Sep Vanmarcke rides the cobbles Kelly-Style in the 2014 stage to Port du Hinault. Photo: Cycling Tips
Cobblestones make the race, I’m not ruining any fantasies telling you that. Wet cobblestones, well, those make a legend. Nibbles rose in my esteem considerably when he rode the wet cobbles as well as he rides any mountain descent or climb; that is a boy with some nerves and some mad bike handling skills.
Wet cobbles are scarier to ride that dry ones, but they aren’t really that much more difficult to ride; you’re still playing the lottery that your wheels keep pointing where your bike is trying to go. But wet stones are definitely more draining; the mud and silt you ride through make it like riding through molasses. Awesome molasses, but molasses nonetheless.
The cobbles are back this year, and hopefully so will the rain. Let us pray for rain, because last year’s stage made the race.
The Tour de France needs no introduction but the VSP prizes deserve a gentle reminder. This is a Grand Tour, people, lots of points at stake. And those points are going towards amazing prizes including a Jaegher frame and a Café Roubaix wheelset. There is plenty of time for you to Delgado this thing, too, if you wait around until the last minute. So my advice is that you avoid doing that.
Give yourself enough time to enter your picks so if something has gone amuck, you have time to hit “reload” or come back V minutes later to try again before the event closes. Remember, your procrastination in this matter will not result in our emergency to enter your picks for you. All that said, if you do encounter a problem, please be so kind as to take a screenshot and upload it because the descriptor “it didn’t work” or “hm, not working” doesn’t help us debug the problem. Also, Internet Explorer is not supported and apparently only shows one Pick Entry box, so use Chrome, Firefox, or Safari instead.
The scoring for the Grand Tours is a tad more involved than the one-day races and one-week Tours, so look the guidelines over before making your prognostications.
So get your picks in before the countdown clock goes to zero, hit the go button, and good luck.
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View Comments
Can I just say that I now find myself in the weird position of rooting for Malmerde.
I'm so excited that I'm not going to be able to go for a shit until Sunday night .
@VeloJello
LOL, I'm watching it live so pretty hard to spoil it for me. Just keep pointing out the bleeding obvious and I'll keep chuckling away and wondering why anyone bothers.
Nibali had some special sauce on his pasta last night...
@the Engine
Hell's bells man, you're rooting for Malmerde over Nibbles? That was a great ride by Nibali. As far as I'm concerned, Malmerde has done SFA this tour. OK, he's got to stick by wee NQ, but still. Nibali's win shows that he was not in top form coming into the Tour. With a podium spot an option tomorrow, I think he'll give it a go. If he does make the podium, I'd say it makes him the man of the tour considering how shitty he was in the first half of the race.
Sorry to see Thomas have a bad day. He deserved to be top 5.
Should be fun on L'Alpe tomorrow! NQ has to get something other than 2nd out of his race and will be stage win hunting. Nibbles will be looking for the podium from Malmerde. The Frenchies are going well. Here's hoping no idiot fan fucks things up. I'm not big fan of Froome, but I don't think he deserves the abuse he's getting. Maybe he'll have a go to show who's boss.
@the Engine
Or better yet, Contador attacks Valverde, gains 2:30 minutes, moves into third, and Nibali slips to fourth. But yeah, I'm holding my breath for about five hours tomorrow morning (central USA).
@Minnesota Expat
Nah, after today's ride, Nibbles deserves third place. Bertie and Malmerde don't deserve 3rd. They've done hee-haw. I think Bertie's cooked after the Giro. Malmerde's just doing what he does best - following wheels. Nibbles is hitting form - albeit too damn late.
Having watched today on French TV I see what Froome and Sky are on about when they talk about irresponsible and biased coverage.
Nibali's attack while he looked at Froome having a mechanical was glossed over while they spent the next hour creaming their pants over his 'panache'.
Then at the end was a fawning interview by the doper Laurent Jalabert while Nibali stood next to the doper Alexander Vinokourov but of course nobody raised an eyebrow.
Couple that with people clearly abusing Froome and apparently being spat on and I begin to think they have a point.
@wiscot
"Some days you're the hammer and some days you're the nail. Today I was a very cheap Ikea nail."
To casually (deliberately) gloss over the loss of 22 minutes and 10 places; chapeau.
@ChrisO
Agreed. I'm no fan of Froome and I can't say for sure Nibbles knew what was going on and attacked to capitalise (though it seems likely) and Froome's whining about it lacks class but all that said I can understand the chip on his shoulder as what he's copping is totally disproportionate to those around him in the GC and there's no logical reason - it's fanaticism not journalism and that should be left to us.
There was an interesting profile of Froome on UK ITV4 last night after the TdF highlights. It can't really be claimed that he came from nowhere all of a sudden. Given the level of coaching available to him when he first entered the World Championships TT he had a pretty impressive start. Training for the hills by dragging your brakes as a substitute takes a certain amount of V not to release them.
I said this when Wiggo was winning and the press were complaining that he was boring and lacked panache by not constantly attacking but the lack of constant attacking appears to me to be a reflection that the sport is cleaner. Doping allowed riders to attack day after day from way out in a way that was not normal, so it is surely more likely now that you will see a big effort to establish a lead and then sit in on following days.