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

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