Tour de France 2009
 

Discussion for this years tour.

Anyone else going to do the TdF game again?: Internet Tour de France Game 2009

My team (really shows how much I know about it, picking only the names I know :ph34r:)

1. S. O'Grady
2. C. Evans
3. L. Leipheimer
4. A. Contador
5. L. Armstrong
6. T. Hushovd
7. F. Sabatini
8. J. Voigt
9. F. Cancellara
10. C. Sastre
11. T. Voeckler
12. D. Millar
13. G. Hincapie
14. M. Cavendish
15. O. Pereiro
16. V. Nibali
17. A. Kuschynski
18. D. Menchov
19. M. Lloyd
20. R. Gesink

Will be watching a little bit just to cheer on Cadel Evens. Other than that I won't be watching unless I'm bored and the Ashes isn't on.

Yeah I'll be in., I will do it in the next few days.

All we would have needed is to have Barloworld and their South Africans (plus their white Kenyan/South African/Brit) and somebody from South America and we would of had riders from every land continent take part (provisional start list).

For the benefit of BB we have a Scotsman (David Millar although he was born in Malta), an Englishman (Brad Wiggansborn in Ghent and an Australian dad), a Brummie turned Irishman (Dan Martin of the Garmin team, his cousin is Nicolas Roche of AG2r and his uncle is the great Stephen Roche) and another Brit who was born in Finland (Charly Wegelius). And last but not least we have the man from the Isle of Mann - Mark Cavendish who won 4 stages last year and has 11 wins this year thus far (IIRC).

We have a couple of riders from Japan and New Zealand as well.

In like last time.

Won't happen, out with a knee injury and is replaced by Martijn Maaskant.

Least excited I've been for years, I must admit.

Will enter a team of sprinters as usual tho.

A. Contador
D. Menchov
C. Sastre
A. Schleck
F. Schleck
M. Cavendish
C. Evans
S. O'Grady
O. Freire
F. Cancellara
T. Hushovd
L. Leipheimer
Y. Popovych
L. Armstrong
J. Vansummeren

J. Voigt
B. Wiggins
D. Millar
S. Clement
C. Vande Velde

not sure you get 1 point for picking the lanterne rouge

In.

Nice back drop BTW, too bad I don't have $6m (AUS) to buy a two bedroom apartment there.

Honestly, I think Monaco is an overrated, seedy, overpriced dump. It doesn't even look particularly nice on TV, IMO. Have you been there?

I like the route this year- starting in the south and hitting the Pyrenees fairly quickly is nice change to the usual.

Not sure whether using basically no climbs in the Pyrenees is a great idea, though.

XV (Hushovd and Boonen the props)

1. A. Contador
2. C. Evans
3. M. Cavendish
4. T. Hushovd
5. T. Farrar
6. O. Freire
7. C. Sastre
8. T. Boonen
9. A. Schleck
10. D. Bennati
11. D. Menchov
12. L. Armstrong
13. R. Kreuziger
14. G. Ciolek
15. R. Feillu

Is this doubling up as a discussion thread as well?

So pleased for Cavo, the bloke is such a champ. The stage win was never in doubt after there was that mini crash towards the end, nobody was going to catch him.

Yeah, just cruised home in the end. The crash obviously took out pretty much all the sprinters bar Ciolek though. Apparently there was a bit of a scuffle towards the end as well - some Dutch domestique barged inot Cavendish, who made it clear he didn't like it.

I reckon Cancellara has an outside shot this year, with the lack of real height in the Pyranees and then a huge effort up the Ventoux.

Can't quite look past Contador for the time being, though I reckon Leipheimer has a pretty good outside chance. Can't wait till the Ventoux stage, should be an absolute ripper.

Anyone else think that Shaun Kelly is deadset the worst commentator going? You can barely understand his extremely boring voice and I seriously can't remember the last time that he said something insightful or interesting, espeically considering he has ridden the tour several times. Reckon the rest of them are awesome though.

The closest I have been to Monaco in France is Toulouse, so no.

We get two Brits in Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen and it is basically a Lance Armstrong love-in. Which is fine, but eventually you want to grab the bucket.