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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From what little of the coverage I have seen it strikes me that a lot of the guys are fulfilling contracts rather than racing the USA Pro Cycling Challenge.
Mind you the USA also gave us Formula 1 from a hotel car park in Vegas a few years back so the bar isn't set that high.
Updated provisional results, Lindrop takes the lead:
So yesterday was the first bit of this Vuelta I've actually watched, but not for the first time I am bamboozled by Sky's tactics.
Why chase down a non-threatening breakaway, only to let your three main rivals take the bonus seconds and some extra time from you as well ? Froome was left without help pretty early on the last climb and had to make the pace himself, as well as counter their attacks.
If they have a plan I can't work out what it is.
@Oli
So he must think Ullrich should've attacked on Luz Ardiden 2003...
@brett I don't know what Fothers thinks but Ullrich did attack. Sure he slowed down after a while, but he definitely punched it when Armstrong went down. There's a classic clip of him from the left and it shows his right thumb going down on his Ergolever as he dumps it into a higher gear as he looks around at the crash.
I don't care that he did attack, I just think he should have told the truth about it.
Great finish today - if you can watch from 15km to go then do it. The whole bunch is barrelling along at awesome speed, too fast for any one team to control.
Then there is attack after attack until Rodriguez and Gilbert get clear with nearly 5km still to go, but they make it stick and Phil takes the win, just in time for the World Championships.
Gutsy stuff from J-Rod. I know there's a lot of climbing still to come but I hope he can pull this one off.
@ChrisO Agreed, it was a great run into Barcelona.
I hope J-Rod doesn't lose too much in the ITT on Tuesday, he deserves to be leading the GC.
My favoritism toward Gadret is officially over. OVER.
I do believe that I will keep Monfort in. He could have a killer day in the mountains and come in fifth. I can dream.
@ChrisO
I wondered about that too. Can only guess that Froomey said he was strong enough to get some bonus time, but then it turned out he wasn't. Sky's recent attempts to exhaust the competition with fast tempo riding don't seem to have affected anyone except their man, so maybe they will let others lead up the climbs after the rest day.
Froomey has definitely lost that explosive climbing power that he showed at le Tour.
Great to see my smokey Fast Phil get up at last. And a great quote from him in cycling news as to why he has struggled this year, apparently he is human. Who'd have guessed it.
"
The million-dollar question, though, was why Gilbert had had such a bad season up to now after such a good 2011. To his credit, he met the question head on.
"I had a very hard season in 2011, racing a lot and winning a lot takes a lot of energy," he explained. "I'm just human, I'm maybe paying a lot for it this season. After the Tour last year I normally would have had a break, instead, I refocused on the Worlds, and did Eneco, San Sebastian and so on.
"I never stopped and maybe I have paid for it this year. Last year was my year and maybe I was paying for this because I was over my limit."