Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2015

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.

 

[vsp_results id=”33262″/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

View Comments

    1. Quintana
    2. Contador
    3. Tejay Van Garderen
    4. Nibali
    5. Froome

    Goofed my first post. Maybe I should've stuck to lurking...

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Quintana
  • @PT

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Pinot
    2. Yeats
    3. Yeats
    4. ‘kenoath
    5. Bardot

    You'll have to redo your picks; you can't have the same rider in two positions. Piti Principle and all that.

  • @frank

    @PT

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Pinot
    2. Yeats
    3. Yeats
    4. ‘kenoath
    5. Bardot

    You’ll have to redo your picks; you can’t have the same rider in two positions. Piti Principle and all that.

    I' assuming he meant Adam and Simon of Orica. Unless you can score points for DSs in which case I might add Sean Yates to my picks.

  • VSP PICKS:

    1. Chris Froome
    2. Nairo Quintana
    3. Alberto Contador
    4. Vincenzo Nibali
    5. Thibaut Pinot
  • @Ron

    Oh, and those OGE helmets in the lead photo. No fucking way those mushroom tops are aero! And even if they are, they’re fucking horrible looking.

    I think they are based on the Smurfs... ok on a cartoon figure but fugly on a bicycle racer. And certainly not Aero...

  • Nibali takes time on cobbles but loses it to Quintana on summit finishes. Froome loses too much time in first week. Pinot takes the race by the scruff of the neck and makes things interesting. I'm sure I'm hopelessly wrong though. No fucking clue to be honest.

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Quintana
    2. Nibali
    3. Pinot
    4. Froome
    5. Contador
  • Pinot is the dark horse now that he has taken his stabilisers off for defending but not sure anyone will beat Froomedog if he manages to stay upright.

    VSP PICKS:

    1. Vroom Vroom
    2. Dirty Bertie
    3. Kanga Roo
    4. Pinot Noir
    5. Adam Yates
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