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Intro

Today brings the start of the 2008 Tour de France with 197.5 km (122.7 mi). The stage winds from Brest to Plumelec and the last time this stage was run, it was won by Eric Zabel, who is racing today. Today’s stage is quite different with no Prologue time trial, this first stage is a real road race. This means that the man who crosses first wears the yellow jersey. This is unlike other years, and it will make for a more aggressive start. Breakaways can spoil the day, not only for the sprinters, but also for the General Classification contenders.

Stage 1

The course is fairly unremarkable, except for the uphill sprint finish. The last few hundred meters of this course cross a narrow bridge and then uphill to the line. This could kill the sprinters, or it could be good for a stronger sprinter like Thor Hushovd.

Note of Interest: When looking at the names of the category hills, Côte and Col are prefixes on most of them. After some research I have learned that a “Col” is a saddle between two higher points and “Côte” is a hillside.

Today’s Race

With Cadel Evans starting with number 1 (due to last years winner not being allowed to defend his title due to the shady past of his team, Astana), the 180 riders who started today will be looking to put their man in yellow today. Does it make sense for one of the favorites to win the Yellow today and paint a large target on themselves and their teams? An early show of strength could lead to a blow out later in the race.

An attack seven minutes into the race saw 8 riders pull away from the peleton. The breakaway includes Lilian Jegou (FDJ), Thomas Voeckler (BTL), Stephane Auge (COF), David De La Fuente (SDV), Ruben Perez (EUS), Arrieta (ALM), Lequatre (AGR), Bjorn Schroeder (MRM). The French will be happy to see their man Thomas Voeckler out in front. It is possible that he could hold onto the yellow into the second week. He probably won’t be a real GC contender, he usually blows up after Bastille Day.

The breakaway manages to put 2 minutes between them and the peleton, prepping to take the early King of the Mountains points as well as the intermediary sprint points. With 4 category climbs and three intermediary sprints, this will create an early lead in the other jersey competitions.

After the first climb, 1st going to Bjorn Schroeder (MRM), 2nd to Thomas Voeckler (BTL) and 3rd to David De La Fuente (SDV), Credit Agricole and Liquigas take over the front of the peleton and start to turn up the speed to reduce the breakaway’s almost-eight minute lead. Near the second climb, Rabobank and Caisse d’Epargne take over pulling the peleton, trying to get their GC men into a better position to finish.

The second climb points went to Thomas Voeckler (BTL), Bjorn Schroeder (MRM), and Geoffroy Lequatre (AGR) respectively, with the first sprint prizes going to Geoffroy Lequatre (AGR), Lilian Jegou (FDJ) and Ruben Perez (EUS). Remember, no time bonuses this year. How much is this going to effect the General Classifications? Have the time bonuses had a huge effect?

Fast forwarding to the feed zone, the first crash of this year. Herve Duclos-Lassalle goes down and is forced to pull out of the race with a wrist injury. 179 riders left.

An hour after the first crash, a second happens at the tail of the peleton. Goes to show that Paul Sherwin’s adage of the back is where the crashes happens is more right than wrong. Riders going down include Fabian Wegmann, Jimmy Casper, Yaroslav Popovych, Frank Schleck and Sylvain Chavanel, all who manage to rejoin the race.

The peleton starts to pick up the pace trying to reel in the escaped riders. By 151 km, they have reduced the gap to two minutes and 55 seconds.

As the gap drops, the attacks with in the breakaway start. This always seems like a stupid idea. Breakaways have a hard enough time keeping away from the peleton when they are organized, but internal fighting means there is no chance of them staying away. Gerolsteiner takes the front of the peleton, putting the pressure on the breakaway.

The breakaway has fallen apart, only two men Jegou and De La Fuente are away from the pack. With the 20 km to go, Team Columbia takes the front and starts to pull the escaped men back. As they get closer and closer to the finish various teams take the lead of the peleton, QuickStep and Silence-Lotto. As the breakaway is about to be pulled in, another crash splits the peleton, this is a big one that will keep the large group divided until the finish line.

The finish was crazy. Several attacks came and went, with Kim Kirchen appearing to get the better of the day, but in the last turn, up the hill Alejandro Valverde shot from across the gap to Kirchen, over taking him in the last 100 meters of the line.

Conclusion

All in all, a great start to this years race. A big change, forcing riders to be more aggressive, the only danger is the crash. While they are fascinating to watch and an improvement over the traditional time trial start, the crashes can be devastating to a rider or a team.

With each team knowing that they aren’t going to be able to establish large leads by starting time trials, it has forced the GC contenders to come out early, which will provide a much more interesting race. We’ll see how it works out tomorrow.

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The 2008 Tour de France is just around the corner, officially starting in July 5. This year follows the major blow out of last year’s Operación Puerto doping scandal, which sullied the name of many current and former cyclists. This means there is are massive gaps in the field. Major riders who had been coming up through the ranks are now banned. While the people who have been fingered by the should not have the same rights as those accused of criminal offenses (The image of doping is enough to ruin the sport) It will make for an interesting race.

Looking at the 21 team rosters for this year, even without knowing the exact starting teams, the number of second string cyclists who are the big names now means that the race is really open. Watching the lieutenants finally getting to manage their teams makes for good watching.

Some of the teams I am watching include Team Columbia and Garmin-Chipotle (Formerly Slipstream-Chipotle). Both of these are “American” teams and after the reign of Discovery, it will be interesting to have two budding American teams scraping it up amongst the more established “European” field.

Garmin-Chipotle

Garmin-Chipotle has got my attention firstly with their riders, secondly because they are on twitter as TeamSlipStream.

The riders who I will be watching on Garmin-Chipotle start with the sprinter Magnus Bäckstedt, I love watching the biggest, heaviest cyclist mix it up with the smaller sprinters. He is a hulk of a man and not seeing him in Liquigas Green will make him less hulk-like, but that doesn’t change his speed.

David Millar, previously banned for using performance enhancing drugs, is known for his time trial riding. While I have mixed emotions about Millar, knowing that he is riding for the “strictest” team in professional cycling gives me some hope that doping allegations will stay away for the entire ride

David Zabriskie, another time trialer and interesting character to boot, just joined Team Garmin-Chipotle, which happened after some of the Tour preview magazines were printed. Zabriskie is a strong American rider, who became the third American to ever wear the maillot jaune1. A mac user and blogger, David Z should be a fun one to watch this year.

All-rounder Christian Vande Velde, another American, has been tapped by pre-race “captain”. Vande Velde is known for his past performances as a climber, but after a 25th place finish last year, he has real potential to shine outside of the mountain stages.

Team Columbia

Team Columbia (formerly High Road, apparently), has George Hincape, Lance’s chief domestique, who I would think would be the team captain, but all of the signs are pointing to Kim Kirchen, who had a 7th place finish last year.

The team is rounded out with Servais Knaven, a great attack rider, and Bernhard Eisel, a formidable former T-mobile sprinter.

This team is an interesting mix of riders, including World Time Trial Champion, Michael Rogers, who finished 9th in the 2006 Tour, as well as Kanstantsin Svitsov and Linus Gerdemann, who both finished in the top 50 (32nd and 36th respectively).

Individuals to watch

There are several individuals I watch every year, not that they have snowball’s chance in hell, but because they are personalities and riding styles that make the Tour interesting to watch.

Jens Voigt, of CSC2 has been an incredible rider over the past few years, finishing 28th last year. He will take the ballsy moves, like breaking away from the peleton3 and manages to hang on to them as a single rider more often than some semi-organized breakaways. I love his style and to watch him race.

Thor Hushovd, Credit Agricole. Thor is a massive man, he and Magnus Bäckstedt are the tallest and heaviest riders, fitting for his namesake. Being a sprinter, it seems counterintuitive to be so large, but his size gives him power and I love to watch him get into it with my next man to watch, Robbie McEwen. Plus, with a name like Thor4, what is there not to love?

Robbie McEwen, Silence-Lotto, has be balls to say he is the fastest sprinter in the world. More often than not he is right. When things work in his favor, he can really cream the rest of the sprinters. Some times (like in 2006), when it gets really tight, McEwen has no problem throwing an elbow or head bump to make sure he wins. His scrappy style and his attitude make him a great rider to watch.

Conclusion

This years Tour is going to be a very interesting one. I am hoping to write and provide the best coverage I can this year. Unlike in previous years, I want to blog daily with results and my thoughts on the race. I hope to make that happen. Any one want to write with me?

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This morning Esther and I signed up for the Tour de Cure, a national series of rides to raise money for diabetes. We are riding 65 miles on April 21st, which dovetails nicely into our fitness/diet/healthy routine. We now have a goal to work for in our fitness program. I have said that I will raise $500.00, which is not going to be easy.

Consider this my ask to you, blog reader. If you can spare the cost of a venti Starbucks Latte, you could help me raise the money to fight diabetes.

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p>You can find out more information about the Tour de Cure and my fundraising efforts at http://tour.jeredb.com. Please, give as much as you are comfortable. Its all going to a good cause. Also look for updates on my training progress and my continued weight loss here.

Damn! My number one fantasy Tour de France rider has quit the sport. Jan Ullrich has quit the sport of cycling. Just after I watched a rather good Tour of California, I was getting psyched about cycling again. Dang it, Jan! Why did you get tangled in Operation Puerto?

With the news of Ivan Basso joining Discovery Channel team, I have come to the conclusion that professional cycling as a sport sucks!

I was reading Bicycling Magazine at B&N the other day and there was an article about Frankie Andreu and his use of performance enhancing drugs during his time riding.

This disgusts me! I now have no faith in the sport what so ever. Besides Operacion Puerto happening just before this years Tour de France and then learning about the allegations against Floyd Landis, finding out that Frankie Andreu used has totally turned me off of the sport.

I’m sure that I’ll watch more, but I hope that it will be with a bad taste in my mouth.