Few attacks amongst the leaders, no gaps in the end, what’s going on? I think there are three main reasons that led to this result:

1. Aerodynamics. You should read this piece by Sportsscientists.com. Nice to see some logical analysis backed up by numbers. First important point they make is that the level of performance is still quite high but not as high as 5-6 years ago.Second, if the performance delta between the leaders is small, even on the climbs the benefit of drafting will keep a group together.
2. Individual setbacks. While it would be nice to conclude that we now have a larger group of similarly performing riders, this may be too optimistic. Last year the Tour, Andy Schleck and Contador were way above the rest. Have the rest caught up or is it, by coincidence, reduced form for both of them? Andy Schleck has had mediocre form (by his standards) and several setbacks this whole season, to the extent that even his own team thought Frank had better chances this Tour. Contador has the Giro in his legs, the clenbuterol case in his head and the pain in his knee, so it is easy to see he won’t be performing at his 2010 Tour level. Maybe most contenders are simply riding as could be expected of them (except Voeckler) and the top-2 are struggling for their individual reasons.
3. Brotherly love. Many people say that with the Schleck brothers, 1+1=3. I think it’s more 1+1=1.5. It seems neither wants to do anything to further their own chances if it may hurt their brother’s, and you can’t win the Tour that way. Andy did manage to gap most of the other team leaders on a few occasions up Plateau de Beille, but he always looked back where Frank was and then stopped. Maybe he couldn’t do any better, maybe he wanted to keep Frank’s chances alive. It’s unlikely you  can gap all other contenders on the same day, so you will need several breakaways with different “passengers” to create room on GC. On Plateau de Beille Andy may have been able together with Evans to gap Contador, and in the Alps he could try the reverse. That in itself is hard enough, to try and do it without allowing Evans or Contador to gap Frank on occasion is impossible. Their complaint that nobody else tried anything seems odd when they didn’t really commit to their own jumps 100%.

OK, picking this list back up again from Toby Stanton on the 11 traits to being a champion. Plenty of this in the Tour de France:

Tenacious: Certainly one of the primary traits that all champions show is tenacity. They just keep on coming whether it be a part of their training, a race or another part of their lives. Adversity is only a step in the process rather than an impassable hurdle.

I can’t believe this wasn’t picked up by the mainstream cycling media (oh, the journalists :-). On June 30, Fabian Cancellara tweeted:

Dinner table discussion @leopardtrek…. Is the moon landing true….!!?? There are meany opinions about a big hugh lie. Is it true.??

Now, this may look like innocent banter, but in fact it attacks Frank Schleck’s core belief system. After all, his Twitter intro text is:

Don t tell me the sky is the limit, if there are footprints on the moon!

[Whole spiel about Frank Schleck now going to Sky deleted - not funny. Why the rest of this post was allowed to stay is unclear]

And yes, I do know that “Don’t tell me the sky is the limit, if there are footprints on the moon” is an idiotic expression to begin with. For most people, the moon is in the sky (Thanks to The Apprentice UK for spreading the word), and furthermore there are definitely no footprints on the moon, as it is way too cold to walk barefoot up there. Shoe prints maybe. Hm, or perhaps that’s how we finally figure out that the whole thing is fake, when we see footprints in the video? But I digress.

Thank goodness the rest day is over and there are some real things to write about again.

I goofed. Thanks to Steven who pointed out an error in yesterday’s post. I said there that since it was a uphill finish, the 3km crash rule shouldn’t apply. Steven wrote in the comments that stage 1 was not classified as an uphill finish in the Tour book. I don’t have the Tour book 2011 handy, so I will take his word for it.

Also, if the finish is uphill and classified as such, it is still possible to fall under the 3km rule if the crash occurs on the flat run up to that climb. This is obviously a grey area, and the commissaires are the ones who make that call. Here are the exact rules:

[the standard 3km rule]
2.6.027 In the case of a duly noted fall, puncture or mechanical incident in the last three kilometers of a road race stage, the rider or riders involved shall be credited with the time of the rider or riders in whose company they were riding at the moment of the accident. His or their placing shall be deter- mined by the order in which he or they actually cross the finishing line.

If, as the result of a duly noted fall in the last three kilometers, a rider cannot cross the finishing line, he shall be placed last in the stage and credited with the time of the rider or riders in whose company he was riding at the time of the accident.

(text modified on 1.01.05).

[the uphill exception]
2.6.029 Articles 2.6.027 and 2.6.028 [which deals with a TTT rule] shall not apply where the finish is at the top of a hill-climb, except if the incident occurs before the climb. Every discussion regarding the qualifications «at the top of a hill-climb» and «before the climb» will be decided by the commissaires panel.

(text modified on 1.01.05).

Five moments from the first week worth watching again on video (for as long as the Youtube powers will let us). You’ll notice that a few are about jury decisions, which I talked about in my post yesterday.

Stage 1: no, not that crash

OK, we’ve all been talking about the crash with 8km to go that took Contador down (It’s actually right at the start of this clip. But to me the more significant one happens at exactly 8mins of this video.

There is a crash with 2km to go, there are many favorites in it but in the end they are all given the same time as the group they crashed out of. The 3km rule you say? That rule explicitly does not apply to uphill finishes, and stage 1 was exactly that since there was a point for the polka dot jersey at the top. While it’s true that the climb hadn’t started yet when the crash occurred, there’s nothing about that in the rules and hence not relevant. [turns out I was wrong about this, see the correction here]

The Video starts with Contador crash, the 2km crash is at 7min57.

Stage 3: Thor rounds the final corner

David Millar (@millarmind) tweeted about this: “Thor-inspiring = Blind corner at 600m to go. We’re at limit on inside, Thor barrels round outside and takes over.”

Watch what David means here.

Stage 3: Thor and Cav dance

Much ado about nothing, but 10 points in the green jersey competition gone thanks to the intermediate sprint that saw Thor and Cav getting disqualified for questionable reasons.

1. Thor “deviates” from his line? The road bends to the left and EVERY rider in the video deviates from his line. Thor moves over about half as much as the two riders in front of him, so they should have been doubly DQ’d? It’s true that the two in front of him don’t have another rider next to them while Thor has Cav there, but I do not believe that makes any difference for the “keep your line” rule.
2. Cav’s “headbutt”. You may know that I have little patience for headbutts and thought Renshaw’s DQ was justified last year. But this is a lean, not a headbutt. If Cav leans with his shoulder (as he is supposed to do), he leans into air. To lean against Thor’s shoulder (as he clearly had to do to stay upright and out of the barriers), he can only use his head. Next time he’ll have to wear some ginormous shoulder pads.

Stage 4: Feillu drafting off the car

Everybody knows that when a rider comes back through the caravan, he hops from car to car to catch a draft. But having your own team car drop back to pull you all the way back, while you’re giving the driver hand signals to dial in the exact speed, that takes it to another level.

Watch Feillu here.

Stage 5: Motorbike takes bicycle with him

What is there to say, just watch the various crashes of that stage here.

Bonus: Cavendish interview before stage 4

I already wrote about it, but it’s much funnier when you see his expression (plus my transcript was not very good as I did it from memory hours later and missed half the words to begin with due to my bad internet connection.

Watch Cav on Sporza here.

What’s been your most remarkable moment in the Tour so far? Let me know in the comments or via twitter @gerardvroomen.

Just today, two posts. The first post today was on what cycling unfortunately seems to be borrowing from soccer. Below is the second post.

Great comments and tweets from you regarding Fake Magnanimity (I used that title because according to the blogging experts you’re not allowed to use “difficult words”. Blog traffic would indicate you are no ordinary blog readers!) Here are the 5 comments that kept coming back:

Comment 1: There is no reason to wait for Contador

My perspective: I fully agree, there isn’t. This is racing.

Comment 2: The stage 1 crash is not comparable to the dropped chain from last year’s Tour.

My perspective: Of course it isn’t, but if we have to wait until Contador drops his chain before we can judge how others respond, we can wait a long time since he is a professional bike rider. My point was not that the situations were similar, but rather that in both situations, team leaders had a choice. And the choices they made were pretty darn similar.

Comment 3: What else can Andy do?

My perspective: This is not about Andy, every team leader in the front group was given an opportunity to make a decision. And they took a legitimate one, just not the one some of them last year claimed they would take.

Comment 4: What are the team leaders supposed to do, drop out of the front group?

My perspective: This underestimates the power some team leaders have. If Andy or Cadel rides at the front and says “We slow down”, the peloton slows down. They weren’t actually going that fast at the time. And if not, at least he can say he tried (that’s the best actually, appear magnanimous and still take the advantage, see Vino in the 2010 Giro Strade Bianche stage). I’ll say it for the third time to avoid confusion, nobody HAS TO do this, they can.

Comment 5: The team leaders were merely riding in the pack after the crash.

My perspective: This sounds a bit hollow if you send your team mates to the front to speed up said pack.

Anyway, just my opinion, I realize you can look at this in many different ways that are totally legit as well. Thanks for all your comments on the blog page and on twitter, I appreciate it. As always, contact me about anything via the comments below or via @gerardvroomen.