Cycling and other bike racing

[Rev Jones]

Watch the last kilometer of the second stage.
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...aylist=7.50144

[Rev Jones]

Footage from cameras mounted on bike steering wheels in TDF.
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...aylist=7.50144

[Rev Jones]

Interview in English with last year's green jersey winner Peter Sagan.
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...nterview_sagan

Footage from the last climb of today's stage (5 km before the finish)
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...ins_road%2B%2B
(Dutch commentators.)

[check two]

[Rev Jones]

TDF, third stage (Cambridge-London)
--------------------------------------------

Short stage (155 km), ended in a sprint.

1. Marcel Kittel

2. Peter Sagan
3. Mark Renshaw
4. Bryan Coquard
5. Alexander Kristoff

All of the above are established sprinters. Mark Renshaw is usually Cavendish' leadout man (= last rider to stay in front of his sprinter, has to accelerate in the last few hundred meters), but since Cav' has left the TDF, Renshaw now functions as his substitute in sprints.

The man who placed fifth, Norwegian Alexander Kristoff, has won this year's Milan-San Remo, a very important Italian race.

This was quite an uneventful stage. The first breakaway was the right one : Czech Jan Barta and Frenchman Jean-Marc Bideau broke away early and stayed away until the final five kilometers. By then Barta had just left behind a very tired Bideau, but to no avail. The peloton caught up with Barta and we were in for another sprint.

André Greipel's Lotto Team had chased Barta and Bideau for the previous twenty kilometers and now didn't seem to have enough punch left to get their sprint train to function properly. Fellow German Marcel Kittel's sprint train on the other hand worked perfectly. His team mates dropped him off right where he wanted to start sprinting. Peter Sagan tried to close in on Kittel, but he didn't succeed.

This marks Kittel's second stage victory in this year's TDF. Is he the fastest sprinter? Sure looks like it.

Because Barta left Bideau behind in a desperate attempt to keep the peloton behind him he was awarded the daily prize of keenest attacker.

Since GQ leader Vincenzo Nibali finished in the first group, he was able to keep the yellow jersey in his possession. Peter Sagan still has the green jersey (best sprinter), Frenchman Cyril Lemoin was able to hold on to his coveted polka-dot jersey (best climber) as well. The white jersey for best placed rider under the age of 26 went to Frenchman Romain Bardet. Best placed team (= GQ result for the best three riders on a team) is Chris Froome's Team Sky.

Once again lots of people had gathered to catch a glimpse of the riders, unfazed by the rainy weather (which caused a few riders such as Belgian Jan Bakelants, winner of a stage in last year's TDF, and Luxemburg climber Andy Schleck to fall, fortunately without any dire consequences).

Tomorrow's stage is the first one in France. (In case you're wondering, the teams get to France by plane.) The riders will go from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage (this is not Paris btw) on the coast to Lille. These cities are both in the north of France. It's another flat stage.

Will there be another sprint? Or will one rider or a group of riders stay in front of the peloton? We'll find out tomorrow...

Watch today's sprint here.
http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2014/us/
The above webpage also includes pictures.

You can read a few tweets by teams and individual riders at the bottom of the linked page.
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/matchcent...nce_2014_rit_3

[Rev Jones]

TDF, 4th stage : Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille
------------------------------------------------------

So the TDF has finally arrived in France. This was a flat stage, won in a sprint.

1. Marcel Kittel

2. Alexander Kristoff
3. Arnaud Démare
4. Peter Sagan
5. Bryan Coquard

Andy Schleck (winner of the TDF 2010 after original winner Alberto Contador was disqualified because of doping) didn't start today. He was one of quite a few riders who fell yesterday on the way to London. Personally, I think Andy Schleck's days are a top rider are over. He is mentally fragile and tends to give up whenever something bad happens to him.

Andy Schleck

There was an accident in the peloton again today early on the race, with perhaps the peloton's most high profile rider : Chris Froome, winner of last year's TDF, fell in the beginning of this stage. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt badly and was able to continue.

Chris Froome


Meanwhile, the traditional breakaway had already formed. Today's escapees were France's most popular rider Thomas Voeckler and Spanish rider Luis Angel Maté.

Voeckler (on the right, this is not a pic from the actual stage) is a former French national champion, temporary bearer of the yellow jersey in the TDF about ten years ago and winner of various stages in the TDF. Although he is a fan favorite in his home country quite a few riders and commentators slightly dislike him because he is very aware of the cameras, which seems to influence his behavior. The pic above is typical of him... People say that as soon as Voeckler spots the camera, he makes 'suffering faces'.

Luis Angel Maté is relatively unknown. He rides for French team Cofidis.

Voeckler and Maté never managed to get a very big lead on the peloton. Towards the final part of the stage Voeckler left Maté behind. Voeckler was able to stay in front of the race until 15 kilometers before the finish line.

There was another accident in the peloton, causing three riders to fall, all members of Belgium's Lotto Team. New Zealander Greg Henderson had to give up because he was too badly injured. His Belgian team mate Bart Declercq (who was member of a breakaway earlier on in this TDF) was injured rather badly too, but was able to continue. Declercq is mainly a rider for the mountain stages. Fortunately, he has a few days left until 'his' stages come up. Danish rider Lars Bak was able to continue as well after having fallen.

Greg Henderson, lead out man for sprinter André Greipel.

The sprint was very interesting this time around. It seemed as if Mark Renshaw was going to win the stage with 600 meters to go. His sprint train was very strong and had brought him to the front of the peloton at the right spot in the sprint. But Renshaw (who is normally a lead out man for Cavendish) isn't very 'explosive' (as they say in cycling) and didn't manage to jump out of the pack 300 meters later.

Mark Renshaw

About 100 meters later sprint favorite Marcel Kittel didn't see the finish line and started sprinting too early (not in the first position of the peloton, though), 500 meters away from the finish line. As soon as he realized this, he waited and started sprinting again at the 250 meters mark. Meanwhile, Norwegian sprinter Alexander Kristoff held the second spot in the peloton, only preceded by a lead out team mate.

Alexander Kristoff.

Kristoff's sprint train was one man short so Kristoff was left without any team mates at about the 400 meters mark, leading the peloton. In normal circumstances, this is way too early for a sprinter to still win the stage. But Kristoff made the best of it and lead until the very last 20 meters. Only then Marcel Kittel passed him. Kittel was so tired he didn't even throw his arms up in the air to celebrate.

Sprinter André Greipel finished 6th, due to his sprint train being shaken up by the accident mentioned above.

This marks Kittel's third stage win in this TDF. Overall, he has won 7 stages in TDFs. As many as his famous compatriots Rudi Altag (back in the 60s) former overall TDF winner Jan Ullrich (in the 90s).

WATCH TODAY'S SPRINT HERE
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/matchcent...nce_2014_rit_4

There were no important changes in the GQ. Italian Vincenzo Nibali gets to keep the yellow jersey (= overall leader). Peter Sagan, who finished 4th today, keeps his green jersey (best sprinter) as well. In case you're wondering why Sagan still has this jersey while Kittel is winning so many stages... There are also sprints during the stage, next to the final sprint. These smaller sprints also count for the green jersey classification. Cyril Lemoin gets to keep the polka-dot jersey (best climber). There were only 2 small hills (4th category, which is the lowest category) in today's stage.

Peter Sagan in the green jersey.

Tomorrow's stage will be the most interesting stage yet. It incorporates some of the infamous cobble stone roads of the classic French one day race Paris-Roubaix. Normally, tomorrow's stage will not end in a sprint. We will get to see other kinds of riders in the lead, those who are used to riding 'the classics' in spring (Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix etc.)

It is no secret that the GQ favorites are afraid of tomorrow's stage. They cannot win the TDF there, but they can sure lose it there. If there are strong winds, chances are the peloton gets split up into various big parts. The GQ favorites have to make sure they are all in the first part of the peloton. Because of the cobble stones more riders will fall tomorrow too. The GQ riders have to be attentive all day, trying to avoid being involved in accidents in the peloton.

All GQ riders have explored this stage beforehand, with their whole team, including specialist cobble stone riders. Some of them were shown around by retired riders who have won Paris-Roubaix.

This two-and-a-half-minute video captures the atmosphere of Paris-Roubaix perfectly and shows you what tomorrow's stage is all about.

[Rev Jones]

This just in... Seems I was too harsh on Andy Schleck. A check up in the hospital revealed a serious knee injury. In fact, he has just been operated on.

[madchild]

Well, I guess Team Sky got what they deserved for putting all their eggs in one basket.

Hoping that Richie Porte can take this opportunity to shine, now that he does not have to be someone's domestique. Hopefully he can put some of the other top GC riders into some bad situations once they get to the Alps.

Unfortunately, I haven't watched any stages. Sounds like I'm missing out on some good action.

[Rev Jones]

^^Porte can definitely do his own thing now, but personally I think 3 weeks might be just a bit too long for him. I agree with you that the one leader tactic for a team is very risky. Team Sky should have been able to convince Bradley Wiggins to participate in the TDF as well.

Richie Porte

TDF, 5th stage : Ypres (Belgium) - Arenberg (France)
--------------------------------------------------------
The most feared stage of them all for GQ riders... And indeed, this stage did deliver. Drama abounded. The stage was meant to be a smaller version of the spring classic race Paris-Roubaix, with its characteristic cobble stone roads. Lots of riders are unfamiliar with these kinds of circumstances. Most Italian and Spanish riders have practically no experience with cobble stone roads. To add insult to injury the weather was really bad. (Riding on dry cobble stone roads is immensely different from riding on wet ones, because the latter are extremely slippery.)


Because of the incessant rainfall and strong winds ASO (the organization behind the TDF) decided to skip two of the nine cobble stone roads one hour before the race started. Predictably, some teams were fiercely angry (those teams with cobble stone specialists who were aiming for the stage win). Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara (multiple winner of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders) was especially venomous in an interview for Belgian TV, claiming 'the ASO has done its job in a half-assed way'. Teams with GQ hopefuls on the other hand were happy those 2 cobble roads (a total of 3 1/2 km) were skipped as they feared their main riders risked falling, having a flat tyre and thus losing a lot of time for the GQ.

Fabian Cancellara

In pre-stage interviews riders predicted it would be a quick race because of the strong wind. This proved to be true as the average speed in the first hour of the stage was a whopping 49km/h. Pretty soon after the official start a breakaway formed, consisting of Frenchmen Samuel Dumoulin and Tony Gallopin, Australian spring classic specialist Mathew Hayman, young Australian rider Simon Clarke, Dutch allrounder Lieuwe Westra(team mate of yellow jersey Vincenzo Nibali and winner of a stage in this year's Dauphiné Libéré, the so-called 'small Tour de France'), German multiple time trial world champion Tony Martin, German spring classic specialist Marcus Burghardt and odd men out Estonian climber Rein Taaramae and Colombian climber Janier Acevedo, who both showed their inexperience with cobble stone roads pretty quickly.

Due to the torrential rain riders were falling at an alarming pace. One of them was last year's TDF GQ winner Chris Froome, who had already fallen yesterday as well. In fact, Froome fell twice in the early part of this stage and decided to give up. Surrounded by cameras he got into the team car, stilling wearing his helmet, obviously confused and shaken up. Too bad we had to say goodbye to one of this year's main contestants.

Chris Froome (picture taken after his first fall yesterday)

Meanwhile Team Astana, which yellow jersey Vincenzo Nibali belongs to, were riding as fast as possible at the forefront of the peloton, trying to gain an advantage on Chris Froome, who had just fallen for the first time. Because of the high speed and the cobble stone roads the peloton split into several parts, with important riders like Spanish hopefuls Alberto Contador (former winner of the TDF) and Alejandro 'El Imbatide' Valverde and American Teejay Van Garderen ending up in the background, losing precious time to GQ favorites Vincenzo Nibali, Belgian Jurgen Van Den Broeck and American Andrew Talansky (overall winner of this year's Dauphiné Libéré).

The first part of the peloton also included other notable riders such as - quite surprisingly- polka-dot jersey Cyril Lemoine and cobble stone specialists Fabian Cancellara,Sep Van Marcke, Lars Boom (a Dutchman who is a former world champion of off road cycling, a sport which is mainly popular in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland) and green jersey Peter Sagan.

Lars Boom

An enormous amount of riders took a (often spectacular) dive or had a puncture during the stage, making both the breakaway group and the various parts of the peloton increasingly smaller. While yellow jersey Vincenzo Nibali was able to keep various team mates on board in the first part of the peloton (including a very impressive Jacob Fuglsang), GQ favorites Andrew Talansky and Jurgen Van Den Broeck fell and had to join later parts of the split up peloton.

Vincenzo Nibali

Andrew Talansky

Jurgen Van Den Broeck

In the second half of the race the first part of the peloton caught up with the breakaway. T[his group then rode together for quite a few kilometers, until Lars Boom, Vincenzo Nibali, Lieuwe Westra and Jakob Fuglsang left the other riders behind on one of the last cobble stone roads.

Lieuwe Westra, who won today's prize for rider who attacked most fiercely

Lieuwe Westra gave it his all for his GQ team mate Nibali, as did Fuglsang. Their plan was to gain as much time as possible on all of the other GQ favorites, specifically their biggest threat, Alberto Contador. They were not interested in the stage win (after all, Nibali has already won a stage in this year's TDF) and of course Lars Boom realized this. On the last cobble stone road Boom rode as fast as he could and left the others behind.

Boom won the stage with a lead of 19 seconds on Fuglsang and Nibali. This marks Boom's first stage win in the TDF ever, and the first victory for a Dutchman in the TDF since 2005 (back then Dutch climber Pieter Weening won a stage). Boom is a good rider who (amongst quite a few other races) won a stage in the Vuelta d'Espana earlier on in his career.

This stage was full of surprises :
*Nobody had expected yellow jersey Vincenzo Nibali to excell on cobble stone roads, but he did. He was even able to leave behind absolute stage win favorites (cobble stone specialist riders) Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan.
*Last year's overall TDF winner Chris Froome abandoned the race today.
*There were even more accidents in the peloton than expected today. Chances are it will take ten years or more before the ASO (TDF organization) decides to include this kind of stage again.

[Rev Jones]

Find tweets and videos of this amazing 5th stage of the TDF here :
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/matchcent...nce_2014_rit_5

and here
http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2014/us/

[Rev Jones]

A lot has changed in the GQ today. It includes very significant changes for the GQ at the end of the TDF in two weeks. Let's have a look...

1 ITA Vincenzo Nibali AST 20u26'46"
2 DEN Jakob Fuglsang AST +2" (team mate of Nibali)
3 SLW Peter Sagan CAN +44" (still wears the green jersey, also nr 1 in the white jersey classification now)
4 POL Michal Kwiatkowski OPQ +50" (2nd in the white jersey classification)
5 SWI Fabian Cancellara TFR +1'17"
6 BEL Jurgen Van den Broeck LTB +1'45"
7 FRE Tony Gallopin LTB +1'45"(first Frenchman, very important to the French)
8 AUS Richie Porte SKY +1'54"
9 US Andrew Talansky GRS +2'05"
10 SPA Alejandro Valverde MOV +2'11"
11 FRE Romain Bardet ALM +2'11"
12 US Tejay van Garderen BMC +2'11"
13 POR Rui Costa LAM +2'11" (current world champion)
14 GBR Geraint Thomas SKY +2'16"
15 FRA Thibaut Pinot FDJ +2'25"
16 NED Tom Dumoulin GIA +2'25"
17 RUS Joeri Trofimov KAT +2'25"
18 NED Bauke Mollema BEL +2'27"
19 SPA Alberto Contador TCS +2'37"
20 BEL Jan Bakelants OPQ +2'39"


Other supposed contestants for the GQ can be forgotten about now, as they are already far behind. I'm referring to riders such as ...
*last year's Vuelta d'Espana winner Chris Horner, an American rider (who's already 42 years old btw)
*Pierre Roland, a Frenchman who earned the 4th spot in this year's Giro d'Italia
*Luxemburger Fränk Schleck (former top 10 TDF rider)
*Spanish rider Joaquim Rodrigez (last year nr 3 in TDF, but he's just competing now to prepare for this year's Vuelta d'Espana)

[Rev Jones]

ANALYSIS OF TODAY'S GQ - who realistically still has a shot at winning the TDF?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leaving out the names of 'domestiques' (helpers of GQ riders) and riders who will not make an impression in the mountain stages at all, we are left with the following riders from the GQ top 20...

1 ITA Vincenzo Nibali AST 20u26'46"

4 POL Michal Kwiatkowski OPQ +50"

6 BEL Jurgen Van den Broeck LTB +1'45"

8 AUS Richie Porte SKY +1'54"

9 US Andrew Talansky GRS +2'05"

10 SPA Alejandro Valverde MOV +2'11"

11 FRE Romain Bardet ALM +2'11"

12 US Tejay van Garderen BMC +2'11"

13 POR Rui Costa LAM +2'11" (current world champion)

15 FRA Thibaut Pinot FDJ +2'25"

16 NED Tom Dumoulin GIA +2'25"

17 RUS Joeri Trofimov KAT +2'25"

18 NED Bauke Mollema BEL +2'27"

19 SPA Alberto Contador TCS +2'37"

Having a closer look at the list above, I can tell you riders like Trofimov and Dumoulin will not likely improve their GQ slot over the course of the TDF. Kwiatkowski will probably lose (quite) a few slots, since he doesn't perform well on the really high mountains.

Then there are dark horses like Bardet, Porte, Costa and Pinot. Some analysts say Costa is a top 5 contender this year (as he is no longer part of Valverde's team and can do his own thing). This might be the case, but Costa has already spent a lot of his resources on winning this year's Tour of Switzerland. We'll see. As for Bardet and Pinot, one of them will likely end up being the first Frenchman in the overall GQ at the end of the TDF (a big thing for the French - which is kind of sad if you think about it, as it seems more of a consolation prize), but it is difficult to predict whether they will end up in the actual top ten, or rather in top 15 or top 20. The biggest mystery is probably Richie Porte, who might do really well (top 3 or top 5) or might have one or two complete off days in the mountain stages in the final week of the TDF.

This leaves us with the following names to really pay attention to in the next two weeks (next to the aforementioned Porte):

Nibali
Van Den Broeck
Talansky
Valverde
Vangarderen
Mollema
Contador

These are all riders who have already proven they can take a top 3, top 5 or top 10 spot in the GQ of the TDF.

Contador will of course end up much higher than he is now, as he is the overall best climber of the peloton. But he's already lost 2 and a half minutes to Nibali and about one minute to Van Den Broeck. They are also very good climbers (Nibali being slightly better than Van Den Broeck.)

Exciting stuff!

TOMORROW'S RACE
----------------------
The riders will race to Reims. This will very probably be an uneventful stage, most likely ending in a sprint. Will Marcel Kittel win his 4th stage? Or will this be Peter Sagan or André Greipel's first one? We'll find out soon enough...

[Rev Jones]

TDF, 6th stage : Arras - Reims
------------------------------------
This stage in the Champagne region ended in a sprint.

1 André Greipel

2 Alexander Kristoff
3 Samuel Dumoulin
4 Mark Renshaw
5 Peter Sagan

German sprinter and current national champion André Greipel has finally won his first stage in this year's TDF. Last year he won only one stage in the TDF. Let's see if he gets to win more stages this year. However, to find that out we'll have to be patient as for the next ten days hilly stages, mountain stages and a day of rest are on the menu.

As predicted by analysts and riders this was quite the uneventful stage, except for the many accidents in the peloton. This is typical TDF stuff by the way : there's always a huge amounts of accidents in the first week, due to every rider being very nervous, wanting to be in the first part of the peloton. And then there's the pressure on each team to win a stage in the year's biggest race...

The most important riders who fell today were GQ rider Jurgen Van Den Broeck (remains 6th in the GQ) and current green jersey Peter Sagan, who coincidentally both fell in yesterday's epic stage as well. But they weren't too beat up and were able to continue. As you can see above Sagan even sprinted for the stage victory, earning his 6th top five spot in 6 stages! No wonder he's wearing the green jersey at the moment, leading with an impressive bonus of 80 points. On the other hand, he doesn't look very happy whenever he's called on stage to receive his green jersey after the race. I'm sure he thought he would have won a stage by now.

Slovakian rider Peter Sagan.

But Sagan will get his chance tomorrow, as the last few kilometers contain two hills which fit his profile (sprinter who is strong uphill too) perfectly.


Quite a few cyclists either gave up today or simply didn't start (due to all of yesterday's accidents). Since no big names are involved I will spare you the names. It might be important to note that one of Contador's team mates (Hernandez) gave up, so that means less help for Alberto Contador.

Alberto Contador (winner of all three major rounds by the age of 25!)

Today's breakaway group consisted of four riders: Tom Leezer (Dutch), Luis Angel Mate (Spanish), Jérôme Pineau and Arnaud Gérard (both French). These riders led the race for a very long time, but at about 20 kilometers before the end the peloton caught up with them.

Jerome Pineau, the most well known rider of today's breakaway group. He is a former temporary bearer of the polka-dot jersey.

As the peloton was preparing for yet another sprint, Team Omega Pharma (which has lost sprinter Cavendish) decided to ride EVEN FASTER than everybody else. Since the wind was strong in this open area (low fields all over the place), the peloton was thus split up into various parts. This is of course what Team Omega Pharma had wanted all along.

While practically everybody on their team was still in the first group, some sprinters like Arnaud Démare and 3 time stage winner Marcel Kittel ended up in one of the other groups. What Team Omega Pharma did, not only suited its replacement sprinter Mark Renshaw, but it was also beneficial for its Polish GQ rider Michal Kwiatkowski (overall 4th at the moment, last year he snatched the overall 11th spot in the GQ at the young age of 23).

Kwiatkowski was hoping some of the other GQ riders would end up in one of the smaller groups behind the first part of the peloton. However, this only happened to Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (ended 10th in the 2012 edition of the TDF). He ended up losing about 40 seconds to all of the other GQ riders and is no longer part of the top 20 of the GQ.

Thibaut Pinot

Since Team Omega Pharma knew their replacement sprinter wasn't good enough to leave the real top sprinters behind at the finish line, they then proceeded to execute the second part of their attack plan... With only about a kilometer left Michal Kwiatkowski himself jumped out of the peloton, hoping to get away from the sprint and winning the stage. While he was strong, the sprinters did catch up with him eventually and we were set for a real sprint. Without Kittel and Démare.

Michal Kwiatkowski


None of the sprinters had many team mates left to get their own 'sprint train' going, so this sprint was more of a one on one battle, so to speak. German André Greipel eventually won the stage, leavingNorwegian Alexander Kristoff and the other sprinters behind. The finish photo showed a clear difference between Greipel and the other sprinters.

The top 10 of the GQ has remained the same, with Vincenzo Nibali wearing the yellow jersey. The green and polka-dot jersey are still for Peter Sagan and Cyril Lemoine. Lemoine is riding really strong these days. He has ended up in the first part of the peloton in most stage so far. It will be interesting to see how long he can keep this up.

You can find pictures and videos of the stage here
http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2014/us/

and riders' tweets here
http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/matchcent...nce_2014_rit_6

Tomorrow's stage might be more exciting, as it includes some hills close to the finish line.

[Rev Jones]

VIDEO TIME...
------------------

Peter Sagan has an extra set of eyes. Check the vid here

http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...agan_helm_ogen

Ugh.


The most spectacular stage so far was the fifth. ASO has now made footage available of the cameras mounted on the steering wheels of various riders in that stage. Interesting! Feels as if you're right there in the peloton with the riders, in apocalyptic conditions.

http://sporza.be/cm/sporza/videozone...t5_fietscamera

[THE MASON]

people watch this?