TdF 2021

[creekster]

Stage One; Spoilers

La Grande Boucle is back in June/July, where it belongs, this year. A different sort of course this year. Lots of mountains but very few mountain top finishes. And the spectators are back, too. One idiot (idiote?) decided it would be a great idea to hold up a handwritten cardboard sign that said "Allez Opi-Omi!" meaning, I guess, something like "let's go, grandma and grandpa." His goal was not to watch the race but instead to get his sign and face on camera. As a result, he turned to the moto-camera and totally ignored the charging peloton. Tony Martin, being on the edge of the road at the front of the race, apparently felt he had no where else to go so tried to ride through the sign that was hanging out over the road right in front of him. He might have made it, except it looked, to me, like the idiot's elbow hit Martin's shoulder or upper arm which caused Martin's right arm to push in and his front wheel to turn sharply right. Down he went and due to the lack of warning, high speed and their proximity, most of the peloton went down or was stopped by the chaos that ensued.

Then there was Froome, finally back at Le Tour, finding himself butt down on the pavement in yet another large group crash near the end of the stage. He got back on, but it does not look good for him. I'd say the odds are high he does not finish this race.

Alaphilippe won in an impressive charge to the finish. He pedals with a unique punchy, short pedal stroke that marks his strength in this sort of a push to an uphill finish. An impressive win, but apart from those caught up in the two serious collisions, this stage is mere prologue at best.

For me it feels like another step back to normalcy. May Covid not be an issue at all in this race.

[Moliere]

Creeks tour write ups are back!


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[myboynoah]

WTH? What an idiote. It looked like a she idiote. Good heavens.

Nice to be this time of year again!

[Moliere]

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[myboynoah]

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I saw a report that Le Tour wants to sue the idiotte. But she escaped.

[bluegoose]

This warms the cockles of my heart to see a creekster tour report from this weekend. Allez, Creekster!!!

[BigPiney]

Those crashes in stage 1 were crazy. That second big one looked really bad. People flying all over the place.

[Uncle Ted]

Those crashes in stage 1 were crazy. That second big one looked really bad. People flying all over the place.

I need to switch from watching nascar… this seems like it’s getting fun to watch.


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[creekster]

I need to switch from watching nascar… this seems like it’s getting fun to watch.

If you liked Stage 1 then you should watch today’s stage, too. Crashes all over the place. Carnage on the road past Carnac.

Geraint Thomas apparently lost focus on a speed bump and went down hard, dislocating his shoulder. Thomas missed the memo about bike riders not being tough as after a medic popped his shoulder back into place he hopped back on his bike and paced himself back to the bunch. His teammate Carapaz, now placed in a podium spot, is the new Team Ineos leader. It is hard to imagine Thomas killing himself to pace Carapaz up and down the mountains of France with a bad shoulder.

Gesink and Martin were also involved in this crash (by involved I mean they had nowhere to go and either ran over Thomas or went down to avoid him). Gesink broke a bone and abandoned. Martin jumped back in to the race and probably started considering his post cycling career options after these last few days. You might recall that Martin was the first rider to make Omi and Opi the most famous German words in the race to this point.

There were some other significant crashes and impacts on the classifications. Roglic went down very hard. He blamed Italy's Sonny Colbrelli, who Roglic said body checked him right out of the peloton. Watching the broadcast and the replay (yes, I am that boring) it sure looks like that is what happened. Colbrelli throws his hand up afterwards like he is ticked at Roglic. Roglic's response was hard to see as at that moment he was sliding on his tailbone across the dirt on the side of the road. It took Roglic a while to get back on to his bike and, as a result, he lost about one minute twenty overall. Not good. Following the Roglic crash you will see an example of how the race referees tend to overlook violations for favorites. The Jumbo Visma team car was absolutely providing a draft to Roglic and teammates to help them back into the race but no one said a thing. Btw, one of the key riders pulling Roglic back to the race was the same Tony Martin who went down earlier in the day and on stage one.

Another crash saw Jack Haig abandon after a bad fall. He was his team's leader. And Caleb Ewing, after making a bad choice in trying to hold his line in the sprint roll in, went down hard and caromed off of Peter Sagan, who has had some bad luck in this race so far. Ewing broke his collarbone and stayed own on the pavement within sight of the finish, for a long time. Sagan popped up instantly and seemed a little incredulous that he had been taken out like a bowling pin.

It’s been a weird race so far. Not sure I like this course very much. All those rollers (is "Le Mur de Bretagne" a mere roller?) in the first two days left the sprinters with no chance to contest a finish. So, when we finally get a sprinter finish in stage three, they are all a little twitchy. Then you add narrow roads (at places only about 5 riders wide) and technical turns in the last couple kilometers and it is not too surprising you saw so many bodies on the road. That said it also seems to me like the peloton is, in general, a bit edgy and combative this year. More than usual. Maybe it’s like a lot of other public events, people are just a little less patient than they used to be. Hard to say, but the race does feel a bit different.

Assuming there are no lingering injuries and no more significant crashes, I still expect Roglic and Pogacar to be in the podium mix in Paris. And don’t discount Alaphilippe. He is an odd rider but he has been right where he needs to be in the first three days. He would never pay for a meal in France for the rest of his life were he to win the race.

random thoughts:

MVDP rode a great race but isn’t it weird seeing the yellow jersey be lead out for a sprint (and a real lead out, too, not one of those tepid "go team" lead outs Armstrong used to proffer).

Watch for Wout. When Roglic went down Jumbo Visma sent everybody back except for the Wouter. He has said that he has free reign from the team, so maybe we will see something from him soon, although he might be saving himself for the ITT on stage 5.

Who are these two guys on the morning broadcast for NBC? They do a good enough job, but they are no Phil and Paul. They make you appreciate just how good Phil still is, even in his dotage.

As others have noted here in the past, France really is a gorgeous place. And it is nice to see the race roll though again.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Thanks for the reports, creek. Mrs. PAC is especially grateful and wants to subscribe to your newsletter.

[creekster]

Thanks for the reports, creek. Mrs. PAC is especially grateful and wants to subscribe to your newsletter.

You and others here are too kind. It is my conceit that someone cares. And it gives me something to do during those several morning hours when I should be riding my own bike. The fun is the race it self.

[creekster]

stage 4

In years past there was always a ‘patron’ of the peloton. The boss. The guy whose butt weighs a ton. The patron was always a successful rider but was not necessarily in yellow. Eddie Merckx, for example, was always Le Patron whether or not he was in yellow on any given day. So was Hinault. And so was Armstrong.

Le Patron was the alpha, the guy who was expected to be the arbiter of disputes and decide if someone would be punished for an intra-peloton infraction, who might even pass judgment on which group of riders would be allowed to go out in a break. This is a classic example of a patriarchy.

In more recent years cycling, like other structures in our world, has seen a lot of its hierarchies disappear or be diluted. This includes formal hierarchies, such as seeing pro-continental teams in yellow which would have been impossible not many years ago as they would not have been allowed in the race, as well as informal ones, such as the disappearance of Le patron in his traditional role.

I was thinking of this during the start and neutral roll out of stage four. As you may have seen, the peloton stacks up at the start behind a barrier in the start town and the race announcers then introduce the classification leaders one at a time and they roll into place at a designated spot ahead of the peloton. Pogacar in white rolled in first and almost looked a little bored and uncomfortable, like a slightly surly teenager trying to be aloof at a family dinner when he moves to the adult table for the first time. Ide Schelling looked like he was elated to be there, and he should be! (spoiler alert; he will only keep polka dots through stage 6, at best, at least, because there are NO polka dot points available in stage 4 or 5 and only one rated climb in stage 6). But when Alaphilippe pulled up in Green, he had some gravitas and you could tell the rest of the bunch respected him as Le patron. MVDP rolled in last, as the leader in yellow, but he was not the man, that was Julian’s job.

Alaphilipe’s status was confirmed during the neutral roll out. As per protocol, the front row of the neutral roll was filled with the jersey holders. But the riders, angry at some of the course design and the refusal of the UCI to set 5k, rather than 3k, as the point at which finish times were neutralized, planned a small protest. Thus, once the pace car pulled away rather than begin to race the peloton slow-rolled to a stop. As this happened, MVDP, Pogacar and Schilling all faded to the second or third or fourth row of the peloton as other riders moved to the front. As they did so, other riders moved to the front row and they all began to consult with the Patron, Alaphilipe. It was very, very clear that Julian was in charge of the events taking place. In fact, after the peloton came to a stop and stood still on the road for a few moments, some messages went between the commissaire’s red vehicle and the riders. This was all shuttled up to Alaphilippe. When he believed it had been long enough, Alaphilippe began to ride, all by himself. It looked to me (although I am speculating) like not everyone agreed it was time to ride and Alaphilippe turned around and barked at the group who then began to roll out slowly behind him.

It seems unlikely that Alaphilippe could win this race overall. He is a puncher. He can take stages, but I doubt he can pull off the overall. Even so, he will be an animator and he obviously has the respect of the bunch. I would not be disappointed if he showed out.

Sonny Corbrelli took to social media and tried to explain what happened with Roglic yesterday. For those following along on twitter, Roglic claimed that Corbrelli body checked him, meaning like a hard sprinter’s lean except not during a sprint. Corbrelli says that in fact it was the peloton’s fault. The bunch was moving from right to left on the road, which forced Sonny to his left just as Roglic was coming up on the edge of the road. Sadly, per Sonny, their handlebars locked and Roglic had the misfortune of going down. Sonny does not explain the miracle that allowed the locked handlebars to affect only Roglic while leaving Sonny on his line. Sonny also says he threw up his hand in the typical manner of Italian annoyance and frustration because he was scared! This gives me new insight to driving a car in Rome. All those other drivers are merely scared! My favorite reaction to Corbrelli’s tweets was from a guy who just posted a gif from Jurassic Park of Goldblum’s character standing there looking at a dino-sized pile of crap.

I am still unimpressed with the race call in the morning broadcast. The color guy is Simon Gerrans, who was a pretty fair Aussie rider a few years back. Sadly, he has a voice made for silent movies and seems to talk without thinking a lot at times. That said, there is a lot of dead time in these stages, so it can be tricky to hold a viewer’s interest. But no more complaints, as it is still a pleasure to have line to line coverage available.

Brent Van Moer had a valiant go at it. But there is no way a solo rider with only a minute or so of a lead can resist the gravity of the charging peloton. But it was so close. As they came around the final sweeping left turn into the final straight Van Moer still had a small lead and he was riding as hard as he could. But the peloton was on him like a starving predator after its prey. Just 80 or 100 meters from the line they swallowed him up and only then was it clear he was nothing to the group; just something to be disposed of. And his collapse was so complete that he went from being in first place with maybe 80 meters to go to not even being in the top 20 at the line (in fact, he finished in 49th place). Wow.

Cavendish was such a great story today. He is a reminder that time comes for all of us and how we deal with it is as important as what we did before it called. In his prime, Cavendish was an arrogant, cocky little twerp who had unassailable top end speed on the line. He couldn't climb or pace but in the final sprint he was almost unbeatable. Before today he had THIRTY stage victories. But injuries and time robbed him of his dominance and his push. He still had speed, but he was just a guy in the race, he was rarely called the Manx Missile, except in ironic tones. In fact, he was not even selected for his team for this tour. and was riding on a minimum contract! He was a last minute replacement for another team member who was not healthy enough to ride. It was clear that it was a bit of a sentimental choice and that the team really did NOT expect him to win a stage.

But today the past became the present again. He had no final lead out from his team (but props to Alaphilippe who gave a strong pull on the front to get Cav and the rest within a k of the finish), but he found a wheel to hold and then shot through the gap at the final moment, finding the power he used to take for granted. Afterwards, Cav was humble and speechless. He was, to me at least, suddenly and surprisingly likeable. Good for him.

Tomorrow is the first ITT. We should start to see the overall selection begin. Any predictions?

[BigPiney]

great write up.

I have been following Cav on twitter and he has become really likeable. He comes across that it really is an honor to be in the race. I was totally rooting for him. He has matured a lot.

[creekster]

Stage 5

Interesting results today. Pogacar looked smooth, and at ease. Apart from the fact that he started a second early and should have been penalized for that. There are two officals in the start hut with the rider. One guy is behind the rider and has his hands on the rider’s saddle to both hold the rider upright (the rider is clipped in and not moving so needs the assist) and to prevent the rider from leaving early. The other guy stands to the side and in front of the rider with a clipboard listing the start times and start order to make sure the right rider is starting at the right time (and to DQ any rider who does not show up on time; it has happened. I recall Pedro Delgado did this in the 90s, flying into the start hut a few seconds after his scheduled start time). As the countdown to the start time ticks down to five seconds, the second official thrusts his hand literally in front of the rider’s face and gives him five fingers, four fingers, three, etc. down to none and the start time. Pogacar decided that it would be a good time to leave one second early. So he just rolled out even though there was still a second to go, as shown by the second official’s hand in his face. For some reason, the first guy just let go of the saddle and let it happen. The officials’ reaction was so wonderfully French. They both sort of through their hands up and look at each other and then turn and stroll out of frame. What could they do? C’est impossible.

[I note that Chris Horner said that Pogacar did leave early but because the official let go of the saddle they had to let him go and there would be no penalty. What could they do?)

Pogacar rode with the conscience and confidence of the young. He is such a young guy. Unfazed by the moment or the crowd etc. At one point, with a few km to go, he comes flying around a shallow curve and there sits a Movistar team Volvo station wagon, parked for some unknown reason, right at the expected apex of Pogacar’s line. No worries. He adjusted and kept motoring. (and WTH was the car doing there? No excuse for that)

Pogacar was smooth and powerful. It is still early days, but man he looked really good today. I would not bet against him at this point.

Roglic, by objective measures, had only a middling ride. Given how much skin he has left on the French pavement the last few days, however, he did pretty well. I do note, however, that he looked very tentative and unsteady on his bike. TT bikes are notoriously tricky to handle, but Roglic was unusually wobbly on his bike. It could be because he was stiff from injuries and bandages. It could be that he doesn’t like a TT bike. But Roglic is normally a good bike handler, so that was not a good sign.

Alaphilippe rode well, but not as well as I expected. In fact, it looked like he cracked a bit in the third time segment. I take that as a positive sign in general. Dopeurs do not crack on short time trial courses. Maybe things are cleaning up a bit.

But IMO all les chapeaux should be doffed to MVDP. Against all expectations and measured against a great time from Pogacar, he managed to do just enough to hold onto yellow. Many riders have said that the yellow jersey has a salutary effect on its wearer. That was true today. Remember (and if you have watched the broadcasts you have not been allowed to forget) that MVDP is the grandson of Raymond Poulidor, the lovable perennial loser the French call Pou-Pou. The guy was on the Tdf podium more often than Trump calls himself a genius and yet in all those appearances he never won and, in fact, never even wore the yellow jersey during a race. 14 tours. 3 seconds. Five thirds. Zero yellow jerseys at any time during any of those races. And, despite being the most notable non-winner of TdF history, the French LOVE this guy. Think of those officials. Throwing up their hands and suggesting “what can you do?” Those are the guys that love Pou-pou.

But somehow the Poulidor bloodline moved north into the Nederlands and there found the resolve inside MVDP to not only pull itself into yellow, but to hold it on a day when no one thought he could. Awkward prose but you get the point. It was an impressive ride and he deserves all the credit. And good for Pou-Pou and his fans everywhere.

On her weird fashion reality contest, which my household watches without fail, Heidi Klum is fond of saying something like “One day you’re on top and the next you’re out.” The tour is a little like that. Chris Froome, 4 time winner, finished in 121st place on the stage and now stands at 165th overall. Cavendish, yesterday’s winner and feel-good story of the week, finished in 77th place and wasn’t even an afterthought today. The race loves its winners and not its losers, unless you’re a perennial Pou-Pou.

Finally, the famous holder of the “Allez Opi-Omi” sign was arrested today. She is a 30-year-old French woman. She was taken into custody by French police. What is her possible penalty? A $1,500 fine. They take someone into custody for a $1,500 fine? DEFUND LES GENDARMES! If any of the riders or the UCI or the ASO decide to sue her, she could be facing some more significant financial penalties. I hope she does. I don’t bear her any ill will, but this sort of behavior needs to be deterred to the extent possible. Maybe she can make a new sign “ALLEZ, Omi-Opi; bring me my bail!”

[creekster]

Stage 6 tomorrow begins at Tours and rolls through the La Loire region including a drive by of the chateau at Chenonceaux, which is my favorite one in that area. It should be gorgeous scenery. the stage is flat and everyone wants Cav to win again, but I think it might be too much to ask. Maybe bohani.