Velominati Super Prestige: Le Tour de France 2013

Robert Millar leads Greg LeMan on the road to l’Alpe d’Huez in 1984

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″/]

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.

View Comments

  • @ped couple of things I've taken out of that.

    1. He's nearly 10cm taller than me, yet weighs 15 kilos less than me at my lightest weight in 10 years...talk about feeling too fat to climb!

    2. Those FDJ Lapierres look bloody nice, one of the bike shops here had a team bike on display during the TDU, major Carbone!

    3. Is that a new kit for the TDF that he's wearing at the end? If so, nice.

  • @the Engine

    @meursault

    @the Engine It would be brave man who said irrecoveraby yes, but he does have a bike race to prepare for, rather than checking his emails.

    I felt it was a somewhat manufactured story

    They went it to a lot more detail about how & why they were ending their association with him on their own website. It stemmed from a campaign to have GT contenders be more transparent with their performance data during or after races.

    Clarification and update 27th June

    We have been accused by a minority of releasing the above statement simply for PR purposes and that Chris was singled out to release data. Therefore we would like to make some points and clarification on the issue. There are two parts to our statement, we had been attempting to get clarification of Chris' alignment to Bike Pure since Dec 2012 and we also asked if he would be willing to produce data simply because he was our highest profile athlete and potential Tour de France winner.

    1. We received a phone call from Michelle Cound, Chris' girlfriend on Wednesday 26th June. Michelle was clearly disappointed in us releasing a statement and she made it clear that information such as SRM data etc did not belong to Chris but to Team Sky.

    2. As Chris was our highest profile rider, grand tour podium finisher and potential Tour de France winner we felt it necessary to contact him to gain written clarification of his alignment to our organisation. We initially did this in December 2012. The email was sent in html format and was opened shortly after it was received. We received no response.

    3. Chris, as with many other professional cyclists, followed us on Twitter for a number of years. We made several attempts to contact him via direct message asking to confirm what we had asked in December 2012. We sent 3 direct messages between January and April of 2013. We had no response. Shortly after, Chris chose to unfollow us onTwitter.

    4. We felt the correct course of action was to contact his team regarding the issue and completed the contact form on the Team Sky website on two occasions asking for someone to contact us regards the issue. We received an automated reply saying our messages had been received, but we received no direct response from anyone within Team Sky until the call from Fran Millar on Thursday 20th June.

    5. We had waited 6 months for clarification and preferred the matter was resolved before the 2013 Tour de France, therefore we set a deadline of Friday 21st June for clarification. We received a call from Fran Millar at Team Sky on Thursday 20th June stating that we had threatened Chris and that Sky would not be releasing any data simply because other teams refuse to do so either. We simply asked for clarification on Chris' alignment to Bike Pure and stated that a simple statement would resolve the issue. We received none either on the phone or in written email, therefore were left with the difficult decision to remove his bio from our website.

    http://bikepure.org/2013/06/transparency-grand-tour-contenders/

  • @bugleboy21

    TJ Has quietly been honing his grand tour form this year, which he showed a little bit of in California. He is also demonstrated more maturity this year as a team cyclist. I look for him support Good Cadel in the first week and then be named team leader after Bad Cadel shows up on Stage 8.

    The Sky train will be consistent. However, all the teams know their tactics and they've been riding the same team for Froome/Wiggins this year. With all of the mountain opportunities for GC favorites, I expect Sky to eventually crack under the pressure of constant attack. Look for Purito or Clenbutador to ride the Polka Dot's into the twilight of the Champs-Élysées

    With such a deep set of riders, Team Garmin-Sharp will clean up the Team Classification, but won't hold a Yellow Jersey this year. I do expect that they will win a couple of summit finishes with a snappy Dan Martin or my White Jersey pick (by virtue of TJV's Yellow), Andrew Talansky. We will see Farrar in the bunch sprint of all the flat stages, but will not be able to over come Peter Sagan or this year's Green Jersey, Cavendish.

    good points, 'cept Farrar aint in the squad.

  • Please, oh please, oh please...

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Sagan
    2. Evans
    3. Froome
    4. R Hesjedal
    5. Contador

  • @Cyclops

    @frank

    @Mikael Liddy

    Anyone seen the horrid paint schemes that Jens & Andy will be aboard????

    Seriously, WHAT.THE.FUCK?

    http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.539802932751115.1073741861.149819558416123&type=3

    Radiocrack must have momentarily though they were Astana.

    I think they are pretty badass looking (for Treks) but my question is how is the seat mast on the first bike that points to the left levitating an inch or so above the rest of the bike?

    fugly.

  • @strathlubnaig

    @Cyclops

    @frank

    @Mikael Liddy

    Anyone seen the horrid paint schemes that Jens & Andy will be aboard????

     

    Seriously, WHAT.THE.FUCK?

    http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.539802932751115.1073741861.149819558416123&type=3

    Radiocrack must have momentarily though they were Astana.

    I think they are pretty badass looking (for Treks) but my question is how is the seat mast on the first bike that points to the left levitating an inch or so above the rest of the bike?

    fugly.

    Friggin SMURF-MOBIL'S

  • VSP PICKS:

    1. Andy Schleck
    2. Alberto Contador
    3. Tejay Van Garderen
    4. Chris Froome
    5. Ryder Hesjedal

  • After minutes of careful deliberation.....

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Contador
    2. Froome
    3. Teejay van Garderen
    4. Thibault Pinot
    5. Rui Costa

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