The 2011 Anti-V Moment of the Year: Paris Roubaix
While the The V Moment of the Year is the moment during the season when the sport demonstrated the most pure example of spirit of The V, the Anti-V Moment of the Year similarly acknowledges the moment in which all those things that make The V great were ignored. This is more than just cheating or climbing into the broom wagon; this is reserved for under-handed tactics, or wheel-sucking to the win, complaining about dangerous descents, canceling races for bad weather.
The Anti-V is a virus. It starts small, as a nagging doubt perhaps about form or willingness to suffer that day. It replicates and feeds on itself; giving in to doubt is easier when you’ve done it before, and the more you do it, the easier it gets. It manifests itself in an absence of those things we love most about cycling: a combination of guts, class, and panache.
Before I go any further, I’d like to point out that we had even more trouble deciding on the Anti-V moment than we did the V Moment. Bretto made the case for les Fréres Grimpeur, but couldn’t dial in on a specific incident of Anti-V and kept repeating, “Every time they looked around, or when they mounted their TT bikes!” We did the only thing we could do, and had CERN crunch the data for us. They confirmed the Schlecks spent the equivalent of three full weeks rubbernecking and nearly a quarter as much working on their time trialing – too much to mathematically isolate a single moment. Sometimes the best decision in the midst of indecision is simply to make one, and that’s exactly what I did.
At the very instant when Johan Van Summeren was doing a reverse 270 cannon ball into the deep end of the V-Pool to bring us the V Moment of 2011, Jonathan Vaughters was clutching his shoulders as he gingerly waded into the kiddie pool – dragging a handful of race favorites with him.
The race was shaping up beautifully for Garmin-Cervélo. Van Summeren had read the race and left the favorites at the Trouée to join teammate Gabriel Rasch up the road in the day’s breakaway. The plan was to keep Johan in reserve at the front while the Garmin team worked to bring the break back, giving Thor Hushovd an armchair ride to the finish with the considerable advantage of having teammates in the finale. A beautiful plan, and I love it when a plan comes together.
But Garmin’s firepower wasn’t quite enough to bridge up in time, and Faboo wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of riding into Roubaix with Thor getting a leadout from three teammates. In typical style, he took the race into his own hands and left the others to their own devices. Hushovd, Flecha, and Ballan came along for the ride and the four made huge inroads on the gap with Cancellara doing the bulk of the work.
And here the sticky tentacles of the Anti-V set in. Faboo started doubting whether he should really be hauling such a fast finisher as Hushovd up to his teammates and sat up when the gap had gone down to within arm’s reach.
At this point, Garmin’s plan wasn’t as solid as it had been a few dozen kilometers before:
- The plan hinged on domestique Vanmarcke doing the work to bridge up to the breakaway, putting four Garmin riders at the front
- Vanmarcke wasn’t closing the gap quickly enough, and was dropped by Cancellara’s acceleration
- Cancellara was getting the job done, but was unwilling to do the last bit of work to close the break down completely
The plan was in need of some quick-thinking to maintain the upper hand, and everyone knows driving while strategizing is dangerous. So, for safety reasons, Vaughters called in Garmin’s pocket Timid Tactician: His Turtleneck Sweater. New plan:
- Double-dip by telling Fabian that Thor can’t work because he has a teammate up the road, despite the fact that his team had been doing the chasing in the first place
- Tell Fabian to wait for the slow guy behind who couldn’t keep up and wasn’t bridging quickly enough, so he can take over for Fabian, saving Thor
- Instruct Thor to sit back and refuse pulls
Cancellara, Hushovd and Vaughters all had their hand in making this the Anit-V Moment of the year, but Vaughters takes the bulk of the blame not only because his was inflexible and unimaginative thinking, but because he was playing both sides: the rider up front can’t work if he’s got a rider coming up, or the rider coming up can’t work because he’s got a rider up front. Pick one.
But worst of all, there is nothing more Anti-V than two riders within a chance of winning riding along gesturing to each other as they both refuse to take a pull for fear of dragging the other to the win. Certainly, a rider must be sure not to do too much work and place themselves at a disadvantage, but this should never come at the risk of losing the opportunity to win the race in the first place; I’m sure we can all agree it is much more in the spirit of the V to fight and get beaten into second place than to never fight at all and throw your chance away. In this, Cancellara and Hushovd each had a hand in the pie, but Vaughters and his Sweater were were the masterminds behind the stalemate.
We truly love what Vaughters is trying to do with Garmin by making it their mission to race clean, but racing clean is no excuse for uncorking an entire case of Vintage 2011 Anti-V. Vaughters races his team like they are weak with nary a chance to win, when in fact they are one of the strongest teams in the sport. It is time to wrap the bars in white tape, set aside the underdog tactics, and start racing like leaders. And by all means, fire the Sweater.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cEV1l9i1ec[/youtube]
@Calmante
I’ve thought this site is about the best in cycling, not the worst, which is why I agree in principle with your point about the anti V not being in the spirit of things round here. I do, however, think it’s handy for calibration of expectations: with out the anti – V, we’d have a harder time knowing what the V is when we see it.
So long as you’re not Australian, welcome aboard. If you are, see my above response to @Marcus
@minion
How can you have the V without the Anti-V? Two halves of a whole. The forces of Good and Eveeeeeaaaal.
Balance, Pedalwan. Balance.
As a matter of course, last year’s Anti-V was also the subject of much more debate than was the V. Interesting the people are much more willing to argue about criticisms than they are about praise. Which is also about balance, incidentally.
@Anjin-san
G’phant said it best when a similar situation occurred a while back (and I paraphrase/quote):
Incidentally, my new neighbor took almost that same approach.
@frank
Whoa! Settle down Fabio, or else some wag while end up superimposing your face on Zoolander for all to see ;)
Well said.
My bikes are in boxes to be sent to Australia. Fuckity fucken what the hell do I do now?
@frank
Point made.
@everyone else
I’ll be better. I promise.
@all
One last point that I’ll make because I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding – one that I’m myself coming to understand as a matter of course of the discussion.
The Anti-V is within all of us, and it is the reason why the V is great. If it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have to fight to be tough and ride strong – it would be natural.
To that end, that JV, Faboo, Hushovd, or any other rider exhibited the Anti-V for a moment doesn’t make them week or pussies or lame or anything else. It just means that for a moment during the race, they lost the V and that was remarkable it was the Perfect Storm of Anti-V.
Now, some people seem to give in to the Anti-V more often than others and that’s a lot of what’s been discussed here on this thread – which riders/DS’s show a chronic lack of V. That’s really not what this article is about. This is about a moment of bad racing – regardless of what happend before or after.
Even if I do think Garmin won the race with JVS through JVS’s ingenuity and almost in spite of JV’s directing – but that’s another subject altogether.
@Calmante
Actually, you’re doing great, and having these things come up for us to talk about is better than having you come by, think what you thought, and leave. Thanks for speaking your mind. And thanks for having an open one. I suspect you might be Dutch.
@ Frank
I get it Frank. I truly do. Men behaving like babies…if only for a moment. Not tactics, not the entire race, not how they rode. The moment. 4.52 on the vid. I want to puke!!
That said I think what you meant to say was that it doesn’t make them “weak”. Because let’s face it, it would take at least seven days to make them “week”.
@calmante
JV is a pretentious douche bag…
Looking pro and the rules..it’s not an obsession. Nobody really thinks there’s a magical formula. It’s fun. And it’s fun to have fun. That’s all.
@frank
A-fuckin’ Merckx. Preach it, brother.
@frank
The Anti-V was strong in this one last night. Didn’t have a great day, nothing really wrong with it but nothing really went right. Didn’t get the kids to bed until much later than usual for one reason or another but once they were out of the way, rather than setting up the rollers for an hour of intervals, I slobbed out on the sofa to watch a couple of episodes of Luther with the remains of Sunday’s roast dinner and a big bowl of rice pudding. On the plus side, I did resist finishing off the bottle of red that was left over from Sunday.
@Calmante
It is indeed all about The V but there’s no point in The V if you lose sight of the fact that ultimately it’s all about the same feeling of joy, excitement and freedom that we got tearing around on bikes as kids.
I think a lot of people who stumble onto this site from other bike forums tend to be take being a roadie too seriously (whether it be by sticking to strict training plans, diets and living by their power meters or trying hard demonstrate that that they’re not serious by their casualness) to realise that whilst we’re passionate how we look and act, we’re not actually taking things that seriously. You only need to search Velominati on roadbikereview to see what I mean.
Looking fabulous is obviously the Holy Grail but there’s as much irreverence and flippancy going on amongst the ranks.
Interview with Vaughters published today @ Velochrono. On the subject of Garmin’s sweetest victories of 2011 (P-R and TTT at the TdF), he says:
He says that P-R was special because the win was marked by the influence of team tactics (my imperfect translation).
Velochrono doesn’t mention his anti-V award which is clearly a journalistic oversight.
@xyxax
For me, the most beautiful victories, are ones where the whole team can change the tactical direction of the race. It’s much more interesting than when a great leader is hiding and only races at the end. But Vansummeren’s victory at Paris-Roubaix has a special flavor, for it bears the mark of the team. That is true also of the TdF Team Time Trial.
@Chris
Thanks for that. Actually the direct translation was not the problem but what the sub-text was in light of the V and anti-V award discussions here. He says essentially that it was a victory arising from the influence of team tactics on the race, which contradicts the opinions of the anti-V post.
@xyxax, @Chris
Great perspective, very interesting. It could be my creative interpretation, but it almost seems like he’s supporting my notion that JVS’s win was not so much the team tactic, but something that happened. It also agrees with my notion that the last-minute leader’s move is getting long in the tooth.
I hope they do more racing from the front – not just Garmin, but all the teams. That’s what I love seeing. Here’s to 2012!
I’ve been meaning to inquire about this since the article came up, but I didn’t want to be asking a stupid question. But…here goes.
I’m confused about the JV telling Cancellara stuff. He’s not his director. So do you mean simply yelling out the car at him? Or what?
Sorry, this part had me lost. (Being relatively new to watch PRO racing, especially in comparison to many of you, I don’t always follow the inner workings of tactics, racing savvy, etc.).
IIRC Cancellara came over to the Garmin car, presumably because Hushovd was telling him that the team had ordered him not to work, so he decided to complain directly to the management… or to tell them that if they weren’t going to work then he wasn’t going to work.
I agree, it was not the finest moment for all concerned, but JV/JVS won, and Cancellara had been a red-hot favourite.
Alright, two things here:
1) After rewatching the video I can see where JV says “we ain’t gonna help” and then Mr. Thighs says, “What?!”!:!”
2) Please remind me of how the Tete de la Course got away. With so many races this past year, I can’t recall why Thor, Fabian, and Alessandro are chasing. How’d they get put back?