Happy Peace-filled New Year

Quick post to wish everyone a happy, healthy, upright, rubber-side-down, New Year.

Before taking off for work on the Gulf Coast last week I did manage to renew an old tradition of riding the first 100 miler of the year on my birthday - the "Kids" were nearly all there and I'll post that blog with photos this week. More importantly it also renews my cycle-blogging as well. Work elsewhere around the world has drawn me away from the bike and the posts, but lots are planned, including a trip to the Tour 2011, this year as well as a return to some "recreational racing" - yes, the back might be recovered enough to give it a go.

Tandem riding, and racing, will take a front seat this year so I'll post many more links and ride reviews here for those of you interested - keen to start - or curious about something different.

FYI - The Chasing the Lanterne Rouge book project is also rolling down the road nicely so look for posts here as well as coverage on the 2011 rouge rider live from the Tour.

Rouge Report: Mano-a-Mano

And the winner is...
Italy's Adriano Malori, 170th, trailing in Le Tour de France by 4h 27m and 3 secs.

The TT, they call it the race-of-truth. Just you and your bike against the clock, and Saturday, for 52 km from Bordeaux to Pauillac, you shared it with the wind. After surviving three weeks, including one of the Tour's toughest final weeks in the Pyrenees it finally came down to this, the Individual Time Trial.

Mano-a-mano, the race was on the line, one man would walk away victorious, the other only his family and friends would remember the pain and suffering - after 3,642 kilometers the 2010 Lanterne Rouge had come down to this.

Unfortunately for Adriano, a respectable young time trialist with a young palmares full of U23 ITT victories, a bright future and despite trailing the human-rocket Fabian Cancellara by less than seven minutes as well as topping perennial TT strongmen like Andreas Klöden, Christophe Moreau, Michael Rogers, Jens Voigt, and Cadel Evans, he was up against more than a mere mortal Lanterne Rouge contender, it was the three-time former German National and 2008 UCI ITT Champion Bert Grabsch - he was going to need a tailwind and "no chain", and maybe one of those mysterious motors to hold his 2 minute 1 second "lead" out of the Lanterne Rouge.

It was never to be. Bert Grabsch, by virtue of the Lanterne Rouge position, was the first rider out of the gate at 10:15 Saturday morning in Bordeaux for the 19th stage. With light winds and his last shot at stage glory dangling like a bottle of fine Bordeaux Rouge 52 kms west along the Garonne River in Pauillac. Grabsch st0pped the clock in a blistering time that would hold up for several hours until HTC-Columbia teammate Tony Martin blew it away by a minute and a half, only to see that time fall to Cancellara.

In the end 11 riders finished within 30 minutes of the Lanterne Rouge. For much of the three weeks several of these guys were fighting, suffering, dangling near the back, and occasionally off the back, precariously close to time cut-offs and the sweeping sounds of the voiture balai as it low geared its way up hill and down dale. But this year many of the autobusers were pedaling broken, battered and bruised. For anyone who has seen a pro bike race in Europe you know that in the mini-convoy that trails the race an ambulance accompanies the broom wagon; for many riders dreaming of Paris in 2010 it must have been an ominously goolish sight many days.

How it all shook out - and names to watch next year:

159	Brett Lancaster (Aus) Cervelo Test Team	3:57:00
160	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	3:59:45
161	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	4:00:47
162	Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo	4:01:02
163	Jeremy Hunt (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	4:02:21
164	Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	4:02:59
165	Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha	4:08:28
166	Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	4:09:12
167	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	4:13:37
168	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	4:17:16
169	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	4:23:01
170	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	4:27:03

Rouge Report: Grabsch looks for a good red in Bordeaux

Rumor has it Bert Grabsch quickly crossed the line today, hugged Mark Cavendish a quick congrats, then slipped past the team bus and jumped into a taxi. He was seen after Stage 18 visiting caves in Bordeaux and questioning shop owners for an appropriate 75 year old red to celebrate Germany's capture of the Tour's Lanterne Rouge.

I've been searching through this pile of books, old newspaper clipings and web-articles I got assemble for research trying to come up with odds for the current Lanterne Rouge leader Grabsch of HTC-Columbia losing his grip on the little lantern - it doesn't look good - although 2:01 could be lost a bad wheel change.

169	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	4:24:55
170	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	4:26:56

Appears despite Adriano Malori's mysterious move today to lose nearly a minute and a half, Bert was keeping an eye out and did his job in the Cavendish leadout train just long enough to slip off and go milling about for Malori.

So it really comes down to how bad Malori wants this thing for Italy? Could we see the possibility of a track-stand between Bert and Adriano akin to that of Andy vs Alberto a few stages back on the slopes of Ax-3 Domaines? Or does Grabsch get lost in his search of red in the more than 8,500 producers or châteaux scattered about the Bordeaux?

Once again the Lanterne Rouge race is complicated by opportunity and tradition. Wasn't it a lot easier last year when we had Kenny van Hummel just happy to suffer all the way to Paris and dine on his handlebars?

PS - I have to note that while Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise were seen all over the finishing area photo opp'ing it with Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador, even stage winner Mark Cavendish, not one hint was provided that they sought out the Lanterne Rouge. Although given the current state of Cruise's career, he may have desperately avoid showing any interest in others finishing last.

Rouge Report: Surviving the Assassins

Legend has it - covered in mud and sweat, and laboring to push his bike up the steep goat-track, he spat, "Assassins"*, at Tour officials. That was eventual 1910 Tour winner Octave Lapize cresting the summit 15 minutes behind first summit winner Gustave Garrigou. Perhaps Lapize's exclamation was really into the thin air at 2115 meters and directed at the silent geant Col du Tourmalet piercing the sky above the surrounding Pyrenees.

Today the only thing piercing the summit's thin air was Andy Schleck's outstretched fist as he crossed the line a wheel length ahead Alberto Contador. The rest of the peloton are still pedaling squares up the foggy face of the mountain's west slope - coming across the line in dribble and drabs. It will be nearly an hour before we know on whom the red light shines in the race for the Lanterne Rouge. Rumor has it that HTC-Columbia has formed a Lanterne Rouge Leadout Train to insure Bert Grabsch get's home under the time cut-off.

*****

Current Lanterne Rouge Bert Grabsch survived Tuesday's "Circle of Death" so took refuge in the company of a trio of his fellow HTC-Columbia riders to seek safety from any final Tourmalet assassins and finished 31:46 back on the day, enough to pry open his rest day margin in the race for rouge by an additional minute and a half over Adriano Malori. With little more than a few speed bumps worth of elevation on the flatish road Friday north to Bordeaux, it looks like we have a two man race for the little lantern with the German rider setting up a 75 year celebratory return to rouge. My only concern is Grabsch forms part of HTC's leadout train for the Manx missile and one twitch of wheels and it could be an Italian celebration in Paris. Here's where the race sits:

169	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	4:14:11
170	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	4:23:14
171	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	4:26:56

*(Some report the word was actually "Murderers".)

Rouge Report: "The Circle of Death"

Somewhere between a few hundred million and 6.3 billion of us populating our planet most humans lost our primordial priority - contesting for survival. Real survival, the kind where for example, your daily bread comes at the risky price of challenging large beasts which could turn the table and eat you. Survivors were immortalized on cave walls and in totems, they were heroes. Hardwired in us is the need to face deathly demons, survive the ordeal, so we invented sports and then imagined ridiculous challenges - Le Tour de France.

Exactly one hundred years ago now, director Henri Desgrange dispatched his trusted assistant Alphonse Steinès to determine the passabilty, better survivability, of sending single-sprocket riders over the spine of the Pyrenees. Steinès' liberally positive report (after nearly being lost in the snow) concocted an experiment that would be tested two months later on the Herculean Stage 10 of the 1910 Tour de France: four brutal climbs, peaking with the first ascent of the Col du Peyresourde (1569m), the Col d'Aspin (1489m), the Col du Tourmalet(2115m), and the Col d'Aubisque(1710m). A Tour legend was born. To the delight of Director Desgrange, the print press proved contributing accomplices to the legend by naming the new route that grueling day in the Pyrenees “The Circle of Death”, where hopes of a Tour de France victory go to die (Thursday that fate will be decided for Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador.)

A Circle of Death? Why?

In Desgrange's own words, "The ideal Tour would be a Tour in which only one rider survives the ordeal."

That ordeal, first for Alphonse Steinès, included the now famous Col du Tourmalet, generally capped by cold and mist, crowning the Circle of Death. Ordeals of the Tourmalet pepper Tour lore. One story goes - arriving at the summit in 1947 Jean-Apo Lazaridès climbed off to wait for the others for fearing his 'ordeal' would include the challenge of Pyrenean bears. On the day I rode the Circle death had overtaken a local horse and vultures haunted the roadside scene - definitely inspiring this rider to pick up the pedal revs - cyclists are not the only ones challenged by the Circle of Death.

To be fair even generally uncompassionate Desgrange was apprehensive about the mountainous experiment; as a precaution, to protect perception of his race, he created a vehicle to rescue victims of the Circle and, in an extremely rare show of generosity, even allowed them to start the next stage, penalized of course. That vehicle was the voiture balai - Death's chariot was born - the broom wagon.

The Circle of Death wasn't quite as hungry today as in years past, but it did have an appetite, for two riders the journey was pockmarked by 'DNF'. For many in the peloton the Circle was more akin to the Bermuda Triangle; over 23 minutes adrift Sylvain Chavanel, Michael Rogers and Cadel Evans, all but vanished from camera view, leaving commentators to question if they had DNF'd.

One rider soared away from the mountains and apparently out of the Lanterne Rouge race, RadioShack's Dmitriy Muravyev, who once was considered a serious challenger for rouge. Going into the rest day in Pau things aren't sewn up:

159	David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions	3:25:22
160	Nicki Sörensen (Den) Team Saxo Bank	3:26:42
161	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	3:27:19
162	Brett Lancaster (Aus) Cervelo Test Team	3:27:22
163	Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	3:27:48
164	Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo	3:29:15
165	Jeremy Hunt (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	3:30:01
166	Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha	3:32:26
167	Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:33:16
168	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	3:38:41
169	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	3:42:51
170	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	3:43:02
171	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:53:09
172	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	3:55:10

RACE UPDATE:

Jens Voigt, crashed again today, He was on the descent of the Col de Peyresourde, when he suffered a front tire blowout, out the window went his control and down he crashed at high speed.

Fortunately he eluded the Circle of Death chariot, or worse, by avoiding a repeat of the horrific injuries he suffered during last year's race when he landed on his face and head at top speed.

After waving away the help of race assistants in the broom wagon, Jens battled on to finish the stage with the autobus - and beat the time cut-off. After wards he told reporters, "I'm doing 70 kilometers an hour on the first descent when my front tire explodes," continuing with characteristic good humor, "Before I hit the asphalt I actually manage to think that this is going to hurt. Both knees, elbows, hands, shoulders and the entire left side of my body were severely hurt." Adding, "My ribs are hurting but hey, broken ribs are overrated anyway. Fortunately, I didn't land on my face this time and I'm still alive."

Regarding a broom wagon ride Jens said, "I was offered a ride on the truck that picks up abandoned riders but I'm not going to quit another Tour de France. Now, there's a rest day and Paris is not that far away."

Monday's Rouge Report

Call it what you like, "B" is for Brutal, or Belittling, or the Bast%*d, maybe the Beast, or just Big B, or perhaps plain - the Balès, the climb up today's Port de Balès is one of the truly great ascents in the Pyrenees.

Amazingly it was only included for the first time as recently as 2007. I was fortunate and happy to have climbed it that same summer, two months after the Tour had suffered over it. The road was still graffiti'd in hopes and heroes. Half way up the climb Didi the Devil's pitchforks poked at our tires just as the road kicked up and the real devil - the first of several kilometers at 10-plus percent - bit at your legs like a feral dog.

Today the Port de Balès was only beautiful if you were named Thomas and you were racing away from the field in your National Tricolor (or you were exhuberant club rider and busting your friends in the final couple K's - the memory is still sweet!) for the rest of the peloton the Port de Balès is over an hour of suffering with the boys at the back of the bus and avoiding the hawking voiture balai.

Chapeau to former rouge contender Anthony Roux, you caught an express bus and made up 15 minutes over the Port de Balès, building a buffer for the next two killer stages and left the temporary honor of Lanterne Rouge to the HTC-Columbia rider from Germany Bert Grabsch. Also making a return to the rouge race is Stage 10 laster Adriano Malori (Lampre-Farnese Vini).

Rest up guys, tomorrow's stage is why Henri Desgrange invented to the voiture balai - broom wagon. The voiture's siren will sing, but resist, the rest day is only 5 Cols and 199.5 kms in the distance - just be delighted you aren't a century earlier, the day would be 326km long, 0ver 14 hours in the saddle.

Backing up a full half hour for today's Rouge Report - they will all play a roll in the next two days:

157	David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions	2:57:19
158	Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Team Saxo Bank	2:58:21
159	Nicki Sörensen (Den) Team Saxo Bank	2:58:39
160	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:59:16
161	Brett Lancaster (Aus) Cervelo Test Team	2:59:19
162	Iban Mayoz Echeverria (Spa) Footon-Servetto	2:59:24
163	Daniel Lloyd (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	2:59:45
164	Alan Perez Lezaun (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi	3:00:54
165	Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo	3:01:12
166	Jeremy Hunt (GBr) Cervelo Test Team	3:01:58
167	Robbie McEwen (Aus) Team Katusha	3:04:23
168	Mirco Lorenzetto (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:05:13
169	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	3:10:38
170	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	3:14:48
171	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	3:14:59
172	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	3:16:17
173	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	3:25:06
174	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	3:27:07

Rouge Report: The ER fills up

Dawn broke on the Pyrenees to shine on a peloton bruised, battered, broken and beat. In the memories of many this has been a Tour shattered with the kind of suffering we haven't seen in years.

Yesterday Juliet Macur, for the NY Times wrote,

"As of Friday afternoon, 22 riders, including Farrar and two of his Garmin-Transitions teammates, have dropped out of the three-week race, which began on July 3 and ends on July 25, in Paris. Christian Vande Velde, the team leader, crashed in Stage 2, then pulled out with broken ribs. Robbie Hunter, a sprinter, quit after breaking his elbow in Stage 10.

Only six of the team’s nine Tour riders remain. And three of those — who rank 148th or lower in the standings now — are competing with injuries.

At their team hotel on Thursday night, the dinner table looked like a hospital waiting room. Hunter had his arm in a sling. David Zabriskie, the five-time United States time trial national champion, had tape around his injured left knee. Julian Dean, a sprinter, moved gingerly because of a deep bruise on his back. David Millar, one of the squad’s veterans, wore a protective girdle, from a Stage 2 crash"

After today's first-of-four forays into the upper atmosphere of the Geants du Pyrenees the peloton needs extra seats in the autobus - nearly 40% of the riders finished 37 minutes back of stage winner Christophe Reblon atop Ax-3 Domaines. Even Phil Liggett commented early on in the stage, while the riders were still on the slopes of the 2,001 meter HC monster of the Port de Pailhères, "we could see another 20 of these go before we leave the Pyrenees."

Well if that many more don't survive through to see Paris we will definitely "celebrate" one of the most destructive Tours in recent memory; as is we may have more bodies broken arriving on the Champs than ever before. But after day one in the Pyrenees, looking at the contenders clustered in the last 15 minutes of the GC we have familiar bedfellows, and Germans now holding three of the last six spots. If current Lanterne Rouge Anthony Roux should succumb to the climbs and one of these three inherit the red lamp then 75 years of abstinence would be broken for Germany. Not since Willi Kutschbach trailed in 7h 40m 39s, in 46th place, in 1935 (the final year founding Director Henri Desgrange would complete his beloved Tour) - has a German finished last in Paris:

169	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	2:45:10
170	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:45:28
171	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	2:49:20
172	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	2:50:49
173	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:59:38
174	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	3:01:39
175	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	3:02:36

Friday's Rouge Report

Anyone seriously calculating the Laterne Rouge race had to take note of today's Stage 12, hidden in the lumpy hills of the southern Massif Central - where more than one rider has succumbed to the heat and torturous terrain.

And today a toll was taken - my ace in the hole is out, gone, headed for a little R&R, DNF'd - Tyler Farrar.

It was a case of climbing, as it usually is for Lanterne Rouge contenders, this time Tyler added a fractured wrist from Stage 2 to his challenge. Tyler slipped off the back and couldn't even hang on fellow drifter Lars Boom (of Rabobank), according to Garmin director Matt White. So, I'll admit to being a bit depressed about my day with the Tour - Tyler out and Andy Schleck missing Contador's wheel on the attack up the wicked "petit" Montée Laurent Jalabert.

Tyler told reporters after the race, "I am devastated to leave the Tour and my teammates. You never want to leave any race, but especially the Tour. It's the event we work for all year. I've been suffering since my crash on stage two and today the pain was just too much." Also going on early summer holiday with Farrar was Samuel Dumoulin, one of the bright French hopes for Rouge - dang! Sadly with the Pyrenees looming more devastation awaits.

So - with two great Lanterne Rouge contenders out below is what the race looks like heading to Revel and into the weekend, where the Tour de Soufffrance for our back-of-the-bus boys begins in full dread come Sunday as they face an HC and Cat 1 shaped tail-end of a mountainous demon. Don't look up - Monday it gets worse and Tuesday may the best man survive to enjoy the rest day in Pau. Good luck guys and may the grand sufferer finish last.

167	Stéphane Auge (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	1:59:32
168	Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa) Astana	2:02:03
169	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	2:02:49
170	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	2:04:02
171	Francesco Reda (Ita) Quick Step	2:04:20
172	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	2:06:35
173	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	2:07:51
174	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:16:59
175	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	2:19:00
176	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:19:49

Today's Rouge Report

Whether it was the phone call Adriano got from his boyhood pals reminding him that their beloved footballers had exited the World Cup in utter disgrace or it was the post-Bastille Day hangover of the two Frenchmen Samuel Dumoulin and new rouge Anthony Roux, a stage that should have seen the statis quo in the rouge race indeed saw a bit of shuffling off the back.

After Stage 11 thing shifted around a bit - but the contenders are all still there - including American Tyler Farrar, although Mark Renshaw nearly sealed Tyler's fate by taking him into the barriers in the final meters of today's sprint - instead the officials sealed Renshaw's.

168	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions	1:50:18
169	Marcus Burghardt (Ger) BMC Racing Team	1:50:56
170	Bert Grabsch (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia	1:52:23
171	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	1:56:25
172	Dimitri Champion (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale	1:56:28
173	Jesus Hernandez Blazquez (Spa) Astana	1:56:48
174	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	1:57:10
175	Francesco Reda (Ita) Quick Step	1:57:58
176	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:04:09
177	Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	2:05:18
178	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:05:51

A footnote: Bill Strickland's piece on Bicycling.com suggesting Lance pull a Lanterne - while it would be a first in many categories, and definitely turn up the international on light in the lantern - if we are going to have an American he should earn it in the grand tradition of rouge - go Tyler Farrar!

PS - all my Rouge Reports will be tag as such in the Labels if you want to compare riders/postings as a group

Rouge Report: Lanterne Rouge Race Began on Col de Madeleine

At last we have a race for rouge. Adriano Malori, the young Italian riding for the Italian squad Lampre-Farnese Vini, turned squares up the Col du Madeleine yesterday to cross the line 151st in Stage 9 that included the race's first real gauntlet of ascents and the first HC climb. He rode in with more than 40 others in the autobus, nearly 35 minutes behind winner Sandy Casar and the other day's leaders.

Thanks to a break that stuck, the Italian finished Stage 10 in the main group in 181st and last in the field, trailing overall maillot jaune Andy Schleck by 2 hours, 2 minutes and 29 seconds. He's tightened the race to Frenchman Anthony Roux, who's in 180th place, by closing down two minutes today. It's time to start tracking the climbs and the ticking of the cut-off clock, we now have a race. We haven't had an Italian Lanterne Rouge since Roldolfo Massi in 1990.

Here's the contenders after Stage 10:

176	Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions	1:50:18
177	Dmitriy Muravyev (Kaz) Team Radioshack	1:55:00
178	Andreas Klier (Ger) Cervelo Test Team	1:56:25
179	Samuel Dumoulin (Fra) Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne	1:57:37
180	Anthony Roux (Fra) Française des Jeux	2:00:46
181	Adriano Malori (Ita) Lampre-Farnese Vini	2:02:29

Rouge Review

Okay, I relent! I'll admit I started all this Lanterne Rouge discussion so I deserve your questions, but we are only at the first Rest Day so any real substantive discussion of the true contenders for the little lantern is rather pointless. The current back of the bunch is a newbie to the whole lantern affair, Team RadioShack's DmitriyMuravyev, who finished outside my 30 minute cut-off in TdF 2009 (yes, I impose my own time cut-off). So using my multi-decade rule of considering only the riders within 30 minutes of the victorious Lanterne Rouge you can see that with our current 45 "contenders" at the end of Stage 8 you can't really call the challenge "contentious" quite yet. Tuesday's stage should open things up a bit, even the autobus can't be forgiving enough to protect 45 guys - and believe me anyone who has turned a pedal on the beast called Mademoiselle Madeleine will tell you she won't be forgiving. We should be down to a couple dozen real contenders tomorrow evening and start to see clear chasms of opportunity glowing in the race for rouge.

PS - Lance if you are reading, here's your real shot at velo-immortality - you are already a third of the way back, just keep going and aim for Rouge - you will make history, the only seven-time winner of the maillot jaune AND Lanterne Rouge! Think of it.

The Rare Rouge-Race Double

Mathieu Hermans & Pietro Tarchini

With so many sprinters banged up so early in this year's Tour, many of whom have previously dangled off the back in the mountains and flirted with the coveted Lanterne Rouge, I thought it would be interesting to imagine them actually winning a stage, or two, and picking up the little lantern in Paris. And then it dawned on me, that might be one of the rarer Tour feats.

A handful have won Tour stages and in separate years basked in the reddish glow of the Lanterne Rouge, those include Roldolfo Massi, Jacky Durand, Rob Harmeling, Willy Derboven, Joseph Groussard and in 1983, Gilbert Glaus won the stage every sprinter dreams of, and in dream-like fashion. On the final stage of the 1983 Tour de France Glaus lunges his bike at the line on the paves of the Champs-Elysee to take Sean Kelly by half a wheel. A year later in the 1984 Tour de France he again finished on the Champs, but this time collected the prize of Lanterne Rouge.

After a bit of digging I found the feat is not only rare, but the odds are definitely stacked against you. Out of nearly 6,000 who have started the Tour since 1903 only two cyclists have managed to score a stage victory in the same year as winning the Lanterne Rouge.

That rarest of feats came first in 1947, on the launch of the “modern era” of Tour cycling. Possibly predicted, it came late in the game, on Stage 18, Les Sables to Vannes, 236 kms of perfect flat escape country leading north to Paris from the punishing Cols of the Pyrenees. The Italian Pietro Tarchini won out of a break-away sprint of 13 riders, who had been given their chance while maillot jaune Jean Robic and the main GC contenders rolled in 8 minutes and 16 seconds later.

It would be 22 years before the next, and last, time a rider would accomplished the double, and again it was post-Pyrenees. This time from a double-doubler Mathieu Hermans, a Dutchman, and one of the rare two-time winners of the Lanterne Rouge, in 1987 and 1989. He won a single stage in 1989, a galloping sprint finish on Étape 11, as the peloton swooped down out of the Pyrenean resort town of Luchon to the outskirts of Toulouse in Blagnac.

So this year the historical gap, about 20 years, is there, and we have the right riders - Tyler Farrar, Andreas Klier, Mark Renshaw and Bernhard Eisel, all have the kinda speed, character and autobus experience to make history.

No Rouge Repeat

The news came early, around 6AM, I hadn't even had my first cuppa Earl Grey before a small web voice whispered across cyberspace... "check the Tour line ups." So with apprehension I flipped open the laptop, logged on to CyclingNews, quickly scan headlines... hmmm? Just one, “This will be my final Tour de France”, tweet turned headline from Lance, ...yawn, another sip of tea, we knew that was coming, eventually. So nothing really? That web voice still sirens. I switch sites and look at newly announced team line ups.

All the big dog teams are in place and announced - Cervelo, Shack, Astana - changes there would have made headlines, nothing. Something is feeling French this morning. Ag2r-la Mondiale nope, they still haven't announced. Let's see about FdJ...

Oh No, NO Yauheni Hutarovich!

Dang! The double flamme, the rare back-to-back is dowsed. Erghhhhhhhhh!

Francaise des Jeux the French squad, with little hope of anything resembling a stage win and even less of a prayer on GC, (sorry Christophe Le Mével) has foregone their real shot at Tour history - Hutarovich could have joined an elite group of only five double winners and one of only three to pull off the rare-repeat, the doubla-rouge, Yauheni had a real shot at back-to-back Lanternes. This is a tragedy! It's time to reinstate the Isole rule!!

I had to calm myself and went back to the kitchen for a second cuppa. The question now was where to look for a serious new candidate? One thing for certain is we are looking at a first timer in red - and that's exciting. Sadly Kenny Van Hummel isn't there, but perhaps someone in his mold. Let's see, what team is... NO! OMG it could happen. Flesh and Rouge collide. Paul Smith you may want to have a stiff drink, this could get ugly.

Okay, and here it is, my great fear of TdF 2010 - Footon! Perhaps the peloton's most hideous kit in years. Not since the "U Team" kits of Laurent Fignon's late 1980's team have we seen anything so, well, butt-ugly. At least U had color. (I have heard votes for the '91Tonton Tapis-Corona - but really, hold that up against that Footon disaster and then get back to me.)

Footon-Servetto, the team formerly known as Fuji-Servetto, and as Scott- Beef Blunder, and as Saunier Duval-Prodir, is loaded with a whopping eight - that's right, 8 - first-time wide-eyed Tour newbies. The lone "veteran" Italian Giampaolo Cheula. He's been there since 2007 where he finished just a half hour back of triple-winner Wim Vansevenant in 111th, in the '08 Tour he was up to 85th. But here's the bumpy road ahead for the fleshy-kit-klan and any hope of lighting the Lanterne, the Tour 2010 road to Paris is a paved in pavés. Footon-Servetto did not race Paris-Roubaix; they did bump through a bit of Flanders, but all eight riders DNF’d. Yikes! They may want apply for a pavés pardon, take the time loss, practice team autobussing.

So for all of you on Lanterne watch, as much as your stomach can stand, keep your eyes focused on flesh.

Names to remember:
Fabio Felline (ITA) (only 20 years)
Giampaolo Cheula (ITA)
Manuel Cardoso (POR)
Markus Eibegger (AUT)
Alberto Benítez (SPA)
Arkaitz Durán (SPA)
Iban Mayoz (SPA)
Rafael Valls (SPA)

Lanterne Rouge Musings

Under a month to go until Le Tour sets off, its Grand Depart in Amsterdam. The buzz is starting to build - the revival of Basso, mechanical doping, Cavandish's lack of wins, Landis vs Lance, the Where's Menchov Mystery, etc. And it's time for cycling to go mainstream media; the cycling journalist are getting some company - regular sports types and the 'other' journalistic world, those that join in like once-a-year Christians on Easter Sunday. Hey, if your bosses will foot the bill for bonnes vacances in France I guess you take it.

With the days dwindling I'm reviewing my contenders, the wannabees and the likely winner. Oh ya, mainstream go ahead and pick the maillot jaune winner - let's see, there is Contador - and there is... um? Contador. Wow, that was simple. If his pistolly avoids backfiring and the pollen count stays low while they pass through the sunflower fields, it should be a multi-minute mutilation of the GC, he is after all the best pair of Sidis pedaling in the Grand Boucle. No, what I'm focusing on is that faint red glow illuminating the tail of the peloton. That eternal flame that draws the broomwagon ever closer. Try picking that rider and you will enshrine yourself in the Prognosticator's Hall of Fame.

Lanterne Rouge Picks 2010
It's a new game this year, I started it a few months ago, it carries extra meaning. Until I had to place myself on 'personal disabled list' I was planning on being at the Tour, covering it from the back of the bus, the broomwagon. (Next year.) So having a hint of who might be hanging on for dear life would help me target interviews and lock in the 2010 Lanterne Rouge.

Unfortunately everybody's favorite, Mr. "I'll eat my handlebars" Kenny Van Hummel and his Skil-Shimano Team were not selected by the committee. Truly a shame. I was looking forward to hanging with Kenny. Kenny would have once again inspired us all. Van Hummel though will go down as one of the most endearingly likable cyclists in this or any year’s race. In his first Tour de France, he often survived stages heroically, "by the skin of his teeth and riding hundreds of kilometres on his own."

But the peloton rolls on and the gruppetto of likely contenders based on the past couple of July's (marking 2007 with a huge asterisk as nearly a third of the peloton finished within that half hour of the little lantern) looks like this:

• Leading candidate is always a returning winner. Last year's Lanterne Rouge Yauheni Hutarovich finished 156 at 4h 16'27" - but history proves with so few Rouge repeats winning also teaches you how not to win.
  
• Bernhard Eisel has to be one of the strongest contenders in years. He was there in 2007, and after finishing first runner up to the greatest Lanterne Rouge winner of all time - Wim Vansevenant in 2008, just under a minute back, Bernhard followed that up with a respectable 6th back, only 29 minutes off the pace in 2009. After leading out the Manx Missile for a week his legs should be spent.
  
• Niki Terpstra of Milram continues to impress with his tenacity and persistance as well as his consistency off the back. In 2009 he was 28 mins off last and 22 mins in 2008. In 2009 Terpstra showed true Lanterne Rouge potential by winning the 3rd stage in the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, and taking the yellow leader's jersey; a true anti-grimpeur.
• An outside contender, and perhaps America's first Lanterne Rouge could be Tyler Farrar. At 3h 48'13" the Garmin speedster was five places out of last in 2009; although competing in all three grand tours last year could give him the savvy to stay one wheel ahead of the Lanterne.
  
• Finally, with the triplets of death, Stages 14, 15, 16 hovering over the third week we could have a repeat of 2007 when 34 riders huddled a half hour around the warm glow of the red lamp. There were big names in that group, many still around, like Boonen, Weening, Hushovd, Steegmans, Hunter, Haussler. Many of these guys were within seconds of rouge after nearly 86 hours of pedaling.
  

Throwing a spanner in the sprocket are the grand tour first-timers. Newbies. These guys are unknowns. The kinda riders that drive bookies crazy. They are the Van Hummels or Jay Sweets that surprise you. 1999's Sweet was the kinda wannabee Lanterne Rouge that we club riders connect to on a personal sufferage level. They are us, we could be them, almost.

Jay Sweet, like Van Hummel**, would eventually succumb, turning over the lantern to eventual winner Jacky Durand on Stage 15. This from Jay Sweet's online diary in 1999, Stage 9, for CyclingNews.com:

"What a scarring day! The weather was shabby, raining, cold and a head wind! I got over the first two climbs okay, the bunch took it quite easy which was a relief. The Col du Telegraph (12 kms at 7.1%) was hard. I was the first one dropped, I just climbed it at my own pace. I caught the groupetto over the top on the descent. We then started to climb the Col du Galibier (18 kms at 7%). I lasted about 3 kms with the groupetto before I went hunger flat. My arms didn't want to hold up my body, I had no power whatsoever. I absolut[e]ly crawled to the top of the Galibier which seemed to take forever. When I got to the top I stopped to put on my rain jacket because it was freezing and my director said that I was as white as a ghost and my eyes were half open. He didn't really want me to descend the Galibier but I said I wanted to go on. With 70 kms to go and two more Col's I kept going. When I got to the bottom of the descent it was hailing on me but I kept going! On the Col de Montgenevre (10.5 kms at 5%) it was absolut[e]ly pouring rain but I kept going and at the bottom of the last Col (11.2 kms at 6%). I asked my director how much time I had left for the time cut and he said "You have to go as fast as you can!". I already had been for the last 110 kms but I had to finish. As I climbed as fast as I could it kept raining on me. I got to the last kilometer and sprinted or tried to anyway just to make time cut! I was out by 3 minutes. I didn't make the time cut! After everything I'd been through today and I was eliminated. I guess the officials felt real sorry for me or respected my courage because they are allowing me to start again tomorrow. I don't know if that's good or not yet, I'm too tired to think about tomorrow yet."

Inspiring is 2010's opportunity to see the Lanterne Rouge sail to the western side of the Atlantic or even south to the Land Down Under. It is certain that more Americans, Canadians and Aussies will take the start in Amsterdam than in any other year - and most of those will be rouleurs and fastmen, several Tour newbies, who will be frying their legs in the first week in search of individual stage glory or there after in service of their GC captains. Needless to say, lumpy Stage 8, Station des Rousses to Morzine-Avoriaz, will be the first day we see the brightening of the red lamp. But broomwagon hang on, come stages 14, 15 and 16 you should have a full load, and we should have a radiant Lanterne Rouge by the summit finish on Col du Tourmalet. As Contador recently said, "The Pyrenees will decide and, of course, this Tour will be harder than last year’s." Lanterne Rouge contenders, wannabees and winner - bon chance, bon courage!

** just a footnote - Sweet and Van Hummel share some interesting Tour coincidences, both road for second-tier Pro Continental teams, and each were the final wild card team selected, and each was the final selection for their respective teams, thus each was wearing the #199, the last number in the Tour... an omen? Strange Tour history has a way of resurfacing from time to time - in this case a decade apart, 1999 and 2009. Neither rider returned to the Tour.

La Doyenne - you'll forever be my first

Liège-Bastogne-Liège is over. The last race of the Ardennes classic season is a week old, winner Vinokourov has moved on to training for Dauphine or Tour de Suisse, the street sweepers and the Ardennes wind has swept the confetti of useless riches spewed about by the marketing caravan from the gutters and sidewalks on the finishing hill in Ans, I have traveled on to Paris and started further research on the Lanterne Rouge book, and of the gritty little blue collar Liege? part of me wonders if the people of Liege ever knew La Doyenne raced through their city.

Granted this was my first - Pro race on the Continent - and you always have high expectations for your first. You want it to be special, you need it to be special, damn it, it should be special. The first smells different, the first looks different, the first has a nervousness and uncertainty of outcome, and, regardless of how many or how few will weave together your future, this one will always be your first.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, is affectionately called La Doyenne ("the oldest"). It is one of the five 'Monuments' of the European professional road cycling calendar. Cyclist's started pedaling out of Liege southeast through the countryside to Bastonne and back through the Ardennes hills for a decade before Henri Desgrange cooked up the Grand Boucle, and over half a century before bullets blasted and tanks violently shattered the tranquility of these country hills and villes. I was hoping to find some highlights of those earlier races, some glimmer of the glory claimed here by such icons as Merckx, De Vlaeminck, Van Looy, Hinault, but not even petite peu, nothing!

Despite La Doyenne being the grand old race something is missing. In Liege and the finishing suburb of Ans there was less a feeling of "wow, look what we have, let's celebrate!" and more a feeling, a very tired feeling, of... yawn... "oh, this again, wake me when it's over." On top of that it was doping disgraced, ex-retired, look-who-is-back-again, Alexander Vinokourov taking it with a perfectly timed attack on the steepest pitch 500 meters from the finish.

As beautiful a piece of strategic cycling as it was, it was not how I wanted My La Doyenne to finish. I wanted a Schleck or Gilbert (like everyone in the crowd based on the chanting over the couple hours prior to seeing Vini grinding up the final hill) - or my personal good guy Jens Voigt, heck, the rainbow jersey was right there, since Cadel Evans has learned to smile I was fine with him celebrating My La Doyenne - but not Vini, anybody else, please, I beg the cycling gods.

My first did have a few wonderful characters - would it have been a Euro Pro event without a crazy Belgian wrapped in a flag emblazoned with a golden lion singing "allez allez" at the top of his lungs? (This one even employed a mini-megaphone blaring a recorded "allez, allez, allez ahhhhhhllez") Or the peleton of 60 plussers, in matching club kits, grinding up the two kilometer Rue Walthere Jamar in their triples, then re-hydrating on pints of Leffe for the next two hours. And there were the Skoda girls passing out hats, and more hats, hats to babies, hats to old men, hats to young women, hats for each hand. And then come the 'clappers', those phallus-looking inflatable tubes that enjoy a half-life of about ten minutes off non-stop clapping, only to be jettisoned to join the rest of the curbside rubbish. Above it all loomed the jumbotron screen. Strategically positioned over the final corner 200 meters to the finish; we could see it all while immersed in the experience.

With four hours to go the race suddenly appeared on the screen. There was a break. Out on the road the Motocam cut to tight shots of Andy and brother Frank (Schleck), Gilbert was there too, a roar came up from the gathering crowd, Mr Allez Allez unleashed his mini-megaphone, things were looking good. This was awesome - sitting in the sun in Ans, basking in the color and excitement of my first Pro race, washing down a baguette au fromage with a pint of CTS - what a great replacement for the 5AM wake up to watch online back in Portland.

As we drank and ate something was off, not with the food, with the jumbotron, it was reporting 59km to the finish - about two hours... but wait... it should still be.... I looked at Todd (the numbers guy) and he said, "that can't be". Exactly I thought. But there it was, the race. Back to the beer and the break-away. Still it nagged at me, something felt wrong.

Out in the street things were moving a little to pedestrian to be only two hours away - police just milling about, barrier builders struggling with corporate logo banners, Skoda girls still unloading dozens of silly Gilligan looking hats, and the crowd was still, well pretty small.

WAIT A SECOND! Schleck's got the wrong jersey on! About that time Todd was getting the lowdown from the 60 plus guys drinking themselves into race shape. Errrrgh! What idiots! We're watch last years race!!! Come to find out that too is a tradition in these ASO events, you entertain the finish line crowds with last year's race until this years edition comes on live. What idiots! Blame it on the Leffe and the incessant "allez allez allez" blaring in our ears.

Finally our race was on, live, and again the Motocam focused on Schlecks and Gilbert much to the crowd of 'homers' and Mr Allez. They were and hour and a half out and by now the local crowd was swelling, barrier spots were filling up and the police had shut down traffic from the Rue Walthere Jamar. You could feel it, at last the race was palpable. My first was finally real.

The Andy and Frank Schleck fan club squished themselves against the barriers to insure no one crowded them out. They had down enough pints and smelly sausages to earn their place. The club was completely comprised of cute young girls clad in T-shirts with the brothers Schleck boldly staring from the backs like mug shots at a local police line up.

At last the race arrived, the initial wave anyway. The first of the team vehicles tore up the Rue Walthere Jamar like they were the ones competing for the 2010 La Doyenne. (Considering most are driven by ex-pro-cyclists perhaps there is some secret competition the rest of us aren't privy to?) I had never seen little cars scurry in such frantic fashion. Then came police motorcycles, blue lights flashing, followed by a caravan of ASO officials and then just below the 1K flamme rouge the headlights of the red lead car, a glance at the jumbotron confirmed it, the race was here.

What the jumbotron also confirmed was the Schlecks and Gilbert were not here, yet, and you could feel the crowd collectively deflate like one of those clappers that had clapped once too many. The Rue Walthere Jamar is a long exagerated straight drag, mostly at 6ish%, with a pitch around 500 meters to go at maybe 8-9%, that's where Vini attacked, and so did the crowd - "dopage, dopage, dopage" you could hear rising disgustedly from behind the barriers - this was not who they wanted to see first up the hill.

The next two waves were real battles as riders like Cadel Evans, Gilbert, Chris Horner, the Schlecks, Voeckler and Contador vied for placings in the top ten - the gritted teeth, pained faces, hunched backs and laboring breaths told the story - these guys were killing themselves after 260 kms.

It was the next half hour that made my first La Doyenne real - riders straggled in to the finish, many in tattered groups, some chatting, a few smiling, domestiques that had done there work, others just getting to the finish line, off their rides and collapsing into the team buses. These last few were candidates, potential heroes, the focus of my Lanterne Rouge story come July. None of these faces I really recognized - in these final few meters they all had a similar sameness about them, a mask of exhaustion.

Finally the voiture balai, the broomwagon, crept slowly up the hill - La Doyenne was over.

After wards a Flemish fan told me this was his third La Doyenne and, "they [Liegers] are all like sleeping", he said with a mock yawn, "up in the north it's a party, you must come, everybody comes", he was referring to the cobbled classics of Paris-Roubaix and Flanders. La Doyenne will forever be my first, but never my last - I'm looking for the party.

Liftoff to Liege

After a weird and ashy week it looks like the runway is clear for liftoff to Liege - so blogs may post a bit slower for a couple weeks.

Speaking of liftoff - flying the rainbow seems to be exactly what Cadel Evan's career, personality, and life needed. The dude just took a brilliant Flèche Wallonne today in the Belgian Ardennes and looks in great form (as well did the Schlecks) for Sunday's Liege-Bastogne-Liege. From Cadel's post race interview it's clear he is a proud of his new stripe, “To race in the rainbow jersey is an honor and to win is even better. I’ve been second before, so to finally win is great,”“I feel liberated with the rainbow jersey. It’s a special honor to ride with the rainbow jersey on my shoulders and the goal this season is to honor the rainbow jersey.”

You can see the last K up the Muur de Huy here.

I'm psyched about seeing L-B-L live, racing around the course like a crazy Wallonner, and getting to interview a handful of the riders about their Lanterne Rouge thoughts - including 1999 winner Jacky Durand. After months of research my brain is about to burst - need to do a brain-drive-dump and take in some new thoughts on the book and telling of the story. L-B-L is a great place to connect with most of the Tour guys, teams, and support staff there.

I'll have cameras with me as well so try and get a couple live blog posts up, time permitting, but definitely something from Paris on Monday.

Good luck to the guys on Echelon GranFondo/ZteaM this weekend in Cherry Blossom Cycling Race.

PS - several of you asked about the video I shot at Ronde last Saturday - sorry, but it won't get up until I'm back in a couple weeks.