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.
The last component I added to my new bike were the handlebars, but one point I did not address yet was the width. I get asked on the “right” width from time to time, and as much as anybody just wants a simple answer, the problem with simple answers is that they are usually wrong.
You may know the rule about handlebar width matching shoulder width. Sounds logical. Then you ask yourself: “Why would my handlebars have to be the same width as my shoulders? There’s quite a bit of arm in-between!” Personally I like narrow bars, they make me feel compact and fast. Wide bars make me feel like I’m riding a cruiser.
Does bar width make a difference in my performance? Aerodynamically, the narrow bars probably are a bit better. Other than that I doubt it makes any difference. Some worry about the ability to breath, but with your arms free to take any position, I doubt that’s a real problem. It’s a little different with aerobars, where your elbows are locked in and hence if they are too narrow, it could affect the shape of your chest. But with dropbars that problem doesn’t exist.
What’s your favorite bar width? Let me know in the comments section or call me out via twitter @gerardvroomen.
Many of you agree that the team car can go, which is quite surprising to me. You like the idea that such a change would likely encourage bike manufacturers to put more emphasis on durability, which has real benefits for regular cyclists. The most concern people seem to have is for the sponsors (thank you), on issues like:
“Too radical, won’t work”, some say about the idea to reduce the number of vehicles in the peloton (though fewer say that today than when I first posted it in May). But the idea isn’t really radical at all. I’ll go into some more detail in the next few posts, based on your feedback and questions:
Bottomline, the sport needs to take decisions for the betterment of the sport. Those decisions shouldn’t unduly penalize photographers or anybody else, but on the other hand we also cannot allow the sport to be hurt for the benefit of these other groups.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments section or via twitter @gerardvroomen. To ensure you get tomorrow’s follow-up post, you can subscribe here.
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.
You may expect a post today about the ridiculous stage from yesterday, but honestly I’m lost for words.
Most of you already know my opinion on vehicles in the race and I think it would be best to just stand by the words written with a clear mind back in May rather than just jumpng on the latest fad. Here are the links to that series:
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cycling often looks at soccer with envy. The teams are rich, the federation is rich, doping scandals disappear before they get any traction and 7-figure donations are made from the federation to WADA instead of 5-figure donations from the athlete to the federation. So it’s disappointing that what cycling seems to be copying from football right now is the one thing we all detest: incomprehensible refereeing.
First we saw stage 1 time losses still being adjusted 3 days later. Then there was the Cavendish-Hushovd intermediate sprint, now there is the Rojas-Boonen sprint. Not only the calls themselves raise questions, the timing makes it all even worse. If you have an intermediate sprint at 2pm, can you really not review the tape and make a decision before you have the jersey ceremony at 6pm? How long does a video review take during an (ice) hockey or (American) football game? 30 seconds?
Any fan with a Twitter account and a Youtube connection can make these calls more efficiently (if they were calls to be made to begin with) than is currently happening. That said, if it takes five hours to review a video, we shouldn’t be surprised it takes 12 months to review a doping case.
gerard.cc 