Cycling 2012

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Tour Down Under start list:



http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/start-list.htm

 

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2012 Road Races



http://www.uciworldtour.com/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template3/layout.asp?MenuId=MTYyNDA&LangId=1

 

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Greipel riding for Lotto-Belisol won the preview classic.



The Tour Down Under starts today.



US coverage by NBCSports on the former Versus network.



Race link:



http://www.steephill.tv/tour-down-under/

 

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Overall lead changed hands, and then changed back.



May come down to last day of the race.



http://www.steephill.tv/tour-down-under/

 

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2012 pro calendar



http://www.steephill.tv/2012/uci-world-calendar/

 

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Bad news for Alberto



http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/06/sport/cycling-contador-cas-ban/?hpt=wo_bn12

 

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Cavendish has won two stages of the Tour of Qatar, but Tom Boonen from Omega-Pharma-Quickstep leads the overall.

PS- you've got to love the teams names in cycling. Some of them get quite interesting.

 

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European season kicks into high gear tomorrow!





Paris-Roubaix 2012



The road race itself is some 260 kilometers long, and, usually, about 50 k of it us over stuff like this.

Sound like fun?



Live coverage is available on the Web tomorrow early morning in the USA. NBC Sports channel will have tape delayed coverage later in the morning



http://www.steephill.../paris-roubaix/



A stone by stone look at this year's route.



http://www.podiumcaf...n-paris-roubaix



including the:

Arenberg Trench (km 172 to 2400 m)

Oh, by the way, the riders will spend about Six Hours riding the course end to end.



Not just 'riding'... RACING!

 

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Tom Boonen won by over a minute.



But after right at six hours of hard riding, second place came down to a photo finish!

 

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IT is on

http://www.letour.fr...e_parcours.html



21 stages, over 2000 miles, one climb exceeds 7,000 feet....



Several of the favorites are out before it begins, teams have been shuffled, there are new climbs on the route...



Should be an interesting race.

 

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The Tour's Publicity Caravan has been at it for 80 years.



Every vehicle in it travels every mile of the race route, and some of them are quite remarkable.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4wjtNbd2_o

The publicity caravan in figures

• A 20-km long parade
  
• 160 colourful and decorated vehicles
  
• 600 caravanists
  
• 33 brands represented
  
• 16 million gifts given away
  
• 45-minute long procession
  
• 12 members of the republican guard
  
• 4 traffic regulator motorcyclists
  
• 3 medical cars
  
• € 200,000 to € 500,000 investment for each advertiser
  

http://www.letour.fr/2012/TDF/COURSE/us/caravane_publicitaire.html

 

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This may be the... .... the... ... .. well..... 'most entertaining' perhaps? Yeah OK, that, Photo from this year's tour so far.

http://www.steephill.tv/2012/tour-de-france/photos/stage-08/

 

[Jazzy]

This may be the... .... the... ... .. well..... 'most entertaining' perhaps? Yeah OK, that, Photo from this year's tour so far.

http://www.steephill...hotos/stage-08/

I love this picture!

 

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There are idiot fans in every sport.

Tour event director, Jean-François Pescheux reported that a spectator had thrown tacks on the road. He showed them on French television after the stage, 191km from Limoux. They may have appeared after the escape passed as none of the riders from the group punctured.



On the descent, Evans punctured an additional two times and Cycling Weekly received confirmation that the Movistar team car also punctured. Garmin and Sky were among the teams that kept rolling smoothly, though race leader Wiggins stopped for a bike change.



Around 30-40 blokes punctured. That's it. We were lucky, no one punctured, Sky's team principal, David Brailsford said.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news...ultiple-punctures-after-tour-tack-attack.html

 

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That's pretty bad though... could've been a lot worse.

 

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A rider fell and broke his collar bone and had to withdraw from the race.



That's bad enough.

 

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Watch the video (the commentary is French, sorry) through, then let it run to show the view of the finish from the helicopter.



Question.



How fast was Cavendish going when he passed the two leaders just before the line?





http://www.rtbf.be/video/v_la-victoire-de-cavendish-dans-la-18eme-etape?id=1746101