During the 1969 Tour de France, Felice Gimondi and Ray Poulidor were fined for taking a ride from a lorry up the Tourmalet. What about Merkcx? Well, he was towing the lorry.
Its an old joke, but like any good joke, it stays funny no matter how many times you hear it. I bet it’s even funnier if you know what a lorry is. I knew a girl named Lori once – wasn’t funny at all – though she would give a ride to anyone who asked, so I’m assuming that’s the joke.
Merckx decimated the 1969 Tour in a way we haven’t seen in ages. On July 15 of that year, The Prophet started the day with an almost unassailable lead of somewhere around 8 minutes. Not enough, obviously. So it was, then, that his rivals’ tails wagged at the sight of him flustering with his gears near the top of the Tourmalet. A mechanical, obviously, sure to cost him loads of time. In fact, he was just moving Sur La Plaque into my personal favorite gear for climbing – the 53×17. They wouldn’t see him again that day and four hours later, his solo effort would net him another 8 minutes’ lead.
If anyone at this Tour de France wants to beat Bradley Wiggins, they’re going to have to set aside the in-vogue last-mountain attack or start putting a lot more stock in poisn’d entrails, eyes of newt, and wool of bat. Unless their strategic plan involves deliberately crashing the entirety of Team Sky or having them all come down with a synchronized sniffle, they’re going to have to start riding their bikes hard from a lot farther out than the 5km banner.
Stage 11 is the test, even though Stage 10 is also a test and may already prove me right or wrong (it will be one of those, I’m sure of it). But Stage 11 sees the finish to La Toussuire where Floyd Landis cracked and lost a mountain of time before regaining it the next day and subsequently testing positive for beer-induced testosterone. Its not a very steep climb, but its hard enough to suck if you blow up. It won’t be hard enough to drop an in-form Wiggins, so Nibali and/or Evans will have to hit the road a lot sooner than the last climb if they’re going to start making inroads. And if my boy Fränkie Schleck wants a chance at the win, he should probably start the stage today.
It’s time to ride with the breath of a cannibal.
You know the drill: get your picks in by the time the countdown clock goes to zero for a chance to win a pair of fizik R3 road shoes and two pair of DeFeet socks.
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Yellow tape, eh? So maybe all of Wiggins's bad fashion & hair choices have been a set-up in order to make the tape look a little less ugly?
I like the added blue to the Leaky kit.
@Steampunk Ouch, low blow Steamy!
@Steampunk
@Steampunk Thanks for the heads-up. Just watched it. Not sure why but I always root for Nic Roche. Must be the French in me (not b/c he is half French but b/c he always comes up short).
Looking at the way we're distributing prizes has made the obvious more obvious that we shouldn't give all the prizes to first place but spread them out.
Since we already promised the shoes and socks to first place, we'll stick to that but I'm also going to chuck in a V-Shirt as a prize to @huwge for getting second. It's not a pair of shoes, but it will have to do.
For the next Stage VSP, the shoes will go to first place, the socks to second place, and V-Shirt to third.
We'll also redistribute the prizes on the main Tour VSP.
Cheers.
@frank Excellent idea. Any prizes for the Flamme Rouge? I was TDY and completely spaced the original entry...
@Buck Rogers
Not sure how they can stretch Nico's GC hopes to 2:28. It takes less than 5 seconds to say "I'm actually just an over-rated and over-paid journeyman".
@Bianchi Denti Nice! You know it is sad when you really get excited for one of your favorite riders to hopefully finish in the top ten with no hope whatsoever that they'll be top five, to say nothing about the podium!
@Bianchi Denti & @Buck Rogers:
I used to like Roche, too, but then made the mistake of reading his autobiography. It wasn't very good, and I didn't come away feeling more sympathetic toward him (quite the opposite, in fact). And then I got to wondering why he needed an autobiography anyway. Some thought about what it's like growing up the son of a campionissimo and what it's like to be racing in that shadow might have been interesting, but no such luck. None of that. Just a blow by blow account of his career.
To get to 2:28, we could have brought in Farrar to talk about his GC prospects, too. And, maybe the entire Rabobank squad.
Oh well. I wonder who else I should doom to be pack fodder next by picking them for the VSP.
@frank
Good thinking @Frank.
Maybe there should be a random prize as well for, oh say, 22nd?