Anti-V Moment of the Year: Chaingate
It is a telling sign of the state of our sport that picking the Anit-V moment of the year was a more difficult task than picking the V Ride of the Year. Best ride of the year? Clean, unanimous vote among The Keepers on that one. Low point of the year? Dissention in the ranks as email traffic filled our inboxes to overflowing.
Veino in Liege. Piti continuing to rack up wins even as his suspension was imminent. The defiance of the Spanish Cycling Federation. The UCI’s thinly veiled “fight” against doping, as long as I’m naming governing bodies. The Landis Allegations. The Cavendish/Haussler crash in the Tour de Suisse. The neutralization of Stage 2 of the Tour. The threat of the rider protest prior Stage 3. FedEx’s expulsion for irregular sprinting. Bjarne Riis’ constant complaining about the mass exodus from his team. The Motorcus Myth. Alberto Contador’s positive test for Clenbuterol.
Which brings me to my nomination of the lowest moment of the season: Chaingate. The incident was more than a moment of poor sportsmanship, but marked a new phase in Cycling’s steady departure from the great traditions of our sport. Not to mention that the Grimplette’s chain needs a stern talking to. There is no higher honor for a chain than to get jammed onto the big ring while carrying the Maillot Jaune away from the bunch on its way up some fabled climb in the Tour de France. The fact that it cocked it up is inexcusable. Into the trash heap with you, Chain. But I digress.
There was a time when the sport was headed by great personalities who recognized they were but a chapter of a great epic that spanned generations. They understood that one of the things that distinguish cycling from other sports is the rich history and time-honored traditions; Cycling’s icons – the Great Races, the Cobbles, the Mountains, the Jerseys – are made up of much more than any one athlete and are to be respected as such. Their actions are the mortar between the stones of our sport and form a foundation for later generations. Coppi, Bobet, Merckx, de Vlaeminck, Zoetemelk, Hinault, Fignon – these were riders with personality and strength of character, who understood their place.
Like small fluffy dogs chasing a passing car, Chaingate marked the moment when the top riders of our sport forgot their place in the misguided notion that the time gained at the finish is the stick by which we measure their greatness when in fact it is how they get there: with no one else in the picture.
right on Frank.
Chaingate put the exclamation point on ‘how not to win’ and why winning at all costs is devoid of class and style. It revealed to us a microchasm into Cuntadors soul, saddest part is, would he have won without chaingate?? And if so, why not hold the attack? Or was he that afraid and lacking the V…
I guess I am in the other camp- when you see weakness in your enemy, attack!
Great article Frank.
The last 3 lines!
Chaingates reminds us that there was a time when when the Tour was not just a three week fitness test.
The A.C. Enigma has been dispelled this year. At the writing of that article, the verdict, at least for me, was still out. After Chaingate and Clenbutador he firmly stands with one foot in the CoTHO room.
Nice work frank.
A-Merckx!
When watching it live, this year’s Tour seemed like an engaging drama between two fierce competitors.
Re-watching it over the last few months, I think that places 1-2 were the least interesting to watch.
Stage 16 has been the most inspiring so far. A 10 man breakaway with repeated attacks by different riders up two tough climbs. Even Huevo gets out of his saddle and tries to surge ahead of the breakaway (unsuccessfully). Carlos Barredo attempts a solo 45km time trial to the finish line, an obviously foolhardy move for such a distance ahead of nine strong attackers. But I don’t go to the effort of sitting down on the couch and turning on the television in order to see riders abide by safe calculations!
In contrast, Grimplette repeatedly rolls back to the team car for a few quick ones when he should be attacking on the Tour’s second to last climbing stage.
And then there’s Thor, who stayed with the main peloton up the climbs and sprinted for 10th place, reclaiming the green jersey (Petacchi and Cav were nowhere to be seen).
Stage 16 was thoroughly inspiring and, I think, showed a lot of V from several riders (but not the GC leaders).
Exactly. This misguided judgement of poor ethics on AC’s part is just baloney. Shleck attacked so it was all on – it wasn’t Contadors fault that Shleck fluffed his gear choice, and there’s no way he should have sat around waiting for him while Sanchez and Menchov rode into the distance.
Oh, and Happy New Year! :-)
I’ll just have to distance myself from this one I’m afraid. This was a non-event. Schleck fucked up. A competitor competes, and that’s what AC did. Where do we draw the line? Incidents occur in all sports, and competitors utilise misfortunes or mistakes by their rivals to the full letter. You wouldn’t see Alonso or Vettel et al hitting the brakes when Webber drifts wide in a corner or hits the wall and rips a wheel off the car because HE fucked up. “Oh bad luck old chap, we will all just stop the race because you were leading and we don’t want to seem ‘unsporting’ by taking the lead.” Yeah right.
Cavendouche’s Swiss cheese sprint and subsequent hissing and spitting gets my vote. And Veino winning Liege? Loved it.
Coppi New Year to you all.
You forgot to talk about the NOOB change that made Andy, it was his fault to get the chaingate… As Sastre said.. this seems to be a tour for kids, and old doped glorys
Hear, Hear.
Great read Frank! I agree completely, Clenbutador attacking when Andy’s chain dropped just shows that he knew he didn’t have the V to match the Younger Grimpeur strength to strength.
oh, the yearning for a time of greater character and simplicity…the great personalities of cycling’s past made their mark with the best they could attain at that moment – equipment, technology and sponsorship – and believe that if more and better had been within grasp, they would have garnered it and used it for every advantage. Their real mark and impact upon us has been made in their demeanor since retiring from this great sport. I dearly love and respect the history and tradition of this sport. Recycling nostalgia can be fun and a wonderful way to pass on the history and tradition…but, not at the expense of today’s competitors or chapters in this great epic.
I liked Ryder’s reaction to chaingate. “You draw your sword and you drop it, you die” I trust his reaction as he was in the race and saw it unfold. Like Oli said,
@All
This is exactly why Chaingate is the Anti-V moment.
Personally, I’m with Red Ryder: “If you draw your sword and drop it, you die”. But the way Contador looked right at Grimplette’s chain line, then attacked was pure puss-wad. Was he wrong to attack? No. But it was unseemly. And it had absolutely no class. Especially when he denied even knowing Andy was fucked.
It overshadowed the rest of the Tour, which had some great rides (personal favorite: Sylvain Chavanel taking yellow on a neutralized stage, losing it the next day with punctures,, then getting it back. Fucking awesome!)
Too bad. And now with Clentador surfacing, we have another marred Tour win. Too bad. As Johnny Rotten said, “Do ya ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
Yep.
Shit happens. Sometimes it means you lose the TdF. :'(
Most of the defenses of Conto miss the point being made in this article.
Was it legal to attack when he did? Of course. Completely legal.
Was it within the rules of cycling? Without a doubt.
But did it exhibit sportsmanship? We’re not talking about war or business, but about putting your name in both the history books and the record books.
Imagine the repurcussions if, after Andy dropped his chain and Veino sprinted by, Conto had stopped and helped him reload the chain. Completely unnecessary, but also far exceeding the requirements of sportsmanship.
He would have been cheered at the finish, not booed. He would have evened the clock in the time trial and it would have come down to a LeMan-style sprint on the streets of Paris, which he would have won handily. It would have been one for the ages.
Probably not enough to atone for topping up with a few quarts of nitroglycerine a few days earlier, but nothing could cover for that.
That’s what he (and we) missed out on.
Wow, lots of new names; welcome all. And, of course, Happy New Year to all!
I knew I was opening a can of worms here; like I said in the beginning, we couldn’t even agree on this one amongst a group of writers/enthusiasts who for the most part see pretty eye-to-eye. I think @Geoffrey Grosenbach‘s analysis of what the reverse might have been strikes pretty closely at the heart. There wasn’t anything wrong with what he did per se, it just lacked any class or respect for the sport beyond the very moment in which the events were taking place.
That to me is the definition of class; being able to navigate on a level that transcends the present events. Fault as to the incident misses the point; for me, it’s a question of class, not blame.
@Pablo
Very, very well said, and something that we need to bear in mind as we have a tendency to glorify the past. Point well taken.
@Geoffrey Grosenbach
Classic!
Although this is technically beside the point, it also needs to be said that in my opinion the notion that he “dropped” his chain is insane. You don’t drop your chain going from the small to the big ring; you may overshift, but that wasn’t what happened. The detail shots and video clearly show that what his chain did was much closer to chain suck than a dropped chain. It was a mechanical failure, and the rider was no more at fault than a rider getting a puncture. We generally don’t go around accusing riders of deserving a puncture by claiming they should have avoided the invisible sharp crap in the road when they were going 60kmph.
I’d also be careful taking other riders’ in the Tour’s word as gospel just because they were there. They may in fact know what’s going on, but by and large, they admit freely that they really have no clue what’s going on with other riders during the race; do your job, to the finish, to the massage, dinner, bed, to the start. Not much time for analyzing all the crap that just us idiots care about. Even the commentators like Paul and Phil admit freely that they really don’t have the time to dig into this type of stuff (not that it keeps them from forming opinions like we do.)
One of my all time heroes said, “You haven’t won the race, if in winning the race you have lost the respect of your competitors.” Paul Elvstrom, 4 time olympic gold medalist, plus too many more to mention here. “The honour of winning has been lost in the Benjamins” Hitchhiker, Zero times winner of zero.
Happy New Year all.
Chainsuck could only have happened because he was in the small/small gears – that’s HIS fault and no one elses.
I think many peoples take on the situation is naive, and that even in the mythical days of yore where every rider displayed perfect ethics at every occasion this would have been regarded as a perfect time for Contador to profit. If Contador had stopped to wait he would have been laughed out of the Pantheon of Tour heroes, and would have been extremely unprofessional to boot.
Plus, the race unfolded thus: Shleck attacks-Contador seems glued to the road-Vino chases-Contador jumps at the same time as Shleck starts having problems-Shleck stops to free after Contador has passed. Was AC supposed to ascertain from ahead if it was an ethical etiquette time to go or not?
I ascribe the laying down of these arbitrary guidelines of what is and isn’t acceptable morally (as opposed to in the actual rules) is an odd soap opera way of looking at the sport, and bears little resemblance to the reality of a sport that’s perfectly beautiful without having some silly Sir Galahad bullshit foisted on it.
That doesn’t mean I want to lose the quirky traditions and ethics that help the peloton revolve, I love those aspects as much as anyone. I think that in this situation though people are shoe-horning those things onto a foot that just doesn’t fit.
Quote of the year right there…
It did lack class indeed in my book.
But let’s not quibble at this point; allow me to wish you all une bonne annee 2011!
Great stuff Frank! Love how Cuntador says he had no idea Schleck was having a maechanical when he blew by him…bullshit. That would be like saying Armstrong didn’t see Ullrich go into the ditch on the descent in 2001. Come on…
I couldn’t agree more with you Oli. Schleck is awesome but he screwed up. You do not wait for someone who makes a mistake. A puncture, a crash, you wait if you are going by the unwritten rules with honor. If your adversary fucks up, he’s fair game. And I totally cr bullshit to the claim that it was not Schlecks fault. Come on, really?
As far as the GC contenders were concerned, it all started and ended w/the cobbles stage. Balls to the wall and mechanicals or others be damned. The rest of the race was nothing more than the conservation of energy so that they could try and counter if one of the others even thought of displaying some V. Sit in the slipstream for 3400 out of a 3471 km, eat some spanish beef, and push the attack when your competitor drops his chain is the definition of V isn’t it?
Had Clenbutador slowed they all would have slowed, and even if Menchov didn’t it wouldn’t have mattered, he was still nearly a minute and a half back from Schleck when they reached Paris. Sorta reminds me of the stories from WW2 fighter pilots, you did everything to kill your adversary, but once he was in the silk you didn’t shoot him. Even when the game was a matter of life and death there was a sense of fair play to it. It was an accepted fact that all was fair game for stage 3, not so for the other stages. If this is the precedent that is being set, I say attack on the final stage while the yellow jersey is sipping his traditional champagne. It would be his stupid fault for drinking it.
Any fantasy scenarios you can dream up have zero bearing on this occasion, and even the lame excuses Contador pulled out afterwards don’t. Even if he clearly saw what happened (as he was attacking, not because of which) he still should have gone as he did.
And how do you know the others would have slowed if AC did? How would he have known what they might or might not do at the time, remembering this is all happening on the road so fast it’s even difficult to tell wtf is going on with the hindsight of repeated replays?
It felt a bit odd at the time – it really did – from the a/c’s comfort of my Aeron. But that’s not – I’ll submit – a valid point of view from which to analyse this event. The only valid perspective is that of the participants and that is none of us. Had Contador not attacked, many here would be calling him a pussy to this day. Perhaps, next year, Andy will use the pulleys that come stock with Red to ensure a fair lead and tail for the chain at all times.
who wait for Cadel on yellow and a broken arm ?
who wait for Chavanel on yellow at the cobbles ?
HTFU you all !
Happy New Year to all and great site. I thought it strange that there was so much mystery about what happened to Grimplette’s bike at that moment. I read somewhere many weeks later that Andy had a 38t little ring and a Berner cage and pulleys fitted to his sled which was said resulted in too little chain tension when he was cross chaining like a champ during his attack and sucked it up when he tried to shift to the big ring as he was out of gear on the 38t. Surprised SRAM didn’t get that out there right away to protect their cred but anyway, that kind of stuff smacks of the Vanishing Twin taking a header in the Giro when his ADA cassette body decided to flail on the two pawls remaining becuase Mr 60% thought that was so badass. Way to go Riis….when are you gonna learn Brah?
I’m still not positive where I stand on this incident – good arguments made on both sides and I’m just not sure. Coming up dirty does seal his fate as a COTHO though.
Oh, and claiming he didn’t know he dropped his chain.
What I do hate about the incident is how everyone and their mother heard about it, plus the head butting at the finish…but these same people don’t know about the history, the beauty, the class, The V…That is what really pisses me off about this incident, oh, and the modern news cycle.
Ignore cycling in the U.S., devote all your time to the NBA and NFL, some to MLB…and only report on cycling, lacrosse, or ice hockey when something shitty happens. I don’t really give a fuck what most Americans think about cycling because most Americans don’t really think these days, but it does piss me off when some douche starts prattling on about how dirty all cyclists are, how they cheat, et cetera.
Merckx-y New Year to all V Followers!
who wait for me, tired with sore legs, coughing and blurry eyes?
@Oli Brooke-White
You are missing the entire point.
It is beyond that exact moment. It is the honor, the tradition, the class of this particular sporting spectacle. Say what you will, but history has shown that the others have waited for the yellow jersey in similar situations. In fact precedent dictates that he should have waited. Any other sporting event I would buy your argument. Things change, things evolve, but in my opinion what has set the TDF apart from all similar events is precisely the tradition and ethos we have come to love.
Contador gained a great chance to win at that moment, but he lost the chance to win greatly.
All the debate in the world isn’t going to change the outcome (although the CAS possibly could). If Jeff Gordon misses a shift and falls behind the rest of the NASCAR guys don’t slow down and wait for him. Winning is determined as much by luck as it is strength and talent. Someone’s bad luck is usually someone else’s good luck. That’s just karma.
With respect, my point is that you’re missing the point. I know all about the honour and traditions of cycling, and even though I’m not even close to being a Contador fan I don’t believe he broke those traditions at all. I think your, and those of your ilk, who think he broke the “Unwritten Code” have a fantasy view of what those “rules” are and how they work.
A-Merckx to that post!
@Oli Brooke-White
Spot-fucking-on Oli.
@Oli Brooke-White
A fantasy is not how I would describe it. However, I may be looking on the situation through rose colored lenses. I admit that, however I do not see where I have steered wrong.
What is the difference between a puncture, a crash, or chainsuck? Maybe Buck Rogers could weigh in here as he seems to think there is a difference. I thought the idea was to ride your adversary into the ground based on your physical abilities, not beat him by a stroke of misfortune regardless of the reason for the misfortune. Am I wrong in assuming just because some dumbass can’t shift he shouldn’t be afforded the same respect as the guy with balls bigger than his brains who rides of the road for lack of braking? Have I been misinterpreting the rules of the peloton all this time? The Horror!
@Jay
That is precisely why cycling is not NASCAR. It is precisely that.
As I said in July, ours is a civilized sport, and we are not animals.
The difference, and it’s critical, is that Shleck was attacking. The peloton weren’t riding along together. As soon as a rider (yep, even one in Yellow) throws down all bets are off, and it has always been that way.
If they’d all been riding along together and Shleck’s bad shift had happened then Contador attacked I would say it was breaking the code, but to expect a rider to slow down when he’s already responding hard out to an attack from his main opposition is utterly ludicrous.
This post has it right. It makes me think that the posters affronted by Contador’s temerity in doing exactly what he should are perhaps simply Shleck fanboys, blind to the odd double standards.
Actually, rereading that it sounds terrible and I would edit it if I could. Sorry for making it sound like I was getting personal.
@pakrat, @Oli Brooke-White
Any fan is naturally biased and if the roles were reversed I’m the first to admit that I would feel differently about it – but that doesn’t mean I would be right to feel that way. Being biased is one of the most lovely bits about being a fan. If we think we’re being objective when we talk about bike racing, we should all walk away and go do something else. A lot of it is knowledge, experience, insight – but loads of it is passion, and I, for one, wouldn’t have it any other way.
All that said, I think @Pakrat has it right here with his war analogy. Even in war, when everyone is attacking everyone else, there is a code of conduct. For the Germans fighting on the European fronts, they knew if they were captured by troops on the Western Front (Europe), they would be afforded basic things like food and air. If captured by the Russians, it was a completely different story. It’s also what brought about bits like the Geneva Convention, which defines basic rights that all soldiers have – and there is no special clause for soldiers who were on the attack vs. on the defense.
It’s the basic difference between civility and barbarianism.
@TwiggyTN
I didn’t realize he was using a 38T; very cool nerddata. Love it. Keep it coming.
@Oli Brooke-White
Nonesense. Great conversation, and great points. Wrong, but great. (If I was willing to type emoticons, I would make one of those smiley things, but emoticons are not nearly Rule #5 enough.)
A war analogy? Really? I rest my case…
Sorry, not to sound like an ass, and truly not trying to get personal, but please spare me the war analogies. I have fought with the US Special Forces for one tour in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq, and have been personally shot at and mortored more times than I care to remember. While it sounds all romantic and makes for great analogies from afar, if you have ever “been there and done that” you would not even begin to think that they compare in anyway. And as for being fair in war, some one has been romanticising that as well. As we always would say, “If you ever find yourdelf in a fair fight, you have done something wrong!” And from what I have personally seen of Al Queda, they wholeheartedly agree.
But, like Frank says, GREAT conversation!
I agree with you on this one Frank: Throwing in a NASCAR analogy is almost as bad as posting pictures of FABIO!!! :)