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

  • @VeloJello

    What I find astonishing is that Sags is still in the Best Young Rider category - I can't remember him NOT being around. They might as well give him the Green Jersey every year. No one else can beat him to it.

  • Sagan Quote from mix zone yesterday:

    After the exchange, Sagan was asked why he went into the breakaway for a third straight day, replying because "I have big balls" leaving the interviewer stunned before letting out a nervous laugh and continuing on.

    LEGEND

  • Yates, has failed to eat the steaks I posted him so I am going to have to plump for TJVG to slot in to his spot.

    VSP PICKS (2nd Rest Day Swaps):

    1. Vroom Vroom
    2. Dirty Bertie
    3. Quintana Roo
    4. Pinot Noir
    5. TeeJay the DeeJay
  • haven't seen one single team that doesn't use these f****ng baseball caps. Looks like sh*t.

  • In my mind, swaps were 20 points per rider; apparently they're only 10. On this basis, and that my VSP campaign is basically in the toilet anyway, I am throwing out my number-crunching based picks, and switching to picking with my heart! Keeping Bardet in though, even though he's unlikely to climb up the standings again.

    VSP PICKS (2nd Rest Day Swaps):

    1. Vroom Vroom
    2. The Mountain Goat
    3. G-Man
    4. TJVG
    5. Bardet
  • Pick changes won't be worth the penalties for me. Praying for a Quintana win & Cotador 4th to restore respectability to my picks.

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