Have any?

Lance Armstrong
_________________
Can't Touch This...

I predict that this year the Tour will be blighted by drug scandals


Oh, statistically, I also predict that someone will die on the Tour this year. I also prddict that one team will either be disqualified or pull out of the Tour.

I will give you some people to watch for.

The yanks without Armstrong are not going to win this year. They might have a chance with David Zabrieske but he no longer has the backing of CSC. Bobby Julich, whom i have seen personally in a criterium - gloat, with the backing of CSC stands a good chance as he is a consistent performer and usually ranks high. Levi Leipheimer is showing his age. If you are not in the top 30 at the end of the first week you are going to have a hard time.

The Italians are going to be very strong with last years world champion Bettini.

Vinokourov the Kasakh has been banned and he was a main threat to Armstrong but now we know why.

The Spaniards have always been strong and this year even more so with the young Valverde. Last year 6 out of ten in the top ten were from Spain. Contador, Carlos Sastre and Oscar Pereiro all have a good chance this year.

The Australians with Cadel Evens and hopefully Robbie Mc Ewen for the green Jersey stand to make some gains.

Over all this years tour will be a nail biter as individual time trials have been reduced to just 80km overall and most of this will be the day before Paris. Looks like another Greg Lemond vs Laurent Fignon nail biter is on for show.

Alp'dHuez should provide us with some entertainment as it is in the last week when they are all beat up and bloody.

There are many races before the tour that could help decide the winner. Traditionally the winner of the Dauphine does well in the tour. The Vuelta of Spain, their grand tour of three weeks, use to be in the spring but they moved it to the autumn some time ago to make it more appealing for the professionals.

Ha, I think they’re all a bunch of pussies. I followed the whole ’92 Tour on a mountain bike (loaded down with panniers front and rear) and easily managed to get to the end of each days stage the same day as they did, including the mountain stages (except when they did vehicle transfers). At one point in the Alps the marshalls stopped me cos I was riding with tailenders :- )

Pah, I speeet on ze stage racers, like zis (spits)

(Original post edited – someone pointed out that the info was personal and made it easy for someone to find me - not a good idea, especially as I’ve only just managed to get rid of my last stalker!)

As optimistic as i am DH i still have to agree with you on some of your points. For the past, who knows how many years, there have been teams that got pulled out for using drugs. Festina, Astana to name a few so i would not be surprised if this year the same happens. Last years winner is no longer last years winner.
What might make things easier for all is to level off the difficulty of the actual race. We are expecting them to be superheros with limitless tanks of energy when after all they are only human.
Before steriods and EPO there was amphetamine and Tom Simpson went down using that for good. He died.

But not all of us can be a god like you DH and race accross amerika in a little over a day longer than the record.

i just noticed i misspelled predictions.....moron

I think a bloke on a bike will win it.

If he crashed 10 meters before the finish and walks across with the bike that still counts.