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!
[vsp_results id=”104413″/]
@Teocalli
Wonder how many “sticky-bidons” he had today?
I fell asleep at 90 kilometers to go (it was around midnight here). Just watched a twenty minute highlights cut. Looked to be an exciting race. Now one minute and one second separating top ten in GC.
Seen this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZTOdHd_yTs
As a singer, he makes a fine bike rider.
Correction: “…get your picks in by the time the clock goes to EIGHTzero..”
Can’t do it. I lived through pharmsrong and qui tam Landis. They ripped out my heart, and tossed on the Champs. I have a rock on my desk that came from the famed final circuits. I can’t do it anymore.
I was young and carefree.
@eightzero
Time to move on.
@eightzero
I feel your pain.
I’ve made the analogy before that being a cycling fan is like having a loved one that is addicted to heroin. You hate that aspect about them but you love them anyways. Sometimes you do just have to walk away from them forever but I have not yet reached that point. I think that there can be no doubt that there is still doping going on in some form, but I still love my dope-addicted sport.
And on the bright side, Demare(d) is already dropped on today’s stage!
Chapeau to Demare as he is struggling on today but looking like it could be the last as he is well out of the back well before the big climbs start.
Wet descent after first climb. Thomas crashed. Movistar down another rider from crash / retirement at the same point in the breakaway. Froome delayed by Thomas crash by the looks of things and a little way back from Aru and main part of Sky train but all coming back together.
Arada may be up and still in from Movistar. Thomas also reported to be moving again.
This is compelling racing today. Great descent for Bardet and also up front for AG2R. Heart break for Thomas. Dang…
Also, watching start of stage 8 yesterday and was discussion the on the barriers on sprint stages and in particular Greipel’s thoughts on needing to prevent the spectators from hanging over the edges. Apparently he’s been clipping spectators and discussion was need a buffer zone of sorts.
The bike/kit combo of AG2R is something I can grow to appreciate.
Cheers all
Thomas out.
@Randy C
It can’t be hard to come up with something like this that could be made stable and wide enough so that spectators could not hang over it and with tie-downs to make secure. It could also have link flaps to prevent riders getting between them.
@Randy C
Good man for coming around on the AG2R kit. Too many around here have unfathomable taste in pro kit (to wit, the love shown to Mapei) while classics like Atala get dissed!
Well played by everyone except Aru.
Replays showing Froome raising his hand for a mechanical and then Aru, who is behind Froome, immediately attacks.
Aru pushes the pace, the other contenders follow him but refuse to come through. Aru got mad and tried to get the others to pull through but they would not and now all back together again.
Well played all (except Aru, of course). One of the reasons I so love this sport!
Porte looks really bad….hope he is ok.
Shit. Terrible crash for Porte…….
Following this on updates. Sounds like a stage for the ages and it isn’t even over yet! Gutted for Geraint and Richie.
@wiscot
Porte went offload on the inside of a bend, flew off the bike, took out Martin as he tumbled across the road and hit the rock wall upside down and back first. Horrible.
Wow! That stage had a bit of everything.
@wiscot
Fucking amazing stage! So awful for GT and Porte. Still waiting updates on them.
And fucking awful for Martin as he was right in there and got wiped out by a flying Porte.
Ended up losing over a minute through a crash of no fault of his own.
Ohhhhhhh! Heartbreak for Barguil!
Uhhhg.
Hard to believe Richie just missed that corner following wheels. Any chances Martin got hung up with him from behind going in to the corner ? Just all looked squirrley and terrible tumble.
“One gear Uran” ?!? A faulty Di2 by chance ? That be a mechanical ? Or electrical ?
Aru: so very uncool. So, so, so very…
The Giro/TdF double is just not in the cards nowadays hey?
@Randy C
A replay showed Martin’s foot hitting Uran’s rear mech during the Porte crash.
@Rick
Bent derailleur or maybe popped wire ? Did the strike cause need for crash mode reset ? Maybe he wasn’t even on Di2 ?
Kudos to Froome. He attacked on the Mont du Chat and took his turns at the front on the run in to the finish. Froome has done the leader’s jersey proud the last two years by riding like a true champion.
Chapeau Monsieur Froome.
If Froome goes on to win I’m sure people will complain about the Sky train and Froome’s boring style etc etc. All I’ll say is if you watch that stage and boredom is still the prevailing feeling then cycling just isn’t for you.
@Randy C
Vaughters said he thought it may have been a popped wire but he wasn’t sure yet. Chapeau to the Mavic mechanic who put him in the 11 knowing it was a relatively flat finish. Uran had two choices 53×11 and 39×11. I think Cannondale owes that mechanic some champagne tonight.
@Randy C
Initial reports from the tour Dr was that Porte is “ok” but under observation at hospital & undergoing x-rays. He was conscious the whole time & said he’d had to brake to avoid the rider ahead of him.
Only 125 riders finished within in the time limit today Lets see What the jury does #TDF2017
Update:
#TDF2017 – Official: 181 riders are in time limit
@Buck Rogers
Yes indeed! How crazy was it for an epic stage like that to come down to what amounts to a photo finish? Barguil was justifiably upset.
Lots of swaps on the cards for tomorrow I think . . .
@wiscot
Not for those of us with integrity and honour! (insert smiley/snarky face here!)
@Randy C
Aru – early nominee for the Anti-V Award of the Year. Not least for being so visibly upset when the others reigned him.
Quintana just hasn’t seemed on the ball this year.
@Teocalli
Aru has apparently said he didn’t know Froome had a problem. Despite having to duck under his raised arm while initiating his attack.
@Geraint
They’re saying Rigo “53-11” Uran had is rear derailleur damaged as Dan Martin knocked his rear wheel during the crash. What a finish.
I’m not a fan of attacking anybody, let alone the yellow, when they have a mechanical. However, could there have been a bluff to keep the pack at bay? NBC (Roll, VdV) were saying the attacks were fine. I can’t say I agree, especially since he put his hand up and Fabaru rolled right under it. Where do we stand on this? @frank? @giani?
FWIW, Dan Martin shutting down the attacks and having the Tour of his life, including finishing the stage after the crash only like 1:15 down, shows the V is with him.
@Geraint
Well, I guess Aru is pretty small, even by the standards of small riders so I guess he could have thought Froome was being polite and giving him a route through………..
I dubbed Porte as POSH (Porte out starboard home) not knowing how prophetic that nickname would be. Too bad.
Today’s restday swap, no? So want to keep Froome in 1st place; swap out Porte for Aru (2nd), Quintana for Bardet (3rd), Contador for Uran (4th) and Fuglsang for Dan Martin (5th), but doing so would cost me 80 points if I am not mistaken which means I will be in the negative even before the Vuelta starts, so I will give up with a clean spinal fracture, like Robert Gesing and expect next year’s TdF will be better.
@KogaLover
I’ve had a look at it and you have to be very lucky to end up in credit from a rest day swap. Which I think is intentional. 3 of my 5 are either out of the Tour or out of contention, however. But it still might not be worth making any swaps.
Aru for Porte might work – it’d cost me 5 but might make me an additional 5 if Aru drops to 3rd.
@RobSandy
Actually, this would cost me 20 points in total (4×5 as is first restday swap) but it would eat up all of the 20 points I will be getting for Froomy’s first place. So I will STFU.
@KogaLover
I think it’s the best approach. Frank hasn’t opened the swaps so it’s a moot point anyway.
Anybody else find it strange that Froome’s tiny mechanical (not puncture) issues always seem to happen right at a critical point of a major climb? If Aru had crashed when Froome shouldered him, would Froome have been ejected from the Tour like Sagan?
@Rick
@Rick
WHY did the others not force Froome to do all the work to the finish? They had nothing to gain by chasing down Bardet. That was Froome’s chase to make to keep yellow from Bardet.
@VbyV
Maybe they were all just racing Bardet for second place?
@VbyV
Just to be devil’s advocate here, a crash is a crash, a puncture is a puncture. Neither can be predicted or avoided – if they could be, they wouldn’t happen. But a mechanical? Some might argue that a well set-up bike should function fine barring a situation such as a rear mech getting dinged in a crash (like what happened to Duran Duran) As bikes get more and more technologically advanced, and therefore more susceptible to malfunction, at what point (as I said barring a Uran situ) does a mechanical malfunction qualify a rider to call or expect a ceasefire? Surely it behooves a team to send out their riders on the most reliable equipment just as they send them out properly nourished and rested. Would it be acceptable for a rider to declare “I didn’t sleep last night” or I’ve got the shits this morning, so if you’d all take it easy until I feel better, I’d appreciate it.”
As I say, just being the devil’s advocate here, but as I’ve said before, you can’t run a race along the lines of “if everyone is feeling top-notch, let’s race, otherwise, let’s take it easy.”
@VbyV
Because save Aru, they were all going for the stage win. Also, all Froome had to do was shadow Aru. The only thing on offer for Froome were bonus seconds and they were only really important if Aru got them and Froome got none.
Somethings gone amuck with the rest day swaps code. I’ll see if I can get them working in time, but worst case is that no one swaps, which is not a terrible worst case…
@wiscot
I think there was the possibility of an interesting conundrum arising yesterday. I find it a bit fishy that Aru attacked as Froome put his hand up. As Simon Yates said ‘bullshit’. I bit of a ceasefire in that sort of race while someone changes a bit is reasonable, I think. Didn’t make it easier for Froome as he had to ride back up to the favourites knowing full well someone would hit it as soon as he made contact.
However, when Bardet was out the front, the chasing group contained Uran who was having his own mechanical. Would the group riding away from Uran to catch Bardet be considered unsporting, when the alternative would be to let Bardet escape, taking the stage win and potentially moving up on GC?
@frank
This is obviously the Will of the Velominati Gods!
Merckx himself must have visited the site, saw the “Rest Day Swap” bullshit and decreed that it must stop now!
(either that or there is a glitch in the matrix???)
@Buck Rogers
A-Merckx, brother.
@VbyV
I thought the same thing. Primarily as a result of Froome’s abuse of power in last year’s Tour. When three or four Sky riders crashed and Movistar stepped on the gas. At that precise moment Froome decided he needed to take a potty break. Cancellara rode up to Movistar and told them to ease off, which they reluctantly did.
In yesterday’s stage Froome had a so far unnamed mechanical at another critical juncture. When Aru slowed it took some time for the Sky train to catch back up. If it took them a kilometer to get back that shortened the roughly 9 kilometer climb by 11%. This in a race that is annually decided by far less than 1% of total riding time. Neutralizing the group for a significant portion of a difficult climb would yield great benefits to the leader.
Is it a coincidence that these things happen at crucial times or another way to reap marginal gains?
Post Script: I am not accusing anyone of anything, just wondering about their timing.
@VbyV
I’d suggest there is a huge difference between dinging someone on a climb vs dinging someone at 60 kph in a sprint finish. Where are the shouts for Quintana to be DQd for apparently dinging Contador in one of his 2 offs? Are you going to DQ everyone who has a minor contact in the peleton? Where do you draw the line? It’s not a contact sport but some contact is pretty much inevitable so the question, I suggest, is whether there was danger involved. Note Sagan was apparently DQd for the second of 2 contacts in that run in. The first was pretty dumb IMHO to try to slice between two members of the same team which was the cause of the crash that also brought Thomas down. I missed the Froome incident but would suggest that in such an incident the worst penalty would be a time penalty for unsportsmanlike behaviour, if warranted.
Re Froome and critical point on the climb, I’d suggest that that point only became critical post whatever was Froome’s issue and then Aru’s attack. As I remember it, wasn’t Sky sitting at the head of the group up to that point?
Just trying to present a balanced view here.