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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View Comments

Beers says:

Jul 16 2015 at 3:08 pm

P Rod puts 7 minutes into the contenders. Internet is silent, he doesn't have his power data in a video even. Pick up your game internet!

MTN, they are doing awesome for a Conti squad.
brett says:

Jul 16 2015 at 3:41 pm

@Beers

P Rod puts 7 minutes into the contenders. Internet is silent, he doesn’t have his power data in a video even. Pick up your game internet!

MTN, they are doing awesome for a Conti squad.

J Rod was not a contender for the GC before the stage, so he's let go in a break, GC contenders don't need to chase him, so he wins by 7 minutes. If it was Contador, this wouldn't have happened. So this is in no way an indicator of anything.
brett says:

Jul 16 2015 at 3:43 pm

@RobSandy

@brett

Yeah, I’m still not convinced he’s a good enough climber to be a true GC contender (although he’s improved a lot), and I always think he should TT better than he does. I just think he’s fucking cool.

Here he is at our local track, where my son is starting out cycling and I train and race.

GT seems like a cool dude for sure...
Mikael Liddy says:

Jul 16 2015 at 5:20 pm

A good perspective on the suspicion that comes with success these days - VeloNews on Froome & Not Knowing

Interesting point in there about Lemond/Hinault's dominance in 1986 putting over 5 minutes in to their nearest GC rival in a single stage, can you imagine the explosion of Twitter-spicion that would explode off the back of that nowadays?
Beers says:

Jul 16 2015 at 6:22 pm

@brett

I know boss, I was hassling the internet. The rest of the stages will be cool to see everyone attack and attack. Hopefully...
dyalander says:

Jul 16 2015 at 10:50 pm

@brett

@Beers

Also Jrod had more than 7mins at the base didn't he - didn't he attack from the break? If so his climb time probably wasn't even top 10 on the day - not really worth raising an eyebrow over. Although we are talking about Internet speculation and if I am right and not just talking sleep deprived gibberish it still shouldn't stop Internet warriors.

Picking up the data debate - I don't think there's that much up-side to releasing it as it's not conclusive anyway - it might be something a few fans desperate to believe either extreme spin and misinterpret but in the end I don't think it'll prove anything. Released or not there's data out there and here we are - its still an issue for many and there's still limited confidence at best - and while some of that is down to the truth of the data there's also plenty of speculation on what the data means.

In terms of the racing - Contador looks to be clinging on for dear life - that attack last night looked like a vintage Contador strength bluff.
rockkk says:

Jul 17 2015 at 1:33 am

@brett

He rides for Sky nothing to see here move along please

BUT if he rode for astana and was Italian or Spanish .........
rockkk says:

Jul 17 2015 at 1:37 am

@rockkk

@brett

He rides for Sky nothing to see here move along please

BUT if he rode for astana and was Italian or Spanish ………

in reply to bretts comment about G.Thomas
nobby says:

Jul 17 2015 at 4:35 am

G is Welsh, he's ALWAYS going to be a cool bachgen
Oli says:

Jul 17 2015 at 6:59 am

You are super depressing, @brett ...