Pro Cycling 2015

[DaveC]

[tweet]625028157645701120[/tweet]

 

[cobl04]

^wow that's fucked.

I watched probably the last 20-30ks last night, and I think I'm going to make an effort to get into Le Tour next year. It was pretty enthralling. I've always suspected that if I actually understood what was going on I'd get into it, so I'm going to make the effort next year.

There was some awesome footage of a rider going downhill doing about 80ks, and I was also blown away by the crowds, I think it's completely insane that there's no barriers for a lot of it. So much potential for disaster.

 

[DaveC]

I'm amazed that he made it through that untouched if that was the mood of the crowd before the race. They'd been camped out there drinking for three straight days (as is the usual custom at Dutch Corner).

There was some awesome footage of a rider going downhill doing about 80ks,

That would be a guy named Peter Sagan. He's one of my favourite riders right now - he's fun to watch and likes to entertain and mug for the cameras, etc unlike a lot of other riders. And he won the green jersey (for "best sprinter", even though he's not really a sprinter) in the TDF for the fourth straight year.

and I was also blown away by the crowds, I think it's completely insane that there's no barriers for a lot of it. So much potential for disaster.

Indeed there is, and there has been a lot of drama with the crowds over the years. Problem is you can't put barricades up and enforce them for hundreds of kms either, and even where there are barricades it doesn't stop a lot of the insanity. It's a part of cycling that I hope never goes away as that's part of the excitement of watching the mountain stages for me, and it's a bucket list thing too for me to watch the Tour go up a huge mountain in the Alps and be in a crowd like that (but not on Dutch Corner)

EDIT: This is fucking awesome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFWnLWPyOKo

 

[DaveC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsTz0SEvFV4

 

[DaveC]

Tour de France: the climb of Alpe d'Huez – interactive | Sport | The Guardian

And, on the flip side: 100 Cycling Climbs Better Than Alpe d’Huez

 

[DaveC]

Every possible highlight and lowlight of the Tour you could want:

https://www.reddit.com/r/peloton/comments/3epqyy/tour_de_france_2015_in_gifs/

 

[intedomine]

Hopefully Cancellara rides out the full tour next year.

Well done to Quintana for chewing into Froome's overall winning lead.


Sent from a barge floating through the docks of Dublin

 

[cobl04]

Indeed there is, and there has been a lot of drama with the crowds over the years. Problem is you can't put barricades up and enforce them for hundreds of kms either, and even where there are barricades it doesn't stop a lot of the insanity. It's a part of cycling that I hope never goes away as that's part of the excitement of watching the mountain stages for me, and it's a bucket list thing too for me to watch the Tour go up a huge mountain in the Alps and be in a crowd like that (but not on Dutch Corner)

Oh yeah I know it's part of the culture of Le Tour and it looks really cool and unique and fun, it's just that it also seems totally insane in this day and age

 

[DaveC]

Champagne renowned for its urine-like flavour, French tell Froome

 

[nielsgov]

Anyone watch Paris-Roubaix today?

What a race! It was the big guns against each other for the last 110 km. It's sad that Boonen didn't get the record but Hayman was definitely deserving.

 

[DaveC]

I completely space on Paris-Roubaix every year. Dammit

 

[DaveC]

mont ventoux

 

[nielsgov]

Only half of it though... Not the iconic moon landscape.

I'm on holidays in Asia and I can't watch any of it. Only the final three or four stages.

Sent from my H60-L04 using U2 Interference mobile app

 

[DaveC]

mont ventoux

 

[DaveC]

niels, you should try and catch a reply or highlights of today's stage if you can. absolute madness.

shortening the stage was probably a bad idea in hindsight, because it caused all the thousands who would have been on the top third of the mountain to absolutely pack the last 10 km. although they clearly couldn't have gone all the way up so i'm not really sure what else they could have done.

 

[nielsgov]

Yeah I followed it a bit on live stream text. Must have been crazy. I read Froome was running up the mountain at one point lol.

And also yay for Belgium. 1 and 2 on the Ventoux. That doesn't happen every day.

Sent from my H60-L04 using U2 Interference mobile app

 

[DaveC]

meant to post these last week for you and then forgot you've probably seen em already but i still want to preserve this ridiculousness forever

[tweet]753606639492661250[/tweet]

[tweet]753605237655601153[/tweet]

edit: i dunno who you guys have for commentators, but robbie mcewen is knocking it out of the park along with his partner matthew keenan. in canada for the first time this year we get these two guys for the majority of the race except for some strange reason they switch to senile paul sherwin & phil liggett for the last 50 km (plus the first five minutes or so of post-race when it switches back) and it really shows how terrible they've become in the last few years. robbie's colour commentary from a former top sprinter's perspective has been really cool though, he talks a lot about the tactics and his own races and what the riders are feeling and it's horribly entertaining. then for the actual sprint finish we get guys who are so clueless they can't even tell which rider is which. [/rant]

 

[DaveC]

the tour is back for another year. my money is on richie porte, froome (and his team) is looking weaker so far this year.

i will also note that i absolutely hate the prologue and wish it would disappear forever.

this is a cool advertisement for today's prologue in dusseldorf, though:

 

[nielsgov]

Well, that was the most eventful boring stage ever. Way too harsh on Sagan.

 

[Hollow Island]

It'd go farther an say that it's the greatest affront to the ideas of reason and justice that have ever been perpetrated in sports. Sagan left his path because Demare did the same and he was following him - it was chaos. Cav was going down before Sagan's elbow came up because he tried to fit where the was no room and tried to muscle Sagan out of his way with his fucking head!

Kicking Sagan out is the kind of decision that would be made in haste in any other sport and then overturned when video replay showed it was the wrong call. Instead UCI makes a sane decision then reviews video and acts as though it showed something completely different.

Riders should refuse to wear the green jersey in protest.

 

[DaveC]

i agree, that seemed like an absurdly hasty decision. the announcers seemed to jump to the same rapid conclusion after watching the replay from behind one time and decided that sagan was guilty of a heinous act. i could understand the reaction after one or two views (i thought the elbow was the cause of the crash as well at first), but after watching several replays it's clear the elbow came out for balance after cav was already starting to go down. all sagan did was try to take a line around démare, and cav tried to fit himself into a place where there was no room. that's cavendish's style, he finds the smallest gaps and blasts through them; sometimes he tries to wedge in where there isn't room and often crashes as a result. he's reckless as hell but that's how he wins so much. this is far from the first time cav has crashed for this exact reason.

i would have expected the UCI would be a little less hasty in expelling the four-time green jersey holder and arguably the most popular rider in the sport today, considering their track record when it comes to punishing their superstars for infractions. what a shame, sagan is so much fun to watch and he's really getting a raw deal here.

gotta wonder how this would have gone if it was, say bouhanni and démare who were involved rather than sagan and cavendish. i imagine it would have been rather different.

anyways, i'm super excited for the climb up la planche des belles filles in about an hour or so. i don't think the contenders will attack each other although quintana should attack without a doubt - 20% gradient! - he without a doubt won't attack, and blame it on some external factor he has no control over, as is tradition, and end up losing the tour by the seconds he could be making up here. i expect a rolland/voeckler type of rider to win at the top today. would love to see richie porte go for it though.

 

[Hollow Island]

i don't think the contenders will attack each other although quintana should attack without a doubt - 20% gradient! - he without a doubt won't attack, and blame it on some external factor he has no control over, as is tradition, and end up losing the tour by the seconds he could be making up here.

I hope you're wrong but you're probably right. I don't think Quintana will ever win a Tour. It's such a shame that Sagan is out - he'd win his sixth green jersey, Froome will possibly win his fourth yellow...the results could have been historic.

If Bouhanni had been involved he would have elbowed Cav and given him a kick for good measure.

 

[DaveC]

I hope you're wrong but you're probably right. I don't think Quintana will ever win a Tour. It's such a shame that Sagan is out - he'd win his sixth green jersey, Froome will possibly win his fourth yellow...the results could have been historic.

Hot damn, what a finish. Quintana will have his yellow jersey soon enough.

as you can see i've always been pretty big on quintana but his constant refusal to attack has soured me by now. i was pretty let down during the giro this year when he had the maglia rosa on stage 20, knowing the final stage was a time trial. he absolutely had to put time into nibali, pinot, and dumoulin to have any hope of keeping the jersey, and all he did was ride to keep up with the front group. he had literally no choice but to attack and still refused to. even the commentators were baffled, they kept saying that the attack must be imminent because he's undoubtedly going to lose the giro if he doesn't go rightfuckingnow, but all he did was stick on nibali's wheel like he thought the giro ended that day and he was fine as long as he didn't lose time. it was maddening to watch.

sure as shit, tom dumoulin put nearly a minute and a half into quintana on the TT the next day and won the giro by 45 seconds.

it's like he outright refuses to put in the necessary work, or there's something inside him that seizes up when the moment to strike presents itself. almost like he doesn't really want to win deep down. he has no killer instinct and it's frustrating. he talks like a GC contender and races like he only wants the polka-dots. valverde probably could have won a tour by now if the team hadn't been so focused on pumping up the guy who just settles for being on the podium consistently.

 

[DaveC]

hell of an attack by aru. god damn i love that climb

kind of a shame that froome is already in yellow but definitely expected. hope aru didn't blow his tires out today and he and porte (and others too) can keep up the pressure on sky going into the alps this weekend.

 

[Hollow Island]

Yeah, his racing in the Giro was puzzling. Movistar has to be very frustrated with him. Today he actually lost time, but he's pretty much even with Contador so he's probably happy about that. He shouldn't be, though: Contador is done, and so is Quintana for this tour. There's no way he'll make up 52 seconds on Froome.

Aru's attack was excellent though. I'm surprised Froome waited to so long to respond. I'd be thrilled to see Aru win the tour, but that's not going to happen.

 

[intedomine]

Unless he attacks with some sort of ambition, which he isn't bold enough to do.

 

[DaveC]

i don't think quintana could take back 54 seconds on froome right now even if he woke up tomorrow morning with lance's ambition.

the more i think about it the less i think i would be disappointed if froome ends up winning, i just really want to see a close finish. if it's half as exciting as the giro was this year i don't care who wins.

 

[nielsgov]

I agree that Quintana isn't the most adventurous rider (I'm a fan BTW), but it's not exactly easy to attack the best climbers in the world who are in their best form. In the Giro there was one stage where Quintana did attack and when Dumoulin caught him at the end he lost some time. Yesterday it was clear that he didn't have the legs after he couldn't follow Froome and Porte. It would also be stupid to attack early because the Sky team will just keep you within reach until Froome closes the gap because he's still fresher.

Basically, it's not Playstation.

 

[DaveC]

I agree that Quintana isn't the most adventurous rider (I'm a fan BTW), but it's not exactly easy to attack the best climbers in the world who are in their best form. In the Giro there was one stage where Quintana did attack and when Dumoulin caught him at the end he lost some time. Yesterday it was clear that he didn't have the legs after he couldn't follow Froome and Porte. It would also be stupid to attack early because the Sky team will just keep you within reach until Froome closes the gap because he's still fresher.

Basically, it's not Playstation.

obviously it's not a video game. i know how this works, i've been watching pro cycling for over half my life. no need to be condescending.

a short punchy climb with a massive gradient would have been a perfect time for a pure climber like quintana to attack. it may not have amounted to anything real in terms of time but it would have required the other contenders to expend energy bringing him back on a 20% slope.

as far as the giro goes it's pretty obvious he needed to attack on stage 20 regardless of what happened previously, and he didn't even look like he was thinking about trying it. he clearly knew the situation in terms of his chances in the TT and the state of the race at the time and did not act on that. he was obviously not riding to win for whatever reason. i would have respected it if he had made an attempt and failed. but when you have no choice but to be aggressive or lose a professional grand tour, to not even make a single go at it is plain lazy, or the rider is injured. we know he wasn't hurt (beyond the usual grand tour fatigue that everyone would be experiencing), so...

obviously now we know that he didn't even have the legs to stay with the main contenders on la planche (how badly is movistar missing alejandro valverde right now), but if he was in his top form it certainly wouldn't have been a poor move to try to have a dig. at least it would have separated the field a bit and provided valuable intel on the status of his rivals in advance of the alpine stages. it's all moot now though. it looks like he gassed himself going for the giro and doesn't have the form to stay on the podium this time around.

i've been a fan of nairo's since his first tour - he's a great climber but his downfall is he just makes weird tactical choices that make no sense (like just letting froome ride away downhill last year on the peyresourde and assuming someone else would do the work to chase him down). i also think that movistar's focus on him winning tours isn't helpful. quintana is clearly one of the top climbers on earth, but valverde is, in my opinion, a better overall rider when you factor in tactics, time trials, energy, etc.

this turned into a rant, guess my 3 cups of coffee from this morning are now kicking in.

anyways, all i came in here to say originally was that edvald boasson hagen got fucking screwed this morning - that was a dead heat and they should have both been given the stage win.

 

[nielsgov]

I really wasn't trying to be condescending so my excuses for that.

I don't think Valverde is better than Quintana for a grand tour. There's a reason Quintana has actually won a grand tour (two even) and Valverde hasn't. He's a much better climber. I actually believe Quintana could have won the Tour two years ago if Valverde didn't go for the podium as well.