Velominati Super Prestige: 2011 Le Tour de France
While a good number of Velominati get all uppity around May and make rash statements like their preferred Grand Tour is the Giro d’Italia, because it has more and bigger climbs, beautiful white roads and crazy tifosi, there’s no denying that Le Tour de France is the real grandaddy of them all.
Admit it, July trumps May every time.
Maybe it’s because of the greater media attention, or the fact that there’s bound to be a controversy, but I for one look forward to this time of year with a fervour that has myself and others residing in the lower half of the world consuming inhuman amounts of caffeine and staving off sleep deprivation for 21 days on end, without question or cause for concern. It’s all about the bike (race) and nothing else really gets a look in. Job? Ah, we can do that blurry-eyed and with concentration levels that are probably below safe standards if operating heavy machinery. Or even computers. In fact, operating a computer becomes the central task of the day, as we check results, reports, the topography and distance of the next stage, and of course our VSP standings.
Which brings us to the Blue Riband event on the 2011 Velominati Super Prestige; Le Tour de France. Who will be resplendent in the Maillot Jaune after three weeks of high-pressure tipping, rest-day swaps and bonus stage picks? Have we seen the last of Steampunk’s yellow reign of terror? It’s time to peak, to climb well for your weight, and move Sur La Plaque to the top of the VSP. Study the guidelines (with a grain of salt, as whatever we say here overrides the guide, so ask if you’re not sure), respect the Piti Principle, and enjoy the next three weeks of the greatest show on earth. As usual, get your picks in by 5am Pacific time on Saturday morning. If you wait until the last moment and bugger it up, don’t come crying, just wait until the first rest day with all the others who pulled a Delgado.
Brett’s Take:
As a Keeper, my own tips don’t count to any jerseys or prizes, so this Tour I think I’ll tip with my heart rather than my head; it’s let me down enough this season anyway, so any ‘logic’ or ‘knowledge’ is to be discarded and replaced with ’emotion’ and ‘taking a stab in the dark’. In fact, I might even target the KOM this time around, try and get in some long breakaways and pick up points over the smaller cols while none of the big contenders are paying any real attention. Yeah, channel the spirit of JaJa, Reeshard and the Chicken. Better get me some juice.
Taking the heart over head approach, I have to say that this is going to be the year of an upset. It’s there for Cadelephant to take. The cards are all falling for him; Cont Of The Highest Odor will fade in the last week, spent from his Giro and without a reliable supply of prime beef to call upon; Grimplette, while he may have been foxing in Switzerland, just doesn’t have the firepower to match it with Cuddles or COTHO against the clock, and hasn’t got the mental capacity to attack in the mountains. Wiggins, Gesink, Grimpelder… they’ll be fighting for scraps.
It’s a three horse race, this one, but at last count there’s only three steps on a podium.
Marko’s Take:
Recently on these pages we’ve at once lamented the loss of the all-rounder GC contender and derided the formulaic predictability that “well-rounded” riders in the modern peloton employ to win races. All the names at the top of the Giants of the Road list, however, excelled at one thing, winning the biggest sporting event in the world. But it isn’t climbing prowess, time trialling efficiency, tactical sense, and winning ability alone that endear riders to us. If it was it would be way easier and really boring to be a cycling fan. So what is the difference between a guy like say, LeMan and a guy like Armstrong? Panache. What we’ve lost isn’t a type of rider but a style of rider. Rather what we’ve lost is panache. If, in the modern day, being a douchenozzle or belladonna means panache, so be it. But if doping scandals and bro-mances make you yawn, keep in mind there is a lot of bike racing going on in le Grand Boucle.
So I ask, where’s the panache as far as GC contenders go? Cuddles (may have blown his panache wad last year), Le Petit Grimpeur (no panache), Sammy Sanchez (panacheicito), Basso (panached-out), Horner (Mcpanache), JVDB (panache-a-be), CVDV (pa-crash), Veino (panachenozzle), and Ryder (trying to get all the Canadian panache that Don Cherry has been hogging for the last 30 years). For me, other than Cuddles, Veino, and Ryder it’s hard to get really excited about any of the GC contenders. But alas, I will not vote solely with my heart like my Aussie bro in New Zealand. I will do my best to garner points for no other reason than pride as I don’t get shit for winning either.
So then, now that I’ve gotten all pessimistic about the GC, what am I looking forward to? Panache, fucktards. I wanna see Faboo tow Frandy through the TTT for Leotard Schleck (thanks Dr C) and then make some perfect amount of dumb remark afterward. I wanna see Cavenisgrowingonmedish win some sprints. I wanna see Farrar beat the Manx Mouth in some sprints or cry trying. I wanna believe in the Rainbow Jersey again. I wanna see if Tomeke still has what it takes. I wanna see Jens hurt EVERYBODY. I wanna see some Russian or Spanish dude I’ve never heard of have the ride of his life and shed some tears on the podium, and I wanna see Gilbert on a long solo break on his birthday get himself a stage win and maybe even the yellow jersey for a bit.
The reason this race is so cool is there are so many races within the race. Sure, you betcha, get drawn into to GC drama but don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. There’s a shit-ton gonna happen in the next three weeks and it’s gonna be good.
Gianni’s Take:
Burned from the all too predicable days of Pharmy, I just don’t care that much about the yellow jersey, Contador or a Schleck – ahhhh, who cares, skinny little bastards. I’m all in for the drama hidden within each day’s race. A stage win in the Tour can make a rider’s career and every stage has unscripted drama: Stuey O’Grady finishing the stage within the time limit, riding in from 100km out with a broken collar bone. Or Magnus Backstead riding in by himself, dropped in the small mountains, finishing beyond the time limit, his number peeled off his jersey and he is ruined. These things happen every day in the Tour.
I like a good spoiler, like Eros Poli on Mount Ventoux, or the spoiler small break that stays away when the last 40km is a high speed tailwind run, ruining a day for the sprinters. I like Rik Verbruggen, flat back, so aero on his bike, hauling ass, a crazy solo bid for glory. I want to see more of that. I would be thrilled to see one of the Garmin roulers win a stage, and I’ll be thrilled if HTC doesn’t win the TTT.
I can schleckulate about a few things: unless Contador and Cavendish get their front wheels tangled up together resulting in a horrendous career threatening crash, both Andy Schleck and Tyler Farrar are doomed. I’m sorry, Andy can’t go fast unless it’s a steep hill (up) and no one is as good a sprinter as Cav, by a lot. Then again, if my schleckulations were worth anything, I wouldn’t be down in the boggy hole that is the low end of the VSP results.
Frank’s Take:
Every year, it happens. Every single year. It has a bitter taste, Disappointment. It sits on the front of your tongue like a small black weight that is surprisingly heavy for its size. Even though you’re not swallowing it, the taste spreads throughout, slowly – into your jaws first, then the rest of your being.
With one exception, I have never had my chips down for a rider who ended up winning – not since 1990, when I was all-in for Greg LeMond. 1991-1995 was Indurain: I favored first Bugno, then Rominger. 1996: Virenque. 1997: Virenque. 1998: Pantani; it was a long shot, but the awesome little dude pulled it off for once in my life. 1999: Zulle. 2000-2004: Ullrich. 2005-2006: Basso. 2007: The Chicken. 2008: Frank Schleck. 2009-2010: The Grimplette. But I continue to favor the dark horse because I know that when I am redeemed, it will be glorious beyond articulation.
This will be that year. Not because I will change my tactic, but because this is the one for les Fréres Grimpeur. It’s a hilly enough race with enough uphill finishes – we all know the skinny boys have a challenge when the road points down. (You’d really think that with all that practicing they do going uphill that they’d occasionally get a chance to practice going down one as well, but those boys descend like first-year amateurs.) Bertie blew the guns at a very difficult Giro and all the Spanish Beef in the world can’t help you recoup from that kind of effort in time for a similarly difficult Tour. Cuddles is a pipe dream borne from the understandably optimistic thoughts from our antipodal brothers and sisters in Oz and Newz. Wiggo, Vande Velde, Gesink, and Van den Broek will all learn how hard it is to pull out a good Tour ride for a second (or first) time when the pressure is truly on.
I’ve also vowed not to get caught up in my propensity to dwell on the fact that Contador should not be in the race. The fact that a rider who failed a dope test in last year’s Tour has been allowed to start is a reflection of the ineffectiveness of Cycling’s governing bodies, not on Bertie. True, I hate him and would be happy to see him not start, but if I were in his shoes, I admit that would start if I was allowed to. And, lets face it: Andy’s win will mean more when it comes with the defeat of Alberto than with a nonstart.
@frank
see your point Frank but its the Tour and they all have to do the distance….
Just heard Kelly say “boik” love listening to him.
@Oli
I love the dyed blond hair look. Fits in perfectly with the Euro geeky-cyclist quasi-hip look. It’s such a fail, it’s Fantastic. If I cut my hair short like that again and head to Europe for a cycling vacation, I will absolutely dye my hair like that.
But Gilbert winning the Tour…you’re killing me! Classic stuff!
@Rob
Yeah, of course they need to do the distance…I think I just figured out, though, that they have to finish within 30% of their own team’s time, not the fastest team’s time, which makes much more sense, and gives Bernie a breath of hope.
I know everyone loves the TTT – and I’m loving watching this – but I find it to be a perversion of the event.
@frank
They are putting in a some great times at the check points.
@frank
I love the discipline of the event – boring to watch but the best to do and if you have it ALL together it is riding a bike as a group at the highest and coolest.
You know me and my memory, so I do not remember my few short TTT’s but last week I was in a group on a newly resurfaced, slight false flat, light tail wind group ride of 15 and we were doing 50kph for 12k and it was just the best. So watching these guys doing 59kph is mind blowing!
Gotta love the Brothers Grimpeur sitting on the back of the Leotard Schleck train and letting every other rider slot in infront of them…they really can’t TT can they?
Cancellara was fast
@Mikael Liddy, @Netraam
Yup, and by my math, that’s another 23 seconds for the Brothers Grimpeur over Clentador. That’s 1:43 in total.
Hushovd 1 Evans 2 on 1 second
Evans, the green choo-choo train is driving it home. FANTASTIC SIGHT!!
I love how he’s transformed into such a take-control kinda rider!
Too bad – second best time…Leopard loses four seconds to Evans. The overall is looking very interesting!
@frank
Evans vs. the Schlecks this tour, with Alberto going for at least a stage win and Robert for the podium.
@frank
Correction, one second.
@Netraam
Yeah. I have some serious gun envy when I see those pistons firing.
There was less wind on the track later on the day. The early teams had a disadvantage.
You have to love that spectator yesterday he/she has made this Tour.
I’m blaming the extra weight of all those staples down the front of Good Cadelephant’s skinsuit for him losing that second to Garmin Cervelo…if he hadn’t split his suit he’d be in yellow.
@Rob
I don’t think riders going down is ever good no matter who they are. One of the pro’s on twitter said fans should get fined for causing a crash.
@RedRanger
Couldn’t agree more crashes are no good but it happened and changed the GC in a karmic way. It would be great if you could get spectators/police/dogs to not be idiots.
Awesome day! Tony Macaroni takes the lead and, based on the profile, he may stay there for the next few stages.
[vsp_results id=”8758″]
[/vsp_results]
@frank
No,no,no. The TTT is an essential part of the TdF. It is not a perversion. It doesn’t have to happen every year. But it does have to happen. Often. Like the prologue. And really long ITTs.
oh shoot thought I’d snag lanterne rouge…
@Jeff in PetroMetro
++1
@Rob
Yeah – would be a lot better if spectators didn’t interfere with riders. Before during and AFTER the race.
Right Frank?
@Marcus
Oh, the irony.
I feel like Contador: behind in the early stages.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
Well, cycling is a team sport, but in the end it’s about the strongest rider against the other strong riders. A strong rider without a team can still win the Tour, but a strong team without a strong individual rider can’t. In the end, it’s about the riders, not the team. That’s the perversion.
LeMond, in 1989, won the Tour with only one other rider from his team, Johan Museeuw, finishing the tour alongside him. In 1993 (I think it was ’93), Rominger lost 3 minutes to Indurain in the TTT, and went on to lose the Tour by those same three minutes; he bested or matched Indurain in every discipline outside the team event, and that means he was as strong as Indurain that year. But lost the Tour because his team wasn’t as strong as Indurain’s.
We all know the team is a critical factor in cycling, and it’s a very important component of the sport, but cycling is not truly a team sport – not in the sense that basketball or hokey is a team sport. It’s a sport where the team is important, but not crucial. But the TTT is the one event where it suddenly is completely about the team, and that’s what’s perverted about it.
I love the TTT, I just don’t think it belongs in the Tour.
….hero to zero
anyway, if ever there was a GC before team, effort, it was the five man TTT team from Schlecksville – never seen such a premeditated attempt to protect your GC men – but then they probably fell off the back every time they did 15 s on the front in training, so best to stick them in the trailer, smart tactics, if a little odd
Hope Faboo gets a chance to podium somewhere along the line after that effort
Could be scripted better for the Tour now with the outstanding favourite dragging his bags already – very juicy
Think I’ll leave Gilblets in my top 5 after the rest day, I sense there maybe something still in this one….
Shame for Eisel, but I guess someone had to fall off
@Marcus
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
For someone who’s ridden both TTTs and team pursuits, I just can’t disagree with you more. I was never a GC rider, but I was a contributor in every sense of what I could contribute. The TTT belongs. So does the occasional foray into the P-R cobbles.
If bike racing, specifically the TdF, is about who’s strongest, let’s do away with teams. We’ll put all the riders on ergometers with power meters in the plaza under the Eiffel Tower and have the riders come out everyday for three weeks and have them ride a set number of hours each day. At the end of the three weeks, we’ll measure their total output.
I got into heated discussions last year with people who were all upset because Schleck the Elder crashed out. They said luck going over cobbles should have nothing to do with the TdF. BULLSHIT. All the different challenges belong, or it’s not the TdF.
Sorry, Frank. Can’t agree. But, I still love you, man. Your website is life and I hope it lasts forever, or at least ’til I’m dead.
@frank
Oops. Forgot to hit Reply for the above post.
Whats for breakfast? Why those would be *Belgian* waffles. Not french toast not…whatever they eat in Suisse or Norway yes Belgian waffles.
@Jeff in PetroMetro
I got into heated discussions last year with people who were all upset because Schleck the Elder crashed out. They said luck going over cobbles should have nothing to do with the TdF. BULLSHIT. All the different challenges belong, or it’s not the TdF..
Hear hear, that’s what makes it so special – well said JPM
The time trials have to strike a fine balance I think, taking time out of the mountain goats to level the playing field somewhat. I don’t want a bike race to be 3 weeks in the Alps, with a handful of riders riding away from the peloton. It at least gives a few more riders chance of getting within cooee of the leaders and should make the race more interesting.
Frank, someones spiked your juice. I just can’t believe you don’t think the TTT belongs, but to each his own. I think the TTT do belong to the TdF big time and have missed it.
There is nothing more central ‘showing off’ the roles on the team as the TTT. For that moment in time everyone can see all members together. Whereas the GC’r has a role, the specialists have a part, the domestiques, actually for this even the mechanics and support personell have an important role. Its a very special day unlike any other, and I only imagine the celebration must be a team celebration afterward too. It must be cohesive.
But simply put, its poetry in motion.
Take today for example, Spartacus played the part w/the world stripes to perfection and led the Schlicks safely. He guarded. Jens rode as usual, all protected. It was poetry in motion and that simply is a penultimate moment that proves to me why the TTT belongs, at least one day in the TdF.
Many things make the TdF unlike any other race, the sunflowers in July, the crowds, the French, the roundabouts entering each little village, and the TTT makes a better TdF.
I have to say (re: the TTT) that I like its inclusion. It was the event that provided me with a better understanding of the team aspects of what I decidedly believe appears to be an individual sport to the untrained eye. It’s also exciting seeing a group of synchronous cyclists going at the speeds they go for this event. Very exciting.
By the way, Fabian Cancellara is my new favorite cyclist. This guy is ridiculous, right? The way he took off yesterday?!? And bringing the team in today? Damn…REAL V, for sure. And Philippe Gilbert, my former favorite cyclist, showed True Grit (and intelligence) yesterday recognizing that when he saw Fabian go, it, too, was time for him to GO. I can’t stop watching the video. And, yes, gotta give it up to Cuddles…he, too, played it very smartly. I agree with Frank in noting that I like how Evans seems to be taking charge more than I ever remember him doing so in previous Grand Tours.
I just love the article on NBCSports explaining who would be wearing the “yellow shirt.”
It just dawned on me. Hausler isn’t riding for GarVelo in the TdF. Even if he can’t sprint, he can drive the train for Tyler. Hmmmmm. Is his knee much worse than we thought? Or is something else amiss?
@Jeff in PetroMetro
He’s off for now and building towards the Worlds. I think Millar and Dean will likely play the role that Haussler would have played had he been included.
I don’t know if this played into it at all, but GarVelo has been pretty bad when Thor, Heinrich and Tyler all race together. Remember the disaster of MSR? Perhaps that played into it.
@benjamin
Yeah, I remember. Interesting idea to save Haussler for Worlds, but I doubt he’s happy to miss the TdF.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this Vendee port
Along this tiny strip.
The teams are all mighty racing men,
The champ was brave and sure.
two and twenty teams clicked in that day
For a three week long tour, a three week long tour.
The stages started getting rough,
The contenders’ plans were tossed,
If not for the courage of the peloton
The jersey would be lost, the jersey would be lost.
The survivors set ground on the shore of this the cobbled Paris Ave.
With Contador,
And Andy too,
The Norway star and Faboo,
The Belgian star
The Missile and Cadelephant,
Here is the Tour de France.
@eightzero
Well done! Now the tune is stuck in my head. Thanks.
Marianne or Ginger? Discuss…
@Jeff in PetroMetro
I’m interested in your use of the word, “or”…
@frank
Here’s DZ with an explanation of what went down there: http://davezabriskie.com/?p=651
What!? They DARE to have FUN?? Their impertinence is odious! Don’t they know that thousands of middle-aged men all over the world are expecting them to comport themselves with a certain decorum at all times?
Happy independence day everyone. Merckx bless America! Now go ride.
@Collin
“I brought my home pillow to the Tour this year. So far my sleep has been perfect. It’s a bit hard to believe I’ve not traveled with my pillow previously but that’s the truth. I was previously relying on French hotel pillows and its definitely not worked as well as having my own. I’m so pleased by that decision that I told Ryder he’s not even allowed to look at my pillow.”
An early sign that DZ is going to Quickstep?
http://www.velominati.com/anatomy-of-a-photo/anatomy-of-a-photo-sleepless-in-belgium/
Man, this is shaping up to be an awesome Tour… even if you hate Contador, if he manages to pull this one out he’ll have earned his place at the table.
@Frank
I just noticed that my posts are apparently alternating between showing up as “Troy” or “Leroy”… it’s all the same to me so long as the system knows it’s the same person.
@Collin
phew, that’s a bit of a relief to hear it was spare of the moment thang – one worries when that sort of thing has been choreographed – forgiven in my book, so long as he puts the Hammer away and we don’t have to look at any of his other tools for the next few weeks either
@G’phant
+1 @G’phant for analysis
after extensive searching, I’m disappointed to see nowhere online stocking Leopard Trek duvet and pillow sets