Podium Cafe: FanPosts

Tour de France Art – bit of a diversion

guidemd — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:06:36 -0000

A few months ago, I saw this bit in our local paper, about an upcoming exhibit in June that would feature paintings of the Tour. I didn’t initially recognize the artist’s name, but then realized that Toti had done many paintings/prints of our city that are well-recognized and appreciated, such as this “Street Performers” one showing a summer festival in Edmonton’s downtown. So, I was intrigued to read that she’d done paintings of the Tour:

"Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme told me no artist in the tour's 104-year history had captured the tour the way Toti has," says Lewis (her husband).

But then I forgot about it.

Until mid-June, when I remembered again, looked up the information on the Alberta Gallery of Art website, and realized that the short exhibition was almost over. (Had I remembered earlier, maybe I would have tried to get media credentials for Podium Cafe to attend the “special preview and reception” for free ;-) ). I convinced my husband that we should go see it on a Saturday (2 weeks ago today), the last day.

Initially, he wasn’t impressed when we walked into the exhibit room and saw there were 3 paintings, "We paid that admission fee just to see three paintings?" I think were his words. But then we both became quite entranced and enthralled at the detail in each of the paintings – so much detail that each work had a legend next to it, listing all the components - she included people that she met in France at the Tour (local former 7-11 pro Alex Stieda and some in his tour group, Bobby Julich’s wife and kid), or famous/"important" people (our city’s mayor and Mr. Amaury of ASO, Christian Prudhomme, Sheryl Crow, Lance’s kids), and representations of common sights along the Tour route (Basque fans, anti-doping messages on the road, lots of different flags and jerseys, sponsor banners, a TV helicopter).

The paintings commemorate Armstrong’s seventh consecutive victory in 2005 – the first is showing the publicity caravan at the Noirmoutie Time Trial finish. The second was at the Col de Soulor in the Pyrenees, coming down the back side of the Col d’Aubisque (Stage 16, Mourenx to Pau). And the third was the overall Tour finish on the Champs Elysees. There were some artistic licenses that true cycling fans would notice instantly (eg. Lance didn’t cross the finish line on the Champs Elysees first, the publicity caravan wouldn’t be close enough to the riders that you’d be able to see both in one painting), or that Cadel Evans fans like myself would notice (Cadel attacked on the climb up the Aubisque so would have been ahead still on the descent with others like Pereiro trying to catch him, the peloton wasn’t mostly all together at that point), but the paintings were amazing at capturing some of the unique sights and spirit of the race. We particularly liked the middle one (Col de Soulor), as last July we rode up that way to the top of the Aubisque, so that we could see a mountain-top finish (won by the Chicken, only to be fired by his team Rabobank that night).

The artist and her husband were there in the gallery that day, in talking to them we learned that the original paintings were being shipped to France immediately (to be displayed at the Canadian Embassy in Paris), but that there was another exhibit just starting of many of her studies and sketches that she used in creating the main paintings. We went to see this exhibit last week, and it was also fabulous (and we ended up buying a set of the prints too – got the special advanced purchase price before they go on sale to the public mainly in France – they expected the limited edition prints to sell out quickly). This exhibit was mentioned in our local paper yesterday as well.

Anyway, just thought some of you might be interested in reading about this – a pic below of us and one of the paintings, and more at my blog.

via lh5.ggpht.com

Blog of interest

DZI — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:32:28 -0000

CyclingFever is quite proud to announce a 'joint-venture' during this Tour de France with Dave Shields, writer of 'The Race', 'The Tour' and the story of Saul Raisin, 'Tour de life'.

Quite a few of you already know CyclingFever (and Dave Shields probably) and play your extra VDS-competition there, but for all others: Here's where you'll find Dave Shields' blogs from an American point of view.

http://tour.cyclingfever.com/dave.html

Hope you'll enjoy it, we do!

Chris Horner riding in BC Superweek!

guidemd — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:55:32 -0000

'cause not like he has any other big races to do during July :-( . So, in addition to the Cascade Classic (along with Levi I believe), Horner will be riding in several races in the Vancouver BC area in July - the Tour de Gastown (July 16), the Giro di Burnaby (July 17) and the Tour de White Rock, July 18-20.

(I'd been contemplating trying to get to Vancouver for at least the Gastown race ... this might have some influence, though staying home with easier TV and internet access to the TdF is also a factor).

The Tour's first scandal

pigilito — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:31:44 -0000

The Tour de France, cycling's most prestigious race, has been around since 1903, and endured its first scandal in 1904. That year saw the top four overall finishers and all stage winners disqualified and banned by the French Cycling Union (UVF - at the time the national governing body). Sounds bad enough as scandals go, right? But this happened after the organizer of the Tour threw out nine other riders for some sort of cheating (the Wiki entry doesn't specify all the infractions, but does note that at least some were for hopping trains).

The recent struggles for control of racing have a 1904 precedent as well. Then the Tour organizer disciplined riders as he saw fit, expecting that to be the end of the story. Several months later the UVF opened its own investigation, and on its own authority banned many of France's top riders.

The UVF's actions may have been an opportunity to claim jurisdiction over all aspects of French cycling (warning: major speculation alert). Just as the US Supreme Court used the case of Marbury v. Madison early in the nation's history to establish the principle of judicial review over all branches of the federal government, it may be that the UVF used the controversy to display and cement its authority over the totality of French cycling.

Does all that maneuvering sound familiar? This year saw the Court of Arbitration for Sport refuse a request from a group representing several professional cycling teams for injunctive relief against the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the group (ASO) that stages many of the world's premier races - including the Tour de France. In this case the ASO was on the side of the pro teams despite being lumped in with the UCI. The UCI and ASO have been squabbling for years over power and money.

As for what the riders banned by the UVF in 1904 were guilty of, no one seems to know. The Wiki entry mentions illegal agreements but offers no evidence. A cycling historian is tackling the subject for his thesis; his judgment will be written up and published, hopefully as a book along the lines of Cod, or Close to Shore - books which include plenty of historical context about the events they describe. The story as known is written up by cycling's premier journalist, the International Herald Tribune's Samuel Abt.

On posting photos

Sui Juris — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:59:24 -0000

Hi, all. I'm sure I'll be terribly embarrassed at the schoolmarmishness of this tomorrow, but right now I'd like to just post a brief reminder that it's important to (at least) credit photographers when posting their work. I know this is the web, that everyone else is doing it, etc., but it takes a lot of work (time, effort, and money) to get a lot of those shots. The very least we can do is make sure that they're recognized for the work they've done.

Ideally, when you repost a photo here, you'll have the permission of the photographer (you'd be amazed at how easy that is to get). If that's too much, at least link to the original source and credit the photog. Many many thanks.

(BTW, this is just a personal request. Nothing more. )

-Photo titled You're Doing It Wrong.

Pro tour: going, going...gone?

Hons — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:58:12 -0000

Today, Patrick Lefevere announced that:

Our sponsors don't see why they should stay in the ProTour as we could see our invitations to some leading races turned down

Add this to Cofidis' confession that:

Today, having a ProTour licence means making big investments which are not always financially viable because it takes the Cofidis team to more and more countries in which it has no operations

(read that as "No, we really don't care about the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya).

So is this it? is there any point of a pro tour if in addition to the big races, the big teams don't participate? Is Lefevere the canary in the coal mine? Or has the tunnel already collapsed and we just haven't realized that we're trapped inside? Can you hear Prudhomme cackling from where you are?

the gruesome over/under

R Mc — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:28:11 -0000

Especially this year, tour watchers will need to be aware of an unfortunate, and often overlooked fact about the Tour: at least one gc favorite will be eliminated, for whatever reason, during the first week.

2001: Frankie Big-House, capo di Fasso Bortolo and a rider who blocked out every gear above 16 on his bike, has to be towed back to the field repeatedly during the early stages. K-Boom.

1999: Passage au Gois. Forget Sestrieres and the time trials. Armstrong won his first tour here when Zulle crashed and lost six minutes in the ensuing chase down.

And then there's the stage one Haselback (can that be a word like doodsmack?) in '03 that took down Hamilton and Leipheimer.

Who can forget Iban Mayo's introduction to cobbles and echelons in '03?

And, last (just like this one), who can forget a big reason that Lemond was able to come back in 1989--Pedro Delgado's inexplicable two-minute delay in getting to the start house for the prologue?

I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but here's the point: at least one of the gc contenders will be removed from contention in the first week. Question is: who?

Worst tour favourites preview ever!

Hons — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 13:38:54 -0000

Sorry VeloNews, but this is just weak. Usually I'm a fan of your work, but this is embarassing. Between the mentions of Jullich, questions about Team High Road's leader Mick Rogers health, and the superb support that Valverde will get from Karpets it certainly seem to me that this preview was written between 6-8 weeks ago...come on guys surface mail is so 1990's. Here, let me give you a hand....take a look at this before you write your preview next time.

weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak...that should do it.

Pro Cycling + Brazilian Soccer Names! Win-Win!!!!!!

ursula — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:27:16 -0000

You and I know that Cycling is the best sport on the planet but it suffers from PR problems. Doping. Lawsuits. Political infighting: all distasteful and they drive potential fans away from the sport.

What to do? Here's a sure-fire way to increase the exposure of Pro Cycling. Everyone loves how Brazil plays the Beautiful Game, right? And everyone loves those one-names maestros as they weave through hapless (mainly Itaian) defenders on their way to yet another eye popping goal. So what I propose is to Give the riders Brazilian soccer names!!!!!!!

Can you think of a better idea? Of course not! ASO is looking into this AS I AM TYPING THIS!!! (Expect an announcement in a day or two!) Ah, you ask: we are not Brazilian! We don't know how to give the riders the appropriate names! What do we do? Fortunately we can turn to our friends over at Brazilname to help us out. For instance our cultured eyes know the GC contenders but how does anyone like Stuart Scott Al Trautwig know the difference? With Brazilian names they would know!!! Check out these names:

Cadel Evans-Cadildo,

Carlos Sastre-Carlson

Samuel Sanchez-Sancha

Haimar Zubledia-Zubeldiinho

Alejandro Valverde-Valverdiano

Kim Kirchen- Kildo

Juan Mauricio Soler-Solao,

Roman Kreuzinger- Kreuzigandro,

Damiano Cunego-Damianisco

Stijn Devolder-Devolda

Christophe Moreau-Moreaa

Dennis Menchov-Denson

Riccardo Ricco-Riccarda

Every name is a winner!

Oh yes. My name in real life, Brazilianized: Skisco. How cool is that?

Stage Maps with Street View on Google Maps

ZoeRochelle — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:24:46 -0000

Google has put together a "street view" map of the 2008 Tour stages. Street view in Europe is new. It has been available in some US cities. It is very cool.

Street view is an actual view from street level in full color of the place you click on. It is the view you'd have when "walking" the street or road. You see a 360 degree view.

Find the TdF stage map here. You can find help in using street view here.

For those doing stage previews on PdC it is possible to embed the street view map into a web page. For instructions on embedding maps click here.

I am trying to reach 75 words. Anything else I can include?

Everyone celebrating - have a safe Fourth of July and drive sober! <-- very important

July's "other" Grand Tour

Monty. — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:28:47 -0000

This saturday sees the start of not one but two cycling Grand Tours. If you can cast your eyes temporarily away from the capital of remotest Hicksville, Northern France (did you see what I did there, bethie?) and look instead to the Italian lakes and the beautiful town of Mantova, you can watch a GT made for traditionalists, one that starts in the proper way, with a prologue round the station carpark. Not the best of starts, but don't worry the 2008 Girodonne should improve as the week goes on. The route seems to mirror the old fashioned TdF ones too, starting off with 3 flat stages around the Po valley before heading northwards in search of some hills. There are seventeen teams starting out, but the GC will probably come down to a fight between the usual handful of suspects, a first victory for Judith Arndt in Colombian Blue. Cicloweb have a Davide Cassani style preview up of stage 4 on YouTube (something for you Californians to be planning for next year?). RAI3 will be running a half hour or so of highlights each day after their coverage of the French race ends, so anyone with a dish should be able to catch it in Europe. If you want to pick up RAI over the Atlantic then you will need one of these. I don't know if they are streaming it or if CyclingTV will have it too.

Live coverage of the Tour de France Teams Presentation

dwilson — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:36:04 -0000

Live coverage of the Tour de France Teams Presentation is on NOW via Cyclingfans.com. They have both video and English audio streams available.

http://cyclingfans.com/

Garmin-Chipotle (Slipstream) is up first.... I think I like the new unis... cool!

Anyone else out there excited about all this? I thought I might not be with Astana not in it anymore, but it seems like I'm excited anyway!

That should be enough... on to the presentation... Enjoy!

The New Garmin-Chipotle Kit

rocketpress — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:04:29 -0000

It's been revealed!

VeloNews has the story.

via tour-de-france.velonews.com

I'm a vegatarian, so none of that hot dog business. I am a graphic designer and I have a lot of "greeking" (dummy copy or Lorem Ipsum) at my fingertips. Odd that it's called "greeking" since it's latin...anyway here it is.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cras est. Mauris rhoncus, nibh a cursus faucibus, eros sapien aliquet enim, ut commodo odio sem sit amet nisi. Fusce cursus lorem eu lorem. Nam at enim. Sed sollicitudin blandit enim. Pellentesque lectus. Maecenas lobortis. Ut justo leo, suscipit vitae, rhoncus quis.

Tour lexicon article over at CN

Ryan_Liles — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:38:58 -0000

CN had put together a nice article on cycling terminology, all be it French skewed.

For many that frequent this site, but are not super hardcore regarding all things cycling, this article may be very valuable.

On a personal side note: Last year I was apart of a product development project code named 'Grimper' and during the project we all kept asking the Project Leader what the heck that actually was.

In fact, we were suffering from the classic bad American English translation of 'Grimpeur'.

No wonder the French hate us.

Haha!

Cn Link - http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2008/tour08/?id=/features/2008/tour08_lexicon

Michael Barry writes article for NYT!

guidemd — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:22:19 -0000

Another great bit from Barry, this time about the Tour itself, with the headline "Tour de Torture: Who Is Prepared to Suffer the Most?" I think this quote sums it up best:

Now, as a professional, my job is suffering.

(one could say that might describe his thoughts at not being at the Tour again this year himself... :-( ).

I wonder if that ability to write translates into an ability to commentate as a future career possibility after cycling is over (because there's only so much of a market for cycling books and articles).

Who's the TdF only VDS Competition?

ZoeRochelle — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:04:31 -0000

I accidently deleted this fanpost from earlier in the week. Sorry! I was trying to edit it and the delete link is right next to the edit link. One click and it was gone! I didn't even ask if I was sure I wanted to delete it. Ack! Here is the post but the comments are gone. I feel like such a dork.

So...

who out there are without Year-round VDS Teams? I see Nikki is one of us.

I want to know who the competition is. I realize we all compete equally, year-rounders and TdF only but I'd like to know who I am up against. I'm surprised at how difficult it is to pick 10 riders with only 50 points. It is almost impossible to have one top GC rider and one top sprinter unless the rest are 1 and 2 point riders. Sigh.

The y-r teams could potentially have a couple GC and a top sprinter if they are lucky but they also don't have the advantage of knowing who is riding for sure, which team's were invited or more importantly not invited, who is injured and who is in great form.

I see how it could equal out but 50 points - yikies!

UPDATED LIST OF TDF ONLY PARTICIPANTS

cg.
Colin Emerson
isi
itswells
lyne
Mr 60 Perecent
natbla
nikki
ryan_liles
semprenaroda
unwolverine
zoerochelle

Japan recommendations?

JFS_PGH — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:46:56 -0000

Our Japan trip is imminent (mid-July!) and I'm badly under-informed.

We'll be in the Tokyo area for 3 days (albeit jetlagged) and then Hokkaido for almost two weeks, one of them near Hakodata, one still TBD.

We're taking our brand new downtube mini folders (got them yesterday, put about 15 miles on them; so far they are absolutely WONDERFUL.) We want to bike, and also maybe watch bike racing.

1. will we get killed riding in Tokyo traffic? (Pieter lived in in Nagoya for a year, 15 years ago, and did bike-commuting and bike-touring. I've dealt with left-side-of-the-road traffic. But we don't have recent experience, or Tokyo experience.) How well do we need to lock the bikes, or should we always fold, bag and tote them? On the other end of the spectrum, how's Hokkaido in general, and Hakodata in specific? (Bring spare tubes? Spare tires?)

2. Japanese track race spectating is considered EXTREMELY low-class, so I don't want to ask Pieter's hosts in Tokyo, or the conference organizers in Hakodata whether it would be possible to find a track and see some races. Any leads? (July 17, 18,19 in Tokyo area)

3. As you will have noticed, we'll be in Japan for a significant chunk of the TdeF, and don't know if there will be any way to watch.

I know that we have some Japan-based PC members, and comments in an old thread suggest that Chris and Drew are either not ignorant of Japan, or else they just eat Japanese food in the bay area. So, folks: Feedback on any of the above?

MUCH appreciated!

Cunego: Alpe d'Huez good, Prato Nevoso better

Steno — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:09:52 -0000

Cunego sets his Tour hopes on the Alps

As.com in Spain reports today that Damiano Cunego sees Cadel Evans as his chief rival and the principal favorite to win the Tour de France. Next on his list of foes is Alejandro Valverde.

"Evans is the favorite because he's already placed second last year and has been very consistent in 2008. Valverde is not far behind, so they're both my main rivals."

He says he'll try to win but clarifies that he'll feel satisfied if he gets "a place on the podium in Paris and a big stage win." For a target stage, he likes the Alpe d'Huez, but even more the stage ending in Prato Nevoso, because it's in Italy.

Cugego, 26, a native of Verona, hopes that having given up riding the Giro d'Italia will help him be competitive in France.

"I'm Italian, and it wasn't easy to say no to the Giro, but I've got no regrets," he said.

"When I looked at the Tour this year, I knew the Tour should be my goal. There's much less time trialing than in other years and that means I can limit my time losses and gain a margin in the mountains. At least, that's my plan."

Cunego also believes he's more mature now.

"I used to ride a lot of races, putting quantity over quality, but fortunately things are different this season, because I have to change to perform to a higher standard at the Tour," says the winner of Amstel Gold.

"My form peaked in April and the Tour of Switzerland was my first race after a few weeks of hard training. I'm glad I finished fourth, because I rode consistently and improved bit by bit. If I had been at my best level in Switzerland, I'd already be tired now. I think I've done well and I'll be 100% in the third week."

In Spanish: http://www.as.com/ciclismo/articulo/cunego-senala-evans-valverde-principales/dasclm/20080702dasdascic_1/Tes

(The article continues with a couple of paragraphs about Evans.)

Court rules in favour of Rasmussen

Jens — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:48:36 -0000

The dutch court has found that Michael Rasmussen was unjustly fired by Rabobank and has ordered them to pay a fine of 665 000 Euro (equalling two months pay plus the bonuses he would have earned by a win in the TdF). They agree that there was enough evidence to support Rasmussens claim that the team were aware of his whereabouts all along, and therefore could not claim to be have been decieved by the rider.

The amount was nowhere near the 5 million Rasmussen had demanded but it will still place Rabobank in difficulty as the sponsor have said they will withdraw their support if the court found that the Rabo management knew of Rasmussens whereabouts-cheating. That they will indeed withdraw seems unlikely but the ruling might have disastrous effects.

Source : De Telegraaf

Gerolsteiner/Holczer are so screwed

Jens — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:46:24 -0000

Hans-Michael Holczer, manager of Team Gerolsteiner has announced that they still haven't been able to close the deal with a new sponsor. Apparently they are still trying and if I understand correctly will postpone a final decision until September. It still means big trouble with the Tour just days away. With todays labourmarket for bikeriders I don't expect too many of Gerolsteiners key riders will be patient enough to wait for Holczer to find new money. No one should be surprised when we hear them announce new teams after the Tour, Rebellin already appears to be close to finding a new contract. No sponsor-announcement means loss of riders which in turn makes finding a new sponsor even more difficult. That looks like a downward spiral that they will have a hard time escaping.

My guess is that it hasn't been easy to find a new sponsor in Germany with the current disillusionment with cycling there. Also, Gerolsteiner doesn't have the PR-savvy of CSC , Slipstream and High Road. Their presence in the media consist mainly of Holczer shooting his mouth off at random issues, you rarely see the positive spin and added value to sponsors that others provide. If asked I think most of us would be hard pressed to name any of his sponsors and that is poor result in a business where your main mission is to create exposure for your partners.