104 Cycling Plus bikeradar.

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STAGE 13 VITTEL TO COLMAR
HEINRICH HAUSSLER MADE the decisive move to win stage 13
200km
1st Heinrich Haussler Germany Crvelo 4h5626
2nd Amets Txurruka Spain Euskaltel @411
3rd Brice Feillu France Agributel @613
Yellow Rinaldo Nocentini Italy AG2R
Green Thor Husovd Norway Crvelo
Polka Franco Pellizotti Italy Liquigas
White Tony Martin Germany Columbia HTC
STAGE 14 COLMAR TO BESANON
IRELAND'S NICOLAS ROCHE earns his highest ever placing in a major tour
199km
1st Serguei Ivanov Russia Katusha 4h3746
2nd Nicolas Roche Ireland AG2R @16
3rd Hayden Roulston New Zealand Cvelo @16
Yellow Rinaldo Nocentini Italy AG2R
Green Thor Husovd Norway Crvelo
Polka Franco Pellizotti Italy Liquigas
White Tony Martin Germany Columbia HTC
Tim Moore braves the couch sores and commentary
to experience the Tour through square eyes, but
comes away with a distinctly skewed perspective
Boxed in
E
ighty-seven relentless hours of
lonely, repetitive toil, spread
across three spirit-crushing
weeks there can be few
more epic trials of human
endurance than watching the
Tour de France on telly. A deep breath,
that rst portentous gulp of brown
stimulant, and youre back in the saddle
again: another sofa-bound day of
droning and hysterics, of maddening
jingles and car horns, and completely
indecipherable Gallic captions. You will
try to tear yourself away, but youll fail,
because absurd and astonishing things
can happen in the Tour without notice
the sort of things that would only
happen at other sporting events if they
were played out in the middle of a
drunken pitch invasion or on the roof
of a speeding train.
Nonetheless, its difcult to persuade
yourself day in, day out that
Piepoli and breakaway as the longest
words in the English language.
Always right
When theres nothing to say, Sean is
more than happy not to say it. When
there is, his delivery is akin to the
internal monologue of a resigned farmer
rebuilding a dry-stone wall in steady
drizzle. Still, as a Tour summariser, he
does have a couple of things going for
him. It probably helps that he knows
absolutely everything and is always
completely right. Furthermore, as
someone who has spent much of his
professional life sitting in uncomfortable
proximity to other sweaty men, he is
utterly immune to the cabin fever that
often strikes down the fellow who must
share a hot and tiny booth with Sean
and that colossal Mount Rushmore
head of his.
In years gone by, that fellow was
David Dufeld, who by virtue of age
and wayward loquacity recalled a
slightly detuned Murray Walker. For
Duffers, the Tour was a three-week
senior moment: his commentary
rambled off down blind alleys, over
false summits and out in circles across
I would not want to
be friends with that
stupid, stupid man
watching people cycle around the
countryside for three weeks isnt a
colossal waste of a statistically
signicant proportion of your life.
Particularly if you take the Eurosport
option, and hear a summariser doing his
mumbled, somnambulant best to
encapsulate those misgivings into the
worlds dullest noise. Some are said to
talk 19 to the dozen; Sean Kellys ratio
hovers around three. And two of those
are certaintly the most prominent
feature of a curious lexicon whose
tortured pronunciations have established
Tour de France 2009
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Cycling Plus 105 www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
STAGE 15 PONTARLIER TO VERBIER
CONTADOR COMES OUT all guns blazing and storms stage 15
207.5km
1st Alberto Contador Spain Astana 5h0358
2nd Andy Schleck Luxembourg Saxo Bank @43
3rd Vincenzo Nibali Italy Liquigas @103
Yellow Alberto Contador Spain Astana
Green Thor Husovd Norway Crvelo
Polka Franco Pellizotti Italy Liquigas
White Andy Schleck Luxembourg Saxo Bank
STAGE 16 MARTIGNY TO BOURG ST MAURICE
CONTADOR CEMENTS HIS lead by finishing higher than his closest rivals
159km
1st Mikel Astarloza Spain Euskaltel 4h1420
2nd Sandy Casar France FDJ @6
3rd Pierrick Fedrigo France Bbox @6
Yellow Alberto Contador Spain Astana
Green Thor Husovd Norway Crvelo
Polka Franco Pellizotti Italy Liquigas
White Andy Schleck Luxembourg Saxo Bank
Sean dead-bats yet another
invitation to banter. Sean, one of
your old teammates was telling me
that Eastern Bloc cyclists used to
ride with hairy legs. Ha! Do you
remember that? No. Certaintly
not. And after a couple of those
exchanges on the trot, Harmon
really seems to stop caring. Right,
well, that looks like some kind of
spa you can see down there.
Doesnt half hit you in the, um, the
old ocular department.
your commentator must battle
desperately against The Partridge Effect
(These cyclists look like cattle in a mad
way, only cattle on bikes).
Phil the poet
Paul plays it safe by reciting great tracts
from the ofcial Tour guide thats open
on his lap (Interestingly, Phil, 14
Pyrenean vultures were recently
released around these parts), and
padding out any race-relevant comment
with the words in this sport of
Paul well, Phil Sherwen and
Phil well, Paul Liggett appear
to be gradually absorbing
each other
a misty eld of Colemanballs. He would
talk about cheese rather than the
developing breakaway, then describe its
subsequent recapture with the words:
and its curtains for Karpets. When an
amateur photographer knocked the
stage leader off his bike near the summit
of Alpe dHuez a few years back,
Duffers was roused to a memorably
unfocused rant which climaxed with the
assertion that I would not want to be
friends with that stupid, stupid man.
Hairy legs
His replacement, David Harmon, is
beginning to crack under the strain. You
can hear his mounting frustration as
David Harmon often nds himself in
the desperate Tour commentators
last refuge a rundown of sponsors
and their commercial activities
It couldnt be more different over
at ITV4, where Paul well, Phil
Sherwen and Phil well, Paul
Liggett appear to be gradually
absorbing each other, amoeba-like.
Theyve pooled their clich
resources over the years, both now
equally likely to tell us that the
heads of state have come to the
fore, that the elastic has
snapped, that a rider is all over
his machine or digging deep into
his suitcase of courage. In the
interval of the evening highlights
show, when the pair gamely
respond to emails composed by the
worlds stupidest people, we see
them sitting closer and closer
together, and wearing ever more
similar outts. It seems safe to
assume that next year, anyone keen
to know what a mountain is or how
to spell France will nd their
question elded by the greying,
beaky, blue-shirted hybrid that is
Paul Liggett.
Well, these riders seem to be
working pretty well together.
Uttered on any stage free of vertical
eminences, those dreaded words
herald the dog-day afternoon: its an
admission that, give or take the odd
puncture, intermediate sprint or
natural break, nothing of note will
unfold for hours hours in which
professional bike racing. Phil has a fatal
fondness for surreal poetic imagery:
...and now these surgeons of cycling
are navigating this rugged French
countryside over roads made for
animals. David Harmon regularly nds
himself hunkered down in the desperate
Tour commentators last refuge a
rundown of team sponsors and their
commercial activities. And Quickstep
make ooring. Laminate ooring.
Click-together laminate ooring.
Duffers, of course, did it best. Did you
know the local dish here is rabbit? Very
nice it is too, apparently. I used to have
a rabbit. It was called Sixpence.
At times like this, with the peloton
rolling down an endless dual-
carriageway bypass and the
commentary oundering, you might
nd yourself pining for a simpler age,
when the only telly show in town was
Channel 4s half-hour highlights after
Countdown. Just Phil in the booth and
Richard Keys back in the studio: a quick
run through the days crashes and
attacks, then straight into the bunch
sprint. None of Ned Boultings
damp-browed unease, no Gary Imlach
with his tight shirts and dry pith, no
over-eager, under-relevant anecdotes
from Carlton Kirby. These days, as the
slow brogue murmuring out of a telly
near you would have it, its all becoming
majorly difcult to support.
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