Velominati Super Prestige: La Vuelta a España 2013

The Long Sock Brigade hits the Angliru

Seriously. Is it almost September? This was not the agreement, this was supposed to be an endless summer. And all you A-Holes down there in the Antipodes are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, enjoying longer days and shorter nights. I don’t need to tell you where you can take that, but it’s dark and it smells. I have no patience for the changing of seasons when it means I’m going to be benching Number One and busting out the headlight.

I’m not going to lie to you; the Vuelta is my least-favorite race of the year. Part of it is the parcours-it’s hard enough to get excited about flat sprint stages in the Tour, but these stages in central Spain that go down a straight freeway for hours are just too much for my brain to find interesting. Hey look! There’s another shrub! Wasn’t he a President at one point? There will be some redeeming points of the race, I’m sure, and the shit-steep climbs they dot along the route are certain to be highlights of the season. But after you do the math, this is the grand tour with the weakest field, the worst route, and-most damning-the strongest signal that Summer is coming to an end on the half of the world that matters.

I can’t be bothered to sort out the route and what stages are going to matter, but I’ll tell you this: for the last few years, the winner of the Vuelta VSP has won the VSP GC. A few years back, @Marcus complained that he only lost the VSP because @Nate used the second Rest Day Swaps to his advantage to take the win, but after heavily increasing the penalties, he kept losing. Typical of a man who posts photos of his todger on a Cycling site. (@Nate, your win was clean according to the VCI.) Speaking of which, at worst the Vuelta will distract from Pat McQuaid and his bid for losing the UCI Presidency.

He has a strong lead in the 2013 Anti-V competition, however.

Check the start list, get your picks in, and don’t Delgado this baby; it could be your ticket to the shop apron. Bon chance.

[vsp_results id=”26944″/]

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.

Next The Bro-Set Experience »

Previous « Anatomy of a Photo: Rules Pioneer

View Comments

VeloVita says:

Sep 4 2013 at 7:40 am

I guess race officials are now saying there was an error with the initial time checks and that Cancellara was in fact always up on Martin rather than coming back on the second half of the course.
Collin says:

Sep 4 2013 at 8:04 am

@Buck Rogers It's going to be an interesting road race too. Faboo has been crushing people on the climbs while working for Old Man Horner. I've always like Cancellra, so I like seeing him going really well.
xyxax says:

Sep 4 2013 at 8:43 am

Only Cancellara and martin faster than Pozzitivo today.
Tartan1749 says:

Sep 4 2013 at 9:01 am

@Buck Rogers

Canellara THROWING down the gauntlet! Will be an interesting ITT at the WC!

I think he has lost weight, concentrated on climbing, and I've thought for some time that he's targeting the road race - especially after nearly winning the Olympic Gold last year. Winning a Spring classic in the rainbow bands would be awesome. At the same time, a double is in the back of his mind as well ...
Buck Rogers says:

Sep 4 2013 at 9:07 am

How about FUCK'IN Slammy Dirty Sammy!!! Dude was TENTH on the ITT today. Is that a typo on the cyclingnews site? Wonder how far back he is now overall?

Must be riding himself into form (yeah, right--where's the smile emoticon when you need it)
Buck Rogers says:

Sep 4 2013 at 9:15 am

Ahh, appears Dirty Sanchez is in 15th, still over 4 minuites out of the Top 5. Maybe he'll pull a Roid Landis stage and ride back into it!

And Henao is just under ten minutes out of the Top 5 in 27th. Maybe they can do a mini-Team TT to salvage my picks!
imakecircles says:

Sep 4 2013 at 11:46 am

What a wide open and fun Vuelta so far! 7 lead changes already and 4 strong contenders within a minute. Plus, all the TT's are done and there's plenty of pure climbers within a shout for the climb heavy second half. Valverde looked strong, losing only a little time despite flatting. And Pozzovivo came from nowhere. Was a little surprised and disappointed that the jersey didn't give Horner wings, and I suspect the other GC guys won't give him the leash that he seemed to enjoy early on the subsequent mountain stages.
Nate says:

Sep 4 2013 at 12:29 pm

Wow, somehow I have the red jersey again. Woo hoo!
Bianchi Denti says:

Sep 4 2013 at 2:56 pm

@Barracuda

@Mike_P

I've got to hand it to Horner. In the category of "if it looks unbelievable, it probably is unbelieveable", he's way up there. For me it was probably one of the most suspect stages I've seen since a bandaged Vino hobbled on to his bike and blitzed the Albi TT at the '07 TdF. Just my opinion.

Certainly, if the "Duck" principal should ever apply, its now !

So it's not just me thinking his performance is Cobo-esque.
LA Dave says:

Sep 4 2013 at 6:22 pm

@razmaspaz

Yes. Those of us afflicted with the math gene have just figured out it doesn't pay off. It isn't about honor, of which I have none, it is about the fact that it is too early to try and fine tune a pick for first (better to take my 3 points than risk a likely -2), and the second rest day is just too expensive to make sense. If I were to take Nibbles out of first and put him in second, while swapping in Horner, I would end up with a net loss in points even if I got it right.

Well I was jokingly referring to those who were posting that it was about bravado. I understand that it is statistically not likely to happen, but it has paid off for me on a few of occasions in the past, and when you've got 2 riders who are over an hour down, I'd rather risk the minus 4 points to possibly gain 15.

So far it's worked out for me, as 4 of my riders are in the top 5. Only 2 in the right spots, but one of them is a swap, so at this point I'm up by a whopping 3 points.

Long way to go though, so we'll have to see how the gamble shakes out. I won't be betting any real money on my chances at success however...but at least now I've got 4 dogs in the fight instead of 2.