The 2015 Tour De Stinkin' France Contest WITH RESULTS

[Moliere]

Thanks for the write-up, creek. Do the riders who fall off of the front five have to finish the race to remain in the Tour? It seemed like some were like the first stage of a multi-stage rocket--get things off to a good start but fall away once their fuel was spent.

Yes, they have to finish within the 25% time limit. I think there was some discussion about this a couple years ago with one guy (sentimental favorite) that was injured but still competed in the TTT and missed the cutoff by a fraction of the time...but was still it allowed to continue racing in le tour.

[bluegoose]

Apparently Ivan Basso announced today that he has testicular cancer. That's too bad. I really liked him as a rider when he was in his prime.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Apparently Ivan Basso announced today that he has testicular cancer. That's too bad. I really liked him as a rider when he was in his prime.

Bummer. But if he follows the Lance Armstrong testicular cancer recovery plan he should be on the podium in 2017.

[mtnbiker]

Aw, nuts.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Apparently Ivan Basso announced today that he has testicular cancer. That's too bad. I really liked him as a rider when he was in his prime.

I guess the podium girls will stop referring to him as Ivan Ballso now.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

This is a few days old, but it looks like we all owe Triplet $20.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Interesting developments Froome the rest day.

https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php...13103522034028

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Blood in the water.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Nuke.jpg

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Gotta love this sport.

https://youtu.be/ZUSzsgeZH4g

[beelzebabette]

Yes, they have to finish within the 25% time limit. I think there was some discussion about this a couple years ago with one guy (sentimental favorite) that was injured but still competed in the TTT and missed the cutoff by a fraction of the time...but was still it allowed to continue racing in le tour.

A very belated response, but... this was Ted King in 2013 (remember that? the last interesting Tour), and he was not allowed to continue racing because he was seven seconds outside the time limit for the stage. His fellow riders posted en masse on Twitter to let him ride, Cannondale tried to show his GPS data to prove the official time he was given was incorrect and he had made the time cut, but the tour organizers showed a heart of ice and cut him anyway. Pretty much the death knell for his career.

Comparing Ted King's situation post-crash-2013 with riders this year: Ivan Basso pulled out right before the Tour started in 2013 to have surgery for saddle sores so Cannondale wasn't preserving GC position for anyone but Sagan (whose sprint leadout suffered in King's absence), but they dropped King very early on in the stage and left him to fend for himself on a road bike. Faced with a similar proposition this year, Orica (who as an aside set the then-record pace that was the benchmark for the time limit in 2013) made "no man left behind" their motto and stayed together as a team Sunday to make sure Michael Matthews made it to the finish line under the time limit. Adam Hansen, who has had to have his collar bone heavily taped to keep it in place, couldn't take the pressure on the area that aero bars would require so he rode his road bike during the TTT and stayed closer to the front of his team rotation at the beginning of the stage so he wasn't gapped off immediately.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Creekster has been touting Sagan's Tour thus far sporadically in his updates. Here's an interesting factoid: Sagan just notched his 11th top five finish in 16 stages. That's unreal.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

...and Tejay's out.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Pretty entertaining race this year. Things really started to tighten up the last few days. Maybe Froome remembered how fun the media was when he won destroyed everyone by four + minutes. A lot fewer questions if you keep things interesting.

I'd like to see Sagan finally get a win tomorrow, but the likelihood of that happening, just doesn't seem very realistic.

[Moliere]

Pretty entertaining race this year. Things really started to tighten up the last few days. Maybe Froome remembered how fun the media was when he won destroyed everyone by four + minutes. A lot fewer questions if you keep things interesting.

I'd like to see Sagan finally get a win tomorrow, but the likelihood of that happening, just doesn't seem very realistic.

The past two days were fun. Too bad Nairo let Froome get such a big lead. He's young and hopefully won't make the same mistake next year. Nairo is a freak on those climbs. He just powers up them like it's nothing. He's really fun to watch.

I feel bad for Teejay. He was having a crazy good tour and to pull out because of sickness has to make him feel awful. I wonder if he could have kept 3rd place...probably not but it would have been great to see him try.

I'm continually astounded by how good some of the less knowns are at climbing. On any given day you can have a bunch of people hanging with the race leaders...of course they can't hold it for 21 days but there's some crazy good riders out there right now. Froome and Nairo are probably in a class of their own, but there are a lot of guys in the class right behind them.

I'm looking forward to tomorrows stage. I love Paris and to see them ride around the champs elysees is always a highlight. If I was a betting man, I bet Greipel gets another stage win.