywhere else on this planet and the fact they had a mountain side of clowns screaming and dancing all around them makes the entire spectacle utterly surreal.

the arbitrary pointlessness of it all is fantastic. Its just so twisted.

Macaloon

TheOnlyWarhead 11:46am via Tweet Button

Image: Bauke Mollema acknowledges fans at #DutchCorner Alp D'Huez. #TdF #TDF2013 #photography http://waughphotos.photoshelter.com/image/I0000gvUxfkoYrKo#.Ue0NPpy-JgM.twitter

Image won't embed. Worth a click.

frenchfighter

Ha good one, not easy to get him in such focus like that moving and the rest a blur.

rick_chasey

Can anyone explain why Walsh is on some bizarre journalistic hunt to find out who was 'booing' and 'giving abuse' to sky on the Alp?

WTF is going on?

Richmond Racer

Rick Chasey wrote:

Can anyone explain why Walsh is on some bizarre journalistic hunt to find out who was 'booing' and 'giving abuse' to sky on the Alp?

WTF is going on?

Walsh wrote about it in one of 3 articles he wrote for last week's Sunday Times. Half of Ireland* then went on a campaign to try to disprove that Irish fans were involved - and it sort of tipped over into a ''Walsh is lying, what else is he lying about, why is he siding with the Brits etc', with the lines of Sticky Bottle and Stokes getting involved.

Which is why he was fighting his corner last night




*slight exaggeration

Macaloon

Clear case of, you can take the boy out of Cork, but woe betide you when you take the Cork* out of the boy.

*From the perspective of a Celtic synthetic cork-rotter

Cumulonimbus

Rick Chasey wrote:

Froome's semi bonk thing was odd. Didn't really slow down all that much, considering.

Reminded me of Armstrong in 2000. Apparently bonked at the bottom of the Joux-Plane but only lost a minute and a half to Ullrich. Ok, so he might have finished ahead of Ullrich if he hadnt had trouble so maybe he lost a bit more than that but it still isnt that much. Maybe they didnt truly bonk but were just tired at the end of a hard day? How long does it take food to get to your muscles?

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/ ... t16r.shtml

Richmond Racer

Cumulonimbus wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Froome's semi bonk thing was odd. Didn't really slow down all that much, considering.

Reminded me of Armstrong in 2000. Apparently bonked at the bottom of the Joux-Plane but only lost a minute and a half to Ullrich. Ok, so he might have finished ahead of Ullrich if he hadnt had trouble so maybe he lost a bit more than that but it still isnt that much. Maybe they didnt truly bonk but were just tired at the end of a hard day? How long does it take food to get to your muscles?

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/results/ ... t16r.shtml

A good gel? Bloody fast

tailwindhome

Richmond Racer wrote:

Walsh wrote about it in one of 3 articles he wrote for last week's Sunday Times. Half of Ireland* then went on a campaign to try to disprove that Irish fans were involved - and it sort of tipped over into a ''Walsh is lying, what else is he lying about, why is he siding with the Brits etc', with the lines of Sticky Bottle and Stokes getting involved.

Which is why he was fighting his corner last night

*slight exaggeration

Not sure the bit in bold is fair.

To be honest I think a lot of this is journalists making far to much of a bit of booing. They seem to be determined to take umbrage on Sky's behalf (see also bollocks about Wiggins not congratulating Froome)

The whole story is quite bizarre actually.

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... -they-did/

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... lpe-dhuez/

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... legations/

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... l-sort-of/

Then, post apology, Walsh tweeted that he had talked to Porte who said it 'wasn't' the French who abused them

frenchfighter

Walsh has become a proper little Sky fan boy. Bit sad to watch his mind being moulded. Money talks I guess.

rick_chasey

It's just weird.

Are gonna get an investigation into football chanting too?

deejay

Rick Chasey wrote:

Can anyone explain why Walsh is on some bizarre journalistic hunt to find out who was 'booing' and 'giving abuse' to sky on the Alp?

WTF is going on?

Excuse me, but Cricket. (wait for it)
Root scored a ton plus and as he left the field it sounded like thay were boooing but in fact it was ROOOOOOOOOT
So
the so called booing for Froome could have been Froooooooooomy.
Unlikely but just a thought.

tailwindhome

deejay wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Can anyone explain why Walsh is on some bizarre journalistic hunt to find out who was 'booing' and 'giving abuse' to sky on the Alp?

WTF is going on?

Excuse me, but Cricket. (wait for it)
Root scored a ton plus and as he left the field it sounded like thay were boooing but in fact it was ROOOOOOOOOT
So
the so called booing for Froome could have been Froooooooooomy.
Unlikely but just a thought.

Mrs TWH was quite irritated at what she thought was people booing Springsteen at last weekends show in Belfast.

BRRUUUUUUUCCCE!

joelsim

Talking about football chants, my favourite was when Andy Goram was playing for Kilmarnock shortly after being diagnosed with mild schizophrenia.

The crowd started chanting "There's only two Andy Gorams, two Andy Gorams..."

Lovely.

kfinlay

frenchfighter wrote:

Walsh has become a proper little Sky fan boy. Bit sad to watch his mind being moulded. Money talks I guess.

where's the YAWN smilie?

thomthom

Holm just told a quite interesting thing on Eurosport about the illegal feed by Sky. It turns out that their service car broke down after the first time over Alpe, which meant they couldn't provide any food or water for Porte and Froome until after the feeding zone on the second time up Alpe. Race organizers knew this which was why they were penalized relatively soft.

This wasn't annonced as it wouldn't be the best PR for Sky's service car provider, Jaguar..

TMR

ThomThom wrote:

Holm just told a quite interesting thing on Eurosport about the illegal feed by Sky. It turns out that their service car broke down after the first time over Alpe, which meant they couldn't provide any food or water for Porte and Froome until after the feeding zone on the second time up Alpe. Race organizers knew this which was why they got fined relatively soft.

This wasn't annonced as it wouldn't be the best PR for Sky's service car provider, Jaguar..

Except that Froome mentioned it himself during his post-race interview on ITV4. I thought everyone knew.

frenchfighter

Pretty sure Portal actually mentioned it after the stage in an interview.

Daz555

TMR wrote:

ThomThom wrote:

Holm just told a quite interesting thing on Eurosport about the illegal feed by Sky. It turns out that their service car broke down after the first time over Alpe, which meant they couldn't provide any food or water for Porte and Froome until after the feeding zone on the second time up Alpe. Race organizers knew this which was why they got fined relatively soft.

This wasn't annonced as it wouldn't be the best PR for Sky's service car provider, Jaguar..

Except that Froome mentioned it himself during his post-race interview on ITV4. I thought everyone knew.

One of the Sky drivers was interviewed after the stage as well and confirmed the same.

thomthom

Ah, bugger..

Need to have a word with the big man. Said it wasn't publicly known.