Velominati Super Prestige: Paris-Tours 2014

Ramunas “Honey Badger” Navardauskas is a contender. photo by Team Garmin-Sharp

Attention, this is the final event on the Men’s VSP calendar for 2014. There is one more Women’s event to come. We may already have a winner of this years over-all but the rest of the podium could be up for grabs. @il muro di manayunk has broken away and I’m not sure @steampunk is going to chase him down. Has everyone noticed how @xyxax is always up there, every year? His mojo is also good this year.

Paris-Tours is billed as a sprinter’s classic but recent wins by Phil Gil and Greg Van Avermaet let one know it can be won by a tough one day rider too. It’s long, 237 km but relatively flat. And it’s not the Tour of Beijing, is that a reward or punishment to miss Paris-Tours and fly to China for a few days?

Who still has any form in October? What non-climber finished well last weekend? There are a lot of dark horses in this start list but only the masseurs have a clue who is going to climb into the team car at the first feed and who is not. Is this finally when Heinrich Haussler pulls the trigger and wins something again? No, probably not.

All right VSP players, one more chance for Men’s Elite glory here. Pray to your god and don’t delgado. Good luck.

[vsp_results id=”31269″/]

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

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  • @il muro di manayunk

    @il muro di manayunk

    @Steampunk

    Lay off Philthydelphia. Monk's Café is one of the finest Belgian beer establishments I've visited. That's got to be worth at least 10 points for @il muro di manayunk to make up for the deficit. I'm loath to add that my last port of call in the US before returning to the Motherland was Philly. But once you convert the VSP points to metric, I'm still way out in front no matter how many points you want to knock off...

    Oh yes, any Philaskeptics should stop by Monk's or its offspring The Belgian Cafe if they find themselves in town for some reason. Also, Eulogy Tavern is pretty damn great too.

    I love Philly actually.  Agreed about Monk's and Eulogy.  I'm also partial to The Dark Horse on 2nd and Lombard.  I think the food/drink culture in that city is phenomenal - Amada and Zahav are a couple of my favorites.  As far as bike shops go, Cadence is a lot of fun to browse and my #1 was made by Drew Guldalian of Engin Cycles/Wissahickon Cyclery in Chestnut Hill.  The riding around Philly is pretty good as well.  My derogatory comments were entirely tongue in cheek.

  • @xyxax

    @frank

    yes, thanks, I could use the bonus points about now. My recruitment campaign slogan -

    "Ebola Fever-Catch It!"

    hasn't been very popular with the millenials and so now updating my resumé.

    I read The Hot Zone in high school and then watched Outbreak. Been more or less obsessed with this disease ever since...would prefer to keep it at a more comfortable distance however, as in on another continent.

  • @Steampunk

    @VeloVita, @Rob, & @xyxax:

    Philly, Speedplays, and Ebola are three of my favourite things.

    Steamy, this raises the question, if an Ebola carrier  spits at -30c is he still contagious? I hear winter started up north... down here we're going to have it spreading like butter on a hot skillet.

  • would prefer to keep it at a more comfortable distance however, as in on another continent.

    @frank

    Hey now Texas is just a whole other country

  • @Rob

    I can't comment on contagion rates at those temps, but the Speedplays might allow for greater phlegm float.

    Strange spike in the weather today"”windy but ~20-25c. Cleared the deck of morning responsibilities and got out for a couple of hours. Rides bookended by espressi: pas mal!

  • @Nate

    would prefer to keep it at a more comfortable distance however, as in on another continent.

    @frank

    Hey now Texas is just a whole other country

    Fuck YES!  Lived in San Antonio for one year and while some might like it (Pharmy) I could not leave soon enough!  Austin was actually pretty cool but DAMN I am NOT a Texan (and the Texans were probably just as happy to see my ass move as I was!).

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