Stage 17 TDF : Pau - Revel : Spoiler

limerickman

The longest stage of the 2005 TDF : Pau to Revel covers 239kms and covers mainly cat 3 and cat 4 climbs as well as flat sections.
A lumpy parcours.
And a respite, somewhat from the very high mountains.

This stage is made for a road man to get away up the road in a break and to stay away :

I"ll open with who I think might be in with a chance : Garcia-Acosta of Iles Balears, Jörg Jaksche Liberty, Sylvain Chavanel Cofidis, Erik Dekker Rabobank.
(This is probably the kiss of death for these guys but.............)

Eldrack

Break has a 20 minute lead with 80K to go and no one in the peloton looks like they can be arsed to chase.

The break:

Jose Luis Rubiera and Paolo Savoldelli (Discovery Channel), Oscar Sevilla (T-Mobile Team), Kurt-Asle Arvesen (Team CSC), Erik Dekker (Rabobank), Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros-Würth), Sébastien Hinault (Credit Agricole), Dario Cioni (Liquigas-Bianchi), Stéphane Augé (Cofidis), Bram Tankink (Quick.Step), Pierrick Fédrigo (Bouygues Telecom), Daniele Righi (Lampre-Caffita), Carlos Da Cruz and Thomas Lövkvist (Française Des Jeux), Andrei Grivko (Domina Vacanze), Samuel Dumoulin and Simon Gerrans (Ag2r-Prevoyance)

whiteboytrash

T-Mobile currently leads the team classification even with the abandonment of Kloden but now Discovery have two riders in the break they will overtake T-Mobile......

limerickman

Yeah, the break has gone to over 21minutes :

limerickman

Just heard Dave Harmon say that on Eurosport too.

whiteboytrash

If things stay as they are Sevilla will move from 25th on GC to 7th !

whiteboytrash

Any watching now ? The train barriers have come on the peleton.... half of the peleton has gone down ! They cant get through........ ! They are losing loads of time..... Sevilla could be in yellow !

limerickman

Savoldelli and Hinault are 7secs ahead of Aversen and the chasers :
Hinault looks tired.

limerickman

Savoldelli and Hinault now arguing with each other.

Aversen has closed the gap : Delli got pretty narked.
Hinault was shattered.

limerickman

Savoldelli got a very good win today.

But the chasing group had a crash 10kms out :
Cadel Evans and Landis found themselves on the wrong side of the crash.

Vino/LA/JU/Popo/Rasmussen got a lead due to the crash.
The Team competition being open : you'd asssume that Vino would try to work to help Mobile.
You'd also assume that Vino would work because (before the end of the stage) Landis and Evans were only seconds ahead of Vino on GC.
What does Vino do ?
He sits on the back and doesn't work with JU or DC to try to maximise a time advantage in the run in.

peterlip

Paul was saying that the cut off time would be around 27:00 - 27:30 behind the winner. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out, with 3 T-Mobile riders coming in at 27:35 (Kessler, Schreck & Steinhauser). Fast Freddy also had a time of 27:35.

rejobako

Peter; I think the organizers may give them some consideration due to the crash in the peleton.

rejobako

Lim: I didn't see the stage; only reading the updates, which suggested Vino attacked simultaneously with the crash, and he is described at the end of the stage as "coming up to take a long pull" -- and at the end he finished just behind Popo in front of the other riders you mentioned -- and he did leapfrog Evans in the GC.

Not doubting your description of the events -- just very interested in some more details on how it played out. Did Vino attack, then sit back until the very end to come up front again?

peterlip

Actually it doesn't matter. Because they managed to finish with an average of over 42 km/h (they did 42.101), the cut off is 9%, which is over 30 minutes.
Had it been under 42, the cut off would be 27:18. Not sure if the crash would've been considered as it happened over 5km from the finish (from memory).