To paraphrase a great line from the movie: Airplane. "It' looks like I picked the wrong time to start watching the Le Tour de France."

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Carl it is still the most respected pro-cycling event in the world and one of the very few that gets some sort of adequate coverage .......

I'm giving it time to clean up it's act

Hi E, I did not say I was giving it up ;-)) I was only making a joke. Im looking forward to OLN or whatever the station is called, when they show The Tour of California, as well as the TdF. I gotta have SOMETHING to watch that is not War or Western related. ;-D

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

I'm going to make a cyclist out of you yet Carl !

the station is called versus, and this September the Giro de Spaina' was not televised for some odd-ball reason. Italia in the spring was telecast.

wish versus would pump out more of the pro-circuit as there is only so much golf and tennis matches I can handle

Dang, I was not aware that Italy had a race-or i'd have watched it. Ah well, I will be watching the T.o.Calif, when it's happening.

I forget to mention, I absolutely dispise tennis and golf. Those sports are more boring to watch than watching a piece of coal, turn into a diamond.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

interesting ? maybe not

..

Per Yahoo
September 28

Rasmussen returned a non-negative EPO test

Dane Michael Rasmussen returned a non-negative test for banned substance EPO during this year's Tour de France, the French Anti-doping Agency said on Friday.

The result of the analysis of Rasmussen's urine sample cannot be declared positive for legal reasons.

Well, at least Rasmussen is no doper. I wonder what the hell got into him about not telling the truth at where he was? This guy is a real shame, I would not have minded seeing him win the 2007 Tour.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

and he probably would have too. maybe he has another story but no-one is interested in hearing it.

guess it's all in the past this 07 and last years Landis bungle.

what can be done about 08 is another story that will have to be lived out when it arrives

Hi E, Well, I guess i'll try to predict that Hincapi will win the 08 races. I think he gave the win this year to give Contador to have a chance on the stand as well as Cadell Evans.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Tour de France - 2008

Is any one else excited for this years Tour de France

Dos any one have any predictions on this years winner

The route
Running from Saturday July 5th to Sunday July 27th 2008, the 95th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,500 kilometres.
These 21 stages have the following profiles:
10 flat stages,
5 mountain stages,
4 medium mountain stages,
2 individual time-trial stages.
Distinctive aspects of the race
4 mountain finishes,
2 rest days,
82 kilometres of individual time-trials,
19 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed.
10 new stop-over towns
Auray, Aigurande, Brioude, Prato Nevoso (Italy), Cuneo (Italy), Jausiers, Embrun, Roanne, Cérilly, Étampes.

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Anothony 'Swoff ' Swofford : A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.

who cares

seriously they need to just not put the route on, and pursue cleaning up the sport which will then possibly force issues in sport for drug free in all countries.

Pro-cycling is still so tainted they are going after cyclists throughout the winter months and it isn't even really the start of the spring stages yet

Yes, last year´s doping fiasco was truly depressing. I hope it´s not the same show again....

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I respect the riders but Cycling is not my favourite sport to be honest.
The Tour came by my home a few years ago, I didn't bother go and see it. I may follow it , but more like the results not the entire race, I just don't have the time to do so.

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Anothony 'Swoff ' Swofford : A story: A man fires a rifle for many years, and he goes to war. And afterward he turns the rifle in at the armory, and he believes he's finished with the rifle. But no matter what else he might do with his hands, love a woman, build a house, change his son's diaper; his hands remember the rifle.

I'm not going to watch it this year. Too much politics in it now, with the exclusion of Team Astana and defending Champion. The greatest downside to the race is that it takes place in France, and the French cycling body are extremely stuck up. They bar one team over doping, but let another one race? Robobank was caught doping too - as were a few other teams - but they've all been invited back. Its the Tour organizers attempt at making the chance more likely for a French (wo)man to win for the first time in a long time - "lets ban the team with the defending champion and two top 5 finishers! brilliant!"

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as an avid hard core cyclist I enjoy watching the races.................BUT.................... as I said before and will say it again, bar all the main 3 Giros on TV and the racers, clean this sport up.

Well said Erich. TV has done more harm to this race than anyhting else.

Musso please believe me, there is no crusade against the US in the Tour. Personnally I couldn't care less if he (she) were French or Amercan. We've had Dutch, Belgian and many others over the years. If the winner is American that's great. It would prove I'm right too. What the people really care about is the price of oil and bread.

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No offence intended to ssomeone elses favorites but, I hope George Hincapie will win it this time around. I don't know if he realizes it yet or not but, he aint gettin' any younger!!!! AS well, the younger dudes night just him up.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Sounds good to me , if he's the best so be it.

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