Tour of Turkey 2015 **Spoilers**

Pross

Really good stage for Caja Rural with 3 in the first 8 including Mas Bonet winning and another rider on the podium. EQS burnt themselves out too early and never looked in control in the last 5km. Pretty poor circuit on the whole but made for an exciting finish.

Pross

Bonet looking justifiably very pleased with himself there. Cav looks less pleased. He won the sprint easily despite the distance he had to go from, just 10m too far to close. Considering it was being talked up as a sprint stage there were probably no more than a dozen riders in the 'bunch' at the line.

blazing_saddles

Great opportunism from Bonet.
Caja derailed the rather feeble Etix train.
Boonan particularly disappointing, although he's only just back from his accident.

deejay

Yellow Peril wrote:

Pross wrote:

Cav deserted at 500m. Great win for Caja Rural and Cav holds on for 2nd after leading from 500m out. Really used the technical finish well there.

That was a lesson in road book study. great win for Bonet

That was a Fail by the Etixx - Quick-Step team as they were in position at the "U" turn but completely lost it on the technical part.
Renshaw was left on the front with about a Kilo to go and closed most of the gap by 500 m's to go where Cavendish wondered WTF (you can't be serious) but still closed it down but not enough to win.

specialgueststar

pinch points
bossing the peloton
mobbin the peloton
going long

?

specialgueststar

deejay wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Pross wrote:

Cav deserted at 500m. Great win for Caja Rural and Cav holds on for 2nd after leading from 500m out. Really used the technical finish well there.

That was a lesson in road book study. great win for Bonet

That was a Fail by the Etixx - Quick-Step team as they were in position at the "U" turn but completely lost it on the technical part.
Renshaw was left on the front with about a Kilo to go and closed most of the gap by 500 m's to go where Cavendish wondered WTF (you can't be serious) but still closed it down but not enough to win.

ha ha Cavendish expecting to get on the red carpet with 250 metres to go

frenchfighter

4 CCC DNF. Tough luck there.

Final GC:

1 Kristijan Durasek (Cro) Lampre-Merida 31:06:44
2 Eduardo Sepulveda (Arg) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:32:00
3 Jay Mccarthy (Aus) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:56:00

Good win for Durasek, congratulations. Glad my man finally showed something this year to finish 2nd in GC. Mccarthy did very well too considering he is only 22.


http://www.tinkoffsaxo.com/team/riders/jay-mccarthy/

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/04/tinko ... can-he-go/

Yellow Peril

deejay wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Pross wrote:

Cav deserted at 500m. Great win for Caja Rural and Cav holds on for 2nd after leading from 500m out. Really used the technical finish well there.

That was a lesson in road book study. great win for Bonet

That was a Fail by the Etixx - Quick-Step team as they were in position at the "U" turn but completely lost it on the technical part.
Renshaw was left on the front with about a Kilo to go and closed most of the gap by 500 m's to go where Cavendish wondered WTF (you can't be serious) but still closed it down but not enough to win.

I'm not sure why they burnt so many matches early on. I don't think Keisse needed to be pulling on the front for 80km. Bonet was ready to jump on that rise, great move.

frenchfighter

Great win for Caja and great victory photo by Kare:

frenchfighter

Race leader did not bother to shave this morning :roll:

Crampeur

frenchfighter wrote:

Great win for Caja and great victory photo by Kare:

Great photo, cheers. Really happy for Mas Bonnet; big talent, great celebration, and rides for a team that really livens up races. He was clearly ecstatic.

Yellow Peril

frenchfighter wrote:

4 CCC DNF. Tough luck there.

Final GC:

1 Kristijan Durasek (Cro) Lampre-Merida 31:06:44
2 Eduardo Sepulveda (Arg) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:32:00
3 Jay Mccarthy (Aus) Tinkoff-Saxo 0:56:00

Good win for Durasek, congratulations. Glad my man finally showed something this year to finish 2nd in GC. Mccarthy did very well too considering he is only 22.



hmmm...you were a few weeks behind the curve in selecting him for your 20 man roster FF. Both The Boy and myself have more immediate "My Man " claims. That aside good result for him and BSE
http://www.tinkoffsaxo.com/team/riders/jay-mccarthy/

http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/04/tinko ... can-he-go/

iainf72

frenchfighter wrote:

Race leader did not bother to shave this morning :roll:

C'mon Frenchie, I thought a man of your calibre would know the old wives tales of cycling.

Golden rule : Never ever shave before an important stage, as it will weaken you.

Ashbeck

Boring race, boring stage routes. Apart from Cav winning, it didnt have much to shout about.

frenchfighter

^^lol, maybe!

JP, no you are wrong. I have had Sep from the beginning. Given I am able to strongly support more than a handful of riders I have a few and in typing them out I missed him out so edited him into my post later. Quite believable when you think he has done very little of note this year, so not like I added him in afgter a big win or performance.

rick_chasey

iainf72 wrote:

Golden rule : Never ever shave before an important stage, as it will weaken you.

True story.

Paul 8v

I thought that was shaving the legs not face? The legs one is definitely true, I don't know why but it just is!

RideOnTime

Rick Chasey wrote:

iainf72 wrote:

Golden rule : Never ever shave before an important stage, as it will weaken you.

True story.

Biblical

Samson (Victor Mature), the hero of the Israelites, wins the hand of a Philistine woman, Semadar (Angela Lansbury), in a contest of strength. When she is killed during a conflict on her wedding night, however, Samson becomes a hunted man whom the Philistines, including Semadar's sister, Delilah (Hedy Lamarr), want to punish. This becomes complicated, however, when Samson suddenly acquires God-given superpowers, and Delilah's true feelings for Samson surface.

and the rest...

mididoctors

that was a great parcours round Istanbul. that finish favours a flyer with all those corners

RichN95.

My favourite bit of the Tour of Turkey is seeing minor journalists and bloggers, particularly the self-annointed guardians of the sport's integrity, throw all their alleged principles aside to tirelessly promote the race and country in exchange for a free holiday.

dish_dash

RichN95 wrote:

My favourite bit of the Tour of Turkey is seeing minor journalists and bloggers, particularly the self-annointed guardians of the sport's integrity, throw all their alleged principles aside to tirelessly promote the race and country in exchange for a free holiday.

Indeed

mididoctors

RichN95 wrote:

My favourite bit of the Tour of Turkey is seeing minor journalists and bloggers, particularly the self-annointed guardians of the sport's integrity, throw all their alleged principles aside to tirelessly promote the race and country in exchange for a free holiday.

does that actually happen?

Yellow Peril

iainf72 wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

Race leader did not bother to shave this morning :roll:

C'mon Frenchie, I thought a man of your calibre would know the old wives tales of cycling.

Golden rule : Never ever shave before an important stage, as it will weaken you.

and because of that being and being a man of advancing years I'll never shave my pubic hair

RichN95.

mididoctors wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

My favourite bit of the Tour of Turkey is seeing minor journalists and bloggers, particularly the self-annointed guardians of the sport's integrity, throw all their alleged principles aside to tirelessly promote the race and country in exchange for a free holiday.

does that actually happen?

I've seen it mentioned quite often.

Just have a look at the twitter feeds of the likes of Shane Stokes and Festinagirl. The usual constant sniping and suspicion is miraculously replaced by tweets about how marvellous the country, the people and the race are.

mididoctors

RichN95 wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

My favourite bit of the Tour of Turkey is seeing minor journalists and bloggers, particularly the self-annointed guardians of the sport's integrity, throw all their alleged principles aside to tirelessly promote the race and country in exchange for a free holiday.

does that actually happen?

I seen it mentioned quite often.

Just have a look at the twitter feeds of the likes of Shane Stokes and Festinagirl. The usual constant sniping and suspicion is miraculously replaced by tweets about how marvellous the country, the people and the race are.

yeah but do they get a free holiday out of it.... the two ain't mutually inclusive. The race has a bad rep but it is a decent vista on occasion.

To give the ToT a fair crack for 2 years running the early "decisive lead" has been lost later which is[was] a rarity in week long stage races. everything aside its not that bad a race, thou there is a trend for the lesser week long races to be better these days with more attacking mixed up racing. Eneco has had a few decent editions same for tour of poland.

I don't follow festina girl (or stokes). there is a glut of opinion already, why go beyond here and a few decent sites, inrg and the telegraph podcast.... plus I tend to trust the opinion of posters here like you to read that stuff for me and report back... . time saver

Mad_Malx

Some interesting discussion in the Grauniad:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/100-tours-100-tales/2015/may/06/tour-of-turkey-mark-cavendish-cycling

This was the 51st edition of the race – the organisers said they were “starting over for the second half of the century” – and it has a recent history it is keen to leave behind. The 2012 winner, Ivailo Gabrovski, and the 2013 victor, Mustafa Sayar, both tested positive for EPO and lost their titles. Both rode for the national Torku-Sekerspor team.

Lionel Marie, Torku-Sekerspor’s new manager, says he made it a condition of his joining the team that they would enrol in the UCI’s biological passport scheme. It’s an unusual move – the biological passport is currently limited to teams competing in World Tour races, and Torku-Sekerspor, currently a Continental team, are in cycling’s third division. It’s also costly; World Tour teams pay €120,000 and ProContinental teams €80,000 for the privilege. But Marie was insistent: “I pushed also for MPCC and we did blood tests before the race to ensure everything would be OK. The past is the past and we have to follow the rules and we have to work clean.”

For Marie – who is that rare thing in cycling, a career coach rather than an ex-rider – working clean is “normal”. “I came from that background. Garmin, Orica, Giant, Cofidis and Roger Legeay was my first manager so for me it’s logical,” he says. But he points out that it’s not easy for a country with no history of the sport, “with no clue about what cycling can be”. How dependent is the future of the team on getting those results? “Ninety-nine percent. It’s OK for me because I’m from outside but for the Turkish people it’s very hard to manage, it’s hard because they don’t understand – we came from ground zero, we have to rebuild the team and also the image of the team.”

RichN95.

^^^As I said. Journalists and bloggers get their free holiday and write positive pieces about the serial doping local team and write paragraphs you'd expect to see in travel brochures.

I've got no problem with it generally. That's how the world works. But when those same writers bang on about 'conflict of interests' and 'transparency' elsewhere, they need to declare their incentives package (proper journalists usually do so).

Astana must be gutted that Kazakhstan doesn't have a beach.

takethehighroad

RichN95 wrote:

Astana must be gutted that Kazakhstan doesn't have a beach.

What you on about?

deejay

RideOnTime wrote:

Biblical

Samson (Victor Mature), the hero of the Israelites,

and the rest...

Yet more Biblical Bollox from the Histories of Hollywood. ?
The Joke being the first line :- Victor Mature the biggest Weakling in Hollywood as Samson. :roll: :roll: :shock:
Are you that old to remember the embarrassment of that Fraud. (there's a Lion so watch Victor run. Booh and he jumps out of his skin.

Sorry but I can't help myself as we had a lot of fun with him trying to act and hide behind Plastic Rocks.
(a bit like the Star Trek Rocks) (or our Hero, Flash Gordon with Buster and his Rocks)

Leave me alone, I've gone back but I mean Victor Mature. that really sets me off.