As I sit here watching the Tour de France while resting comfortably in my armchair, I find myself ruminating on the risks of the modern professional Cyclist. Even from my perch of steel and cowhide, I find myself recoiling in fear as traffic islands are navigated at speed, shoulders and bumped on wobbly bikes, and the boney elbows of GC contenders are thrown about amongst the meat-covered arm-sausages of the spinteurs.
I hold my breath and pray silently to something I have yet to understand – possibly the ridiculous little chihuahua with a human allergy who sleeps soundly nearby – that the riders run the gauntlet safely. (How can a dog be so little and still be a dog? Does not compute.)
I generally sleep through the first week of the Tour; there are only so many Chateaux and rolling green fields that I can watch as the peloton mechanically reels in the doomed breakaway in the final kilometers. But this year has seen its fair share of excitement, including back-to-back sprint finishes so close that the riders themselves weren’t sure who had won. Not to mention that I love it when the riders are on their knees coming across the line; nothing like a little visible effort to make me feel good about sitting there sipping my espresso while nursing my morning stroopwafel.
Some highlights from this week include the following, in no particular order.
- Peter Sagan’s Stage 2 post-stage interview:
Interviewer: How did you win the stage today?
Sagan: Well, I came around the guy in front and then there were no more guys to come around, so I won.
Interviewer: This is the first time you’ll have worn the Yellow Jersey, how does that feel?
Sagan: Well, I like this jersey I have with the stripes. But yellow is also nice. - Oleg Tinkoff’s finish line dance after Sagan’s same Stage 2 victory. The jovial fellow is a bit of a loose cannon, but what his celebration lacked in tact it made up for in raw rooskie enthusiasm.
- Bryan Coquard’s Stage 4 sprint was the first time I found myself being amazed that a bicycle could survive such savagery; I’ve seen bicycles get driven into garage doors that seemed to be having a more peaceful experience than his was. If he had gone in a straight line, he’d have won by a bike length. “A” for effort. Imagine how fast he’ll go when he upgrades from racing in his brother’s sneakers to real cycling shoes.
- Greg van Avermaet taking a beautiful solo stage win and riding into Yellow with a V minute lead. Then extending it to almost VII minutes over the first mountains of the Tour. I don’t think he’s going to win the Tour, but he’s definitely not reading from the same script everyone else has and people should be raising their eyebrows for sure. It was also very nice to see him still working for his team leader Teejay; it isn’t every day you see the Maillot Jaune working in the team rotation.
- The only thing more bizarre than the time the Orica team bus broke the finish line on Stage 1 of the 2013 Tour was having the ride kite come tumbling down over the peloton in today’s Stage 7. Did anyone else see Oleg lurking nearby with a shiv?*
* Thanks to @pmcqueen for letting me shamelessly steal his joke.
frankThe founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking.
As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it.
Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen.
Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.
View Comments
@Neil
Cummins has been in awesome form this year. Crushed them in the Dauphine and again in the Tour. Outstanding performance! Pure Rule 5.
And caps make a comeback, particularly liked Pat Bulger's tweet saying Cav was cool again and not sure how to handle it.
Here's something I thought I saw yesterday - did Valverde get dropped and then somehow bridge back to the GC group? He's Nr 12, right? Impressive, if so.
I think you'd have to say the TDF winner will come from that group - Froome, Quintana, Porte, Valverde, Dan Martin, Adam Yates...have I missed anyone? Did Bardet stay in touch until the top?
@RobSandy
Depends on when you saw it. If it was late on in the rain one of the two Movistar guys who were up the road dropped back into the GC group and the other finished ahead of the GC group on his own.
@RobSandy
Valverde was ahead in the break but it wasn't going to get away with him there so he dropped back to the peloton to hang with Quintana and the other contenders. It wasn't impressive, it was just him doing his job.
@Oli
Seemed a strange job. 2 of them hanging on no man's land and Quintana on his own. Surely they should have been in the GC group attacking Froome or at least supporting Quintana. To me their tactics appeared a bit clueless (or at best disjoint), but what do I know. Maybe Quintana was going to attack to bridge and didn't feel up to it or the weather changed their plan to attack.
@Teocalli
Valverde was ahead in the break but it wasn’t going to get away with him there so he dropped back to the peloton to hang with Quintana and the other contenders. It wasn’t impressive, it was just him doing his job.
Maybe that's what confused me - it looked from a one shot like Valverde was struggling to hang on to the GC group, but actually he was dropping back off the break to join the GC group. Makes sense now. I thought he'd blown, and then somehow hauled himself back up the road.
I have no idea what Movistar's tactics are - they seem content to let Sky dominate the race and call the shots. I guess Movistar aren't a strong enough team to do the same.
I think we'll see what everyone has in their locker on Ventoux. And Quintana really needs to take time there as he'll almost certainly lose time to Froome in the TT the next day. It's quite fascinating and Froome is definitely winning panache points over Quintana at the moment. And I really hope Yates can keep on doing what he's doing.
@Teocalli
They had two guys up the road (once Valverde dropped back) who I'm guessing initially they thought would be useful in the event of an attack later, although of course the gap grew too big for that to be too useful...I guess they could have sat up in the event Quintana and/or Valverde was attacking across to them.
And by doing his job I mean Valverde was then at Quintana's side to help him/cover him/one-two Froome with him. As it turned out nothing really happened because either Movistar decided it wasn't going to work, or because the pace Sky set had them too close to the limit to risk anything. I suspect the latter.
Quintana was never on his own. When Valverde was trying to stay with the break there were two or three Movistar guys with Nairo, then when Valverde dropped back he obviously wasn't alone then either.