Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2014
Attention all Velominati. The Tour VSP is going on line and it should be a good one. Sure, between Froomy and Bertie a person could hedge their bets but Moviestar is all in for Valverde, BMC for TeeJay, Astana for the Shark and Garmin is finally committing to a team leader in Talansky. Some other teams (ahem…Trek Factory Racing for one) have resigned themselves to hunting stage wins. The Tour swings through the Yorkshire Dales, everyone but the riders can enjoy some excellent ales. As the Tour continues to Lille, Norther France and Belgium, the quality pints continue. Yes, it’s hot and the VSP generator has beer on its mind.
The route, the sprints, the climbing and even the final time trial should make this a decent Tour. Here is a start list. Everyone will have a vial in their jersey pocket, but don’t worry, it’s legal.
It is still not too late to win the overall 2014 VSP and we have made it worth your while.
- First place overall wins a Veloforma Strada iR Velominati Edition frame in addition to the customary VSP winner’s VVorkshop Apron
- Second place overall wins a set of hand built CR Wheelworks Arenberg wheelset in a custom Velominati paint scheme laced to orange Chris King hubs. (CR Wheelworks is Café Roubaix’s new wheel goods brand.)
- Third place overall wins a full Velominati V-Kit with accompanying custom orange Bont Vaypor+ road shoes.
Refer to the VSP page for details concerning scoring and rest day swaps. If you want to call yourself Pedro Delgado, you will only have yourself to blame. The VSP banner on the homepage has the countdown clock, refresh your browser and don’t be late. Good luck and good picking.
[vsp_results id=”30275″/]
@KW
Avoiding crashes is a key part of GT success for the top contenders and their teams. Luck is a factor (good or bad), but as they say in the safety industry…there is no such thing as an unpreventable accident.
So can TJVG put 2.08 into Bardet in the ITT?
@frank
Easy on the past tense mate, they’re not in Paris yet! What with all the talk on it being Spider and Bertie show before it had even begun, all we need is some over zealous selfie taker numpty to step into Vince, going down and breaking a collar, then it is all on again, haha.
Nibs has been awesome. Will be interesting to see if the same suspicions are levelled as they were of Froome last year.
Been loitering in the Pyrenees for the last few days…Watched from Pla d’Adet yesterday and the Depart from Pau today. Very cool. I took some pics. Fuglsang nominated for Rule #5 for refusing to abandon, Paulini is a beast, Horner’s socks? Kittel suffered like a bastard, Terpstra rolls to the start in his trainers, the VMH and kids got a nice table in Pau, Boom won the most badass stage of the year – I can see why…etc, etc…It all leaves me wanting more.
VLVV
@Harminator
Indeed. Jealous as all-get-out. Enjoy!
My internet is fecked. Final attempt…
Nope. Pics won’t post.
@wiscot
Agreed – best riders in the world available at the moment, duking it out in the mountains. There is still plenty of talent, challenges and attacks. Last man standing wins.
@KW
Totally. Must finish to win.
My favorite part of Nibble’s win is that Astana hired Peter Van Petegem and trained hard on the stones, practiced it extensively, really nailed the details and spent time riding them at race pace. That attention to detail really paid off. Shit, even a cobbles master like Sparty couldn’t match him because he’s not used to riding them in the wet (he’s never raced on cobbles in the wet as far as I know.)
@wiscot
Spot the fuck on. I will note with interest that Fignon was the only one to win another Tour (and come close a third time), not to mention that he nearly pulled off two Giro-Tour doubles.
I wouldn’t even bother to watch this tour if it weren’t for the two Frenchmen beating each other up. I’m bored with the sprints. I like him, but I’m also bored with nibali. I want some real racing. Nibali looks as if he’s attacking a women’s cat 4 group. Nyehh. Just ranting.
@Fausto Crapiz
glad I’m not racing these chicks.
FRA 2 PINOT, Thibaut (FDJ.fr) + 1:10
POL 3 MAJKA, Rafal (TINKOFF-SAXO) + 1:12
FRA 4 PERAUD, Jean-Christophe (AG2R LA MONDIALE) + 1:15
USA 5 VAN GARDEREN, Tejay (BMC RACING)
FRA 6 BARDET, Romain (AG2R LA MONDIALE) + 1:53
NED 7 MOLLEMA, Bauke (BELKIN) + 1:57
CZE 8 KONIG, Leopold (NETAPP – ENDURA)
ESP 9 ZUBELDIA AGIRRE, Haimar (TREK FACTORY RACING) + 1:59
@piwakawaka
54k, it’s possible but Bardet either has to be really bad at tt’s or TJVG has to have an amazing ride. If he makes it I will salvage a little of my pathetic VSP Tour…
Nibles demonstrating a neat elbow flick…………
http://zippy.gfycat.com/ImpassionedShamelessCapybara.webm
@Fausto Crapiz
Why a women’s Cat 4? You don’t think he could take the men’s? Or is this a personal insecurity? There are plenty of women who could crush you…
Anyway, Nibali’s has been a great ride. And he was magic attacking in and riding out of the fog on last year’s decisive climb in the Giro. I’m almost ready to forgive him his whining after this year’s M-SR.
And I was cheering for Pinot and Peraud when they dropped Valverde yesterday, too. Especially as Pinot paced the group up the climb with TJVG and also managed not to get done on the line by a wheelsucker. I really hope Pinot manages to hold his advantage in the TT. It’d be good for everyone. Except Valverde, of course, and fuck him.
@frank
It should also be noted that no one, apart from the press at the time, would seriously suggest that Merckx’s 1971 Tour win was diminished by the fact that Ocana crashed out whilst in yellow with a 7 minute lead.
(Speaking of Ocana, I’ve just picked up Alasdair Fotheringham’s book Reckless – saving it for lazy afternoons in southern France with a cold beer after long dust rides in the Pyrenean foothills)
@andrew I don’t know about you, but there are enough sandbaggers in the cat.4 here that not only would they have a crack at Nibbles but they could save new Orleans from the next hurricane Katrina.
@Chris as the saying goes “To finish first, first you have to finish”.
@wiscot
Great riders with great palmares.
Perhaps a bit lost in all this is the fact that should Nibali go on to win this Tour, he will become only the 6th man to win all three GTs in his career. He’ll join the likes of Anquetil, Contador, Gimondi, Hinault, and Merckx. That’s pretty good company if you ask me.
@andrew
Ditto. Pinot has had a few TT top tens this year, and his “I’m worried about Peraud” talk could just be a bluff to make Peraud feel too relaxed. The weekend cannot come quick enough!
@KW
Yes indeed, and a few more GT’s to come I’ll wager.
Unless, of course, Froome and Contador ride next year when, as we all, know, Nibbles will be lucky to get on the podium because had THEY been riding this year it would have been a two-horse race as they are sooooo superior to everyone else . . . Is there an emoticon for pure sarcasm?
@wiscot
Don’t forget Quintana.
Yup.
With the TT tomorrow, I fully expect some major shake-ups in the Top 5. It won’t be enough for my VSP picks to come through, but it will surely be as interesting as the last few weeks. I really did enjoy seeing Horner put in a move yesterday though and TJ seems strong enough to at least move up a bit in the standings. God luck to all.
@Fausto Crapiz
Hold on a minute. Are you off your energy drinks?
@Ron
Bottom bracket short of a full chainset?
@wiscot
Yeah baby. During the Dauphine, when Nibbles was not quite peaking it was all about Froomy and Bertie. With Sky in its present shape, Froomy would be in trouble even if he was healthy. Never having a jour sans really makes you a badass in the Tour, it would have been a real battle and Nibbles might have burned them both anyway.
Interesting to liven up the tub vs clincher debate……..
http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/07/tour-de-france/exclusive-review-tony-martins-new-specialized-turbo-cotton-clinchers_338196
….or the marketing value of the peleton?
@Gianni @Wiscott et al
I like to think that the GC contenders are getting isolated as showing things are cleaner and it is getting back to mano a mano for the GC contenders. Would be good to see a 3-4 way slugfest next year.
@KW
Damn straight, he’s not there yet tho’….
Goes to show how few of us have the two Frenchmen in our picks; the results are largely unchanged even though they shuffled places!
It certainly took a solid pair to win this year.
@Two Ball Billy
Hat to you 2BB! Oh wait we’re you talking about Nibbles? He deserves acclaim for making it look easy but is anyone else wondering what’s up with the sausage in his shorts Or is it just me and I should seek professional help?
@Two Ball Billy
Meaning solid pedals ??
@Rob
Just you @Rob, just you…
@Teocalli
No on both counts. What I’m saying is that Nibbles doesn’t seem to have any real competition. Doesn’t it seem that way to you?
Frank in second place? Mien Gott em Heimmel. He does have a big brain.
@Two Ball Billy
Chapeau. Few dared to venture beyond the lightbulb fucker and spanish steak-o-matic.
Yeah, strong work, Big Frank! I wonder if he could have pulled off such brilliant picks, Gianni, if he’d had to do it after rejigging the main frame last week. Well, that there is the question: does wrestling the monster add to his madness, or his clarity?
Darn, so close to some nice points. Valverde slotted into 3, Tejay at 4. I don’t see them both jumping up a slot today.
Already feelin’ the post-Le Tour postpartum letdown. Always makes it feel like summer is a bit too far gone for my liking. The elation of late June is suddenly transformed into the emptiness of late July.
Frank, so are you guys going to do a VSP for the post tour criteriums? I need to salvage some points.
@Ccos
I hope so. Those things are so fixed that even I could get a few right.
Let’s see . . . if Nibbles starts . . Nibbles wins! If Kittel does one in Germany, he wins. If Bardet or Peraud are the main attraction at one in France, one of them wins.
Well, that does it for this year’s Tour. What a race, I really loved this whole thing soup to nuts.
As for the VSP GC, lets see what we’ve got here after La Course and Le Tour’s points are added in:
[vsp_gc year=”2014″/]
Righto, what a fantastic Tour. It was great to see such a variety of stage winners for a change. It was not great to see all the crashes. (Too many). Hooray for the French to finally have to “strong boys ” for the future. Also, Chris Horner is an alien (how does he do it?) While I’m posting any Velominatus out there who has any idea how long it takes to receive “Gear” once ordered. I ordered name plate and decals 0n 7/6. Still nada.
A fine tour indeed. I was ruminating on it yesterday on my ride. First, chapeau to Nibali. All that pish about C & F not finishing therefore he wouldn’t have won if they’d stayed in the race is meaningless. They crashed, Nibali didn’t. Want to look at the racing side? N put down his marker on state 2 with a superb win. Stage 5 saw another massive gain. 4th in the TT. Four wins. When did Bertie or Froome win 4 stages in any of their Tour wins? Also, Will Froome win the hat trick of GTs? I doubt it.
Awesome to see two French riders on French teams on the Podium. A French resurgence can only be good for the sport.
Kittlel is a superstar. Martin is a superstar. Greipel is a superstar. – 7 wins for the Germans = one third of stages on offer. Every sport needs characters and Kittel has the making of a great one: talented, distinctive, humble, articulate. A battl;e with Cav would have been nice to watch.
Hopefully Talansky will be back to strength and better luck next year. TJ needs to be more aggressive. Great ride by Horner.
Sky need to put more faith in Thomas. When the best part of your Tour is unveiling a stupidly over the top team car, you know your priorities are wrong.
@wiscot
I was really impressed with what Thomas did on Stage 5 after Froome abandoned. He literally towed Porte for the rest of the day, and brought him all the way to the front. If Sky were to give him some freedom, I think he could be a real contender, especially in the classics. Seems a really nice guy, too.
@KW
I’d partially agree about Thomas. He’s already shown that he’s a very promising classics rider. Himself and Boonen were making all the running in Paris-Roubaix this year, and he was still around at the end too. He had a podium in one of the earlier Belgian classics too I think. However, he has a tendency to fall off the bike too often (I think he hit the deck in every major sping classic he did in 2013). Also, the fact that he took a year off in 2012 to do track has probably harmed his long-term prospect as a GT rider. He hasn’t even really shown that he can dominate a one-week stage race yet (although he did have a stong showing in this year’s Paris-Nice).
Right now, I’d say Sky’s classics contenders for next year are Stannard and Thomas (with wiggo for P-R if he could be bothered).
@LeoTea
Yes yes. Geraint is a model citizen on a race bike. And remember that Cancellara hits the deck too while racing — and riding recon.
Indeed, Geraint Thomas is my favourite rider, not least for the crappy but entertaining FB postings he comes up with – just a good lad – I particularly loved his teambus doorway comments on Stage 5 when he said it was really tough to lose Froome, and everyone was sliding all over the place and crashing, and it was a horror show on the cobbles, “but it was actually a really good laugh, so let’s get on with it” (complete misquote) – my kind of rider
4 of my 5 picks abandoned. Missed both rest day swaps. In Canada with no cable so didn’t watch a single stage.
I feel like I should be scoring negative points on this one, not just the naught.
I’ve just deleted the long rambling post I’d written about this tour.
In summary; I enjoyed it (a lot). Its left more questions than answers (i’ve no faith in Nibali being clean, what would the race of been like with CF and AC in it?), green jersey contest was pointless, good to see French riders doing so well, GT and Porte are great riders but not Grand Tour winners of the future.