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.
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″/]
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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.