Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de Suisse
The Tour de Suisse is the last warm-up race prior to the Tour, and the last chance to test your form. As far as Tour rivalries go, we typically see one rival choose the Dauphiné and one la Suisse; it’s unpleasant to ruffle your feathers too much with a pre-Tour head-to-head, you see.
While the Dauphiné has the benefit of previewing some of the Tour’s stages in a race situation, the Tour de Suisse has the benefit of including the only thing more sinister than cobbled bergs: a cobbled mountain pass. This road also holds the distinction of being the only one where I feel more sympathy for the road layers than I do the riders.
Aside from rivals and masochism, the key factors determining which race to ride have to do with the timing of the peak: this race features a full week later in the calendar than does the Dauphiné, and based on the Tour’s parcours and rhythm of the rider’s season, this race may have better timing. But in any case, as with the Critérium, the effort is a dangerous gamble: ride too hard and you could fire off the Guns enter the Tour with little more than starter pistols. Balance, balance.
So, as the Dauphiné winds down, it’s time to start thinking about Suisse, our last VSP before le Tour. Get your picks in by 5am Pacific on Saturday morning. Same drill as usual: Being a week-long stage race, the points on offer are 7 for first, 5 for second, 4 for third, 3 for fourth, 2 for fifth, with the usual allotment of bonus points for getting the rider right but the place wrong. Also, there are no rest days, so no rest day swaps, but we will have our usual approach for riders who drop out. Piti Principle applies as always. Also review the guide, being careful to note that the rules have changed a bit this year, and we may not have completely updated the guide yet, so if there’s a question, ask.
May Merckx be with you all.
My goodness, my Guinness. Those little climbers just can’t TT for shit. (Which is normal, by the way – what’s abnormal *cough* *dopers!* *cough* is riders who win on the moutaintops and then beat Faboo in the TTs.)
Good ride on the Eggtimer, though! Poor Cunego, losing TWO MINUTES in 32 Km. Did his mechanic forget to mount the big ring on his rig?
Marcus takes the VSP honors. Nice work, mate!
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@frank
I think his problem was that he tried a ring too big for his little legs
@Steampunk, xyxax, and ChrisO
The third spot on the podium is getting a bit stuffy.
Schleckulation:
Predicting if a rider’s less-than-stellar pre-TdF form foretells disaster or represents a ploy to fool rivals.
That’s a damn shame for Cunego. He put in a great race.
@xyxax
+1 – and added.
@Marko
Don’t worry, I suspect joint third place in the TDS is the high point of my fantasy palmares.
“What can I say? It’s a time trial, I gave it 100 percent as I usually do and I won,” said Cancellara.
I don’t like the man for some reason, I just can’t put my finger on it…
@xyxax
Brilliant! Attack when someone has a puncture, relegate him to 9th place to put Frankie Schleck on the podium. Did they forget about a time trial the next day? FS had zero chance of staying on the podium with Levi there. Even I didn’t see FS dropping to 7th and Mollema still beat him. Ouch. Leopard didn’t make any friends with that move.
Before the Tour de Suisse, Cunego was not even considered for the podium,
instead he proved otherwise.
Of course there is something a bit bitter to swallow now but I think,
he should be happy for his overall performance, I am.
@xyxax
I schleckulate that those two better spend less time bouncing around on their twin beds in their bedroom and more time not sucking at time trialing or they won’t win many more stage races. Rather, Frank won’t as Andy hasn’t won any.
@Pedale.Forchetta
Cunego is a real gentleman and he should still be proud of his racing. I hope he wasn’t climbing “too” well. He has been such an uneven rider these last few years. I kept discounting him in my VSP picks but I was very impressed with him in this tour.
@Gianni
Me too, me too…
@Pedale.Forchetta, @Gianni
I’ve always liked him, except for when he wore that rub-on tattoo that said, “I’m Doping Free”. I mean, if you’re making a statement like that, isn’t it ironic that it’s temporary?
Great riding from him, though, and as I’m no fan of Levi, I was sad to see him lose his spot. That said, the Eggtimer was set to hard-boiled today, that’s for sure. Good on ‘im.
He’s the most Italian Swiss guy ever. I mean, he’s brash and confident. He’s so very alpha-male. In person (we were hanging around the cars at finishes of the Tour of Qatar) it’s very funny to watch.
The flipside is that he comes across as an arrogant prick quite often. But that’s just because he acts like an arrogant prick. Quite often.
Still smarting from an episode in a tour a few years back in which Cadel drove a break for five or so kay up a hill, noone else taking any turns. So he does all of the work establishing a lead, and a bunch of guys bridge, Cancellara among them, and he demands Cadel goes back to the peleton. Stopped others working, which they were by that time. And this was at a time when everyone hit Cadel for never attacking. Showed what happens when he does, and showed a side of Cancellara that’s a bit ugly.
@Blah
At least Fabs has the goods to be an arrogant prick. When his career is done he will be up there with the real Hardmen.
Tell us more! Who hangs around in Qatar?
@Marko
Hinault could sort this out for us.
@Gianni
I am enjoying this mental image.
@xyxax
I have to give credit to the little seen Rob for that joke, he made it a long time ago it it always struck me as being a little too close to the truth.
@Gianni
@xyxax
Pillow fights that end in undies-over-the-head wedgies when Jens shows up from the adjoining room are hard to recover from.
@Blah
Agreed, that incident was the beginning of the ugly side of Fabio for me.
I imagine that my incredibly poor showing here at the Tour de Suisse VSP is karmic pennance for running (yes, ugh, running) a mountain ultra marathon yesterday. Now not only am I in great pain, I also did not score a single bloody point in the tds vsp. Amazing how life works! Time to get out there and ride my running pain away!
@Pedale.Forchetta
@Blah
Cadel’s attack that day probably ranked in the Top 10 Most Pointless and Doomed Attacks in Tour History. The escape was never going to get away with Cuddles involved. But Faboo still had no right to tell him to leave…
@frank
Speaking of Il Piccolo Principe, given his subsequent career, Canthego’s year that he won the Giro (and Lomabardy and a few others as I recall?) against a bunch of very suspect riders does raise the potential that the temporary tattoo was temporary for a reason. On the COTHO Presumed Guilt Principle (dominating against confirmed dopers), Cunego would almost have to have been on the juice? His subsequent lack of performances in 3 week races supports this flimsy hypothesis further.
But I am glad I included him in my picks. And Cuddles always seems to ride well against him.
Poor Cunego – after that amazing bridge and descent to Grindelwald – nice to see the MJ being aggressive instead of conservative – he deserved better
Makes me think Wiggo might just do something in the TdF if he’s not too stuffed by the time he needs to TT
Glad that tour VSP is over, next time I’ll not go for a points accumulation by stage policy – doh!
Bring on Letour
Not sure if you all saw this, but some good news re; Soler. Hope this is followed by more.
Good news indeed – mind you, it’s been a long time coming – being out of it for that length of time doesn’t augur well for a future return to racing – thoughts with him, suspect it will be a slow recovery, but fingers crossed for a full one in time
More good news for Juan Mauricio Soler. Whether he ever turns a pedal in anger again doesn’t really matter at this point.