Tour de France 2017

I thought you were taking the piss about the underwear thing, but apparently some of the teams are genuinely having a bunfight because the scruffy Welsh one has actually been using special go-faster pellets in his 'skin suit'?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/02/nicolas-portal-defends-team-sky-accusations-skin-suit-against-rules

Next they'll be giving Gee special go faster piercings. (Carbon. Fibre of course)

Lol never seen that before, Sagan really is a showman

That he is, and in the best possible way.

Damn, stay good Peter. Like,I remember the ass grab and I know he's just a person and not some kind of innocent, but I enjoy his current combo of greatness and decent, goofy, non-malevolence so much that I have a feeling of actual anxiety about him somehow going wrong. Like, I don't wanna know _more_, I just wanna be able to keep seeing him win like a maniac then put on moto goggles. It's not even like ~fandom~ as I've experienced it.

How many racers can have their nose in the wind with 370m to the line while staring down their opponents waiting for them to pounce and still stick it to them?

How the hell is Sagan going to be allowed to get away with something like this? That elbow-jab! I can't see any way that's not deliberate. Gone right off Sagan after that.

The #segan elbow in all its glory#TDF17 pic.twitter.com/SGCY0MtYtk

— Andy Jolley (@ajjolley) July 4, 2017

Yes, yes, I am hooked now.

Exactly the bit where the trees are covering the footage seems essential imo. If Cav hit him there w/ his bike and Sagan got out of balance.

If intentional the elbow is inexcusable, but I don't think Cav's in the clear tbh. He shouldn't have tried to force himself into the space that wasn't a space anyway. But it's what he does.

Zora just linked me this. Seems the judges took a dim view and penalised Sagan for it:

http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/arnaud-demare-wins-tour-de-france-stage-four-crash-blighted-finale-339528?utm_content=manual&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=cyclingweekly

Sagan out of the TdF. Harsh.

So first they penalise him, and then ten minutes later take him out completely. Not a word on Demare obv. Thought I'd hate the organisation in the second week of the tour this year but here we are. Again.

I thought the penalty seemed fair, but exclusion does seem overly harsh.

I did like the plucky Belgian who was way out in front all day. The Guardian reckoned it was a practical joke, haha.

Guillaume van Keirsbulck one of the most beautiful names in the peleton, and there's stiff competition. He's done his sponsors a big favor today.

Sagan's exclusion doesn't sit well with me. Maybe especially because it's on Cav's behalf; nothing against him but boy he's done way worse things in his day and never got punished.

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

^ 2013: Cav drives Veelers to the ground.

(second 50)

Seen replay after replay: the decision to take out Sagan is an absolute disgrace. No way does the punishment fit the "crime". Cav's team pushing for a bigger punishment after the TdF already relegated him in the daily results plus -80 points is nagl to the max.

Well that was...odd. (My sis will be having a fit -- she loves Sagan and thinks Cavendish is trash.)

And yeah van Kiersbluck is all right by me. Kinda loved how he went for it, realized he was alone, and then essentially shrugged and charged.

Ned's sis otm! Cav is trash. His best days are long behind him, but he's always been this way; a daredevil chancer on the wrong side of right most of the time. There's an evil demeanor in his riding that I just do not care for.

i just got back from camping what happ---

;_;

D:

nooooooo not my Pete.

Cav seems to pull this kinda shit all the time & always ends up taking other ppl down ... i like how much he wants to win but it's still infuriating that shit doesnt stick to him

he took out 2 dudes in the omnium at Rio & still got silver

watching the replay, team manager said given illness recovery & slow showing so far this stage was critical for cav to finish & show that he's ready to win - feels more ominous & telling now

exactly the kind of situ ripe for cav to take his brand of stupid risks

interestingly: sagan nudged greipel the day before & after cav's crash, greipel's team manager saud greipel told him ""Twice in a row is too much. He (sagan) isn't my friend anymore from now on'."

but on twitter recanted later:

Sometimes I should watch images before I say something. Apologies to @petosagan as I think that decision of the judge is too hard.

— Andre Greipel (@AndreGreipel) July 4, 2017

I understand that I am new to this, but being new to this means I come at an incident and individuals with no pre-existing judgements.

I watched the clips of that incident about 20 times, from 3 or 4 different angles, and thought it clear what happened and who was at fault.

However everyone else talking about the incident seemed to have seen their own version of it, depending on which cyclist they supported. Like, how much their interpretations were altered by what the believed to be the 'character' of the athlete. An act of aggression could not be read as such because the aggressor "apologised"; the injured cyclist "deserved" what happened to him and so on.

It's really a reminder that people don't see incidents; they see perspectives of what they believe participants personalities to be. Fascinating.

otm x infinity

but that's the thing with cycling how it looks on tv is not always indicative of what is going on; like the iceberg being whatever percent submerged etc

it doesn't allow for reality of a 40mph sprint ie the reflexive instinct of a rider to square themselves against those coming up too close

obv the uci made the judgement based on how it looks & since Cav is clearly out of the race a lesser penalty on Sagan wouldn't ameliorate the fact that quikstep lost their best rider

it's optics and i get it but it isn't nearly as cut & dried as the footage makes it seem

imo

seems like a clear intentional elbow to me.

internet comments about cycling are almost more partisan than any other sport, i find.

looks like he was trying to balance to me.

rip quintana

i should've made the caveat that i don't really know what I'm talking about and am an extremely casual and intermittent viewer of cycling

It's crystal clear on every video that Cav's already falling before Sagan sticks his elbow out, but whatever.

Froome winning some time on lacklustre Quintana (Giro-tiredness) and Contador, Porte unable to do anything, and this is shaping up to be a very, very boring Tour already.

The Sagan/Cavendish thing has me annoyed, because the commisaires are just so capricious and don't even pretend to be biased when it comes to certain riders. VegemiteGrrl otm, as is LBI - I have nothing against Porte but I've never seen him do much to back up commentators' faith that he's one of the main favourites for the win. Unless I'm forgetting something.

Oh well, I mostly watch this for aerial shots of the French countryside and old churches and chateaus and stuff anyway.

OK not mostly, but

Don't underestimate the chateaus and churches! It's why they plan these languid stages: the départements pay for having the TdF pass through them, expecting more tourists and $$$ etc. It's probably why the TdF hasn't been nearly as exciting as the Giro or Vuelta as of late.

Porte will have to step up his game big time if he wants to avoid becoming a second Cadel Evans (also BMC tbh). Early days obv, but it seems Froome will walk this. Quintana seems way too tired from the Giro (what a race that was!), and will only lose more time in the time trial; Contador seemingly isn't up to speed either, and neither is Porte: hate clingers-on'ers like Evans and Porte the most tbh. Either die trying or don't try to win at all.

TdF will regret disqualifying Sagan; one of the very few who can colour the race, give it something extra.

Geez, you'd think someone would at least have credited Aru for the actual win today, not to mention getting some time on his side.

That guy was amazing! 2km from the end, he decides to attack, and he stands up and just starts gunning for it, bobbing like a 9 year old late for the school bus. His face, where he turns around to look for the peloton and realises he might actually make it... like, sheer disbelief that he might actually win? That was just priceless.

He seemed to come out of nowhere! The only mention I'd heard of him in the run-up was Radio Tour reporting that he and his cute Danish teammate had promised to do the macarena if their photo got enough likes:

.@FabioAru1 & @MichaelValgren on attend la vidéo avec impatience / we are looking forward to seeing your dance moves 🕺🕺@AstanaTeam pic.twitter.com/BYQuEo06sA

— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 5, 2017

I fully admit that I'm a newcomer and don't know what to expect. But it's more exciting to me, with the Big Names out, there's far more of a chance of randos winning the stages. If it were just Sagan winning every stage, I would have got bored and checked out. If it turns out to be Monsieur Froam (the way the French say his name is so funny) winning every stage... but it hasn't yet been?

The learning curve is steep, but I'm already finding there's such a difference between the various ways to follow it. I've mostly been following Radio Tour at work (the official feed is great, because it has lots of explanations of technical terms for beginners, so I'm learning all the phrases that are not in Kraftwerk songs). But I tried to watch ITV coverage, and I had to just turn it off because it was so absurdly jingoistic. They simply did not seem interested in covering any player that wasn't British! Which seems very point-missing.

My guy moved up from 184 to 175 yesterday. His team posted photos of him walking around with a leg that looked like it had been through a meat-grinder, so I will feel like he's a hero if he completes the race at all.

I fully admit that I'm a newcomer and don't know what to expect. But it's more exciting to me, with the Big Names out, there's far more of a chance of randos winning the stages. If it were just Sagan winning every stage, I would have got bored and checked out. If it turns out to be Monsieur Froam (the way the French say his name is so funny) winning every stage... but it hasn't yet been?

Branwell - it would never have been a case of Sagan winning *every* stage anyway. Broadly speaking there are flat stages that we'd expect specialist sprinters (like Kittel, Greipel, Cavendish and Kristov) to win, mountain stages that we'd expect the climbers and GC contenders (Froome, Porte, Aru, Dan Martin, Contador, Quintana...) to win, time trial stages that either go to GC people like Froome or TT specialists like Tony Martin, and lumpy stages that suit people like Gilbert or crazy breakaways. Sagan is unusual in that he can win sprint stages and lumpy stages so he picks up lots of green jersey points in stages that they other sprinters finish miles behind in, but he's never going to win a stage up a mountain. Similarly, Froome has dominated the GC in the past but it's not like he's ever going to win a sprint stage.

FWIW I think Sagan was at fault and the original punishment (relegation to last place on the day) was fair enough, but chucking him off the race was excessive. He went across Cav's line and bumped into him which caused Cavendish to fall over - the elbow flicked out after the collision and was probably Sagan desperately trying to stay upright. Demarre (sp?) swerved around much more dangerously than Sagan, though, nearly wiping out Bouhani, but got away with it completely.

nbs I rather expect you know what it's like when u left it too late and had your line shut the fuck down- That's cav in that sitch, and being cav, he tried to barge it. Which I've done, you've prob done, and since you're not barging Peter fucking Sagan, the dude swerves a bit but is moved left. If you're a little midge and barge Sagan tho, you are are dropping- and he did. That said, Sagan was not true there and relegation- whatever. Situational. Dq? No way.

Have to lol how close our perceptions of that are- only dif is whether cav is also at fault- I think he tried to force a thing that he knew he couldn't do, and if I read u right, u think cav just innocently victimized.

you've prob done

Ha! No, I'm the guy getting bullied out of position just riding in the bunch, never mind in a sprint. My instinct for self-preservation is much greater than my desire to win (which means I will never win).

welp i know you know how the flow goes. i can only think of two finale incidents (loooong ago) where contact was my selection. anyone who doesn't put a shoulder into someone's chest or under someone's arm is def much smarter, and much safer, but in some finales, just shut out. it's time to sit up.

when i finally got a little bit more experienced when i was a shitty amateur racer, i was pretty surprised how much contact there was in races. even away from finishes, you only got much complaining if you took your hands off the bars, that was understood as a never-do/you're being a dick (and illegal), around here at least.

and "space and risk management" like sagan did to, i think greipel, a couple days ago? looked uncool, not super dangerous. in context not clear to me if that's considered unnecessary hostility for them. it's so next level, i'm not sure what pros say about that.

yeah it's interesting! that's where i was going with my refernce to the "submerged portion of the iceberg" that i referenced upthread

greipel was apparently pretty cheesed with Sagan & Lotto Sudal appealed to get Sagan DQ'd over Cav, *because* of that incident w Greipel. But Greipel later walked that back after seeing more footage so *shrug*

sidebar, Sagan's "goodbye" instagram video yesterday was so typically chill, like "thanks fans for your support, i am going to aiport now and then to Monaco to see my wife :D" lol

How rad would it be if Sag and Cav started showing up at random TdF spots soaking in an inflatable pool atop a rockstar bus towing a big BBQ

— Joe Parkin (@joeparkin) July 6, 2017

pls god let this happen

Or dressed from head to toe in red lycra while jumping up and down waving tridents

yeah but i sorta think the lesson cipo taught is that if sprinters aint sprintin', they maybe should just be rock-starrin'. maybe even in the race, they can just bag the laughing group/autobus through the mtns, and climb in mobile hot tubs with bbqs.

i didnt realize how much i want that in my life

I would approve of this being a thing.

Just caught up with a bit of today's footage. Annoyingly (since I'm using NBC Sports Gold) they didn't get around to posting the full footage until some hours later instead of pretty much right after the race day concludes, but seems like it was a pretty steady-as-they-go stage until the final sprint.

Also re: NBC, after five days of basically using the standard feed with the two Aussie commentators, they apparently got enough complaints from people who can only watch cycling with Phil-n-Paul to put up that feed too. Except that one has the ads and I think I've topped out with P/P at this point so hey, I still win.

I'm watching on VUE via NBCSports and only get Phil/Paul so I have to take what I can get lol

but god sometimes they are like a couple of elderly chihuahuas with the way they spin up over the slightest kerfuffles

Oh and (per my earlier post) unsurprisingly when I asked my sis what she thought about Elbowgate, the word 'bullshit' came up.

Every sport gets the inflategate it deserves, cycling deserves a few apparently

That was heartbreaking for Greipel! He accelerated just a split second too late and it was all over. German TV tried to interview him but he was just verklempt.

(I wish my German could keep up at that speed - they were definitely talking about Kraftwerk, after a long passage of going on about Tony Martin so I assume they were talking about Ralf Hütter's bike?)

Sorry to say but think Greipel's over the hill. His timing was way off. He's had a tour he'll want to forget quickly.

You make me wish I listened to the German telly now though. Tony Martin would make a great Kraftwerk stand-in.

Mostly they went on and on about how they wished Marcel Kittel was still in the race!

They showed about 20 seconds of Froome with his kid, saying "yeah, yeah, Froome gewinnt wieder, süß familie" then immediately cut off to find some German they could interview.

It's so interesting how the coverage differs in each country.

I'm sad it's over TBH. What / when is the next Bicycle Thing?

Yeah it def differs in each country. Think European side commentary trumps commentary in USA and Oz by a mile knowledge wise, been pouring one out for Ned and VG all TdF. Interesting too was that Groenewegen was completely composed in the post-race winners "interview" ("team did a good job, went well" etc) but he was sobbing like a baby on Dutch telly, just a mess of tears and insane happiness.

Next big round is La Vuelta, the tour in Spain. But now that you've enjoyed this and are lost without cycling anyway: Next Saturday is the next classic, Clasica San Sebastián \m/

RT @NOSsport: Dylan Groenewegen wordt vlak voor de huldiging gegrepen door zijn vriendin. #spontaan #TDF2017 pic.twitter.com/dxbEj5SF7u

— Jarno Gottemaker (@jajarno) July 23, 2017

Groenewegen's gf drawing him towards her before he steps on the stage is ace.

Next big round is La Vuelta, the tour in Spain. But now that you've enjoyed this and are lost without cycling anyway: Next Saturday is the next classic, Clasica San Sebastián \m/

Yeah I was about to ask if we should start a general non-TdF cycling thread -- finally started watching most of the big races properly thanks to the NBC Sports Gold package over here, so I first saw the Vuelta last year and rather enjoyed it. Different landscapes, different competitors (to a degree) -- fun race. Will be busy this Saturday so I'll have to miss that race.

Think European side commentary trumps commentary in USA and Oz by a mile knowledge wise, been pouring one out for Ned and VG all TdF.

Hahah, nah, VG is the one who's been suffering with Phil/Paul; I've been doing just fine with Keenan and McEwen, really enjoyed the change-up on various levels.

And yes, cheers for Groenewegen, stellar work in the clutch.

Mostly they went on and on about how they wished Marcel Kittel was still in the race!

Ha, yeah, him and Sagan would have been great in all this but such is life. (And jury decisions.)

Oh yeah, hold on, that AG2R rider who proposed to his partner early on in the stage, do we know if that was successful?

(Also will add I enjoyed what I saw of La Course -- had to do a bit of catch up both days, nice pursuit in Marseille there.)

Oh yeah, hold on, that AG2R rider who proposed to his partner early on in the stage, do we know if that was successful?

Update on the @LeTour marriage proposal by Cyril Gautier.... she said YES

— Robbie McEwen (@mcewenrobbie) July 23, 2017

Hurrah!

this gave me a wry lol

Poll: Who was the Most Combative Rider of the 2017 Tour de France? #TDF17 #TDF2017

— Neal Rogers (@nealrogers) July 23, 2017

I can't choose.

i feel bad for Greipel but he waited too long to make his move.

froome & babby froome super cute

weird seeing comments on matthews green jersey that he didnt deserve it / belongs to sagan etc
like i get being salty but dude rode his way into that jersey, cmon

Once again I'm left wondering what Gary Imlach does for the rest of the year. I might be alone here but I really like the ITV coverage, they all have a kind of wry humour that I enjoy apart from anything else.

Anyone who got any of the jerseys deserved it despite big names dropping out imo

(Also will add I enjoyed what I saw of La Course -- had to do a bit of catch up both days, nice pursuit in Marseille there.)

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 23 July 2017 23:26 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First stage was good, but it seems like the second stage's format didn't work for most people, including the riders themselves and I'm inclined to agree. I suppose it's a minor victory for women's cycling that it's double the length of previous editions, but I don't understand why they got rid of the Champs Elysees sprint they had in previous years tbh

weird seeing comments on matthews green jersey that he didnt deserve it / belongs to sagan etc
like i get being salty but dude rode his way into that jersey, cmon

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, July 23, 2017 11:03 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

See I follow a lot of commentary but have not heard anything even remotely close to this. Matthews not deserving green? Belongs to Sagan?! Different strokes I guess, idgi.

Yeah I was about to ask if we should start a general non-TdF cycling thread --
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, July 23, 2017 10:23 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

We def should, and need one. Consider it done.

La Course was a bit weird. But the ultra-conservative ASO deserves an inch of praise for experimenting and not just hosting a women's race but also trying to make it an attractive race. Don't think they succeeded this year, but it's a process since 2013 and it's not going away, which is good.

La Course Stage 1 was p great but I havent had a chance to see Stage 2 except for a few higlight clips.

i'd be into a general cycling thread. i get a lot of the non tour events bcz of my tdf event season pass with nbcsn so i should get san seb & vuelta i think
i dont usually watch but i might with ongoing chats :)

re commentating

most annoying thing this year for me re Phil & Paul is their endless nonsensical fanfics about what riders are saying or their motivations all spouted with this air of knowitallness, its really ridiculous

it's like listening to two kids playing TdF with little cycling toys and making up stories about the riders

lol

i would rather bob & christian & jens do their own commentary from upstairs tbh

La Course was a circus, ridiculous format. I love cycling so much, I honestly find it heartbreaking that it's 2017 and they can't sort themselves out. Plenty of major sporting events from Wimbledon to the London Marathon have parity in coverage and prize money between the men's and women's competitions. Even the bloody Boat Race! There's no excuse for the sports which haven't got their acts together on this.

Honourable mention for British Cycling's stance obv.

Dan Martin rode the last 12 stages with two fractured vertebrae.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dan-martin-diagnosed-with-two-fractured-vertebrae-after-tour-de-france-top-10/

jesus

Yech indeed.

Hey didn't Le Bateau say he'd start a general cycling thread?

Started a punless Rolling Pro Cycling thread, let's see how it fares.