Velominati Super Prestige: Le Tour de France 2013
The early eighties saw the tide change in the European Peloton. Components were taking on a new, curvy shape as they left their boxy forms behind. The glint of toe clips in the sun would become a rarer sight as the move towards clipless pedals would take hold in 1985. English speakers were winning the big races classically won by continental Pros.
The 1984 Tour could be my favorite edition of the race. In 1983, the rookie Laurent Fignon had won in the absence of Le Patron, Bernard Hinault. The 1984 race saw the two go head-to-head, with Fignon becoming the one and only person in history to have laughed at Hinault and lived. He did more than live, he won. The new guard was here, and they were making their presence known.
This photo is from the stage to l’Alpe d’Huez. LeMond was riding in support of Fignon, and Robert Millar, in his second Tour, was leading the King of the Mountains competition, which he would eventually win. Millar wrote an account of this stage in Issue 13 of Rouleur, which everyone should make an effort to find a copy of. He describes the attacks that come fast and furious on the penultimate climb in such vivid detail, it makes my guns ache. But worse than that is his and LeMonds effort to hold on to Fignon and Hinault’s wheels in the ride through the valley to Le Bourg d’Oisans and the base of the final climb. It is the perfect description of the suffering of the Cyclist. LeMond, in service to his leader, is on the front one moment as he reels Hinault in after an attack, before being cast into the gutter and the back wheel a moment later when the next attack comes.
Just as 1984 was a watershed moment in the Pro peloton, 2013 is a watershed year for the VSP. This year we are offering five amazing prizes from five amazing partners.
Prizes
First prize is a Veloforma Strada iR road frame, painted in an exclusive Velominati color scheme with the newly-designed Velominati Super Prestige logo. Please note that this is a brand-spankin’ new frame for Veloforma. The geometry can be reviewed here.
Second prize is a pair of Café Roubaix carbon tubular wheels. The winner of this prize will be given the choice between the sub-1000g Haleakala wheels or a road version of my beloved Arenberg wheelset. As an additional incentive, anyone who enters their picks in the Tour VSP will get a $200 discount on any wheelset at Café Roubaix.
Third prize is a pair of Bont cycling shoes. The winner of this prize will be assisted in selecting the size, color, and model of shoe.
Fourth prize is a Flandrian Best kit from DeFeet consisting of a wool U-D-Shirt, Arm Skins, Kneekers, Slipstreams, and a pair of V-Socks.
Fifth prize is a wool jersey from our Keepers Tour tour partners, Pavé Cycling Classics.
Many thanks to each of our sponsors for providing such exciting prizes.
Rules
Enter your picks for the top five riders on G.C. by the time the countdown clock goes to zero; Grand Tour scoring rules apply. Check the mapping of your picks by the end of Stage 1 and use the dispute system should it be mapped incorrectly.
We will be enforcing Piti Principle rules much more closely. We will be accepting pick disputes through the start of Stage 2. After that, it will be at The Keepers’ discretion as to whether or not we allow the dispute. If your pick is ambiguous and we map them to the wrong rider, make sure you check your disputes before the deadline; we may reject the dispute after that time. For example, should both Tony and Dan Martin take the start and you enter “Martin” as your pick, we will pick one for you and you will have to live with it if you forget to dispute it before the deadline.
Good luck, and Merckxspeed.
Update: This is the same paint scheme that the winner will have, except the VSP Winner’s Badge will be replacing the V-Lion.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Veloforma/”/]
[vsp_results id=”24179″/]
@Mikael Liddy
I think its a little strong to include Rogers in the “ex doper clean out” list.
@geoffrey well he was one of the identified riders in the reasoned decision affidavits last year & then despite being road captain through a ridiculously successful stage racing campaign all year his contract wasn’t extended…
@ChrisO
Nice.
I think Cav definitely remembered when HTC blew a stage apart in the crosswind a few Tours back.
@Cyclops
Just goes to show that even on flat, “easy” stages you have to pay attention. Cav’s no dummy. Admittedly Malmerde was unlucky with a puncture, but from what I’ve gleaned from coverage so far, he bollixed up the bike change. I’m no COTHO fan, but he did pay attention at all times and took opportunities when they arose.
I’ve got Quintana in my top 5, but I didn’t have Contador…
@razmaspaz
I had Quintana, and you missed Rodriguez, who’s in 10th (Martin is 11th), so that’s two I had (along with Contador and Froome), but I picked Contador to win it, so I’ll be needing another couple of days like today. I doubt it counts for much, but I was sorely tempted to put Fuglsang in””he would have been my sixth or seventh, and it’s nice to see him going well, even with a much diminished team for support.
Sadly, I don’t see Movistar pushing the envelope in the mountains anymore, which is a shame for me, since Valverde is the first casualty from my top five. That might turn out to be a huge boon to Froome (or Valverde will make up good time if nobody follows him) if he suffers less pressure. But maybe Belkin are waking up. If I’m Bjarne Riis, though, I’m very pleased with today.
@Steampunk
Huh, guess I have J-Rod as well then. I didn’t realize that he was in 10th. thought he was further back. Goooooo J-ROD!!! (needs to climb to 3rd place for me to be right, not too likely!)
Sounds like a cracker of a stage. Eff’d up my VSP, but these sorts of things always happen to Piti in the Tour.
@Steampunk
Right you are, I pulled that from the CN live feed, must have changed after the provisionals.
It’s alright, I think Saxo has enough in Kreuziger that he may be able to soften up Froome for Contador, and we might yet see some glimpses of Contador’s 2011 Giro antics. Also Quintana has shown he is capable of outriding Froome, so he may yet be a factor when things tilt up.
It is going to be a fun final week.
@Mikael Liddy
Want. Looked for it in Smiths today, but didn’t have it, also sold out of The Rules.
You have to wonder where the Movistar team car was. If I remember rightly, the order of team cars is based on the GC classification. Movistar would have been near the front of the team car convoy as Malmerde was 2nd on GC. On a day with high crosswinds you’d have thunk they’d be extra vigilant. Apparently not and we now know the result. Again Bruyneel and COTHO were nasty pieces of work, but they raced and directed smart.
@meursault
Now THAT is cool and a sure sign that all is right with the Universe!
Malmerde, indeed! It’s like that swap cost me double…
@Spun Up
Haha, me too!
@Mikael Liddy
Rogers was mentioned as working with Ferrari which could mean doping, but not necessarily. He said that he left Sky because he got a better deal with Saxo-TInkoff after he signed the Sky “never doped” stat dec. His decision. I will concede he is suspect, but for now he gets my benefit of the doubt.
@razmaspaz
No go brave…I have cadel…he ain’t finished with this tour yet!
@motor city How was the cricket? Even if the Aussies and England were going toe to toe and swinging bats at each other with naked dancing girls at the crease when they stopped for tea it would not have been close to stage 13. Snoozy? Aye right!
Has someone at Quick Step been reading the Rules? Looks like their boys are wearing REAL caps after a stage and not those hideous podium caps that have been de rigeur for a while now. Maybe the real cap is making a comeback!
@wiscot This is to be encouraged!
@JohnB
Ha! No idea, I followed the stage at work on Red Kite Prayer all day. I only saw the cricket score a few hours ago.
@wiscot
The Movistar team car was with the rest of the team cars, behind the second echelon where the race referees kept them to prevent the possibility of the second echelon of using the convoy to bridge up.
Valverde got quite a quick wheel change from neutral service apparently, and at one point was only 25 seconds behind the front group but Belkin and OPQS were driving it HARD!
Is there a single rouleur or passista on Movistar? Is there even a Spanish term for that sort of hardman, other than “Flecha”? You have got to have 1-2 of those guys on a GC team. Dunno if they could have helped Piti today, but as they say, luck is the residue of design and those dudes, though unheralded by the masses, are very important.
Brilliant stage… even on DVR delay. Appears AC has learned some lessons from the past. That was no peddle in the park and to the best of my recollection the most on the edge of your seat sprint stage in years. The stage to Alpe d’Huez just got a bit more interesting.
Did Froome do enough to convince everyone of his clean race state, or is he sandbagging ala Porte?
@wiscot
Absolutely. Chapeau to Cav and Martin for proper cap choice.
@motor city Phew!
Just watching it properly now and can’t believe how quickly OPQS blew things apart. Stunning.
Great to see Cav’s team following Cannondales lead from Stage 7.
It almost seemed like the let Kittel get within yards before putting the hammer down again.
@wiscot
It helps when you have guys like Holm & Bugno giving lessons…
Hey @Buck Rogers, havin a good time yet? Great stuff, tactics, efforts, and not a truckload but an aircraft carrier of V!! The Mighty Douche said he produced more watts catching the echelon than the final sprint, LTD had an average 480 watts over 3:40, 47kmh avg with a top speed of nearly 90kmh, Michael Rogers said it was the hardest day of the tour so far, smashed ’em bro.
What an awesome stage, that’s how to make a flat stage exciting. Bertie is a true racer, game on!
Fair to say Ashes footage of Michael Vaughan calling Broad a cheat is being played about every 3 minutes here in Australia!
@piwakawaka I saw his stats, but there’s something not right there – not with him, with the data.
According to Strava his 60 min effort was 610 Watts. So by definition that’s his Functional Threshold Power.
Assuming his weight, generously, is 70kg that’s close to 9W/kg which is humanly impossible. People are talking about 6.3W/kg as suspicious. He would not only win the TDF if he could output that power, he would take every stage.
@starclimber
Don’t forget Andy Schleck. He’s a horrible time trial away from being in the top 5. Might he try something spectacular in the Alps.
@all
With the greatest respect to the rest of you knuckleheads, I’m getting really, really fucking bored reading the constant stream of doping suspicions based on innuendo or plain dislike of a particular rider, his team or nationality. Beyond that, I understand that various of you don’t like Valverde, and fair enough too based on his past actions. Lots of schaudenfreude going on, i guess. Public floggings next?
@ChrisO absolutely have to take a pinch of “Strava Salt” with the accuracy, but it’s the same for everyone, I like following him he named his upload – “thanks to all my team mates” , brilliant Tour so far for both the Belkin Boys.
This is LTD training on Ventoux in May, will be interesting to see his race numbers in comparison.
http://app.strava.com/activities/51906822
He didn’t ride , sorry , race 220km first!
But they called I a rest day.
@ChrisO
I just looked at the file and it says Power is estimated, not real data. Seems like Strava (which is usually in the ballpark for me) has some estimation problems at the extremes. Maybe the fact that he was in a peloton isn’t taken into account? Anyway, cool to see real info from the Tour and Ten Dam seems like a cool guy judging by his ride titles.
Plenty of talk in this community on this topic, time for action.
https://www.change.org/petitions/aso-amaury-sports-organization-allow-female-professional-cycling-teams-to-race-the-tour-de-france#share
and yes I did.
I think yesterday’s stage and the reactions to it show a lot about how different racing is compared to the past. Everyone is shocked that a GC contender would put in such a risky move instead of a largely more defensive riding into the mountains. The climbs seem to be the only place anything happens, because you can’t really follow numbers but have to think and pace much differently. All the other teams were saying things along the lines of “We weren’t expecting it.” Well jeez, something unexpected in a race? Better just pull out, already planned the whole Tour and that just messes it up. Apparently this was a spur of the moment decision by Saxo, without having the DS feed them their parts. Combined with Contador’s solo last year in the Vuelta it shows a really complacent mindset within the peloton. “How could this succeed? Just let it go.” Seems like tactics have taken a backseat to numbers in many respects.
@DerHoggz
I agree with everything you’ve just said.
my sense is that the drug years effectively strangled the racing in the tour for the past 10 years. Everyone’s expectations changed to believe that the only place to make time was in the mountains. The most exciting thing about yesterday’s stage was how that paradigm was shattered.
Full marks to Bertie and Michael Rogers for ballsy tactically astute racing for GC and double full marks for Belkin for driving the echelon with OPQS and triple full marks for Terpstra, and Chava for a tactical master class to set up Cavendish for the sprint.
Also, just watched the highlights of the last 5kms. There was a great moment where two Belkin riders in the second echelon shared a fist bump In the last 2km.
I can imagine the satisfaction they would have felt about really fucking putting the hurt on everyone for the past two hours aside from realising the huge gains for their GC guys.
This is shaping up to be a fucking ace weekend for me:
Today – BBQ / Drinks / Tour Stage / Drinks / The Rolling Stones live in Hyde Park / Drinks
Tomorrow – Hangover / Sofa / Ventoux on Bastille Day (Drinks)
@mouse
That was pure awesome. Even with the loss of Valverde as a contandor, that was an awesome stage!
“Second prize is a pair of Café Roubaix carbon tubular wheels. The winner of this prize will be given the choice between the sub-1000g Haleakala wheels or a road version of my beloved Arenberg wheelset. As an additional incentive, anyone who enters their picks in the Tour VSP will get a $200 discount on any wheelset at Café Roubaix.”
We have also been running a Tour long special on BH Bikes & Santini accessories with daily specials based on the daily stage winner’s sponsors – the ones we stock of course. Can be followed on our FB page. This week has been a mad house in the shop (yes!) with a gran fondo going this weekend, a stage race up the road in Canmore, and a few of those ruined bike rides (Rule 42) going on too. A big shout out to the many V from around the world that follow our little enterprise through FB and here!
Ventoux!
@Dan_R so that discount, would it even cover the postage out here to Aus?
It may not have been an epic stage but seeing Jens being shelled from the breakaway was pretty unusual.
Ha, motor city, I was just walking my dog at the park and thought, “Well, I don’t have a fucking thing happening this weekend. Oh wait…double Ventoux tomorrow!” Enjoy your weekend, sounds like a great one.
I can’t be the only one who thought, “Who the hell is Matteo Trentin?” at the finish today. That was an exciting one as well, thought Simon was going to make it stick.
And speaking about music, I pulled out all my Genesis records. Goddamn, Phil or Peter at the front, talk about some really cool albums with a variety of sounds. Love “rediscovering” albums from my own collection.
@Mikael Liddy
That’s the rub isn’t it? The damn shipping from Canada to outside N.America is brutal. BUT, since I have not been able to get a shipping company to come down in price, I can go with Canada Post Priority International to Australia. I make more wheel sales via email and messaging than on the store website – I like it because I get better interaction with people (click to buy is so impersonal). So, while $200 won’t cover the shipping, I am willing to work out an additional deal for overseas (and the Great Lakes do not count) customers. So if you are interested, shoot me an email and I can give you a quote to include post to Aus.
@Dan_R it’s just gone tax time here in Aus so depending on how kind the tax man is we might talk…
Awesome finale! I was really rooting for that little French squirt.
@frank Yeah, and not just because I sell BH too! That guy was leaving on the road!
@Mikael Liddy Sure thing, I am always here. Well you know what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=THA59sKBkF0#at=72
Tommy V made me laugh
@RedRanger
Love the Voeckler.
@RedRanger Wow! Well done! Tommy V was perfect but just needed a face close up with grimacing! And he needed to fall on the Farrar and then say, “You just do not do that, man.”