Categories: Defining MomentsEtiquetteRacingRantings from the V-Bunker

The First Weak

Black eyes and yellow jersey go together like wine and pasta.

Three days in, and it’s already been a brutal opening week of the Tour. I’ve never heard of the Tour neutralizing part of the stage unless a Schleck was involved, but I was relieved to understand that the reason for the neutralization had more to do with how many doctors were available for the second crash than it did with the riders’ safety. That’s a load off; for a second there I thought the sport was going soggy on us.

Fabian broke his back for the second time this season, which makes me wonder what his plans are for the rest of the year. Appenzeller and blackouts seems like a good place to start; I don’t think he needs any more memories. Nibbles and Quintannaroo missed the split on Stage 2 and lost over a minute. Froome humped a lightbulb like a maniac up the Mur de Huy to take some more time on everyone but J-Rod. My Merckx, Chris can make a bike go batshit fast but fuck me if he doesn’t make it look absolutely horrendous. If everyone looked like him, I don’t believe I’d ever have gotten into the sport.

All this is to say that the opening week of the Tour de France sets it apart from every other Grand Tour; the large field, the level of competition, and the nature of the windy, mostly flat opening stages makes for chaos and chaos makes for crashes. How many riders have lost their chance at the Tour’s GC in a moment of inattention during the first 7 days on the bike? Even Hinault did a face-plant during the stage to Saint Etienne in 1985, although only he knows why he would be so reckless as to contest a bunch sprint in the first few days of the race.

Froomedog looks very good. On paper anyway, he looks horrible on the bike. I mean, look at him. He looks Nibbles in 2014 strong. Nibbles looks fit but seems a bit inattentive. Quintana looks overwhelmed. Contador looks fit tired. Everyone but Froome is looking for their peak; the only question on Froome is whether he’s peaking too soon. Remember that l’Alpe d’Huez comes on the Saturday before Paris.

The first signs of weakness are exposed in the first week of the Tour. And tomorrow we ride the cobbles. Fuck yeah cobbles.

Vive le Tour and Vive la Vie Velominatus.

frank

The 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.

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Michael Heusdens says:

Jul 7 2015 at 1:39 pm

@rfreese888

@LeoTea

I agree – heroic but possibly stupid.

In Rugby now I think they have stricter protocols about assessing for concussion and keeping players off the pitch when at risk. Am I right in saying cycling has not reached that level of assessing and decision making? Seems it would have been pretty obvious to keep Faboo off the bike given his symptoms.

At least Spartacus will remember his (possibly final) ride in the yellow jersey. Horner doesn't even remember getting back on the bike and finishing the Stage 7 in 2011.

http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/07/news/horner-abandons-tour-team-defends-decision-to-let-him-finish-stage_182840

And yes, Froome knows how to win ugly. There should be some figure skating judges, deducting time for presentation.
Teocalli says:

Jul 7 2015 at 2:09 pm

@WindDrifter

@Ron

@WindDrifter

@GogglesPizano

and Spartacus rides in the last 59km of the stage with fucking a broken back!

this is why I love cycling and hate football(soccer).

Cyclist has a major crash, breaks some bones, rides 59 km to the finish.

Footballer stumbles on a stalk of grass, falls down on the soft nice field. Cries to mama for help and gets carried out on a stretcher. Weichei!

I too hate diving in professional soccer, but I still love the sport. And, I love good games without diving. I still play twice a week, some of the guys are in their 60s, with even a few in their early 70s. None of them fake a thing and some of them can run for a full 1.5 hours. I hope to age as well as they have!

But yes, I really, really want to see this part of the sport done away with. Coming from a background of soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse, I completely don’t understand the diving in soccer. In hockey and lacrosse you pretend NOT to be hurt, even when you are.

@Ron Hate is a strong word. maybe to strong. I don’t really hate it, I just despise the behaviour. I used to play football a lot as a kid. But were I come from ice hockey is by far the most important sport(next to cycling then, of course … ).

So, to me, football is just not very interesting, but I do watch WC sometimes. Also football seems to draw the attention of a lot of hooligans, this I have never understood. I used to play rugby in high school,that was cool, and I have never seen any hooligans on a rugby match.

Football - a sport designed for gentlemen and played by hooligans

Rugby - a sport designed for hooligans and played by gentlemen
Lukas says:

Jul 7 2015 at 2:10 pm

I know he's not one of the "big four", but TJ is doing a great job managing the early part of the race. He is in a very good position to improve over his 5th of last year, and if something untoward happens to Froome, he will be right in the mix.
wilburrox says:

Jul 7 2015 at 3:51 pm

@Lukas

I know he’s not one of the “big four”, but TJ is doing a great job managing the early part of the race. He is in a very good position to improve over his 5th of last year, and if something untoward happens to Froome, he will be right in the mix.

Yes, Tejay is what I'd say right now is sneaky strong. And yea, Froome is a spider monkey on a bike. Or maybe kinda looks like a squid falling out of a tree when he rides yes? Someone said it best earlier, it ain't a figure skating contest. The only thing stopping the sky train, if anything does, is gonna be some bad luck.
sthilzy says:

Jul 7 2015 at 4:08 pm

Talk about riding non-stop in the pain cave!

From GH's FB
Beers says:

Jul 7 2015 at 4:40 pm

@Al__S

@Ron

I’ve been thinking about it since Sunday but not sure I’ve ever seen Cavendish beaten in such a fashion. I’ve seen him lose a sprint, but don’t recall seeing him have such a lead and simply get reeled back in. He’s normally gone with that much of a gap. And not sure at all why he sat up. He’s tempermental, but not a quitter. Martin can’t be too happy with that.

EQS were in full on 2015 Spring fuck up mode.

Martin drove the group far too hard. They wanted a gap to stop anyone else getting back, but a minute and a half was a luxury that only benefited the GC passengers of the group.

This then led into Renshaw running a foolishly early leadout. The wind was no longer on the tail, they didn’t have that benefit. So he blew early, leaving Cavendish going from too far out. And he’s never been much cop at the first sprint of the tour. He went anyway, but blew. You can almost see him cursing himself as he looks across and sees Spartacus nip in for 3rd and the bonus seconds

In all this, Lefervre was obviously fucking up too- to fuck up that well takes some special DS action.

Cavendish was partly to blame. But so was Martin, so was Renshaw. No-one covered themselves in glory.

But then again, boys did well today… Sky easing on the front, Giant-Alpecin expecting EQS to go for the Cavendish leadout (and I bet they were selling that as a plan for all it was worth with overly loud chat) and so not paying attention leaves the Panzerwagon to press the nitro button.

More ugly but effective riding from Froome, making a bit of a point after Nibbles had had a dig. How on earth he stays upright is beyond physics, but it works?

I didn't understand, if he was going 100m too early, if Cav feinted to the side like he was out of gas, and picked another wheel, he would have had time to wind up and roll over in the last few metres again. No one else had a paceline, so he could have just slowed down then hit the gas again.

I too think TaFroometula has been giving too much gas in the early stages. He was in the lead bunch on stage 2, hammered it on Huy, tried to make a break on 4 when Bertie was split off by a couple metres in the last 20k.

None of the others have given so much gas, and they may seem like it is because they haven't the form, but really they are saving energy the whole time.

Smartest of all was Quintana on s4, he never hit the front, had no teammates, but still finished on the same time sucking wheels at the back of the front bunch, and thereby saving energy.

Froomedog was hammering himself on the front (goodness knows why he was dragging Thomas so often, should have been the other way around). He may say he is feeling good, but all the adrenaline and match burning will take it out of him before the real hard stuff starts.

So good to have the top GC contenders all so close, it will be a tale of who cracks first on the big threshold climbs, and attacking punctures (boooo)...
Mikael Liddy says:

Jul 7 2015 at 5:44 pm

@Beers

yeah, interestingly there seems to be a bit of Contador's Giro about Froome's early tour tactics. I think the competition is gonna be a little stronger here than it was in May.
Oli says:

Jul 7 2015 at 5:55 pm

@Beers

Hey, if it was easy we'd all be doing it, am I right?
unversio says:

Jul 7 2015 at 6:09 pm

@Oli

@Beers

Hey, if it was easy we’d all be doing it, am I right?

I prefer Beers summation. If it were easy we would be complaining about it.
Barracuda says:

Jul 7 2015 at 7:04 pm

@Ron

@WindDrifter

@GogglesPizano

and Spartacus rides in the last 59km of the stage with fucking a broken back!

this is why I love cycling and hate football(soccer).

Cyclist has a major crash, breaks some bones, rides 59 km to the finish.

Footballer stumbles on a stalk of grass, falls down on the soft nice field. Cries to mama for help and gets carried out on a stretcher. Weichei!

I too hate diving in professional soccer, but I still love the sport. And, I love good games without diving. I still play twice a week, some of the guys are in their 60s, with even a few in their early 70s. None of them fake a thing and some of them can run for a full 1.5 hours. I hope to age as well as they have!

But yes, I really, really want to see this part of the sport done away with. Coming from a background of soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse, I completely don’t understand the diving in soccer. In hockey and lacrosse you pretend NOT to be hurt, even when you are.