Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2015

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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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.

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piwakawaka says:

Jul 14 2015 at 11:40 pm

@ChrisO

@Teocalli

@ChrisO

Given that Froome appears to be a fair bit bigger than Porte and Quintana and given that neither were massively behind Froome my uninformed logic would seem to extrapolate that all 3 would have had similar power output per kg over that climb?

Quintana and Porte were estimated around 5.9 w/kg. To put that in perspective it’s around or slightly higher than most winning performances for the Tour in the last four years. But behind Froome.

Robert Gesink has actually published his data and if his weight is assumed to be 71kg then he did around 5.8 w/kg so the Quintana, Porte and Froome estimates seem to be validated relatively.

One of the weird things about Froome’s ride is that he only attacked halfway up. So his 6.1 w/kg is likely to have been around 5.8/5.9 w/kg for 20 mins then 6.4/6.5 w/kg for 20 mins. That’s extra-terrestrial.

which bit of Froome is bigger than anything? At least Quintana has calves! Sorry @frank.
Deakus says:

Jul 15 2015 at 1:22 am

@ChrisO

@Beers

From their perspective, why then do the teams not want to provide their data? What is the risk?

I can only see that then opposition will be able to target specifically? (we know he can do 6.1w/kg for 40 minutes, so lets burn our guys out and hold at 6.2w/kg pace for him and then put our GC on the front).

Is that it? I mean, even then power numbers from a race are only specific to that race, so the past numbers wouldn’t really reflect their form the next year unless they did the exact same preparation, correct?

Whoops, keyboard slip above… it’s a good question.

Dr Ross Tucker of Sports Scientists compared it to a runner wanting to have the timeclock covered up. It’s pointless to hide it. So many other things go into a performance – tactical, mental etc.

Look at yesterday. There was a widely published photo of a warmup routine stuck on Contador’s bike which clearly stated his FTP was 420 watts. He weights 62kg, let’s say 65kg on a bad day. That should give him the ability to maintain 6.4-6.5 w/kg for an hour. But he can’t – he never has and never will.

Look at Nibali – he’s capable of nearly 6w/kg, he did it last year, but Fuglsang said he just gave up in his head.

Even if the teams were worried then the least they could do would be to release a wide range of training and race data to an independent third-party on a confidential basis. And then for selected data on key races or stages to be publicly released for all riders.

The fact that people are unwilling to do this leads to suspicion. We’re right to ask “Why not?” and the answer is uncomfortable.

I am in two minds about this I have to say. I am concerned about the stats but I if it were my team and I did not have to publish the data then I would not do so. There is an awful lot of stuff that we don't see but a competing team would be able to break down and figure out. When a gel was taken, or a sip of the "special" beedons they use during the closing stages. Once you publish the data, you just get a load more questions, then people starting ask what you are eating/drinking, or any other element of the race (legally) that you are seeking to look for marginal games.

I don't really buy the covering the clock for a runner. On a track, they hear the bang, they run, they win or lose, cycling is far far more complex the analogy just seems a little too simple for me.

Having said that, it is a brave person who pipes up and says "Yup they are clean let's just give them the benefit of the doubt". I want to believe Froomey and until proven other wise I will continue to cheer him on, but that does not mean I won't be surprised if suddenly the headlines one day have him signing for Astana!!
chris says:

Jul 15 2015 at 2:50 am

@Deakus

Maybe I'm naive but I'm inclined to agree. If this is true, though, all may be revealed soon.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/chris-froome/11740170/Chris-Froome-commits-to-independent-testing-to-prove-he-is-clean-after-Tour-de-France.html
Teocalli says:

Jul 15 2015 at 3:33 am

Having recently read Charlie Wegelius' book (and by no means being any form of expert here) one thing that struck me is that the doping era, to some extent, leveled the field in that everyone ended up with a haematocrit of as near 50% as they could manage. So someone like Wegelius with a naturally high haematocrit was effectively disadvantaged as they would get no performance gain from doping. So as a general observation as cycling becomes clean(er) you might expect a) that those naturally advantaged physiologically will rise to the top b) there may be larger gaps in performance than in the known doping era (till you end up with natural selection creating the new norm).

Of course the sad extension of this in some ways is that anyone wanting to enter an endurance sport may be selected out at the outset as a result of physiological testing but hopefully there is still space for those prepared a) to work hard and b) who have that psychological trait to push themselves beyond the norm.
RobSandy says:

Jul 15 2015 at 3:52 am

@Teocalli

I think Froome would have to be daft as a brush to be doping, with the level of scrutiny on the sport. And if he'd started recently it should be shown by his blood passport, unless he's been using EPO since before he turned pro? And the way Porte and GT performed yesterday if I was going to accuse Froome of doping I'd have to accuse them too. And if that's the case, then what are the chances of the 3 main riders on a team doping without the management knowing? None. So it would mean Sky had a doping programme.

And if that's true, then I would be astounded if it was just Sky and not, say, Astana, Tinkoff, BMC, etc who were doing it.

I think I'd prefer to believe that none of this is the case, and that while there is doping in the sport it is not widespread and the main contenders are clean. I may be proved wrong.

However, if Froome happened to be an Astana rider I'd be a lot more suspicious so I don't know if that makes me a hypocrite...
rfreese888 says:

Jul 15 2015 at 4:13 am

@Dean C

We got Degs and Kittle selling caffeine shampoo on Eurosport every 30 minutes!
brett says:

Jul 15 2015 at 4:23 am

@Oli

@brett

I’ve been watching every stage live and it’s been an absorbing Tour, and I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed every stage. I think your (understandable) cynicism has killed the Tour for you so it wouldn’t matter who was winning or how you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. I feel a bit sorry for you.

Oh, no need for pity mate! I'll get over it in a week or two...

The thing I get bored with is the GC being decided in the first week of most GTs, and especially the Tour. We get excited (yes, me too) every year when on paper it looks like a great contest coming, but every year there's very little fighting for the GC (at least the top step). The individual stages can be exciting for sure, but if the race is decided by the first rest day then there's not much to get excited about I'm sorry.

Having said that, I really hope I wake up tomorrow morning and see that Froome had an off day, Nibbles and Conti battled out the stage win and Quintana did something, anything, and the race is a contest again.

@mouse

@brettYou should get a new hobby.

Hobby? Fucking hobby?
RobSandy says:

Jul 15 2015 at 4:53 am

@brett

@Oli

Having said that, I really hope I wake up tomorrow morning and see that Froome had an off day, Nibbles and Conti battled out the stage win and Quintana did something, anything, and the race is a contest again.

Even as someone who likes to see Brits, including Froome, do well, I'm quite hoping for that.

Even that someone else has a go would be enough to make you think there might be an actual race to Paris.
wilburrox says:

Jul 15 2015 at 5:29 am

Folks, I don't think that these cats are doping in the traditional sense of blood bags and steroids and whatnot... but we can be confident that there is some pretty powerful science and associated medicine going on with their training and recovery and maybe even performances in competition. That's gotta be the reality of the situation. That's gonna be the world in years to come. Money and access equals science and medicine that'll help people live longer healthier lives, delaying aging, illness and disease, and that research and development might well be happening with world class athletes. There are more than a few doctors I'm guessing that are not interested in treating disease but are interested in maintaining and improving health and performance. And to be involved with these world class athletes pushing the boundaries of human capabilities? At a very minimum the skinny dude flying up the mountain is huffing on an asthma inhaler yes? And that's it??? Right... Anyways, I'm still fascinated by it all. And yesterday was cool.
Erik says:

Jul 15 2015 at 6:21 am

Bardet just threw up on the climb. I can sure pick them this TdF.