2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
Postboxer
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by Postboxer »

I don't know, but it would be possible to test the grip conditions just before the riders arrive at hazardous descents, then maybe signal areas with less than ideal grip, as they do in F1.

Geraint Thomas has tweeted a message saying Rafal Majka went down right in front of him and he couldn't avoid it, so again not really his fault. Also a pic of him on a private jet so it's not all bad. I wonder if he'll go for La Vuelta now. All these incidents have made me wonder how Lance Armstrong managed to finish 7 in a row, was he really lucky, or was he always comfortably in the lead that he didn't need to take any risks? More noteworthy, Adam Hansen has finished the last 17 Grand Tours and currently sits in 100th position in the GC. Feel sorry for the riders who didn't make the cut off time today, imagine riding all that then going home.

I'm also wondering whether everyone has been sprinting wrongly and Uran has accidentally discovered that the best way is to start off in a big gear and slowly build speed til you win. I bet Team Sky are looking into it for marginal gains.

An exciting and brutal stage, I think they've earned their rest day. Tuesday's stage looks fairly easy too in comparison. One for the sprinters, if there are any left?
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TrevA
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by TrevA »

F1 drivers are repeatedly driving around the same circuit. TDF riders are going place to place so much harder to do, I would say.

Descending is one of the skills riders must master and there are surprisingly few crashes compared to the numbers of riders and descents involved. Bardet and Froome didn't seem to be having any trouble on the descents.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
TrevA wrote:More fireworks on today's stage but I won't say anymore for the moment.


Catoclismatic (cataclysmic) a better word :mrgreen:

Rider is forced off road and sabotages another's bike with a back kick :?
Rider then falls off a second time but finishes.
Uran is forced to pedal on top rear cog 10M to the finish which he wins :o

Faced with a disadvantage he finds the grit to hang on 8)

You couldn't write that.
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mig
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by mig »

seems to me that as tour organisers seek ever steeper / more unusual etc routes then they push the envelope of what is a good idea for a group of fast riders. seems to have become a trend since a vuelta in the early 2000s was it? with that incredibly steep finish - the covadonga? didn't david millar get off before the finish and refuse to cross the line. then the giro have done some similar ones. then of course the rio olympics road course was pretty daft in places.
i would have liked to see footage of the main group go down that descent yesterday. i'd bet that they were going slowly as it was so narrow and it seemed to have loose stuff on the top. descending is a skill to be tested in the tour but i think they've pushed some routes too far where it becomes intrinsically dangerous.
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mjr
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by mjr »

TrevA wrote:Re the Cav crash, I've seen video on Twitter that suggests that it was Cavs brake lever that knocked Sagans elbow and caused it to flick out. I think Cav went for a gap that wasn't really there.

Cav was neatly on Demare's wheel as he drew alongside Sagan - see photo - so basically Sagan went for a wheel that was already occupied and deserved declassification for basically shunting a rider into the barrier. Disqualification maybe a little harsh but it's debatable. One of the Cycling Podcast and ITV Podcast claimed that Sagan isn't a natural sprinter and doesn't have the positional awareness of who's where alongside him or how close he is to the barriers, which is most of what determines if you're going to get away with shunting someone, like Griepel and Demare both got away with shunting Bouhanni, because it's Bouhanni (who is quite stable on the bike) and he was near the middle of the road.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Have to say that I saw the same (sagan's elbow possibly touched by cav's bars)... but there is limited decent footage.

It was a brace decision to DQ, wish the FIA had the same guts...
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by rualexander »

On tonight's rest day show they had Phil Ligget's all time best team of 9 riders, and he referred to Robert Millar as "still the only British rider to win the King of the Mountains classification", must have forgotten that Chris Froome won yellow and KoM in 2015, either that or he's not considering Froome as British.
Postboxer
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by Postboxer »

Just watching the highlights/review show from yesterday's rest day, didn't realise that after breaking his collarbone, Geraint Thomas still tried to carry on, rode the rest of the descent and a bit more before realising he couldn't really continue! Unbelievable!
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by freeflow »

Geraint Thomas still tried to carry on, rode the rest of the descent and a bit more before realising he couldn't really continue! Unbelievable!


Depends on the nature of the break.

I once fell on an Audax and broke my collar bone but was able to ride the 60km to the finish, pack the bike in the car and then drive two hours home. It was only the scrunchy feeling in my shoulder when moving my arm the next day that prompted me to go to casualty where it was revealed that the collar bone was broken about 1/2 inch in from the shoulder joint. Perversely, immediately after the fall my shoulder was much much less painful whilst sitting on the bike lightly holding onto the handlebars. Road buzz didn't cause much problems either.

Incidentally, if you do something similar. Use paracetamol as the pain relief not ibuprofen. Ibuprofen can interfere with the hormones released when bone is broken and which help the bone to set correctly.
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by thirdcrank »

Pascal Simon rode for almost a week in the TdeF (1983) with a broken shoulder blade, motivated by the fact that he was wearing the yellow jersey. IIRC, the thing that forced him to abandon was that he couldn't cope with the climbing in a mountain stage. Geraint Thomas has plenty of experience of continuing to race despite injury; he famously rode most of the 2013 TdeF with a pelvis fracture.
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by mjr »

Tyler Hamilton finished the 2003 Tour despite breaking his collarbone in Stage 1. I've not looked hard to confirm it, but he was almost certainly blood-doping during that race, although he's never been stripped of those results and I don't think blood-doping makes a broken bone much easier to deal with.
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thirdcrank
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by thirdcrank »

rualexander wrote:On tonight's rest day show they had Phil Ligget's all time best team of 9 riders, and he referred to Robert Millar as "still the only British rider to win the King of the Mountains classification", must have forgotten that Chris Froome won yellow and KoM in 2015, either that or he's not considering Froome as British.


I've just watched my recording of this programme this afternoon and it amazes me that with so much going on in the race, they need to fill the time with stuff like this. I thought it was a bit of a strange rag-bag of riders. He mentioned having covered 45 TdeF's so why include Tom Simpson who died fifty years ago on Thursday? Otherwise, why not go back even further into the misty past? I presume Phil's pal Lance A was excluded for allegedly being naughty but it now seems to be generally accepted that it was "substances" which killed Simpson. He seemed to select too many chiefs in proportion to indians. IIRC, an already well-established Simpson insisted that Peugeot let rising star Eddy Mercx go, so it's not certain they would work together in a fantasy cycling team. I think it would be hard to argue with the choice of Mark Cavendish as the team's sprinter, but modern conditions mean such a rider needs a team built round them. Another eyebrow raiser was Raymond Poulidor as road captain. I thought that role was to provide tactical wisdom during races. Pou-pou AKA L'Eternal Second was renowned for missed opportunities.
mig
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by mig »

don't they bother making team change colours that clash with the classification jerseys anymore? like 'once' changing to pink each year?

cannondale-drapac is similar to the points this year. or is it only yellow that matters?
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by mjr »

mig wrote:don't they bother making team change colours that clash with the classification jerseys anymore? like 'once' changing to pink each year?

cannondale-drapac is similar to the points this year. or is it only yellow that matters?

The only reason yellow matters is the sponsors being unhappy with criticism. Teams are only allowed to ride in alternative colours for one race a year, so why would they want to ride the most famous race not in their usual kit, just to avoid conflicting with a minor jersey colour? A better solution would be to make the minor jerseys more distinctive, like the mountains at the Tour and Vuelta.
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Brucey
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Re: 2017 TdeF (spoilers post-highlights please)

Post by Brucey »

for those of you confused by the coverage (as I was to start with) 'Pippa York' = 'Robert Millar' these days.

Poor blighter; I know next to nothing about this sort of thing except that it seems to me that very often 'transitioning' alleviates one lot of angst and misery and then replaces it with another.

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