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.

[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.

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wilburrox says:

Jul 18 2015 at 5:55 pm

@piwakawaka

another boring stage, Ha! Brilliant finish Mr Cummings, never, never give up. Incredible break away, dead last on the final climb, almost made contact at the summit, would love to see some footage, Eurosport had the bit when he smoked past the old enemy at the end, he must have absolutely nailed that descent, he flew past those twits like they were standing still.

I loved this finish. We saw two finishes. We saw the lead group's climb and ultimately Mr Cummings smoking past the two and was brilliant yes. And then blowing thru the turns? These two French cats may have had enough time to think, wtf did we just do ?! What a blast to watch. And then at same time we were treated to the GC riders and Quintana just not being able to shake Froome. And with a little sprint at the end? Today was a blast to watch. At the end.

So, I was riding today and thinking to myself, is really a draft provided when Froome is riding Porte's wheel up a mountainside? Or is it mostly just a mental thing? But going up 10% is there really an aero benefit? I guess that there must be. But I have to believe it's more a psyche thing than an aero thing going on when ya grab a wheel up a mtn climb?
piwakawaka says:

Jul 18 2015 at 6:53 pm

@wilburrox

These guy's get a much bigger advantage from a draft up a mountain, as they travel just so much faster than us, but you know what it's like, staring at that wheel in front, I think it really helps. My guess, they would have climbed that last bump 22-25kph? Definitely aero advantage at that pace.

I'm gonna watch it again.
John Irvine says:

Jul 18 2015 at 7:09 pm

Bardet got smoked at the line, but he's now clawed back over nine minutes on the past three stages. There's hope for my VSP yet. (And yes - this stage was quite a corker.)
Harminator says:

Jul 18 2015 at 10:06 pm

@piwakawaka

@wilburrox

And don't assume they're riding through still air. Watch spectator flags for a hint of wind strength and direction. It's rarely still in the high mountains.

Plus Froomey needs a wheel to follow because he can't see where he's going and watch his BB.
Oli says:

Jul 19 2015 at 2:25 am

Some fuckhead has made a public threat to break Froome's legs 5km from the summit of Pra Loup - I hope this sort of shit doesn't catch on.
Teocalli says:

Jul 19 2015 at 5:29 am

@Oli

Some fuckhead has made a public threat to break Froome’s legs 5km from the summit of Pra Loup – I hope this sort of shit doesn’t catch on.

Well if they have in public then one hopes that the appropriate authorities charge them.
Oli says:

Jul 19 2015 at 6:51 am

They'd have to catch them first, and the Facebook post made it sound like a group of thugs.
Teocalli says:

Jul 19 2015 at 10:09 am

@Oli

They’d have to catch them first, and the Facebook post made it sound like a group of thugs.

Oh Facebook heroes was it. Twats.
Mikael Liddy says:

Jul 19 2015 at 6:00 pm

@rockkk

@brett

He rides for Sky nothing to see here move along please

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

We covered this during the Giro, but allow me to reiterate.

Nationality has nothing to do with it. Riding for a team that has had 5 positives in the last 12 months & shouldn't be at the race has EVERYTHING to do with it.
Minnesota Expat says:

Jul 19 2015 at 8:50 pm

@John Irvine

Bardet got smoked at the line, but he’s now clawed back over nine minutes on the past three stages. There’s hope for my VSP yet. (And yes – this stage was quite a corker.)

I wish your assessment could be extended to include Thibault Pinot (my number five VSP pick).