I don’t know how textbook that lead out was to be honest. Wiggins and Edvald B-H did some bloody good work but at the point where Cav takes off, he’s effectively on the front of the bunch with a mass of clear road to go before taking the two guys from the breakout. He’s effectively leading out Sagan, Goss and the rest at 500 to go and accelerates away from all of them. I burst out laughing watching it - it was ridiculous.
The look on Luis Leon’s face as Cav turns on the afterburners going away from him - followed by the wave of the hand - said it all. Just “FUCK - where did he come from?”
Former winners include: Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, Denis Menchov, Ivan Basso, Jan Ulrich, Marco Pantani, Greg Lemond, and Laurent Fignon. It seems to me to be at least a 50% chance of being very good, and maybe 25% have gone on to get at least 1 Tour victory.
When they show the inside of the Sky team car, it looks like left-hand drive. The driver is also the one talking on the radio, and there was a computer screen (or so it looked like) turned to face him. And whenever I see a rider drop back to get food and water bottles, it’s from the left front seat of the car.
Is it always done that way? I expect each team has more than one car, so they can split up to handle breakaways and such; maybe the food car isn’t the one with the head honcho in it. But it always looks unsafe to me to have one guy doing everything. I know someone has to be in charge, watching the standings and calling the strategy. Can’t he let someone else drive?
Are these climb specialists better climbers than the top GC riders? Better than Wiggins? Froome? Evans? Nibali? If the climb specialists are the best climbers, why aren’t they competing for the yellow? Is Voeckler really an hour worse in the time trials than Wiggins? It’s a worthless competition.
Dude summitted 7 consecutive categorized climbs in the Pyrenees in 1st place, which included 3 Cat 1 and 2 HC. That’s the sort of thing that’s suicide to even attempt if you’re riding for the GC. Riding for the GC you have to play it safe. Voeckler demonstrated about where he’s at as a GC rider last year - respectable enough but not up there with the best.
If you don’t like the secondary competitions in the Tour, fine, but it’d be a pretty boring race without them.
I raised the same issuelast year. BBF (our only resident former pro cyclist, I think) gave an answer, though (no criticism intended) not a complete answer because there probably isn’t one. See post after mine.
Those competitions are fine. But the one that’s supposed reward the best climber doesn’t actually do so. Can’t see how that isn’t lame.
Right. Why isn’t he up there with the best? Because he’s not as strong a climber as the best. The reason he summitted those climbs was because the best climbers let him. Had Voeclker been an actual contender, Wiggens et al wouldn’t have let this happen.
Oh, it was this year. But if the Tour is depending on the secondary competitions to prevent boredom, that could be a problem.
You can say the same about the green jersey. How do we know Wiggins wasn’t actually the best sprinter there? If a sprinter was in contention for the GC he’d be a fool to waste energy competing for the green jersey.
No. The reason he wasn’t up their with the best is because he’s not the best all round cyclist. He may or may not be a better climber than Wiggins but we don’t know because his overall cycling performance meant he and others like him werent a threat. I’m pretty sure that Wiggins wasn’t the best climber there yet he won the GC. The guy looked very comfortable but he had tremendous help from his team and he got dropped by Froome in one of the early mountain stages. Wiggins won because he was the best time trialer, can keep up with the top guys in the hills as long as they’re maintaining a consistent effort, and he didn’t have any bad luck.
The polka dot jersey competition started because sometimes the best climbers weren’t featuring in the GC standings or stage wins and the organizers thought you should get something for being the first to summit a climb. Originally they had that time advantage at the top added to their GC time, then it was changed to a separate points competition. If they went back to some kind of time technique it would make the climbs more interesting, but there’s nothing fundamentally worthless about having separate competitions that give more individuals and teams a chance at some prize money.
That, and more air-time for the team sponsors. There is also a recognition for the most aggressive rider (Sorenson) who wears a red number, as well as best team (Radio Shack-Nissan - top 3 rider’s times from each team each day combined, or something). These competitions are a way for teams without real contendors to have a shot at some notoriety during the race, which is what sponsors probably want as well. Remember that cycling is huge in Europe and the more times your man gets photo’d or videoed the more advertizing for the sponsors.
Same thing for break-aways. I bet some teams send a rider out in these each day so they get some time in front of the cameras, knowing full-well that they have no hope of surviving out there to the finish line.
Thanks for the link. It’s nice to know I wasn’t being too much of a worry wart to think that the team-car workload might not be the safest arrangement. Didn’t a car run a couple riders off the road a while ago? (I remember the incident, don’t remember which race it was in, or when.) Did anybody look at that and ask if maybe the driver might have had a few distractions at the time?
That incident was in last year’s TdF but it wasn’t a team car. It was a car driven by French media. No team car would do anything so monumentally stupid. Also, the incident didn’t seem to be caused by inattention or distraction: it appeared to be caused by an idiot driver in a hurry to get past, totally misjudging the required passing distance, and then when he ran out of room deciding to swerve into the riders rather than hit a tree.
Of course that is possible. Nonetheless, while I agree with you that the overloading of team directors in team cars while driving seems like a recipe for disaster (indeed, I raised the point last year) the Hoogerland incident last year is not particulary to the point since it wasn’t a team car.
You’re right, but it is a nice moment to talk about the assholes of the Tour (and the ASO in general). Both Hoogerland and Flecha still have not had any compensation and are in a law suit with different parties. The Tour says they aren’t insured and neither is the Media outlet… so ‘too bad that you guys got run of the road…hope you’ll be able to pay for the medical costs yourself’. Really show how much truth there was in all the apologies and sympathies after that stage last year:rolleyes:.
On a related note; the same happened this year to Borut Bozic of Astana… except is wasn’t on film and of course the tour dirction tried to keep it out of the media…all we saw was Bozic having his arm in bandages.
What you say about no insurance doesn’t particularly make sense. What’s your source? Whether ASO or the media outlet have insurance would be irrelevant to whether they are liable and both would have or would very likely have assets to a level sufficient to pay a judgment. There is more to this.
What’s your source on the Bozic thing? Hadn’t heard that one.
Well, here in the Dutch media it is a bit more center stage. I’ll try to look up some English sources. But the Hoogerland thing is pretty much from his mouth (literally in televised interviews) and his spokesperson, lawyer, teameader, etc.
The insurance thing seems strange to me too, but I guess it is insurance companies (and thus the entities they are insuring) pointing at one another, with the victims stuck in the middle.