Stage 2: SPOILER

[Landslide]

...Hinault was a Grade A nutjob.

I've always found that rather endearing...

 

[raindog]

Talking of Hinault and the Fignon book, there are loads of anecdotes in it of their time together, including getting pissed and racing the next day with hangovers, that kind of thing. It really was another age.

 

[John the Monkey]

Easy enough to say if you weren't riding the stage. From the rider reports it would appear that it wasn't just a 'normal' rain-slippery road, it was something more, with people coming off even when riding in a straight line. That's not a fair test of bike riding skill, it's just pure blind luck. The peloton doesn't protest and neutralise stages just because of a wee crash or because it suits any one team. Just look at the strada bianchi stage on the Giro for what they can and will ride through. Evans won that and even he was fully behind yesterdays action.

So I can only comment if I was on the bike that day?

Some folk made it down ok, so they get penalised because some didn't?

I'm unsure what this means for the tour now. How many of the favourites need to be affected for by accidents du course this to happen again? Will they decide that the green jersey competition is null and void again? I don't get it. And this is before we even look at the fact that Riis' team benefitted to a large degree from this.

Lots of stuff is luck - a lot of the early racing in the Giro seemed to be so.

Anyway, comment of the day, "Obviously something was wrong with the road, Menchov didn't fall off" -arf!

 

[John the Monkey]

Joe Papp makes some good points here;
http://joepapp.blogspot.com/2010/07/risk-management-and-tour-de-frances-2nd.html

But I don't get this from the AP article he quotes;

But it would be best if the cobbles don’t skew the Tour outcome too much and the top contenders make it through safely. It would not be convincing if Armstrong or others win simply because the paving stones hobbled their rivals."

It's like saying the high mountains shouldn't stop a sprinter winning, surely?

 

[NickM]

I see that Hushovd was upset:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/hushovd-furious-as-points-neutralised-in-spa

But if he was that upset, why didn't he just give Cancellara the finger and attack with his team? Does temporary ownership of the yellow jersey really command that much respect, or is there something else going on, I wonder?

 

[Chuffy]

So I can only comment if I was on the bike that day?

No, but I think this is a one-off incident and as far as I'm concerned if that was the collective decision of the professionals who were riding, then so be it. Big Thor aside, obviously. I certainly don't think there's much point blowing it out of all proportion and fretting about future stages being neutralised because Cav has chipped a fingernail.

@Nick - It was a collective decision not to sprint, not just something that Cancellara decided on and enforced unilaterally. There were other riders at the front helping to maintain things. Sure, there may have been an element of self-interest from some of the teams (HTC for Cav, for example) but I think the main concern was that injured riders of all teams shouldn't be penalised. That's one of the things about bike racing that I really like, the way that you get these occasions where rivals actively support each other rather than taking the slightest opportunity to rip time out.

 

[John the Monkey]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, Chuffy.

I think Cervelo got the rough end of a mixture of sportsmanship and self interest from the other teams yesterday. To add insult to that, race organisers gave everyone in the Cancellara group two green jersey points, apparently. I mean, WHY?

 

[Chuffy]

Joe Papp makes some good points here;
http://joepapp.blogspot.com/2010/07/risk-management-and-tour-de-frances-2nd.html

But I don't get this from the AP article he quotes;

It's like saying the high mountains shouldn't stop a sprinter winning, surely?

Perhaps, but the cobbles aren't a regular feature, unlike the mountains. They're a one-off that favours certain GC contenders, or more precisely, don't favour the likes of Contador. And they could well do more than cost time, they could easily cause a race-ending accident. You could look at that ludicrous tidal causeway section on the '99 route for an even more extreme precedent. The race organisers that year may as well have said that they would spread butter over a random section of road, just to introduce an element of chaos.

 

[Chuffy]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, Chuffy.

I think Cervelo got the rough end of a mixture of sportsmanship and self interest from the other teams yesterday. To add insult to that, race organisers gave everyone in the Cancellara group two green jersey points, apparently. I mean, WHY?

Fair enough, but really it was only Cervelo and Thor in particular who that didn't suit. As for the two points, I didn't know that. God knows why, unless it was a sop to Thor.

 

[Noodley]

My take on it is that it was not a collective decision, if it had been then Cancellara would not have had to do so much hand-waving and pointing. There were sprinters and sprinters' teams quite prepared to go for the sprint...bad decision by Cancellara: he put his team above the peloton in my mind. He'll have lost a bit of respect from a lot of riders, who were responding to the jersey rather than the man - whereas he looked after his own team...

But, it'll pass...

 

[Chuffy]

It's not unbiased, nor without some of the usual evasiveness and special pleading, but it's well written (in a French sorta way), generally well translated, and insightful. All the more interesting for being first hand, too. Fignon reckons he rode at the tail end of the Golden Age of cycling, and by the end of the book I agreed with him.

It's an autobiography innit?

As for the Golden Age, isn't that always the Age when you were in your prime, before the pygmies and lesser men took over? Also applies to politics, literature and any other branch of sport.

 

[fossyant]

Oi Stage 3 has started and was won by a battey enhanced 'Project Black' Roubaix SL3 by Cancellara.................

http://road.cc/content/news/19693-t...ellaras-specialized-project-black-roubaix-sl3

 

[NickM]

It's an autobiography innit?

As for the Golden Age, isn't that always the Age when you were in your prime, before the pygmies and lesser men took over? Also applies to politics, literature and any other branch of sport.

Yebbut, nobut... it was in 91/92/93 that EPO really got a grip. Before then, all the dope in the world couldn't turn a donkey into a thoroughbred, so race results were fundamentally credible.

Ironically, Greg Lemond (Fignon's bete noir) is of exactly the same (retrospective) opinion.

 

[Chuffy]

I fear it was a bit of protectionism on his part though

Surely that part of his job ended once the Schlecks had got back on?

 

[NickM]

...if that was the collective decision of the professionals who were riding, then so be it...

I'm not convinced it was. I think it was essentially the decision of team bosses, passed around by radio.