TdF Stage 1 *May contain spoilers*

blazing_saddles

underlayunderlay wrote:

Mad_Malx wrote:

Only just managed to catch up with ITV4 highlights. They completely screwed up the finale and managed to miss Cav passing Sagan and no overhead. Had to watch it 4 times to work out how he won.

Delighted with Cav after giving him his last chance on PTP, mainly because everyone else went for Kittel.
Is EBH ok?

Overhead was a waste of time for explaining the finish - the camera operator spotted the crash and concentrated on that. I've not seen a shot that really unpicks the final moves, although the Tour did publish a clip from a camera on the line that showed quite how big a gap (surprisingly big) Cavendish opened up - but again, it adds little explanation of how it happened.

Sporza had the overhead and it was great. Shows Cav carrying way more speed than the rest.
Made Kittel look positively pedestrian.

Dorset_Boy

Bertie clearly hit that corner too quick and very disingenious to blame Bookwater.

Mad_Malx

Just tracked down final km on steephill which shows a full width front shot and an overhead which was much better.

http://www.steephill.tv/players/720/nbc ... 8G&yr=2016

Unfortunately hearing Liggett for 2 min was too much. Ned & Dave were good but maybe we should judge two weeks into the race.

inseine

Quite a few splits in the bunch at the end there.

specialgueststar

Paul 8v wrote:

Who went down in the crash? Looks like Arthur made a lucky escape

That was Groenewegen .

Lanterne_Rogue

adr82 wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Contador did well to get away with minor injuries looking at this footage.

http://www.ciclo21.com/tour-2016-contad ... os-suelos/

Well that footage neatly proves this is bullshit:

"It's very unfortunate of course. (Brent) Bookwalter (of BMC) crashed in front of him and took Alberto out," said Steven de Jongh, Tinkoff's sports director.

Bertie took himself out!

To return to this, the ITV podcast suggests that Contador's view (as reported by Matt Rendell) was he was fighting for position and his front wheel went - which seems a fair enough view. Suggests either de Jongh had his own take or Bertie revised his (and personally wouldn't criticise either of them for it - its racing, right?).

adr82

underlayunderlay wrote:

adr82 wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Contador did well to get away with minor injuries looking at this footage.

http://www.ciclo21.com/tour-2016-contad ... os-suelos/

Well that footage neatly proves this is bullshit:

"It's very unfortunate of course. (Brent) Bookwalter (of BMC) crashed in front of him and took Alberto out," said Steven de Jongh, Tinkoff's sports director.

Bertie took himself out!

To return to this, the ITV podcast suggests that Contador's view (as reported by Matt Rendell) was he was fighting for position and his front wheel went - which seems a fair enough view. Suggests either de Jongh had his own take or Bertie revised his (and personally wouldn't criticise either of them for it - its racing, right?).

Yeah I figured de Jongh probably gave that quote before he'd had a chance to either talk to Contador properly or see a decent replay.

Bo Duke

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Contador did well to get away with minor injuries looking at this footage.

http://www.ciclo21.com/tour-2016-contad ... os-suelos/

He really smacked into the central reservation curb, he's very lucky to continue at all after that. Tough lads eh?

andyp

TailWindHome wrote:

1 Eddy Merckx Belgium 34
2 Bernard Hinault France 28
3 Mark Cavendish United Kingdom 27

Take out time trials and you get this;

Cavendish 27
Merckx 17
Hinault 7

Hat tip to @irishpeleton for this.

maddog 2

Hinault's won 21 TTs...? That can't be right.

takethehighroad

Cav clearly needs to improve his time trialling doesn't he?

Pross

underlayunderlay wrote:

adr82 wrote:

Slim Boy Fat wrote:

Contador did well to get away with minor injuries looking at this footage.

http://www.ciclo21.com/tour-2016-contad ... os-suelos/

Well that footage neatly proves this is bullshit:

"It's very unfortunate of course. (Brent) Bookwalter (of BMC) crashed in front of him and took Alberto out," said Steven de Jongh, Tinkoff's sports director.

Bertie took himself out!

To return to this, the ITV podcast suggests that Contador's view (as reported by Matt Rendell) was he was fighting for position and his front wheel went - which seems a fair enough view. Suggests either de Jongh had his own take or Bertie revised his (and personally wouldn't criticise either of them for it - its racing, right?).

I think it must have been de Jongh they interviewed on Eurosport straight after the finish. He said then that a rider had taken Bertie down but I didn't catch the name. I thought at the time it didn't match what I'd seen and wondered if they were interviewing an ex-contributor to this forum!

Lanterne_Rogue

maddog 2 wrote:

Hinault's won 21 TTs...? That can't be right.

I didn't believe it either, but Wikipedia suggests 2 in 1978, 4 in 1979, 2 in 1980, 4 in 1981, 3 in 1982, 1 in 1984, 2 ITTs and 1 TTT in '85, 2 in 1985. I'm not sure how reliable it is though - their page for Hinault somehow manages to combine these figures to total 13 ITTs!

The format of some of those Tours seems exceedingly time trial heavy by modern standards - 1979 had an ITT prologue, four more ITTs totalling 160km, and two TTTs. Hard to imagine that today.

Lanterne_Rogue

Pross wrote:

I think it must have been de Jongh they interviewed on Eurosport straight after the finish. He said then that a rider had taken Bertie down but I didn't catch the name. I thought at the time it didn't match what I'd seen and wondered if they were interviewing an ex-contributor to this forum!

No, it's easy to tell that it wasn't. That viewpoint would have sworn that Bertie swerved with an enormous amount of panache to divert the peloton away from a cluster of orphans who had been intending to watch the race but were instead rescuing a kitten stuck up a burning tree, and that no faller in the history of falls had ever been quite as good as Bertie, who is naturally best at everything even when he's demonstrably coming second.

There may have been a photograph to illustrate this. Probably reduced to greyscale except for the frame of his sunglasses.

tim000

TheBigBean

So, who is in charge of photos now? I had a quick rummage around, but it seems my skills / patience aren't up to the job.

Mad_Malx

underlayunderlay wrote:

Pross wrote:

I think it must have been de Jongh they interviewed on Eurosport straight after the finish. He said then that a rider had taken Bertie down but I didn't catch the name. I thought at the time it didn't match what I'd seen and wondered if they were interviewing an ex-contributor to this forum!

No, it's easy to tell that it wasn't. That viewpoint would have sworn that Bertie swerved with an enormous amount of panache to divert the peloton away from a cluster of orphans who had been intending to watch the race but were instead rescuing a kitten stuck up a burning tree, and that no faller in the history of falls had ever been quite as good as Bertie, who is naturally best at everything even when he's demonstrably coming second.

There may have been a photograph to illustrate this. Probably reduced to greyscale except for the frame of his sunglasses.

...and Bertie stitched his own arm back on with gear cable so he could continue.

In fairness, it did look like a heavy fall and he was fortunate to escape with bruises. Thought Rowe(?) would have been in trouble with arms out on landing too.

bobmcstuff

Good rear facing on bike footage of the finishing straight crash on OBE's backstage pass: https://youtu.be/1ATydbtwpf4?t=414

takethehighroad

Can anyone make this into an avatar for me please? Frenchie did my last one...

Anonymous

Have you seen the Gruber photo of it?

above_the_cows

This one's my fave. Look at his wee face

takethehighroad

All three are great, the one I featured was a Bettini one.