Stage 10 was epic and this time around we are going to leave it to TdFBlog and others to fill you in on the race details.

What I was struck with is how, in some ways, the TdF riders are just like us mortals that ride a couple of time during the week and then do big rides on Sundays.

Pros fall:

First we saw Lance and Jan fall before the Tour and then Ullrich took another bad fall coming down the first Cat 3 climb of Stage 9.  According to American Chris Horner who witnessed it, it was “pretty gruesome”. Ullrich went off of the road and tumbled head over heels a couple of times. He was visibly banged up at start of Stage 10 with severely bruised ribs and head though nothing is broken.

How did Jan describe himself at the the beginning of the stage? In his classic stoic German manner, he says that he felt better than ever.

Note that per TdF custom, the Discovery Team and others did hold back after his fall until he was able to rejoin.

Pros get their clothes stuck in derailers:

Christophe Brandt (BEL) had that very thing happen and it wasn’t a pretty sight seeing him on the side of the road trying to extricate his windbraker jacket from his rear derailer. Looked like a newbie.

Pros have to stop for interruptions:

In the early part of Stage 10 the race was brought to a halt by ranchers demonstrating against wolves being reintroduced back into back into the wild in the area. Okay, us Sunday riders have to stop for traffic lights and pedestrians but you get the idea.

Ways that Pros are not like us:

Equipment: According to Trek, the Trek bikes ridden by Team Discovery  in the climbing stages weigh about as much as “a quart of milk.” In comparison, my bike weights about as much as the cow that gave the milk. One other difference, they are better athletes by a factor of a gadzillion.

Once again, I’ll leave the stage details to TdFblog, but I have to say that I enjoyed the unbridled enthusiasm from Paul and Phil as developments unfolded and as they realized that they were watching an epic day. For example:

“This is Kloden, and he’s gone bye-bye as well!”

“Carnage is the only way to describe this ascent!”

Word.

For additional Independent Sources postings on the Tour de France click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 11:49 pm by Insider and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.