kiwis in the Cycling Great Tours

couldnt find if there was another cycling thread

i see tour de france champion contodor has tested positive for drug steroids.

huge surprise that..

Down hill mountainbikers at Karori Park this weekend has far more credibility than the Tour..get yourselves there!

I think even computer talk can't disguise the sarcasm of D26s   statement SK!

I've no doubt MTB has as many drug cheats as Roadies...just don't think you'll find many of the folks at Karori Park are part of that

you never know - some people are nicely still naive and many people don't know much about how hard the tour'd'france is so never understand why drugs might be such a lure to a supposed professional athlete

and while this thread is back up good luck to Greg Hendersen, Julian Dean and Hayden Roulston on Sunday for the World Championship Road Race in Melbourne stealthkiwi2010-09-30 14:44:53

Welcome to the first stage of 2011's Tour'd'france. Only kiwi racing this year is Julian Dean on Team Garmin being lead out men for Thor Hushold & Tylar Farrar. After a typically crashed full first stage the winner of the stage was Phillip Gilbert and aussie Cadel Evens came 2nd. because of the huge crash within the last 20 km many of the GC contenders for the yellow jersey are already time behind

Gilbert was favourite for the stage, but the main boost went to Evans and Schleck, plus maybe even Tony Martin. Makes for an exciting race

Helped Farrer win stage and Hushovd retain the yellow last night. Did anyone watch it? His reputation will be rising all the time.

Yeah I watched it :)

this is my first tour with MYSKY and man its great tho I'll still watch all the mtn stages live cause jeez they wdn't get up the col's without me rooting them along

Julian Dean has had a great rep for years both as a lead out man a strong cyclist in his own right. last year i was hoping they'd let him go all out for his own stage wins when his sprinter dropped out but he graciously threw himself into what was decided wd be best for the team

shortest but probably most important and one of the hardest stages showing live right now. The tour shd be decided today but wih Evens being a way better time trialist than either of the Schleck's it might not be decided till after tomorrow's tt. From a starting pack of 198 there are only 168 riders left in the race including kiwi Julian Dean. Some politician in Oz is trying to talk the govt into a public holiday if Cadel Evens does win the tour - thats how big a day it wd be for an antipodean to win such a major sporting event - but I still can't stand him

Did the public holiday in Aus happen? I watched half of the above stage but couldn't make it right through.

well Julian Dean's position is as lead out man to Garmin's sprinter Tylar Farrar who had a mediocre tour (8th overall in the points classification) so technicly Dean didn't do half as good a job as the tour before. This year the sprint points changed a bit but were still dominated by the pairing of aussie leadouter Mark Renshaw with sprinter Mark Cavendish. In fact on one stage Dean was the last to finish but he's still a great kiwi cyclist and he's finished a few tours now. Is a pity Hayden  Roulston wasn't picked for the Sky team but they did a pretty solid tour with their selections stealthkiwi2011-07-26 10:31:26

Thanks, that is interesting. That is the thing about TDF it has so many levels going on! Btw. Did it have nothing to do with Hushovd, cos he had a fairly useful tour (a number of stage wins and held the yellow for quite a while)? I thought JD helped him out? But I might be wrong there.

Is Roulston on team sky? I thought that was Henderson? And he didn't make it because they took Edvald Boassan Hagen instead?

Doh... yeah Roulston is actually HTC and Hendersen Team Sky.

I still think he's ungraciousess and a bit of a twat but hey it's good to see any kiwi or aussie sportsman in a non oval ball sport celebrated like  this

hopefully it will inspire other young cyclists that we can hold out own on the world stage

Heard that Jesse Sargeant won a stage in the Netherlands, not a major tour, but good on him

I saw a full interview on Fox sports with him and not once was he ungracious. As for being a twat, probably would not be if he was from Gisborne etc.

last year he was rude to the media for 99% of the tour and came off as an arrogant brat (in the spirit of Armstrong at his peak). he'd push and shove and have minders blocking everyone to getting to him and was generally grumpy the whole tour as was doing it hard after a cpl of falls... unlike Contador this year who also fell and didn't perform like expected but who never acted the diva

The twat terminology was originally awarded by HN but hey if the hat fits...