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The hardest mountain stage, with most climbing. Those stages potentially offer the most spectacular racing, and are therefore especially anticipated, but don't always deliverWhile we're at it, thought of another one - what is 'The Queen Stage' in a given race?0 -
The hardest mountain stage, with most climbing. Those stages potentially offer the most spectacular racing, and are therefore especially anticipated, but don't always deliver
Spot on, cheers.0 -
Hi
In grand tour racing, after how far do tires get replaced due to wear?0 -
Hi
In grand tour racing, after how far do tires get replaced due to wear?
Sorry, I have no idea how often tired tyres are retired.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
Not new to the Tour, but would love to get hold of one of the Tour's race manual/handbook that's given to the teams.0
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Not new to the Tour, but would love to get hold of one of the Tour's race manual/handbook that's given to the teams.
All here: http://velorooms.com/index.php?topic=2384.0
Some of them (e.g. this year's) wer geo-restricted and you may need to use an VPN/IPthingamibob to get hold of it.0 -
Hypothetically...
If today (stage 2) had finished in a bunch sprint and Cavendish had finished in the bunch on same time as the winner but Sagan still won..
Who'd wear yellow?0 -
hanshotfirst wrote:Hypothetically...
If today (stage 2) had finished in a bunch sprint and Cavendish had finished in the bunch on same time as the winner but Sagan still won..
Who'd wear yellow?
Sagan due to better aggregate placing. Were there time bonuses today? If so that would have sorted it out. If Cav had come third I'm not sure what would have happened - points in intermediate sprints maybe? It's where having a prologue helps as they can split to hundredths of a second then.0 -
**edit #2: If the times are level, it goes to the 1/100 second splits from TT. If these are level still its on aggregate placings, and if still level the placings in the last stage, so if Cav finished 3rd today, Sagan would still be in yellow. on the final decider.0
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There was a comment on the highlights last night that when Tom Voeckler went off to catch the one-man breakaway, he had to seek permission from the leading rider's team. I assume this is some sort of unwritten rule or race etiquette to help maintain the structure of the race?
If race etiquette is able to control when a rider or group decides to go for it, surely it stifles the competition?0 -
I think it was more the fact he was attacking with 80k to go, which isn't generally the done thing.
It would be tougher to catch a fresher rider, so everyone would just wait until 80k to go on a flat stage and attack then.0 -
Not so much a question of etiquette, more that the team would have protected their rider by chasing down Voeckler, unless Voeckler had managed to assure them that he could help them, or offered some sort of support later in the race. It's politics.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
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How is the cut off time for elimination of late riders set? Is there a different time for each stage?
I'm asking because it wasn't obvious if Cavendish was going to stay in the race after yesterdays stage until he actually finished.0 -
It's taken as a percentage of the winner's time. What that percentage is depends on two factors: a) the severity of the stage - harder stages have higher percentages and b) the average speed - the higher the speed the higher the percentage.mrfpb wrote:How is the cut off time for elimination of late riders set? Is there a different time for each stage?
I'm asking because it wasn't obvious if Cavendish was going to stay in the race after yesterdays stage until he actually finished.
There's tables of these percentages in the road book.
Twitter: @RichN950 -
Hence the frequent comments on TV about slide rules.
So stage nine was won with an average sped of 37.2 km/h and presumably was very difficult(?)
So the cut off time would be 15% of 4h 57m = 44m 55s after the winner. The final group came in 39m 24s after Froome so no eliminations.
Ami I right?0 -
That's it .mrfpb wrote:Hence the frequent comments on TV about slide rules.
So stage nine was won with an average sped of 37.2 km/h and presumably was very difficult(?)
So the cut off time would be 15% of 4h 57m = 44m 55s after the winner. The final group came in 39m 24s after Froome so no eliminations.
Ami I right?Twitter: @RichN950 -
mrfpb wrote:Hence the frequent comments on TV about slide rules.
So stage nine was won with an average sped of 37.2 km/h and presumably was very difficult(?)
So the cut off time would be 15% of 4h 57m = 44m 55s after the winner. The final group came in 39m 24s after Froome so no eliminations.
Ami I right?
Also even if the riders don't make the cut off time, if there is a large enough group together the Tour can still let that entire group back in the race. Otherwise they'd end up kicking out way too many riders :P
In the 2011 tour, I think it was a group of like over half the peloton finished outside the time limit. Of course they were allowed to remain in the race, but to make it fair for those still in the green jersey competition and that had made the time cut, Cavendish and Rojas were both docked 20 points.0 -
What is an MTF?0
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Mountain Top Finish (a stage which finishes at the top of a major climb)Thick Mike wrote:What is an MTF?Twitter: @RichN950 -
RichN95 wrote:
Mountain Top Finish (a stage which finishes at the top of a major climb)Thick Mike wrote:What is an MTF?
Ah! Wasn't sure if it was an abbreviation of a French phrase or not.0 -
Another question. I apologise if it has already been asked elsewhere.
I always thought that teams were fined for littering on the TdF. I have seen some fairly blatant discarding of chewy bar wrappers in the 2016 Tour, so has this rule been abandoned? Or do the teams just not care?Ecrasez l’infame0 -
They do get fined. but it's all "small change" - in the region of 200chfs. So most teams just pay. not everyone gets caught either
There is a list of fines each day including littering, hanging onto cars, urinating in public, and more0 -
I think they also now have designated "waste zones" after feed zones where things can be discarded without penalties, that might account for some of what's seen on TV.dish_dash wrote:They do get fined. but it's all "small change" - in the region of 200chfs. So most teams just pay. not everyone gets caught either
There is a list of fines each day including littering, hanging onto cars, urinating in public, and more0 -
Thanks. I knew that there was a huge list of stuff teams get fined for, but the littering thing has bugged me this Tour. Must be getting old, I'll be writing to the Telegraph next :Padr82 wrote:
I think they also now have designated "waste zones" after feed zones where things can be discarded without penalties, that might account for some of what's seen on TV.dish_dash wrote:They do get fined. but it's all "small change" - in the region of 200chfs. So most teams just pay. not everyone gets caught either
There is a list of fines each day including littering, hanging onto cars, urinating in public, and moreEcrasez l’infame0 -
BelgianBeerGeek wrote:Must be getting old, I'll be writing to the Telegraph next :P
That would be the Col du Télégraphe, yes? But why?
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Alrighty, so absolute newbie question.
I have only just started watching pro cycling and am getting extremely into it...but without knowing a great deal (next to none)
Where can one go to be able to improve their knowledge on the sport? how it all works, rules of racing, teams etc etc so that when I am watching, I actually know what the eff is going on
Videos, books, articles, whatever there is!
Thanks for all your help!0 -
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I read somewhere that if you stopped riding your bike you'd lose your fitness within 2, 3, maybe 4 weeks. So once you got back on the bike you'd be starting from absolute scratch. This got me thinking about a professional tour rider. If they were injured badly and out of action for a few weeks would this losing of fitness apply to them as well? Or would their very base level of fitness, given that they're pros, and even after being off the bike for weeks, still mean that they'd kick our asses easily?0
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You don't lose fitness all at once, it decays on a curve. To get technical the typical training load models use a 6 week weighted moving average, so according to those models it'll decay to very low levels after 6 weeks (It's a bit more technical than that as there's not necessarily a completely linear relationship between training load and power - your sustainable power doesn't drop to zero watts, it drops to some nominal level based on your physiology and so on - but it illustrates the point. Also it's only a model and real life is messy). So a few days off is fine, after much more than a week it does start to noticeably drop away, but it doesn't just go to nothing after 1 or 2 weeks.bonk king wrote:I read somewhere that if you stopped riding your bike you'd lose your fitness within 2, 3, maybe 4 weeks. So once you got back on the bike you'd be starting from absolute scratch. This got me thinking about a professional tour rider. If they were injured badly and out of action for a few weeks would this losing of fitness apply to them as well? Or would their very base level of fitness, given that they're pros, and even after being off the bike for weeks, still mean that they'd kick our asses easily?
Yes, they will lose a lot of fitness and that's one reason why Chaves (who's coming back from injury and isn't going too well) isn't being talked about especially hopefully for the Tour.
However all that said, their base fitness is likely such that they would still kick most of our asses after a month off!0 -
There was no TTT in the tour this year. What would have happened if there had been and a team didn't have 5 riders to time (e.g. FdJ this year )?0
