Tour de France 2017

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

Still very glad UK commentary team is Millar and Boulting now. I do not miss Phil and Paul ugh ugh.

Hang on I though NBC paid pipi and popo's salaries. If NBC isn't paying them they who the hell is, surely they aren't the 'international feed' from the organisers?

NBC does pay them! Must be why they're on the NBCSN feed.

kinda crushing on 2017 andy schleck now that he's got some human flesh on his bones <3

i'm a stage behind

but holy wow Aru was a machine on that stage 5 climb. fkn beautiful work there

Aru was just amazing at that climb. But mostly I <3 him because he actually made good on that promise to do the Macarena, even though he clearly has no idea how the dance goes!

So, @LeTour , we promised, we did it! Enjoy! #TDF2017 pic.twitter.com/KnJ5vcTVW6

— Astana Proteam (@AstanaTeam) July 6, 2017

Can I just take a moment to salute Marcel Kittel's quiff, though? Five hours cycling in 35 degree weather, out in the sun, a hard sprint at the end, then he gets up on the podium and his hair is just geometric perfection. I did read that Le Tour has a mobile barbershop that accompanies the race everywhere, but that quiff is particularly spectacular.

Anyway, I am excited for the Mountains of Chocolate today!

Can I just take a moment to salute Marcel Kittel's quiff, though?

Especially for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnJYlwo5DdE

Watch till the end when his team mates sing 'Du hast die haare schön' (your hair is pretty) :D

Haha, Die Jungs auf das Geld. He has spectacularly schöne Haare. :D

Philippa York, who as Robert Millar was first Briton to win a jersey at Tour de France, joins ITV4 commentary team

This deserves a mention. Good for her.

Still very glad UK commentary team is Millar and Boulting now. I do not miss Phil and Paul ugh ugh

OTM

Oh, I caught the headline about Philippa York this morning but hadn't realised she was joining the ITV gang! That is a really good thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/06/philippa-york-gender-transition-cyclist-robert-millar

Awesome

@petosagan come and ride some mountain bike races. Here you are more then welcome. Makes anyway more fun, or? 😜

— Nino Schurter (@nschurter) July 5, 2017

um, god, about that thing i asked upthread? this instead. more compelling.

http://i.imgur.com/EhMgDI1.jpg

Sagan woulda won. #petobrosaretheworst

Wow, he was only pixels over the line!

Looks like he won it by...

*puts on sunglasses*

...A HAIR!

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

i was looking forward to seeing him fly around that mountain bike circuit at Rio olympics and then *sad trombone* :(

That was an insane finish today. Might as well have flipped a coin.

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.