Tour de France 2012 (with SPOILERS)

[yello]

I'd agree it did seem to take Rolland a great deal of time to twig that something was up. Nobody responded to his attack, how hurtful must that have been! Maybe he's not the brightest of blokes, he's certainly comes across as very simply motivated.

Re the tacks, there are reports around saying they were "upholstery tacks". The misses is an upholsterer.

 

[Simba]

Wiggins impresses me more and more every day.

Same, just goes to show what he could have done last year if he didn't have the nasty crash.

 

[Steve H]

Same, just goes to show what he could have done last year if he didn't have the nasty crash.

We'll just never know!

 

[dellzeqq]

the Rolland thing rumbles on in the pages of L'Equipe, but for a real taste of the fury excited by the our fave breakaway artiste, visit the comments section...

You speak to me? I spit my venom on the French? which apart Rolland I endured until now but that is something unworthy of its level (unfortunately it is badly influenced by his team ... Just look at the two dir.sportifs that contradict). ...........Pinot just behind the classification has not attacked yet he saw Rolland from your own ... he was right behind but has much more class.

worse still

Your spelling stings my eyes

elsewhere, we read this mystifying contribution from Jerome Coppel

"Day in galley galley! To tell you, I farted before Mark Cavendish at the first bump ... Fortunately, the whole team is organized around me and the guys have put in well route.Nous did not panic. Then I tried to recover.

 

[raindog]

Are they babelfish translations or something?
I've never seen anyone trying to comment on l'Equipe in English before.

I rarely use their site as it's such a mess to navigate, and there's so much junk on every page my 'puter sometimes freezes up. Not nice.
Plus, it's a general sports newspaper, so you don't just have cyclists commenting, you get trolls from other sports who don't know WTF they're talking about.
If you want to read about bike racing in French, try this place
http://www.velochrono.fr/actu/

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

the Rolland thing rumbles on in the pages of L'Equipe, but for a real taste of the fury excited by the our fave breakaway artiste, visit the comments section...

You speak to me? I spit my venom on the French? which apart Rolland I endured until now but that is something unworthy of its level (unfortunately it is badly influenced by his team ... Just look at the two dir.sportifs that contradict). ...........Pinot just behind the classification has not attacked yet he saw Rolland from your own ... he was right behind but has much more class.

worse still

Your spelling stings my eyes

elsewhere, we read this mystifying contribution from Jerome Coppel

"Day in galley galley! To tell you, I farted before Mark Cavendish at the first bump ... Fortunately, the whole team is organized around me and the guys have put in well route.Nous did not panic. Then I tried to recover.

I saw that ''ton orthographe me pique les yeux'' one earlier. I thought it was justified.

I haven't found the ''galley galley'' one but I guess it's ''galère'' in the original. ''A day in hell''
''I farted'' would have been ''j'ai peté'' - ''I blew up at the first bump''

 

[dellzeqq]

I saw that ''ton orthographe me pique les yeux'' one earlier. I thought it was justified.

I haven't found the ''galley galley'' one but I guess it's ''galère'' in the original. ''A day in hell''
''I farted'' would have been ''j'ai peté'' - ''I blew up at the first bump''

that's very helpful. 'Sorry, darling, I blew up at the first bump' is going to come in handy.............

Here's Cadel's take on it -
After a hard start, an easier transition to a dramatic final - a little bit more drama than we are used to today...three punctures in the last 38km, mostly of them downhill, all caused by tacks. I do not know how or why the tacks were on the road; I'm guessing someone who was watching on Tv can piece together the facts to draw a conclusion. For me, first a rear puncture in the last kilometre of the climb. 'Stevo' came but had a puncture already, Amaël gave me his wheel which went flat. Giorgio, Michi, Amaël and the 'Quinzi' came together like only my 'BMC Guardian Angels' can, only for me to puncture in the front (that could have been dangerous), then we could finally go fast and get back.

I don't have a tv on my bike - as many of the press do not seem to understand - so I do not know what went on in the yellow jersey group, reports tell me 'Wiggo' was the sporting one....some others not so sporting...On a day like that you learn a lot about your colleagues.

 

[thom]

yeah. right. They discussed it, he set off, nobody chased, and it took twenty minutes for his team to haul him back. Either Europcar didn't want to tell him or he wasn't listening.

But it's possible he wasn't aware of exactly what happened and was not privy to the discussions in the lead group because he was not actually one of the top GC contenders. One of the Europcars was stuck behind the carnage and the other was up the road with Gautier. Mobile phone reception is bad enough in hilly parts like that - it's not hard to imagine that he was out of radio contact to his DS.
Just pointing out a plausible explanation and that like a lot with cycling, we'll probably never know the truth ;-)

 

[thom]

that's very helpful. 'Sorry, darling, I blew up at the first bump' is going to come in handy.............

Here's Cadel's take on it -
After a hard start, an easier transition to a dramatic final - a little bit more drama than we are used to today...three punctures in the last 38km, mostly of them downhill, all caused by tacks. I do not know how or why the tacks were on the road; I'm guessing someone who was watching on Tv can piece together the facts to draw a conclusion. For me, first a rear puncture in the last kilometre of the climb. 'Stevo' came but had a puncture already, Amaël gave me his wheel which went flat. Giorgio, Michi, Amaël and the 'Quinzi' came together like only my 'BMC Guardian Angels' can, only for me to puncture in the front (that could have been dangerous), then we could finally go fast and get back.

I don't have a tv on my bike - as many of the press do not seem to understand - so I do not know what went on in the yellow jersey group, reports tell me 'Wiggo' was the sporting one....some others not so sporting...On a day like that you learn a lot about your colleagues.

He also points the finger at Spanish fans, with whom he has had previous bad experiences.

 

[dellzeqq]

But it's possible he wasn't aware of exactly what happened and was not privy to the discussions in the lead group because he was not actually one of the top GC contenders. One of the Europcars was stuck behind the carnage and the other was up the road with Gautier. Mobile phone reception is bad enough in hilly parts like that - it's not hard to imagine that he was out of radio contact to his DS.
Just pointing out a plausible explanation and that like a lot with cycling, we'll probably never know the truth ;-)

he was on Wiggins' right hand side as the discussion went on, and at the point when they all slackened off.......away he went!

 

[dellzeqq]

He also points the finger at Spanish fans, with whom he has had previous bad experiences.

wow! That's full-on from Cuddles! And pretty much guarantees he won't be racing in Spain for a while to come.......

 

[smutchin]

Everyone's having a dig at Rolland but I believe his claim that he had no communication from the team car for the simple reason that if he had, they presumably would have told him that he had absolutely nothing to gain from his move and that he should be saving his energy for the mountains.

To my mind, the far more unsporting move of the day was Tejay failing to wait for Evans when he punctured at the top of the climb. He claims he didn't hear Evans calling for him, but the way he looked back over his shoulder suggests otherwise. He's gone right down in my estimation. (And it shows that whatever tensions there may be between Froome and Wiggins, they're nothing compared to the tensions in the BMC camp.)

d.

 

[thom]

he was on Wiggins' right hand side as the discussion went on, and at the point when they all slackened off.......away he went!

This I haven't seen - from what I saw, Sky were at the front and Wiggo was talking to a team mate in between when Rolland attacked.

 

[thom]

To my mind, the far more unsporting move of the day was Tejay failing to wait for Evans when he punctured at the top of the climb. He claims he didn't hear Evans calling for him, but the way he looked back over his shoulder suggests otherwise. He's gone right down in my estimation. (And it shows that whatever tensions there may be between Froome and Wiggins, they're nothing compared to the tensions in the BMC camp.)

d.

He says here he did hear him and knew there was a puncture but that he thought there was another team mate there to help.

 

[smutchin]

He says here he did hear him and knew there was a puncture but that he thought there was another team mate there to help.

Ah, thanks for that. Interesting though... I'm sure I heard him saying he didn't hear Evans. Maybe I'm misremembering it.

Either way, if you hear your team leader calling you by name for assistance, you don't make assumptions about other team-mates being able to help, you stop.

d.