Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2017
As many of you know, I write a monthly column for Cyclist Magazine where I answer Dear Abby-esque questions, and the most recent query pertained to whether I consider the Tour the best race of the year, or whether it’s an over-publicized circus. The question made me realize something about myself: I have a weariness around the Tour de France not unlike a romantic whose heart has been broken one too many times.
The fact is, as much as I prefer a race like Paris-Roubaix or the Giro d’Italia to the mid-summer shit show that is the Tour de France, nothing gets my anticipation going quite the way the Tour does, which is undeniably the pinnacle of the season; all the classifications and stages are prestigious enough that racers of all sorts are all arriving at the start in peak form. There is a promise of hard racing from day one, but the first week consists mostly of me worrying about the big favorites crashing out. As soon as we get through that mess, my heart is usually broken on the first day in the mountains, when the favorite takes a decisive lead and the rest of the race is most about stages than the GC.
At least, these are the dreads of a man who lived through the Indurain and Armstrong eras of racing.
Nevertheless, the Tour always manages to seduce me, and this year is no different. Maybe this year, she won’t be such a cruel lover. And, maybe this year, I won’t make horrible picks in the VSP. Just maybe, just maybe. You know the drill; get your picks in by the time the clock goes to zero, and you get some swap options on the rest day. Good luck!
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@chris
May I suggest Captain Pugwash?
@Randy C
I’ve been thinking that it is relatively easy to conceive a semi soft barrier with a soft landing zone behind that could be uses in the last few hundred meters of potential sprint stages. The idea being that crashes go over the barrier rather than bouncing back into the roadway.
Would be easy to transport to each day. What is would need is a designate amount of space in a finish area particularly width free of obstruction but that may be no bad thing. The downside is for spectators as you may end up with no spectator space left and the spectacle reduced to F1 with massive run off zones.
I thought that barriers with projecting feet had been eradicated in the finish zone anyway but seemingly not from the ones the other day.
It could also be that weird result that the safer you make it the more dangerously the riders ride.
@Teocalli
I agree with placing some type of energy absorbing padding in the last 300-500 meters of sprint stages. However, it seems to me that the design of some of these stages is also to blame. Who puts a chicane in a sprint stage 500 meters from the finish? I understand that stages want to finish in town centers but there has to be a better design.
Christian Vande Velde rode parts of the course this morning and said that there is virtually a 100% chance of a crash in the final kilometer. I am paraphrasing but that was the message that I took away from his commentary.
@wiscot
Roger the Cabin-Boy
@RobSandy
Aye, aye, Seaman Staines!
@Rick
I think the bigger, and more intractable issue, is the hardness of the asphalt . . .
Regarding the roundabouts/chicanes, as cities and towns have grown (sprawled) over the last 25-30 years, this kind of thing is now commonplace and unavoidable. And if a town or city has paid to be a stage finish, it doesn’t want the stage finishing on the outskirts of said town or city. I know from experience: when I left Scotland in 1990 there were many TT courses that used the odd roundabout as a turn or change of direction. Now there are more of them, some with traffic lights too. Basically, many of the old TT courses are now unusable unless you want to run red lights.
@Pali65
Will be visiting our office in Bratislava coming Tuesday, so I am keen to hear what the sentiment about Sagan is.
I don’t think it would be difficult to design. The sort of heavy padded blocks they have in children’s ballpits or around rugby goalposts for example could presumably be adapted and stacked in a vehicle which could lay them out in stretches pretty quickly. Or could be fitted over the barriers like a sleeve perhaps.
But I suspect part of the problem is scale and cost. How many sports are there where you need a long continuous barrier which simultaneously separates spectators and protects human bodies impacting at 50-60km/h? I can’t actually think of anything else.
@ChrisO
Skiing?
Though I’m not sure that drilling holes in the road for the flex-posts and catch netting is necessarily a good idea………
What’s the French for “won it by a baw hair?”
C’mon ASO, get crazy – give the stage a joint winner. I’m a big Kittel fan but I like Eddy BH too. That would have been sweet to give a joint victory. I don’t think either would have minded and it’s good PR and a nice trivial question for the future.
“Trivia” not “trivial”. D’oh!
@Teocalli
A really good night out?
@wiscot
Yeah I thought that too. That was taking technology too far.
@chris
or @RobScurvy?
@Teocalli
If ASO can produce a photo with enough resolution to clearly show Kittel as the winner, then fine. Otherwise, it’s a tie. Of course, too bloody late now. Imagine how much fun that would have been to have Der Pompadour and Eddy B on the podium together. It would have been a superb “feel-good” moment for the race, the riders and the fans.
@wiscot
Come on guys, it wasn’t even that close:
According to L’Equipe, the Tissot time keepers have calculated Kittel’s winning margin as just 0.0003 of a second or just 6mm in distance considering the speed he was travelling.
@Rick
The post regarding the time above reminds me of this classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4upY8UWrsU
@Rick
Hadn’t seen that one before! Olympic Hide-and-Seek? Seems as legit as some of the shite that are now recognized as Olympic “sports.”
@Rick
I’m sorry, but 3,000ths of a second? Give me a break. Back in the day of a human being with his thumb on a stopwatch,that’s a tie. Technology’s great and all that, but really, 3000ths of a second . . .
I now demand that the General Classification be measured to 1000s of a second. You can never be too careful you know. Those thousandths can add up over a tour into 100ths of a second!
@wiscot
Ditto. Brilliant. Who won the tie break?
@wiscot
If my math is correct that is actually 3 10,000ths of a second. Which would be even more absurd.
@Rick
I concur – on both fronts.
@Rick
And now you know why I work in the arts. I work to within an 1/8th of an inch at best!
Seriously, how cool would it have been to see Kittel and EBH on the podium together? It would have been a Tour highlight – the fist ever dead heat.
@wiscot
Then you should be comfortable with this outcome, which Kittel won by almost a full quarter of an inch. ;)
I read that the camera at the finish line takes 10,000 frames per second. They put that technology to use today.
Kittel is really going well. can he climb well enough to keep the maillot vert all the way to Paris?
also, this year’s sprint finishes are the hairiest i can remember seeing in any grand tour in my lifetime. could the three second rule have backfired? with less pressure on GC contenders, is there a clearer path in the closing kilometers for the various sprint trains to really pour it on?
*three kilometer rule..
@KogaLover
Be prepared that everbody is a cycling expert in Slovakia nowadays and it is completely certain that Sagan is 100% innocent. But you can show a great insight in our matters when you claim that previous government of Mrs. Radičová (read Raditschova) is to blame. Let me know then how it went… :)
@Cary
You either were not following Le Tour in the late 80’s/early ’90’s or you have long term memory loss. I do not think that any cyclist or sprinter today can match The Tashkent Terror Abdoujaparov for amazing crashes and crazyarse sprints!
Dude is still full on sprinting in that first pic, right through the barrier!
@Buck Rogers
They used to call him Abdu-push-em-off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nt4x3nuzfQ
@Rick
Ha! Yup, he is the undisputed Argy-Bargy-Craziest sprinter in the history of cycling!
Guy was Fucking NUTS! No fear at all!
@Buck Rogers
Seeing that crash on the Champs still gives me chills.
@Rick
And the crazy thing about it. as you can see in the vid that you posted, was that he put himself into the barriers! No one was even within a fucking foot of him!
And as for recent crashes–did you see how Museeuw managed to stay upright even with being totally put into the barriers when Abdu closed the door on him? Cav could learn a bit from him.
Will Damare make it through today – 5 mins out the back and a long way to go……
@Teocalli
the answer may depend on how close his team car is.
@Rick
Ha! You beat me to it!!!
Demare(d) will need another fucking “Cipressa Ride”!
@Buck Rogers
Abdu was one nutcase among other more rational riders. Bouhanni was knocking people around yesterday at 2km to go while Kreuziger led the peloton at 70kph. we’re a LONG way from Cippolini and Abdujaparov grabbing jerseys here.
@Buck Rogers
Abdu was one nutcase among other more rational riders. Bouhanni was knocking people around yesterday at 2km to go while Kreuziger led the peloton at 70kph. we’re a LONG way from Cippolini and Abdujaparov grabbing jerseys here.
the second pic is Armentiere in ’94. Abdu didn’t cause that, the cop and Wilfried Nellisen did.
@Buck Rogers
Ha Ha!
@Rick
@9:55 with 105 Km to go – team car must have broken down too………
@Teocalli
Wow, even with a generous elimination time he may see zeros on the clock if he makes the finish line today.
@Rick
@14 mins now with a group including Luke Rowe.
@Teocalli
From Letour live updates:
Arnaud Démare is sick but he hasn’t pulled out in the feed zone. He’s going on, helped by his team-mates Mickaël Delage and Ignatas Konovalovas. The Frenchman is encouraged a lot by the crowd on the road side. He’ll try to reach Les Rousses in the time cut.
Assuming “sick” means he is allergic to the mountains.
@Rick
Ha!
Oh man, I love karma.
@Buck Rogers
Especially when it is instant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zekIGdWdOp0
So what happens if all the remaining sprinters miss the cut. The commisaires are fucked in terms of the spectacle if they don’t reinstate them and fucked if they do reinstate Demare.
@37 mins at the finish……..
If the limit was 40 minutes, then Juraj Sagan didn’t make it by 30 seconds. Then both brothers out.