2008 Tour de France who you got?

[RageWizard]

This years tour de France starts up Saturday with the first stage. The competition for the overall winner this year is wide open and a number of guys could be on the podium come July 27 when this thing rolls into Paris.

The two favorites have to be Cadel Evans (Lotto) and Alejandro Valverde (Caisse D'epargne), but beyond that there are also some other dudes with a good chance of pulling it off as well like Denis Menchov (Rabobank) or even Carlos Sastre (CSC). Out of about 200 dudes I think one of these will be the dude in yellow at the end.

So here are my wagers for the race.

Head to head:

Cadel Evans (Lotto) -268 vs. Denis Menchev (Rabobank) +248. Are you kidding me Evans is not worthy of this price, both lotto and Robobank have contenders this year and also have the teams to bring these guys home, so again take the dog and the big payoff in Menchev.

Alejandro Valverde(Caisse D'epargne) +415 vs. the Field. Valverde is my pick to win the entire thing and he is getting fairly good numbers to do it.

Team Classification:

Rabobank +124 vs. Barloworld -134 Go with the Rabobank, they will have a dude who will be in it to win it, so that means that the team will be under pressure to perform. Yeah Barloworld can coast into Paris while glass stroking the cranks but they really don't have a contender on the team.

King of the Mountains:

This is where all the action is, I can tell you from experience that there are two places that you can't hind and one of them is the mountain stages, the other being the time trials.

Cadel Evans(Lotto) -155 vs. Carlos Sastre(CSC) +145 Usually CSC has several sprinters in the field and it is not uncommon for them to possess the yellow for a couple of days. While this is great for the fans, defending the yellow every day takes a lot of energy and buy the time you hit the big mountain stages, there needs to be some left in the tank.
Evans is a freakin mountain goat, so is Sastre so the battle should be epic if your into this shit. If not it will look like a couple of dudes riding up a hill while a crowd of fruitcake Frenchy's run with them and scream viva la Chardoney or something like that. Anyways I'm eating the chalk on this on and going for Evans.

All investments are $200 so hopefully I can win a couple of these to feed the family. Truck and SUV sales are going down and I'm starting to get barrelled in on my career so I need the help.

[Art Vandeleigh]

Good write up gl to you on your picks, although Valverde really disappointed last year and I doubt he's got enough in him to win this difficult of an event.

The winner of the tour 2 years ago, Floyd Landis just lost his final appeal for using banned substances after being stripped of his title. The defending champion Alberto Contador can't defend his title because he moved to a team (Astana) that is banned from competeing (huh???). Also, the guy who was leading the tour last year with a couple of stages to go, Michael Rasmussen, and was then kicked off his own team by his own team just when it looked like he was going to win the tour de france (huh???) and is now banned from competing in the tour de france until after 2009.

This could be the most fukked up sport on the face of the planet at the moment. But that won't stop thousands and thousands of people from camping outside all day long to see 200 cyclists whizz by them in about 20 seconds. Even sadder, I may be watching it some myself.

[RageWizard]

Yeah the steroids have really opened up the field considering that alot of the big names are banned from racing. Valverde ran out of gas last year, but I think that he smelled the road tar on this one. That and he is getting good odds. Evans is my other pick but he is eatting heavy chalk, and I hate to take a favorite in this race unless they are a lock like Lance Armstrong was the last decade. There are so many things that can happen to a guy that it really is almost like a crap shoot.

[RageWizard]

This could be the most fukked up sport on the face of the planet at the moment. But that won't stop thousands and thousands of people from camping outside all day long to see 200 cyclists whizz by them in about 20 seconds. Even sadder, I may be watching it some myself.

I never understood that, it literally takes 20 seconds for the entire field to pass and these yo-yos are hanging out there for the day. If I was to go, it would be to the most crowded venue on the tour L'alpe D'Huez. I would then put on a euro style thong with an american flag cape with SBR.com written on my chest in permanent marker. I would then proceed to run up the mountain yelling "Buy a Harley its quicker".

[HeeeHAWWWW]

There should be a market for most successful team "nutritionist".

[slacker00]

Cadel Evans (Lotto) -268 vs. Denis Menchev (Rabobank) +248. Are you kidding me Evans is not worthy of this price, both lotto and Robobank have contenders this year and also have the teams to bring these guys home, so again take the dog and the big payoff in Menchev.

I love this pick! If anyone is reading this thread and wants to make one bet on the TDF, just to mix it up, this is the bet to make. Evans deserves to be the favorite, but he isn't twice as likely to win than Menchev.

This could be the most fukked up sport on the face of the planet at the moment.

The TDF is being more fukked up than the sport in general, I think. I firmly believe the French are quite irate that a French cyclist hasn't done much in the TDF for a long time. They are basically culling down the field as much as politically possible in order to get some Frenchmen back onto the leaderboard. No other event has this much politics going on. Don't tell me about doping, because this is way beyond syringes. TDF is all about politics.

[dwaechte]

More like Tour de Suck.

JK. My terrible, terrible burns aside, best of luck to everyone betting on this.

[lys3rg0]

This could be the most fukked up sport on the face of the planet at the moment

Get a clue. THey just like to do the laundry in public, but tennis, athletics and soccer have way more doping behind the scenes now that cycling got maybe 30% cleaner than the Armstrong years.

[Art Vandeleigh]

Get a clue. THey just like to do the laundry in public, but tennis, athletics and soccer have way more doping behind the scenes now that cycling got maybe 30% cleaner than the Armstrong years.

lol I could usually care less if someone thinks I haven't a clue about an opinion, but did you at least read the paragraph I wrote before that statement?

That the champ 2 years ago is banned, last year's champ can't ride and defend because he's moved over to a banned team, and the would be winner last year was dumped BY HIS OWN TEAM just a few stages before the end of the tour (probably to deny him the yellow jersey!). You can compare these bizzaro events to any other sport?

But that's OK with me, I still like it, and it's got a lot of wagering options, so viva le tour!

[RageWizard]

Well the tour has been rolling around for a week now and really aside from 2 days, none of it means shit yet. The race will however start today with 2 big climbs and the finish being at the top of a giant climb that will for sure weed out some of the pretenders. I saw dollar signs yesterday flash before my eyes when Cadel Evans did a face plant on the asphalt, and I was hoping that he would retire, but he didn't and that sucks. Anyways Valverde has the best team by far and if he can't pull it together and win then it will be all on him. Besides Caisse D'epargne and Columbia, the race hasn't been controled by any other team yet and a couple of days ago Evans was on a climb without any teammates around him, and it wasn't even a big climb either. Now that the big boy stages have come to play, I expect some other teams like rabobank to start to make an appearance. All my bets are still in play which is nice, but I still have 2 weeks to wait for the race to play out.