Tour de France Stage 5 Ypres-Arenberg *Spoiler*

RichN95.

philbar72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

mulletmaster wrote:

Going to be a long couple of weeks for a relatively weak Astana squad when Saxo start throwing boys up the road every five minutes for day after day. They are lucky sky don't have a realistic GC hope as well.

Who exactly are Saxo going to throw up the road? After Contador, their next best riders are over 13 minutes back on GC.

Probably Roche or majka. Rogers will be Contadors super domestique ( probably) with one of the other 2 helping when not trying to break.

But Astana aren't going to bother chasing them. They're no threat.

ugo.santalucia

ddraver wrote:

PuttyKnees wrote:

A great stage and not because of some kind of machismo, but because it tested some other aspect of bike racing than TT and MTF. I don't see any valid argument why such stages shouldn't be included in future. Certainly better than a sprint stage and no less dangerous either.

I'm going to try this one more time but it is dangerous because the peloton are nervous for a whole 100km rather than just 10. Of course that makes a difference. Anyone who has watched the classics knows that essentially the entry to every sector/berg is the equivalent of a sprint stage...except with a peloton of 100 rather than 190

If it had just been a road stage in the rain then the peloton would have knocked the pace off significantly, but BECASUE of the cobbles that is not possible

Can you not see that or won't you see it?

Yeah, there should be a system in place... weather warning = cancelled stage. Wind, rain, snow, sleet are enemies of the race.... the stage should be cancelled. If the leader falls = the stage is cancelled. If the leader is knocked out = the race is cancelled. Sprints should be contested among sprinters, the other riders to step back... sprints only allowed on dual carriageways and so on...

Anonymous

To be honest it's only ruined the rest of the race for Froome. I think 2.30 is a fair chunk for Nibs given the strength of the Astana team, the unknown of WTF Garmin are going to do, what Porte can do to perhaps make the podium and test how strong Saxo domestiques are looking given they are all pretty far back.

adr82

ddraver wrote:

PuttyKnees wrote:

A great stage and not because of some kind of machismo, but because it tested some other aspect of bike racing than TT and MTF. I don't see any valid argument why such stages shouldn't be included in future. Certainly better than a sprint stage and no less dangerous either.

I'm going to try this one more time but it is dangerous because the peloton are nervous for a whole 100km rather than just 10. Of course that makes a difference. Anyone who has watched the classics knows that essentially the entry to every sector/berg is the equivalent of a sprint stage...except with a peloton of 100 rather than 190

If it had just been a road stage in the rain then the peloton would have knocked the pace off significantly, but BECASUE of the cobbles that is not possible

Can you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

I assume by "ruining the rest of the race" you mean Froome retiring, right? Obviously that's not good, but he came into the stage carrying what seems to have been a fairly serious injury. Every other GC contender survived the experience, and aside from Nibali even did so with fairly consistent times... looking at the classifications, within 3 mins of the lead you have: Kwia, Porte, Talansky, Valverde, TJVG, Costa, Pinot, Mollema and Contador. No reason to believe Froome wouldn't have been in there too if he hadn't been more vulnerable to crashing than usual. Contador might be the outstanding favourite now, but there's a long way to go and we have no idea what's going to happen. Can I suggest reserving judgment until the end of the Tour might be a good idea?

ddraver

adr82 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

I assume by "ruining the rest of the race" you mean Froome retiring, right?

Just for you I ll try again

ddraver wrote:

you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

Right, what excitement do we have in store today..?

adr82

ddraver wrote:

adr82 wrote:

ddraver wrote:

you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

I assume by "ruining the rest of the race" you mean Froome retiring, right?

Just for you I ll try again

ddraver wrote:

you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

Right, what excitement do we have in store today..?

Did you just stop reading after the first sentence I wrote? Just for you, I suggested we wait until the Tour is over before deciding it's been ruined. If you think it's not worth watching now, what are you doing here?

Anonymous

ddraver - it's a flat stage, with 15mph crosswind. You won't even get echelons. Surely everyone knows that? It's going to be more dull than the London stage.

I see what you are saying but I don't agree. I am of the view that Froome should have been drilling from the front if he wanted to be away from rogue wheels. He broke? his wrist the previous day and therefore couldn't. Such is life.

I mean it may as well be a couple of mountains and a flat stage to decide the positions. Northern France IS associated with cobbles and I would be glad to have them in every race. I don't think the organisers want casualties, they want to force a selection. If that only happens on mountains and TTs it becomes a snoozefest, even with Condator lighting it up like a True Certified Heavyweight Champion. Nibali did the same yesterday.

above_the_cows

There's a lot of people arguing here with the benefit of hindsight.

That thank heavens only one person crashed out of the race in part as a result of the stage is not actually relevant to the points some people are making regarding adding in an element designed to generate a bit of excitement that also significantly increases the overall risk factor.

If you were a risk manager then you wouldn't take one anecdotal event as proof that something is safe.

Anonymous

AtC - what about looking at cobbled classics as a whole, or cobbled stages in Grand Tours?

How many significant crashes which have been season-enders for the riders?

adr82

Above The Cows wrote:

There's a lot of people arguing here with the benefit of hindsight.

That thank heavens only one person crashed out of the race in part as a result of the stage is not actually relevant to the points some people are making regarding adding in an element designed to generate a bit of excitement that also significantly increases the overall risk factor.

If you were a risk manager then you wouldn't take one anecdotal event as proof that something is safe.

Granted, but there's got to be a balance between risk and excitement. How much risk is "worth it" to generate some excitement is a very subjective question. Even the riders seem to have lots of different opinions on it so it's not really a surprise we all can't agree.

philbar72

RichN95 wrote:

philbar72 wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

mulletmaster wrote:

Going to be a long couple of weeks for a relatively weak Astana squad when Saxo start throwing boys up the road every five minutes for day after day. They are lucky sky don't have a realistic GC hope as well.

Who exactly are Saxo going to throw up the road? After Contador, their next best riders are over 13 minutes back on GC.

Probably Roche or majka. Rogers will be Contadors super domestique ( probably) with one of the other 2 helping when not trying to break.

But Astana aren't going to bother chasing them. They're no threat.

But Riis puts someone up the road so when Contador breaks away they then recover and then put everything into it so that he can stay away for longer. Either that or they (Astana get one of their other quasi GT contenders ( thinking Fuglsang) to shut Contadors attacks down.

You are absolutely right about neither being threats but they both have good engines so will be useful to Contador for attempting to claw back the lead…

Either that or the 3 (Majka, Rogers and Roche) are used up by Contador to stretch the peloton out or string out Nibali and his cohorts. Though riding tempo with the exception of Rogers may be a little alien to Roche and Majka….

Can’t see many other scenarios.

above_the_cows

coriordan wrote:

AtC - what about looking at cobbled classics as a whole, or cobbled stages in Grand Tours?

How many significant crashes which have been season-enders for the riders?

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but a cobbled classic is not the same thing as a cobbled stage in a GT for a whole variety of reasons that have already been spelt out repeatedly.

deejay

.
Froome having to retire was the result of several times hitting the floor which were not "PAVE".
You cannot argue with Tarmac that often and expect to survive a cycle race.

The French Race is supposed to be the "Greatest" and really it is only the most Hyped race with the most "Money" that gives this impression.
However, No other GT can offer the "Pave" of Northern France to be included in the hardest mountain racing GT, debate.
In the old days they rode "Pave" and Dirt roads throughout the race. The towns were Pave and the mountains were Dirt Roads, even in the 1950's and in the 1960's Paris Buses had Solid Rubber Tyres to cope with all the "Pave" before they got Tarmac.

Anonymous

But you are saying adding risk, but how much risk to the enjoyment and the fact that only 1 rider crashed out is not a fair sample.

So going back over past GTs with cobbled stages, how many have crashed out? (I was using Cobbled Classics as a comparison, leave it out if you wish).

blazing_saddles

Worst crash of the season in terms of both numbers of injured and direct impact on the GC?
Giro stage 6 to Montecassino.
Cause? Same as yesterday; rain on previously long time dry roads and.........................a roundabout.
A lethal combination, far more certain to result in accidents and injury, than pave.
Do we complain? No, we accept these as "racing incidents" and move on.

adr82

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Worst crash of the season in terms of both numbers of injured and direct impact on the GC?
Giro stage 6 to Montecassino.
Cause? Same as yesterday; rain on dry, Summer roads and.........................a roundabout.
A lethal combination, far more certain to result in accidents and injury, than pave.
Do we complain? No, we accept these as "racing incidents" and move on.

That day actually merited being labelled as "carnage".

PuttyKnees

ddraver wrote:

I'm going to try this one more time but it is dangerous because the peloton are nervous for a whole 100km rather than just 10. Of course that makes a difference. Anyone who has watched the classics knows that essentially the entry to every sector/berg is the equivalent of a sprint stage...except with a peloton of 100 rather than 190

If it had just been a road stage in the rain then the peloton would have knocked the pace off significantly, but BECASUE of the cobbles that is not possible

Can you not see that or won't you see it?

The question is for people is is one day's excitement worth ruining the rest of the race for (a la Armstrong/Mayo)

In what way has the race been ruined? We now have a far better prospect of a race than we did before. The GC now reflects who can ride a bike and who can't rather than pure W/kg. The only reason not to include it is if the stage is unsafe. Well that's a matter of debate, for if this is unsafe, then so are many other aspects of bike racing including riding up and down a mountain in the sleet, sprints through narrow streets and classics racing. And any bike racing in the rain. And when there are nervous riders within 4km of the start of a trivial stage on the flat and in the sun.

thomthom

Also, for the 10th time, Froome didn't quit yesterday. He already did the day before.

Daz555

PuttyKnees wrote:

In what way has the race been ruined? We now have a far better prospect of a race than we did before. The GC now reflects who can ride a bike and who can't rather than pure W/kg.

Minus the defending champion whose tour effectively ended the day before as a result of someone else not being able to ride a bike.

The_Boy

No tA Doctor wrote:

type:epyt wrote:

To put some perspective on things. Is this any worse than Cancellara and Boonen crashing out of Flanders in 2012 and 2013, respectively, and missing the remaining classics races?

Yes. They're specialists that targeted a race that's known to be pretty dangerous. Rightly or wrongly, GT teams are built around riders that can climb and TT. That's the GT skillset. But every few years someone comes along and says "I know, let's make them do something different, where there's a high risk of crash and injury, where they're unlikely to be suited to riding the terrain".

One dnf yesterday, two in 2010. And yesterday's dnf was as much to do with a crash on a mundane spring stage the previous day.

Anyone have numbers of dnfs for previous cobbled stages before those? Because those numbers suggest there is no higher a risk of injury than on any other stage. And unless we are seeing more people injured on cobbles stage than other stages then they aren't more dangerous.

The_Boy

Can't buy into this idea that the race is over Ieither. If anything, yesterday has made the race. Lots of people need to attack to make time up before the TT, and if the form from the dolphin I'd anything to go by then Contador isn't the only one who will be able to make the time back on nibbles.

adr82

Cosmo just had to do a video for this one stage: http://cyclocosm.com/2014/07/how-the-ra ... 4-stage-5/

DeVlaeminck

ugo.santalucia wrote:

coriordan wrote:

NEMESIS rims!

No, he was riding Corima carbon tubulars...

The race preview someone linked had his bike with Nemesis on - must have changed them - imagine how much better he'd have gone with the aluminium !

The point still stands though - just watching todays stage back and Sean Kelly has made the same point - if someone is nervous on the cobbles why not give them the safest choice which are not all carbons. Yesterday should have been about survival for Froome - even if he lost 3-4 minutes I think that on form he could regain that from Nibali in the mountains.

Also someone earlier said the tyres for the cobbles may have contributed to crashes on the tarmac . I don't buy that one - wider tyres at lower inflation pressures should surely provide greater grip on the tarmac - I think it was simply a case of summer rain after a dry spell - either that or those roads just have a lethal surface.

tailwindhome

Scott Mitchell ‏@modcyclingphoto · 9h
Nice shot of Boom on the way to his win, I liked using the rail crossing instead of the cobbles.

tailwindhome

http://www.omegapharma-quickstep.com/en ... obbles/894

dish_dash

Enjoyed the OPQS video for stage 5. Loved how Brian Holm was not going to join in Wilfred Peeters' enthusiasm about Kwaitek's finishing position... he did not look impressed.

Coriander

dish_dash wrote:

Enjoyed the OPQS video for stage 5. Loved how Brian Holm was not going to join in Wilfred Peeters' enthusiasm about Kwaitek's finishing position... he did not look impressed.

Yes, I was also quite moved by the bit at the beginning with Matteo Trentin talking about the poppy on their jerseys. Talking of which, I learnt yesterday that the cornflower is the French equivalent of our poppy, but a Belgian team using the poppy, does that mean it's used in the same way in Belgium? Or is it now a worldwide symbol of the loss and suffering of war?

Paul 8v

One of the floats in the caravan was for a world war 1 cemetery, the packs it was throwing out had poppy seeds in them so they possibly use both.

frenchfighter

Another heavyweight cobbled rider with my sentiments:
"It should not have been in the race in the first place. I mean, in the north of France you know it's going to rain. I think cobblestone races are made for Classics. For a Classic you can chose to ride over the stones, but if you participate in the Tour de France you don't volunteer to take the cobblestones. It’s just the organisation that puts the cobblestones in and you have to survive it. If you see that Chris Froome is out because of that stage, I don’t think that we can be happy about that."
-Terpstra

Horner on Froome's crash:
"Ah man, yesterday was devastating. We went: sprint, stop, sprint, stop, sprint, stop. You hit the brakes as hard as you could and your bike is sliding in every direction. Then you have to start sprinting hard again to stay on the wheel," Horner said.

"I was right there when Froome went down. He slid about 50 yards. I'm not surprise he climbed off."

"He caught a little crack in the road. There was road furniture on the left and he got caught in the crack and it took his front wheel. It was nothing he could do about it. It wasn't about experience or lack of bike handling skills. It was just very slippery and he got caught in the gap and went down. It could have happened to any rider."

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Enjoy Breakthrough's photo essay:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/07/ ... our_335576

frenchfighter

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@eddie_km
"@classicretro: It was wet in the '36 TdF