Live Coverage – Stage 7 Tour de France, 2008
- 01:02 PM: Good day and welcome
To VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the seventh stage of the 95th Tour de France, a 159 kilometer ride from Brioude to Aurillac.
Olympic mountain bike team members will face off at the Windham NMBS race
Windham Mountain, located in New York’s Catskill Mountains, will host the fifth round of the 2008 National Moutntain Bike Series this weekend, July 12-13. The ski resort, located roughly two hours from New York City and four from Boston, is a brand-new venue for the long-running series. Dubbed the “East Coast Nationals,” the race falls one week ahead before the 2008 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships, held July 16-30 in nearby Mount Snow, Vermont.
One week in to the 2008 Tour de France — a status report
After seven stages, the 2008 Tour de France is one-third over and starting to take shape, even with the Monday’s first high-mountain stage looming in the distance. Four of the first week’s six road stages have seen separation on the day’s final climb, with the race’s GC contenders coming to the fore to show their cards and limit their losses. And in an unusual twist, the race has seen only one field sprint, won by Columbia’s Mark Cavendish, and its first solo breakaway victory, won Friday by Caisse d’Epargne’s Luis-Leon Sanchez.
Friday’s semi-mountain stage was another tough day in a Tour with no easy stages
There are no easy days in this very different Tour de France. This was especially true on Friday when stage 7 was raced more like a one-day classic than a semi-mountain stage of the Tour. One man who knows a thing or two about the classics (and the Tour!), George Hincapie, had this to say about a stage where his Columbia was stretched to the limit in defending the yellow jersey of Kim Kirchen.
Stage 7 – By the Numbers
Stage 7, Brioude to Aurillac, 159km
Weather: Sunny in morning, building clouds on climbs, cooler, late showers, strong cross and headwinds, highs in 60s. Stage winner: Luís León Sánchez (Caisse d’Epargne) worked into a four-man breakaway that was neutralized by a lead pack of GC favorites only to counter-attack to victory six seconds clear. He saluted to the heavens for his fallen brother, who died in a quad accident a few years ago, as he crossed the line winner of a Tour stage for the first time of his career.Calculating a wheel’s moment of inertia
As long as you move a rigid object in a straight line, it does not matter how its mass is distributed throughout it; the amount of work to move it will be the same. This is not true if you drive the object by rotating it; then how the mass is distributed does play an important role in how much energy it takes to move it. In the case of a wheel, it is probably obvious that it will take more work to accelerate it if the mass is concentrated out at its edge than at its center. But how do you quantify that?
A conversation with Christian Vande Velde: Vande Velde: ‘The strongest I’ve ever felt’
Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle) has been one of the revelations so far in the first week of the Tour de France. Through the first opening seven stages, Vande Velde has ridden with consistency and strength to slot into fourth overall at just 44 seconds out of the yellow jersey. After years in the service of others, Vande Velde is finally getting a crack at being a team leader, and he’s making the most of it. VeloNews spoke to Vande Velde ahead of Thursday’s stage to gauge his first week. Here are excerpts from the interview:
Andrew Hood’s Tour de France Notebook, stage 7
MILLAR TIME OVER David Millar officially gave up the chase for the yellow jersey after a give-all raid that ran out of air early in Thursday’s hilly course across Massif Central. Despite struggling up Super-Besse in Wednesday’s stage, the Garmin-Chipotle captain was still dreaming of the yellow jersey in one last, final shot. Milllar started the day fifth overall at 47 seconds arrears and worked into a promising five-man breakaway that also included German marauder Jens Voigt in the opening 50km.
What’s Garmin-Chipotle on, anyway?
“Phew! That’s not even one of my farts! I told you, I’ve got four farts. My Heineken fart, my broccoli fart, my rice-pudding fart and my dairy-creamer fart. And the fart I’m smellin’ right now is definitely not one of mine.”—the late, great George Carlin, from “Napalm and Silly Putty”
Will Frischkorn’s Tour de France diary, stage 7
Ouch. Today was on! The first true blood comin’ out the ears, kick each other in the balls, scrape knuckles on the road sorta stage. Last night David sent out a message to all of us to "mentally prepare" ourselves for some havoc out there. We all lined up on the front line after signing in and collecting our towels (seriously? Towels? C’mon) as leaders of the team overall classification.
French agency dismisses doping claim
The agency charged with carrying out anti-doping controls at this year's Tour de France has played down a report that 10 riders are about to be issued warnings for "suspect" blood samples. A report in the French newspaper Le Monde on Friday suggested that the riders were being specifically targeted by the AFLD, France's national anti-doping agency, because of suspected doping. However a statement by the AFLD, later in the day, dismissed those claims as speculation.