Since first discovering the Tour De France 6 years ago, I have been enthralled by the event and cycling has become my third favorite sport to watch, well at least the Tour. Will be very intiguing to see how Lance does in the mountains and wether Contador becomes the team leader. Any way you slice it Astana has to be the favored team to put a champ on the podium

People on H&F follow it pretty closely. Bounce over that way for some discussion when it rolls around.

All those cyclists are more juiced up than the MLB players...that includes Armstrong. He just never got caught. I hear that his nutcancer meds were a great masking agent.

Notice how the guy that toook over for him got busted right away?

*********************************************************************************************************************
"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

Guzen- I'm following the Garmin team, which is really the only American team in the Tour.

Christian Van de Velde is an awesome story. This is the guy that did the dirty work for Lance for a few years. He was always a worker bee, and in just the last year or two started to get confidence, then finished 4th last year.

This year, he was really positioning himself but had a bad wreck in the Tour of Italy, fracturing 4 vertebrae and 2 ribs in May. Miraculously he is now fighting back and finished 17 on the opening time trial.

He expects to get better and stronger as the Tour goes on, much like last year. And the Garmin team has upgraded from last year- they should fight for a top 3 or 4 team this year.

Good stuff!

Columbia - High Road is also a USA ProTour team, although George is the only American on it.

and next year there will be Team RadioShack.

Wow, first there was the 7-Eleven team. A corporation based in FW.

Now a Tandy Corp will have a team.

That is interesting.

RAT90- that's why I said Garmin was REALLY the only American team.

Garmin's whole point of being is for the development of young American riders. It has VandeVelde, Pate, Farrar, Zabriskie. And the foreign riders are largely British,Canada,Kiwi.

I guess Columbia is sponsored and run? by Americans, but that's about it.

Oh, and Garmin looks like a lock for 2nd in the team competition, barring the Schleck bros. totally outclassing the field tomorrow and then finding a third teammate to finish much higher than they have been.

[This message has been edited by AnalogyAg (edited 7/24/2009 7:45p).]

quote:

---

I guess Columbia is sponsored and run? by Americans, but that's about it.

---

quote:

---

Garmin's whole point of being is for the development of young American riders. It has VandeVelde, Pate, Farrar, Zabriskie. And the foreign riders are largely British,Canada,Kiwi.

---

I understand what you're overall point and agree that their much more "American" than Columbia. But, it should be noted that Vandevelde is 33, Zabriskie is 30, Pate is 30, etc...

Their younger guys are not typically Americans. They're predominantly from the Netherlands and English speaking countries not named the USA.


Columbia-HTC is the same team as the former Telekom/T-Mobile team that dominated everyone and everything except that one guy from Texas.

They've got two Americans on the roster...Georgie Hincapie (I think that's enough to garner the support of Americans).

The other American is a 23 year old former Slipstream-Chipotle rider (same as Garmin-Slipstream) named Craig Lewis.

They've got the British Bullet in Mark Cavendish.

They've also got 3 riders from Australia and New Zealand.

2011- I don't think you know much about the Garmin Slipstream team. I'm well aware of the ages of the American riders- they chose the best and contracted with others, but you need to understand what makes up the team, who they are, what they do. The Tour de France team is only the tip of the iceberg.

And the whole point of developing young riders is so they can become great riders when they're 30. Certainly you are aware that Garmin could never field a TDF team with young 20 something American riders- not if it wanted to be invited back.

Here's a pretty good insight into the developmental programs they're supporting. They have also entered partnerships with Australia for the development of young talent there.

There seems to be a focus on our close Anglo-American allies- Canada, Britain, Australia.

http://bicycling.com/blogs/boulderreport/2009/04/14/high-road-slipstream-back-u23-program/

[This message has been edited by AnalogyAg (edited 7/25/2009 10:49p).]

First off, I know plenty about Garmin-Slipstream, their U23 team, how the TDF teams are made up versus the entire team, etc..., thank you very much.

Second, I already said I agree with you on the being a "real" American team.



You said this:

quote:

---

Garmin's whole point of being is for the development of young American riders

---

What my point was that the youth on their pro-tour team is more non-American than it is American. My point is they're getting more international and move diverse.

Here's the barebones of the situation by the numbers:

By my count, over half of their non 30 year olds are not from the USA. Of their 5 non native English speakers, all of them are 27 years or younger and only Dekkers is older than 25.

On their pro-tour team, of their guys who are 25 or younger, they've got 5 Americans and 8 non-Americans.

This is all compared to their 30+ group, which is majority American.


Their youth only programs right now are predominantly American, and before you jump on me again, I'm going to say again I agree with you on Garmin's place in the cycling world right now. My point is they're changing, and as they get into youth development in places like Australia...their youth only programs will be split just as much as their pro-tour team is becoming.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 7/26/2009 1:06a).]

who's jumpin on who? If you knew all that, why did you even bother pointing out the ages of the tour riders and the make-up of the other teams? Anyway, I'm just relaying what the founder of GS said about his team. If you don't think they're living up to their mission, well, I'm just the messenger.

[This message has been edited by AnalogyAg (edited 7/26/2009 9:52p).]

quote:

---

who's jumpin on who?

---

Referring to the part where you said I didn't seem to know a lot and didn't "understand."

But, that's ok...I think it's just a miscommunication and those things tend to happen on a message board. I think we're on the same page, now.

quote:

---

If you knew all that, why did you even bother pointing out the ages of the tour riders and the make-up of the other teams?

---

Because those were the riders you mentioned by name and I thought I'd throw that out there...I made comments about the makeup of their youth and at the time, felt that oughta be enough to make the point without giving a breakdown of all the age groups and what not.

I mentioned the Columbia thing as basically an informative factoid on where Columbia came from and what they're made of today as there was discussion about them and their "Americaness."

That wasn't meant to be connected with the GS comments I made and I'm sorry that wasn't more clear.

quote:

---

Anyway, I'm just relaying what the founder of GS said about his team. If you don't think they're living up to their mission, well, I'm just the messenger.

---

I stick but what I said that they're getting more diverse and international, but that doesn't mean I don't think they're still doing a great job developing young Americans.