One of the loveliest things about the Grand Tours is that you get a feel, by the nature of the route, of the country’s landscape and physical qualities. Italy is littered with mountains and coasts, France is bordered by mountains with large swaths of open landscape throughout, and Spain is like Tatooine; mostly desert with some rocky outcroppings. I might be oversimplifying here, but it seems like every edition of the Vuelta features a week or two of riders cutting through open desert on a freeway and then finishing it off with some climbs that require a buzz-saw gear to get up. Of the three Tours, this one is my least favorite, but it’s a bike race and I loves me a bike race.
The Vuelta also stands apart as being the event which generally decides the Velominati Super Prestige GC and the personalized Shop Apron that goes with it; in past editions, we’ve even had newcomers to the event debut at the Vuelta and win the overall, as was the case last year with @Nate’s performance. Unless I have that wrong, in which case I don’t really care. The important point here is that even though there is less interest in this event than others, it matters quite a bit to the year-long VSP, so you better be paying attention, corporal.
No fancy prizes on offer as we did at the Tour, but we do have our customary Symbol Pack up for grabs, in addition to second and third places winning a pair of Handlebar Cufflinks each when they come available in a few weeks. So, check the race details, get your picks in by the time the countdown clock goes to zero (5am Pacific time on Saturday), and buckle in for the ride. Regular GT VSP rules apply. Good luck.
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well, the Espana is pretty much as we all thought...Froome vs Cont-adore
@cyclops: Go Landis on them blame the beer. Truthfully tho, my experience is the intensity in cat. 4 is stratospheric in comparison to cat5, and seemingly narrower jumps up from there, just longer times in the saddle on crits and harder pulls, much harder pulls and sways in momentum. But what do i know, i am tit sucking most the time too....and in denial??
@Cyclops
Go For the Gold !
@Steampunk
Hmm, very interesting to think about. Never considered it like that.
On another note, a pal just alerted me that he noticed via some social media site that my high school GF is naming her nearly-born child Thor. Ouch. A cool name for a PRO cyclist, but I see a whole lot of name-related stress coming that dude's way in elementary school.
Wow, just caught the last 3 km of the 3rd stage. Animated to say the least. Nice.
Back from the dead, assholes!
Is there a race going on? Always great to see a provisional result showing the who's who of riders returning from doping bans.
[vsp_results id="20426"]
[/vsp_results]
Great to see such attacking riding by Contador - that's why I watch bike racing.
Valverde's another former Spanish doper coming back, but he's been back for a little longer, so he kind of flew under the radar with Contador grabbnig the headlines. It'll be interesting to see if he's in the kind of form to be a GC contender for the duration of the race. The experiment with Valverde riding for Cobo seems to have lasted a whole 2 stages.
@xyxax
Contador definitely launched a lot of attacks in those last 3km, wow! He made it look as though he was just playing with the others. It will be interesting to see whether Froome has any more jump in his legs than he showed today.
Well, i think we can end it now, 3-tied for first is very comfortable. Contador would eventually have placed himself at the top, but you all knew that... Although it will be interesting to see all the suffering- just not on cable tv! There is some domestic tour going on now, but the only match for vuelta on comcast was some soap opera (not the bike race version...).
If the next 3 weeks are like that stage we are in for a treat. Welcome back Bertie.
fuck it. We had a clean tour that was slated as boring (by others, not by me). Now that cheating W*****r C**t is back and everyone is wetting themselves because he attacks.
Well, you get the racing you deserve, I suppose.