Tour de France 2011 (spoilers)

The Game Room
61

Just saw a few interviews with Johnny Hoogerland. Was amazed at his calmness just after finishing, he was saying things about the guy in the car not doing it on purpose… About being happy to be alive (refering to Wouter Weylandt dying in the Giro) and hoping he can defend the king of the mountains jersey on tuesday. He looked really shook up and had was crying a bit during the award ceremonies.

I also saw an interview from a couple of hours later, when he was leaving the hospital and in good spirits. He had 33 stitches (google for some images, it’s quite bloody really) but nothing really serious.

62

Another accident, some really banged up riders from what I can see … is this kind of carnage normal? I don’t remember it from previous Tour coverage.

63

Thanks Busy Scissors.

I live in the part of Minnesota / Wisconsin that was missed by the last glacier, so there are bluffs and steep hills.

The gradient I mentioned was written on the pavement, and macthed my (admittedly not a precision instrument) bike computer fairly well

But the whole tour was ~50 miles (~80 KM) and the hills, while steep, aren’t very long (maybe a km or two)

I myself did NOT make it up Hipbreaker (the harder) Hill, but I’m not the only one.
I made it up Trout Run, which I haven’t in previous years. About the same speed as the guy walking up it though :slight_smile:

Brian

64

Good Question.

Statistically, it’s slightly above par I’d say - in the context of numbers of skeletal injuries compared to nubers of miles raced over an entire season. What is unusual is that it’s happened all in one Grand Tour. Normally, this sort of strike rate is spread out over an entire season with Pro Tour races of varying distance being competed globally (with Europe being the most prominent location, obviously).

The death of Walter Weylands in the Giro this year was definitely unusual - although not totally rare, insofar as deaths do still occur from car strikes beiing driven by members of the public during training rides, but deaths in racing occur about every 8 years or so.

What it does confirm is just what a tough, hard sport it really is. And then there is the “close call” part of it too, which really does your head in. In today’s infamous stage, poor old Flecha came down very hard in the middle of the road, and thankfully rolled immediatley (which spreads the injury location impact and is a good thing). But he also banged Thomas Voekler very VERY hard as he came down and Thomas had a very close call himself in trying to stay up.

I can’t imagine Flecha continuing. That was a massive shunt onto the road at good speed. Hoogerland, conversely, whilst having seemingly horrific barbed wire injuries, did at least land mid roll on the grassy edge. And his cuts, while doubtless painfull, are in soft tissue areas. What we don’t know of course, is how deep those barbs went into his muscles on the back of his legs. If they’re deep enough, I’d be pulling out if I was him.

The major shunt which caught out Vino was one which I only saw the aftermath. Has anyone seen vision of the moment itself?

65

I haven’t seen any video of the crash and have been watching quite a lot of coverage today. As far as I’ve heard some riders (David Millar) thought there was some oil or something on the tarmac and others (Contador) have said the corner should’ve been flagged or something. One thing I do know for sure is that Johnny Hoogerland almost lost control (feet out of the pedals and all) in this very corner before the bunch got there. The main story seems to have been that there were guys ‘lying everywhere, some of which were crawling out of the bushes’ (I think this exact quote goes to Gesink).

I hope both Flecha and Hoogerland will be able to continue. The last I heard about Hoogerland was pretty positive and I’m quite sure he’ll at least start the next two stages (in which he can hold on to the polkadot jersey without too much problems). Flecha I don’t know about, there really isn’t that much in it for him this tour, Wiggins is out and he probably isn’t that likely to win any of the remaining stages… I wouldn’t blame him if he stepped out.

In the end I hope the organisers will do something to compensate Sky and Vacansoleil. Both riders had a fair chance of winning and were denied because some geezer got a permit he never should’ve gotten (in my opinion the organizers are almost as much to blame as the actual guy). Even if it is just financial, money is still a big thing in cycling after all.

66

Video of Hoogerland on the podium.

67

It’s been a bad season. I stopped watching Formula One because I was beginning to feel like a spectator at a fight to the death in the early eighties and nineties.

This season it’s been one death, Soler sounds like he will mentally never be the same again (or even close) and the tour has just been smash after smash.

Oh fer’ cryin out loud what a load of crap. It gives me the shits the way after an accident that no one could possibly have predicted somehow anyone in authority remotely associated is suddenly to blame for not being psychic. Do you have any evidence at all, anything upon which to evidence the idea that the driver had shown signs prior to being given a permit that he would do this?

68

Youtube comments for mine, never get old. But in the attached YouTube comments in THAT video was universal respect and genuine admiration and empathy.

Of them all, however, was one comment directed presumably to European soccer players who regularly take dives to milk penalties…

69

Kloden got tossed into the same trees as Vino and luckily only came out with a sore back, but it caused him to lose a few seconds on the final climb to the finish and its likely a good thing for his continued presence that Monday is a rest day (perhaps RadioShack isn’t completely cursed this year). Apparently there is no video of the moment of the big crash, Kloden said Garmin-Cervelo was pushing it going into the crash, and Zabriske was one of the injured, perhaps it was Big Dave that went down first?

70

A description I read said it wasn’t oil on the road but a corner that tightened as it went, which as any motor or push cyclist will tell you is a bloody nightmare because you go in too fast and/or with too little lean and only discover this partway through the corner. Everyone just ended up going wide into the guardrail.

71

(bolding mine)

How true is that. Such prophetic words. As a youngster starting out in the sport with huge goggle eyes through being so besotted with road cycling, I once asked Phil Anderson in 1983 (I think) at the World’s that year “So how do you get REALLY good at the mountains?”

And his response was priceless…

“Just live in them…”

And that, right there, is what you were saying before Busy Scissors. You simply have to live mountains, ride them every day almost, absolutely max your heart beat out, almost every single day - over long distances - getting lighter, lighter, lighter, stronger, stronger, stonger.

And it’s not just your legs, either. Climbing at race pace is all about dancing on the pedals, out of the saddle. There’s a reason why Contador is rather strong in his shoulder area (in relative terms as compared to other stellar climbers). Armstrong was the same. When you’re out of the saddle, dancing on the pedals, your shoulders and triceps are doing an outstanding amount of localised isometric workload - very similar to shitloads of 30% distance pushups.

So here’s a little test for you all, next time you’re watching a real tough mountain stage. Count the knee lifts of just one leg once a given rider gets out of the saddle. The rule of thumb is as follows… your arms get tired at roughly twice the pace that your legs max out.

A non climbing specialist will be able to do approx 50 lifts before having to go back to the saddle.

A really good climber will do > 70 lifts

An exceptional climber for the ages > 100 lifts.

Now, when you’re climbing, good climbers acutally count their lifts and then swap the lifting to the other leg, and they’ll share the count. 10 lifts on one side, followed by 10 lifts on the other side. Remember, you can’t lift your knee without an equal and opposite push downwards by your other leg on the pedal. This is what they mean by getting into “their rythym”. By sharing the lifts equally from side to side you actually ride at a higher pace than just by pushing downwards only.

Guys like Contador and Schleck can stay out of the saddle, dancing from side to side for up to 100 revolutions or more at a time, and let me tell ya, your arms and shoulders are screaming by that stage.

You’d be surprised how many pushups a guy like Contador can do. It helps too that he’s 62kg. Pro Cycling is all about power to weight ratio if there’s even the slightest hint of undulation in a race. And umm… there’s some serious undulation in the Tour de France. And it was even worse in this year’s Giro.

72

I don’t have any evidence about that specific guy and might have been a bit over the top with my comment. But if you think there haven’t been complaints about the amount of cars and motors in the tour, you haven’t been paying attention.

The same goes for the parcours they are setting out. In the lead up to the tour there was a lot of talk about the narrow roads, dangers of losing time for GC riders etc. The same is true for the Giro of this year. No one could have predicted that WW would fall on that specific part of the course and he was really unlucky, but long before the Giro started the teams were complaining about how dangerous the parcours was…and we saw they took out some parts after the accident happened.

Whether these teams and riders were right is a question you can debate (I heard someone saying today that there are just as many crashes when you let the peleton ride on a wide interstate), but people have been talking about it.

In the end, the teams complain, the organisation doesn’t really listen (at least once a parcours is set, it’s set) and the riders get on the bike anyhow. That’s proffesional cycling, and part of the reason we love it.

73

If you’d ended that post after the first sentence it would have been quite admirable. If.

74

There might be a few freaks of nature out there, but in general: La Marmotte is unfinishable for any but the most serious amateur. If you’re not already putting in 10-15 hours a week cycling, DON’T BOTHER. You WILL NOT FINISH. If you don’t have any experience with 5-8% gradients lasting for several miles, DON’T BOTHER. You WILL NOT FINISH.

It’s not just the physical aspect, it’s mental: Nothing can prepare you for the soul-destroying, never-ending climbs. It will make you curse the day you decided to buy a bike.

L’etape du Tour is perhaps a better option, in that it tends to be (slightly) easier. Riders can ride the same course being used in that year’s TdF. The course changes every year. This year, for the first time, there are two courses: One of the courses is the course from yesterday: 200+ kilometers of non-stop hills. A real suffer-fest; even the pros took almost six hours. The other course this year is the Alpe d’Huez course - that’s actually taking place today. "Only’ a 109 km, so it’s pretty short, but it it’s almost a mini-Marmotte: Col du Télégraphe, Col du Galibier, and finishes with Alpe d’Huez. Egads. 109km, of which most of it is spent climbing. The last half of these races is surreal - it’s absolute carnage. People on the side of the road, sobbing. Throwing up. Sobbing and throwing up. People going into convulsions. Some people passing out. People falling off their bikes from sheer fatique. People screaming in pain as legs cramp up. And that’s the people that have finished…

The vast majority of people entering L’Etape are serious amateurs - and yet, fully 30% or so still fail to finish.

That’s one stage. The pros do that for THREE WEEKS.

They’re all doped. End of discussion.

75

I beg to differ sir, notwithstanding that the first half of your post was excellent insofar as it showed the gravitas of racing in the Mountains.

I beg to differ in that the Pros don’t ride 6 hour mountain stages every day for 22 days - that would get rather boring rather quickly to be honest. No bunch sprints? No unexpected breakaways? Boring!

To the contrary, what the Pros do do however is that they get paid to ride no less than 5 hours a day, 6 days a week. And there’s the rub.

THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THE MILES. That was true in Bobet’s day, in Anquetil’s day, in Merckx’s day, in Hinault’s day, and in Armstrong’s day. It’s the miles in your legs that counts - and the more that are racing miles, the better.

But ultimately, it’s the low body fat percentage which really counts - and that comes from miles. Robbie McEwen told me a few years back before the start of his annual flight back overseas that his team had already mapped out 25,000km of training and racing for him - in one season. And this year, there’s an unsually high number of guys under 24 years of age competing. That says to me that they’ve been on a pro contract for at least two years, just building up the base miles.

I’m sure you already know this, but two guys with identical fitness, identical aerobic capacity, identical weights, identical body fat percentage - well, they’re always gonna be separated by minutes on a mountain stage if one guy is forced to carry 5kg of lead ballast on his back. And in effect, carrying 5kg of body fat on a Mountain stage is the equivalent of lead ballast.

It always amazes me that some of these wealthy dudes who have more money than sense, (and we ALL know 'em) well, they’ll spend $10,000+ USD on the latest shit hot race bike because “so and so in the Tour rides this exact same bike!” And you look at 'em and they’re carrying 15kg, 20kg, 25kg of body fat. When I see that I just think to myself “Dude! What a waste! Lose some weight. Do the bike some justice. Get some liposuction… ANYTHING… get rid of that lead ballast!”

So no, they’re not all doped. Most of the Australians have had blatant “no needles clauses” in their contracts for a decade now. They are, however, all extremely fit. And thankfully, the biological passport makes it very VERY hard for riders to tweak their vital signs nowadays. I would go so far as to say that the sport has never been so clean, to be honest.

76

Heh Heh Heh… ol’ Stuey called it in one…

In regards to Vino’s crash which apparently Dave Zabriske kicked off… Stuey had this to say…

“Look, at the end of the day the riders themselves have to take the blame… they were just going into that corner way WAY too fast.”

And Stuey’s one of the real senior heavyweights on in the Pro peletion nowadays. He’s one of a handfull of guys that, if he makes a call, the other handfull of guys will automatically respect and pass the word on throughout the peleton.

In no particular order they’re the monster hard men, Spartacus, Jensy, the God of Thunder, Stuey… Big George.

When the peleton sat up yesterday to let the peleton repair the Vino crash damage, it was one or more of those heavyweights who made the call - even in the knowledge that Thor was probably going to lose his Yellow Jersey.

77

I saw a video yesterday of a car swerving to the right for no apparent reason and hitting one of the riders, knocking him down and several others hit by him. It looked almost intentional, though I know it was not. Think it might have been Thor … did not have the sound on. WTF? Some awful driving on this tour.

78

The car was swerving to avoid a tree right on the edge of the road. Obviously horrible and I’m sure the driver was dismissed from the Tour just like the moto rider who knocked down one of the Sorensens earlier in the week. Brought out the High Dudgeon from Phil and Paul on the coverage, not seen since Andy Schleck slipped his chain.

79

I believe the cameras caught Jens (misidentified by Liggett as Fabian at the time if I recall) calling the race to a truce, but I’m sure Fabian and Thor were in on the call as well.

80

Anybody have Alexandr Kolobnev in the first man out via piss test pool?