TdF 2014 Stage One, What a Leeds off! SPOILERS ARE HERE

[creekster]

What a weird way to start the tour. A long stage. fairly hilly. Jensie on a long break. Spartacus trying to pip the sprinters. But the worse part is Cavendish's poor behavior. Cav clearly caused the finish line crash. He intiated and continued the contact leading to the lcoked bars and the fall. Gerrans should be really pissed. You never want to see a guy get injured, but if he ever deserved it, Cav did here.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

We're out of town and I was trying to watch on my phone but my mom's wireless seems to emphasize the "less" (she conveniently also has found the one reception black hole in all of Salt Lake and I was treated to about 6 non buffering seconds over the last 5k.

[TripletDaddy]

Is creekster trying to artificially pump up the volume lately? No worries, but If so, he may want to consider watching a baseball game and starting a new thread for each inning. Low chance for arguments and also creates a lot of new threads.

[RC Vikings]

Cavendish was definitely to blame for that crash. Those sprinters are a tough bunch, you know you're going down a couple of times a year. Cavendish spent less time on the ground after crashing to pavement at 40 mph than a soccer player does after receiving a phantom kick to the shin. I was surprised to see Froome finish in 6th place, I understanding the need to ride near the front but if you would to win the tour I would just try and coast in around 20th place.

[creekster]

Is creekster trying to artificially pump up the volume lately? No worries, but If so, he may want to consider watching a baseball game and starting a new thread for each inning. Low chance for arguments and also creates a lot of new threads.

you know creekster can hear you, right? Look, if you don't like these threads then, as a wise man (or was it wise-ass? I can never keep those straight) once told me: don't read them. See? Easy!

btw, your analogy doesnt really work here. If I thought you cared, I'd explain, but I know you don't.

[creekster]

Cavendish was definitely to blame for that crash. Those sprinters are a tough bunch, you know you're going down a couple of times a year. Cavendish spent less time on the ground after crashing to pavement at 40 mph than a soccer player does after receiving a phantom kick to the shin. I was surprised to see Froome finish in 6th place, I understanding the need to ride near the front but if you would to win the tour I would just try and coast in around 20th place.

I couldnt agree more about Froome. WTH was he doing that far forward in a frantic sprint finish? I am going to watch later on to see where he was when the crash happened, but it was probably just sheer luck he missed it.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Cavendish's lean-in didn't seem to make any sense, since there was an opening to his right. But yeah, he has only himself to blame. I'm bummed I changed my pick from Kittlel to Cav at the last second, thinking UK pride would propel the Missile to a win.

When I got up this morning I checked to make sure the stage had recorded properly, but it hadn't, so I reset everything and since the re-showing was going to start a couple of hours later, and be done by the time our own ride would finish, no problem, right? So after our post-ride clean-up, we sat down with our plates of smoker leftovers (delish!) and started the broadcast. But apparently the live version ran a few minutes OT and into our recorded slot's time, and the first thing we see is Kittel wearing yellow with Phil or Paul saying, "And Kittel wins the stage...!" Thanks, people. Still, it was fun to watch. Those were amazing crowds.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Froome showed exactly why he was where he was. The odds of being involved in a crash increase as you get further back into the peloton. As frantic as it was at the front, it's half as frantic as what's going on further back with every lead out man is getting spit out the back at half speed. The closer to the front you are, the easier it is to see this sort of stuff develop and the more room there is to react. With so much on the line today, it was a no brainer that someone was going to take a risk and change someone's Tour.

PAC. You and I had the same mental experience and ended up in the same place.

[Moliere]

Looks like Cav even admitted it was his fault.

[RC Vikings]

Froome showed exactly why he was where he was. The odds of being involved in a crash increase as you get further back into the peloton. As frantic as it was at the front, it's half as frantic as what's going on further back with every lead out man is getting spit out the back at half speed. The closer to the front you are, the easier it is to see this sort of stuff develop and the more room there is to react. With so much on the line today, it was a no brainer that someone was going to take a risk and change someone's Tour.

Almost always during a sprint finish the crash is going to happen near the front. The lead out guys will move to the side generally in front of guys not looking to win but just to finish in the pack and get a same time finish.

Sky’s Geraint Thomas described the finish for Eurosport: “I was with Froomey, maybe 20, or 30 riders back, I saw some people leaning then all of a sudden there was just bodies on the floor. Fortunately we managed to avoid it because we were going quite slow up the last hill.

“It was all about being in a decent position going into that last drag. Bernie Eisel did a great job and I sort of just shepherded Froomey, and then all of a sudden with a kilometer to go he just sprints past me and starts going! But he’s obviously in good form, he’s keen to just stay out of trouble so sixth is a nice little result for him.”


Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/...dWpMKCuIiLD.99

It sounds like 20th is where they planned on being until Froome sprinted up near the front. Also it looks like their was a four second gap between the first four or five riders and the group, after the crash the guys and slowed down to get around the crash Froome may have just found himself up front. I still can't believe he wants to be up front during a sprint finish.

Talansky finished 3:47 back, anybody here know why?

[Moliere]

The tours official site is showing talansky at 0:00 back

[RC Vikings]

The tours official site is showing talansky at 0:00 back

That's good, I was looking at this site and it had him way back but I couldn't find anything thing else on him and being one of the favorites I thought they would say something about it.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-f...tage-1/results

[creekster]

That's good, I was looking at this site and it had him way back but I couldn't find anything thing else on him and being one of the favorites I thought they would say something about it.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tour-de-f...tage-1/results

Maybe he got caught up behind the crash. As you know if you are involved in or caught up behind a crash in the last 3 km you are given the same time as the group that you would've been in, according to race officials, if you had not been caught up behind a wreck.

[creekster]

Froome showed exactly why he was where he was. The odds of being involved in a crash increase as you get further back into the peloton. As frantic as it was at the front, it's half as frantic as what's going on further back with every lead out man is getting spit out the back at half speed. The closer to the front you are, the easier it is to see this sort of stuff develop and the more room there is to react. With so much on the line today, it was a no brainer that someone was going to take a risk and change someone's Tour.

PAC. You and I had the same mental experience and ended up in the same place.

I am not sure thats exactly right. The lead of guys do get spit out, but that happens at or near the front. Other than the lead out trains and anyone trying to hang with them, the peloton isnt usually that chaotic in these finishes.

[beelzebabette]

Vaughters tweeted that Talansky got a flat just inside the 3K mark so same time.