Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2012, Stage 16
Which bold rider has this stage circled in their tour bible? Wednesday July 18th, Stage 16, 197 km. The day after a the final rest day. A climbing day with two HC climbs followed by two Category 1 climbs and a serious descent toward the finish. The Aubisque, Tourmalet, Aspin and Peyresourde: you better be a fearless climber and a good descender, but a better climber. This is not a stage for Sagan or Fränkie Schleck (sorry Frank). If Wiggo was going to have a bad day, this would be a special one to have it on. And this follows a rest day? Could the weather finally make a difference? Will the mad tacker return? Will climbers just try to survive this stage to perform on the fearsome Stage 17? More questions than answers in the Velominati Super-Bunker.
All VSP bettors better give an extra shake of the monkey bones before casting them down. Study them well. There is much at stake: Fizik R3s for the winner, 2 pair of DeFeet socks for first loser. The rules are the same as for the first single stage VSP. Points are awarded for correct place only. Delgado might have enjoyed this stage but don’t be like him.
@Dr C How did the marathon beer-and-protein-a-thon go. Were the kids still there when you emerged? Have you emerged?
28.20 minutes for the TT and apparently all bar one of those was in HR Zone 5 whatever that means. Had a lovely head wind on the way back. Could be addictive.
Thanks all. I love the fact Tommy gives us something. Tries his guts out and is genuinely passionate about what happens. The rest of them provided a bit of a snooze fest last night if I’m honest. Nibbles had a bit of a go, Jens tried to kill his bike and Chris A came second in the Ministry of Silly Faces comp.
Thanks very much to the Keepers, you mob are brilliant.
@Daccordi Rider Dang, I gots me a jersey!
@brett
Shoulda listened to myself and gone to bed. What a yawnfest. Worst. Tour. Ever.
But T5 is a little legend, to take that much ecstasy and still be able to gurn his way to the win was awesome.
@brett thats why the Giro is better, that was fun to watch.
@Daccordi Rider
Dude, you gots you some shoes!
@brett
I told you, months ago, but Noooooo, the tour’s better than the Giro.
$11.90.
@Chris
what a glorious day – did you get some inspiration for your guns from Wiggo?
Kids have trashed the house
@Erik
Yes, of course I meant Cuddles – failure between brain and fingers… Must admit I didn’t think his form on the run up to Le Tour looked like he’d defend successfully, but I didn’t think he’d end up that far off the pace.
@brett
Bitchin! I’m thinking Red, to go with my tyres and Bartape! And everyones got White.
@Dr C Don’t know what happened really. Legs felt weak and useless until the last quarter. I’ve ridden the course a bunch of times but always as part of a longer ride trading pulls with my sensei and I don’t think I’ve ever done such a short ride so judging my speed was tricky. The HR suggests I got it about right but I’ve a nagging sense that I could have gone harder. What’s the bets I go pop just after the halfway point next time as I try too hard?
“Kids have trashed the house” so when the wife got home the TV room was spotless and you hadn’t scorched the wall outside and set the curtain alight when you pulled the BBQ up to the window?
@frank
Ah, ok. Pigeon on its way.
@Marcus
Why the fuck not? Firstly, it’d be bloody boring if everyone had the same opinion on what made enjoyable racing.
Secondly, yes Wiggo & UK Postal have ridden a tactically perfect race, as soon as he took his lead in the first TT the GC has been finished in terms of competition and, while that may be brilliant for his fans, his team & his sponsors, for fans of the sport in general or other GC riders it makes for a fucking boring race.
The stages have been fantastic watching the French rennaissance but between the lack of mountain top finishes & the storm troopers (continuing Millar’s ‘Death Star’ metaphor for the Sky bus) running a prohibitively high pace up each significant mountain, this has been nearly as boring a GC comp as last year’s Giro.
@frank
Hang on!
Isn’t it a 116 way tie for third?
@Mikael Liddy
You misunderstand my point – I am not saying it has not been a less than exciting edition of the race. God knows I have whinged about the boring parcours. I am having a go at the critics of Sky and Wiggins. They are racing exactly as they should. TO WIN. And they have done executed perfectly.
The people who criticise Wiggins for “following wheels” only betray their ignorance of cycling. And it is exactly how Cadel or any other “TT diesel” would have raced if they had the form and the team. COTHO was a little more exciting as he was able to deliver a “double death blow” by launching off the front of the first mountain stage – but go watch replays of Indurain. Its how to win a Tour unless you are a mad climber.
Criticise the “race’ for not being as close as past years (which in recent times have been historically way closer than usual) but dont have a go at the racer who is using his resources perfectly by conserving whenever he can. That is what cycling is all about.
Incidentally, I watched some of the mountain stages from the 2003 Tour earlier this week. An amazing contrast – Lance, Jan, Iban and Vino look sooooo different to today’s riders – in speed, size, acceleration, etc etc.
@Daccordi Rider
Well done. Bold choice. I went with Rolland when I should have gone with TV. I’ve come around to Voeckler. I actually loved his meltdown last year, dashing his bottle to the road and cursing and bitching. It was a real display of emotion: frustration and disappointment all out there on the road.
Regarding your sweet new Fizik R3 Aristocrats. There is a lot of different information on how big they run compared to other shoes. Personally I would say they maybe run a half size large compared to Specialized and Carnac. This site helped us some. Look for the “show me how it fits” bar.
@Daccordi Rider head out to Road Rage Cycles in St Peters, they stock the Aristocrats so you get a proper size up before pulling the trigger.
@harminator
We all have to share the same shirt, mail it around each week to a new wearer.
Sisterhood of the Traveling V-Shirt. Brilliant!
@Mikael Liddy Thanks mate, will head over. You will soon recognize me by my awesome red footwear! Brilliant day today, also heading off for 10 days holiday, Margaret River and Broome!
A tweet from Science in Sport had Wiggins/Froome/Nibali climbing for 24:28 at 1,680 m/hour. Compare that to the numbers above – or Vaughters own admission of his 6.9 up Ventoux when he broke the record – and it points to not a clean Tour – but at least a cleaner one…
Imagine if Cuddles had his jour sans a few years back. He mighta missed the time cut!
@Marcus yeah that’s fair enough, I think the biggest complaint comparing Wiggo this year to Cadel last year is that the Cadelephant was on the front foot from stage 1 chasing stage wins & time where he could, whereas Wiggo, despite racing in a similar way in some of his wins earlier this year, has seemed much more canservative.
The Indurain comparison is apt, cos I’m pretty sure there weren’t too many tears shed when he didn’t win in ’96…
@Daccordi Rider
Sensational, enjoy Margaret River. If you can swing it, give Moss Wood a call to see if they can give you a tour & tasting. The VMH & I did it a few years back & got taken around by the head winemaker before tasting an awesome selection of their back catalogue down in their cellar.
@mcsqueak
I don’t think I’m entirely opposed to this, although I don’t really see the benefit? I could take a picture for all of you I suppose? Any suggestions, fish on my head?
@Marko
Wow. This is the greatest day of my life. A prize of my favourite socks for 1 point!
To think that I was watching the stage with @Rigid and @Brett from 11pm to 3:30am kiwi time, and ended by swearing at the TV because I forgot I’d picked Nice Brice.
Thanks to DeFeet for their generosity.
I like Tommy Voeckler a lot, and I like his enthusiasm when he wins. I don’t find it melodramatic. Too bad I had him a few places back, today, but I did have him gunning for a stage win in my pick “commentary”. And KOM too!
He is one of my top two favorite Frenchmen. Marshall Foch’s quote, “Situation excellent, I shall attack!”, fits Tommy V very well today. He attacked and rarely looked back.
@Marcus
Actually, it’s about entertainment value, that’s why there are sponsors, that’s why there are fans. But more to your point, he has ridden the perfect race and even closed the gaps when he needed to. It’s a respectable win for sure, but low on entertainment value as far as nail-biting goes.
I’m sorry you’re upset Bad Cadel reappeared. You too, @brett.
@frank
He can’t help it, he’s English, he was born second. Being in the front is an unnatural state.
@frank
I couldn’t care less if Cadel won or not, but I like to see some exciting racing, or at least not knowing the result two weeks from Paris.
I still can’t get my head around Porte and fucking Rogers being able to climb like that. Not right.
@brett
If it’s a slower, cleaner race, surely the naturally talented bike riders are going to emerge? Not that the rest of the peloton are slouches, but Porte’s had a star over his head for a while, and Rogers? No question about his pedigree. Seems like an odd target to pick when half the Astana team have been done at least once for actually cheating
http://www.cyclinginquisition.com/2012/06/victories-disappointments-and-how-epo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_cycling
@harminator
No, the VSP ties are broken by the bold; the first to post an equivalent score gets the win. Whereas y’all dilly dallied about how to suck, @DerHogwash js trumped right with sucking and it won him the shirt. Lesson learned, though, next round, if there’s a prize on offer, you have to score at least a point to win it.
@Marcus
You don’t undertsand the sport then “” entirely. Today it was about using the biggest effort the entire time. I planned to go off the front with The V Meter and not look back. Big effrort works whenevr possible. But that was just today and you are expressing the tactic of surviving the overall stages. My point is, “not at at all times” and usually the effort is “never little” if at all possible.
@versio
Not quite sure what you are trying to get at with your unique turn of phrase – but if you are somehow trying to talk about your own racing, then I am sorry for conveying the impression that I could somehow give a fuck about that.
I guess I could have extended my sentence to read “using as little effort as possible at all times – to achieve one’s goals” – but I thought that was pretty clear. Perhaps I overestimated some people’s skill in making inferences.
@Marcus
The sentence sucks to start with and in turn you are sucking with it. Sorry for you.
@frank
I didnt hold out much hope for Cuddles, but he definitely did swing towards his bad side. I liked the way he got back on (with help) after being dropped for the first time, but was none too impressed that immediately afterwards he started talking about his upset tummy.
That was classic Bad Cadel stuff. He should be less honest at times like that.
Am glad he at least lost that first bit of time last week by throwing his nuts into the wind. He will live to fight another day – but not too many more. Reckon the way he has been going, he might at least animate some of the Olympic Road Race.
Look forward to soon transferring my fixation onto Porte, the Meyer Brothers and Jacky Bobby.
As for your comment on entertainment, yes it is very important – but that responsibility falls pretty heavily on designers of the parcours, rather than the participants. Their responsibility is to race to win.
@brett
Richie can climb, don’t forget he wore pink & won the best young rider at the 2010 Giro.
What I wanna know is since when can EBH lead a pack over a couple of HC climbs?
@frankany chance you can some kind of translation coding for @versio‘s posts? That way it might be easier to work out what he’s on about when he’s disagreeing with people. At least @Marcus keeps things reasonably straight forward (as long as he steers clear of the latin).
@Mikael Liddy well done me…slag someone off for making no sense while composing a sentence of pure gibberish. That should have read ‘@Frank any chance you can write some kind of translation coding for @Versio’s posts?’
@Marcus
Versio is obviously little Tommy V. (The cunning linguist)
@brett
yeah, that’s why it took you three weeks and two new apartments to clear the stench you left after he won last year.
@Mikael Liddy
I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages myself. My nearest guess is that, since he’s American, he takes his posts and runs them through Google Translate as Jinastubarniarian and then back to English. It’s the only explanation.
@Harminator
I don’t think you should compare @versio with Tommy V. Tommy is not as nearly effervescent or eloquent.
@frank
As I recall – Brett is an Anti-Cadelite from way back. In fact, funnily enough, his legendary post of Sep 13 2009, “There’s a couple of Roos loose in the Top paddock…” just appeared below in my random articles.
Tommy V seems to be a darn good team player.
Pierre Rolland (Europcar) gets a push from Thomas Voeckler after flatting during stage 14 of the Tour de France
@Marcus
That’s right. And “Guilt By Association”. but the patriotic lil’ koont stepped right in line when he finally made good. And who can blame him? It was a great win.
Just poking fun for fun’s sake.
@RedRanger
Makes me regret even more that I picked him 5th in the 16 Stage.
@minion
I’m not questioning their pedigree, but when has Fuckin Rogers ever ridden like that in the mountains? He’s a dodgy fucker, remember when Millar got done and Fuckin Rogers inherited the TT World title? Wouldn’t you think he’d be a bit pissed that a doper took his moment of glory from him? Not a peep.
And when did we ever see an ‘Astana Train’?
@Marcus
I’ve followed Cadel’s career from a barely-teen who was kicking ass on the mtb. I tipped him to win the Tour before he won the mtb World Cup for the first time. I screamed my lungs out supporting him when he rode the junior Worlds in 95 in Germany, and yes I criticised him when he was acting like a twat. I’m no anti-Cadelite or a fanboy, but I respect his magnificent career and was sad to see him suffer like that last night.
@brett
What, a rider schooled in the T-Mobile brand of preparation? He was probably doing fucking cartwheels that he wasn’t caught!
@Chris
sounds like you should go Tommy V, ride with out the gadgets, and rely on your V-meter next time?
@Chris
yep, standard scenario
@Mikael Liddy
Surely the fact they are so far down on GC shows how the sky lead outs buried themselves to a predesigned plan and then blew up – it is not as if they rode with Wiggo and Froome to the finish line….
Maybe we can blame Wiggo and Froome for making the tour boring, as neither of them have cracked under attack – that said, as a fan, waiting for them not to be able o respond has been pretty anxiety provoking – WIggo looked completed shagged at interview last night
@Dr C yeah that’s probably fair enough, the other thing is that the pack’s pace over the first two climbs last night was nothing to write home about, when they’re only just putting Stuey in trouble 3/4 up the second one you know things have been gentle.
I don’t think it’s their lack of ‘cracking’ that’s been the issue, more so the seeming lack of ambition to attack (from Wiggo anyway, we all know what happened when the Froome Dog was let off the leash). As Marcus said, it’s smart tactical racing when they know that Wiggo doesn’t need to attack when he can decimate the field in the TT, but it doesn’t lend itself to an entertaining contest for anyone but a Wiggo fan.