TdF - Prologue

SACH Central

Just a few observations after watching the prologue. I watched it on ITV4 which had the 'nostalgic' team of Ligget, Sherwin & Imlack - just like the old days on CH4. They also had Chris Boardman 'on board', so to speak!, for the expert view.

The commentary was good, well informed, as you might expect - but too many breaks. I switched to TG4 during the ITV4 breaks. They overlaped nicely! Anyway on to my observations.

1. Was it just the ITV4 coverage that missed Sastre starting. Missing him in the start house. If it wasn't it was a terrible slight to the reining champ

2. The crowds. I know it was a 15km course but, to me, it didn't seem well attended at all. OK there were crowds at the KOM and at the finish but other than that, there seemed to be sod all people there.

3. I wonder if The Principality of Monaco banned the fans from painting on the roads? There seemed to be some yellow scrawl on the road in places but not what you'd expect, especially on the climbs

4. Did anyone notice Christophe Moreau's bike. He had just the 'regular' SRAM double tap road levers on his TT bike - old stylee! no shifters on the bars. When he needed to shift up/down he had to move off the tri bars. I wonder why?

5. It's a wonder no one took a 'gamble' today and used a road bike, even with a disk on the back. With so much climbing & with such a technical descent would the road bike be easier to handle? They could still have used the full TT kit - skin suit, aero helmet etc

What do ye think?

Planet X

Brilliant result for that Roche lad.........;)

Diarmuid

Great day in Monaco today. Don't have time to answer all the questions above at the moment but here is an unedited (mostly) photo slideshow from the race.

SACH Central

Diarmuid wrote: »

Great day in Monaco today. Don't have time to answer all the questions above at the moment but here is an unedited (mostly) photo slideshow from the race.

Great photos. Thanks for posting them. Will you be at the stage start tomorrow?

bcmf

great photo's .Thanks

mloc123

One thing I did notice (because the camera stuck with him the whole way).. Lance's bike setup 'looked' terrible, looked like they had setup the TT bike more like a road bike with stubby bars.

Liamo08

For such a small slight guy anyone else think Contador had a little too much power for such a short TT?

Diarmuid

Liamo08 wrote: »

For such a small slight guy anyone else think Contador had a little too much power for such a short TT?

well it was more plausible than the Paris-Nice prologue. At least it was an uphill TT

Liamo08

Diarmuid wrote: »

well it was more plausible than the Paris-Nice prologue. At least it was an uphill TT

Yeah true enough read somewhere that supposedly Kelly (Doing the Eurosport commentary) just sat in silence shaking his head after he crossed the line that day.