The Lanterne Rouge 2023 Thread (definite spoilers)
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Well hopefully that can provide a Frison of excitement thenWarning No formatter is installed for the format1
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Stage 12:
Today started with the shock news that Fabio Jakobsen had accidentally been supplied with a profile of today's stage, and being of sound mind - at least for a sprinter - immediately packed his bags. That meant nobody to work for Mørkøv, and gave other teams the opportunity to try and shake up the LR.
Unfortunately, as always with these things, the media decided to over hype things rather than waiting to see how things develop. That meant 80km of commentators insisting that we were seeing the greatest series of sustained attacks since Hitler decided to move his deckchair to the Belgian coast for the summer, whilst any fool with eyes could see that Caleb Ewan had sloped off the back with Frison and were rapidly build a bigger Gap than the average nineties shopping mall. A massive group tried desperately to lose time on the leaders, but proved unable to close the distance to Caleb's date with dstny.
Indeed, so greedy were the pair from the vowel-deficient Belgian outfit that the biggest intrigue was whether they wouldn't be timed out altogether, with the last sixty kilometres being a two-up, all-out effort contre la montre, contre la montagne, and contre la - well, just generally contre, okay?
Elsewhere Fedorov's position appears to have stabilised somewhat, although Astana overcooked their attempt to move [squints at dodgy handwriting] Penelope Cruz into a more advantageous position. Axel Zingle now sits pretty in third, and the Lotto dstny vowel dsastr pair round out the top five.
I'd say tomorrow is likely to be largely neutralised due to the horrible, horrible mountains, but given the way this tour has gone so far who knows?
Nuclear Frison:
Unclear fission:
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I was in awe of the strategic brilliance of Ah zje les dooz err. Well that is, until it came apart. They slipped right up the field, knackered. Having single handedly, pulled no - heaved the gruppetto up and down hills, thus poised ready to plummet not 1, not 2 but 3 team members down towards the top. It just underlines how much of a team sport the LR trophy is.
I have this ringing in my ears. I think it might be Hatchinitus:
It was a day for the ages, a day that will go down in the history books. One that we'll be talking about for years. 'It's Benoît Cosnefroy, it's Benoît Cosnefroy, it's Benoît Cosnefroy'. We'll be talking about Benoît Cosnefroy for years to come. This was a stage for the ages. He came, he saw, he done it and he done it in style...
Epic words. Epic commentary.
But then, the commondante spied them hiding behind the team car and he gave them a good talking to, with lots of pointing in gallic tones. I think the Ah zje les dooz err team car was holding the Beaujolais run up.
The glaring issue that Cosiefry faced, despite all the effort put in, was a deficit to the stage winner Victor Lafay of 12 minutes plus and the closest Ah zje les dooz err to our gallant Mrkv is 1 hour and 9 minutes behind.
But we can gloss over these technicalities and reflect on tactical mastery undone by petty rule makers. Maybe as the race goes on, repeats of this level of sophisticated team work will bring them glory. They truly deserve it.seanoconn - gruagach craic!1 -
Stage 13:
There was an amusing clip on Twitter from the Tour de France organisers earlier today that simply asked riders one fiendish, unanswerable question:
"What day is it?"
I kind of know how they feel...
Back to the peloton though, and similarly unable to tell the difference between bum and breakfast time, was Caleb Ewan. Shelled at the first speed hump, Ewan struggled to the intermediate sprint, realised the organisers were trolling him by placing it on a 5% slope, and promptly climbed off defeated.
Also struggling was Ben Turner, who briefly threatened to ignite Ineos' campaign with a carefully timed burst of gastroenteritis. Unfortunately whilst the little flower was nabbing a compensatory stage win, Turners's own little flow was (allegedly) turning his shorts a dreadful shade of AG2R, leading to his eventual retirement. Hopefully he recovers quickly, along with whichever poor sod is on laundry duty tonight.
I had naively assumed that the reappearance of proper mountains would mean the neutralisation of racing, but today's parcours - with just two climbs at the end of the stage - meant it was possible for riders to pace their efforts accordingly. That meant some decent splits, and whilst Fedorov got his pacing badly wrong - being far too conservative - Mørkøv delivered another solid result to increase his lead. Zingle suffered a case of Bastille Day excitement to fall back in the rankings, but the ride of the day came from Frison - who shook off the loss of his anchor man to take both the stage win and third on LR.
Enfants de la patrie:
Enfants retardés:
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Can I get 10e on Cees Bol through the Paris mutuel please?
You see, he's quietly going under the radar going about his business in the only way he knows how.
Perfectly poised and close enough to glue himself to his running mate Mørkøv who's 12kg's lighter. 12kg's will improve his progress over the hurdles of fire , razmataz and plane today. In fact, based on that stat, Mørkøv should not be there. Mørkøv is just a petite folie, a ruse, a distraction. It's clever tactics.
I'm not going to bother using this https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/free-fall to calculate the descents because it may just provide the very argument that I am wrong and I hate being wrong.
I wouldn't normally bet on a 165 rider handicapper but I have this gut feeling...seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
Too many riders going for the big one on today’s potentially race defining stage but not quite getting it right.0
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Petit and Sinkeldam are going long though. 3’ 30” lead with nearly 120km remaining. Petit has remodelled his shorts to make them less aero, a crafty marginal gain when the race was stopped earlier to neutralise a mass break attempt. I think he may have overcooked it though and may fail to finish.0
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Stage 14:
Like most commentators I've got absolutely no idea what happened today. Unlike most commentators that's because I had to accompany my idiot child down to the big smoke for an important meeting that had [checks emails*] been cancelled on Wednesday. Ignorance having never been a burden previously however, let's press on with the news...
Typically for a tough stage there was little movement on LR as people tried their best just to survive. One who didn't was Ramon Sinkeldam, who has been lurking at the edge of the top spots for a whole now but who was forced to climb off halfway through.
A few hardy souls attempted to gain Lanterne-winning injuries, although as far as I can tell nobody who was threatening the top ten. Amongst the more eye-catching of these was Roman Bardet, who suffered a commotion cérébral
- which to be fair doesn't sound like his normal racing. The désorientation, on the other hand...
Elsewhere Pedrero suffered something that Google renders as "three broken sides", presumably the left, the right and the inside given the possible bruised lung. Meintjes and Shaw also overcooked their attempts, ending up in hospital. The one winner amongst the butcher's bill was Little Adrian, who suffered a couple of "grosse" contusions - ie even the doctors felt a bit sick looking at them - and who used the subsequent treatment delays as a launchpad to win the stage in a three-up sprint.
Finally, this thread rarely worries about riders who finished in the middle of the pack, but this is an absolutely superb piece of timewasting. Well done everybody.
Party Hard, by Andrew WK:
Leave the party to go and throw up in the toilets whilst your best mate holds your hair back and tells you he was a bastard anyway, by Andrew WKD Blue:
Join us tomorrow for more of this sort of thing.
*Unlike said idiot child
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Cees Bol continues his stealth attack.
That 10€ may have been well placed in the rhetorical slot.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.2 -
I told ya.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0
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Please tell us why you had to accompany 'idiot child' to the big smoke L_R?
I'm pretty damn sure my children could match any idiocy.seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
The real idiots are those that expect children to use email. My own - fully grown - children regard it as an outdated irrelevance. Actual children must think of it as we'd think of checking the carrier pigeon.Warning No formatter is installed for the format0
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I have the full list of riders who tried (en masse) to go for the earliest attack in the GCLR (or is that the GLRC?) on record. Only 1km after the départ and they chucked themselves at the tarmac, only for the scheme to be dashed as quick as it was conceived as the race was neutered. I mean, neutralised.
I really do not understand this - most of the riders don't have a 'la semaine des quatre jeudis'* in the LR but they were still willing to give it a go.
The Spanish cycling commentator Roberto Hatchos** described the moment aptly:
Se neutraliza la etapa de momento y mi mi mi, estaremos hablando de este momento en los próximos años.
Louis Meintjes
Antonio Pedrero
Maxim van Gils
Adrien Petit
Daniel Martínez
Wilco Kelderman
Clément Berthet
Esteban Chaves
Bryan Coquard
Omar Fraile
Ion Izaguirre
Ben O'Connor
Patrick Konrad
Anthony Turgis
Chris Juul-Jensen and
Vegard Long Steak
Meanwhile overnight, across the pop up Air B&B demi-pensions, Mørkøv was singing loudly in a lamentable fashion, directed at the rightful heir to the throne Bol: 'Only you' by the Platters***.
*Strange yet beautiful. It is the closest the French have to the expression 'no chance in hell'. The alternative is quand les poules auront des dents. Which, strangely, has nothing to do with teeth.
**Sorry, I can't help it.
***Due to my poor cognitive ability to retain basic facts, a Google search threw up the Buck Owens and the Buckaroos version. This also left me metaphorically on the tarmac; dazed and confused.
Now where did I put that multi lingual keyboard with it's multitude of extra vowels. The virtual clip board is overflowing...seanoconn - gruagach craic!1 -
Petit trying to double up with an audacious long range solo effort 145km from home. I suspect he may have bitten off more than he can chew today though.0
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Thanks for that, Pinno - I clearly chose the wrong day to be pointlessly dragged down to London.
(For those wondering, my 14yo was supposed to have had a team away day and introductory session for the steering group they're on. Either they're a bit more focussed than I was at that age or it's one heck of a euphemism)0 -
Stage 15:
Having missed yesterday's stage I wasn't able to join in most of the discourse about the various motorbikes interfering with the race, or indeed the way that the presence of fans continues to affect riders' opportunities to attack. However today saw Jumbo Visma clearly take advantage of outside influences to not only leave the race in bits on the climbs but also to leave Nathan van Hooydonck in bits across the road.
Personally I think it's all part and parcel of the Lanterne - a little nous and a lot of skulduggery feels like a key part of the contest - and it's wise not to get too hung up on some mythical purity of the event. I think it's also a testament to Sep Kuss' all round abilities that he can simultaneously work for Vingegaard and also launch his teammate up the Lanterne rankings and, I guess rather more pertinently, about ten feet up in the air.
Slightly less traditionally - and I think this is a wonderful example of teams thinking outside the box and finding new marginal gains - Krists Neilands has unveiled a new twist on the infamous sticky bottle. He probably would have preferred not to be gaining so much time in the road margin here, but this certainly opens up new tactical plays.
In the main contest, Little Adrian - or at least what parts remain - continues his charge up the rankings and Axel Zingle is still looking to further his position. The real news though is that Astana appear to be throwing their weight in behind Cheese Bol* instead of Fedorov, perhaps because he's the only rider capable of hanging back with Michael Mørkøv - Bol just taking the stage win on the line.
Join us tomorrow for [checks notes] absolutely nothing. Huh. What is it good for?
Edwin Starrs:
Headwinds tarry:
*by far their least popular flavour, well behind Creme de Banane, Creme de Cacao and Creme de Menthe
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Should probably also have mentioned Rigoberto's inadvertent roll in the hay and the subsequent aero gains from the strands of assorted vegetation, whilst we're on about novel tactics in the LR.1
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Stages 12, 13 and 15 lost by a 34, a 33 and a 35 year old respectively. They are far too old for the LR and I find their inclusion in this race a bit cruel. It's exploitation. They know these old boys have little chance of getting a contract so they force them to suffer whilst simultaneously making fools of them at the wrong end of the race just for a bit of sponsorship. Money is wrecking this sport.
I will of course be writing to the ASO, various team bosses and Mrs Tiddlywinks to express my deep concerns.
Lets not let that mar the excitement of this years competition where Cheese Rol has gained momentum on the slopes and found himself in a head to head with Mrkv*.
With only a narrow deficit of 10 minutes and something, Rol has crept down on M©rk©v putting an inordinate cheese press on him and time will tell if M©rk©v crumbles or Rol's push simply manifests in blue veins.
There will be no rest for these protagonists on the rest day. Probably doing Derny paced exercises and making sure they are well dehydrated in preparation for tomorrows ITT.
*I tried Alt 0169 but that didn't work. I think there are some Hobnob crumbs stuck under the ' ' key... [blows hard, shakes keyboard upside down, gets even more odd looks from family members]... Ta da! © Oh bollox.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
Stage 16:
The cycling forums are chattering. Allegations are flying. We've just watched one of the most devastating time trials in history and nobody can quite believe it. I don't think most of us even thought this was possible, and meanwhile the hubbub continues. Is he cheating? Has he found some sort of secret recipe? Was the refusal to change bikes really worth ten seconds on the climb?
Everyone agrees on one thing though. Alexis Renard being hors delai on a time trial with a 33% time cut is surely the greatest cycling performance of the decade.
Yes, it's time for the race of truth, where your legs first stab you in the back and then spit in your face - an act of anatomical contortionism that's only really possible if you end up in the sort of position Renard was as he hit the barriers on the first corner. Capitalising on this perfect start, Renard then managed to mash up his rear mech to lose another critical minute or so, and then paced himself superbly to beat the cut off by just one second and enter Tour legend. A superb piece of riding with just two minor problems...
Firstly, somewhere around the third bottle, the commissaires decided that they rather liked having Alexis around the place, and reinstated him. THERE WAS NO MERCY FOR TED KING YOU CENSOREDS!
The second minor issue is that important parts of Alexis Renard appear to have remained lodged in the barrier, and as a consequence he won't be starting tomorrow. What with the broken elbow and all.
All this kind of diminishes the fun in seeing a rider timed out in circumstances that are almost impossible to arrange. You'll just have to carry on getting wound up about that irritating band your teenage daughter listens to instead. Yup, that's the one. Jonas bothers...
Meanwhile in the Lanterne our leader Mørkøv retains his position, with Cheese Bol only able to claw back a minute or so, although as Fedorov managed to slip further back Bol did at least justify his team's faith in him earlier in the tour. Frison is now breathing down Fedorov's neck, at least until the inevitable restraining order for that sort of thing, and Bauhaus is styling out the top five.
White lines:
Don't do it- oops, too late:
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9 minutes is a healthy lead going into the 3rd week but Mrkv seems to be resting on his laurels. A dangerous games with some hard stages ahead.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Bauhaus on the attack!The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Panache, but doomedpblakeney said:Bauhaus on the attack!
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Stage 17:
After the shocking events of yesterday's time trial, everyone was asking whether today would supply the amazing counterattack we all craved.
No.
The Lanterne has now settled into the sort of holding pattern where the major places have been virtually decided, and the only real changes will come as a result of people failing to make it to Paris, or possibly spending so long on that ridiculously steep runway finish that it's reopened to air traffic.
There was briefly some excitement after the first hour of racing, when rumours swirled that Wout Van Aert was seen lurking around the back, but it turns out Adam Blythe was just trying to wind up the rest of his colleagues.
That wasn't the only moto commentator japery, as TV's Tommy Voeckler continued a career of peeing off everyone in the break whilst fannying around at the front by fannying around at the front and peeing everyone in the break. Well, I say the peloton, but I really mean Jonas Vingegaard, who by this point is in a race of his own. And yes, that really was TV Tommy's moto - the pair have been chucked off tomorrow's stage and will have to view it from a comfy chair with all the helpful graphics. It's possibly the first time a moto commentator might actually be able to add something of value.
A lot of amateur commentators have started rumours about Vingegaard's performance after being stalled by the bike, but I reckon he's totally clean in this event. There was no way he was using a dodgy Motoman to enhance his performance when he was already nearly five hours off the Lanterne. Besides, the chances of TV Tommy doing his share of the work is highly unlikely.
Back amongst the high flyers, and we had to say goodbye to Phil in an event some commentators - okay, just me - are calling Bauhausgang. Shed from the pack fairly early on, Bauhaus struggled to the intermediate sprint before climbing off and calling it a day.
On the final climb Simon Geshcke managed to delay the inevitable longest to take the stage, Fedorov and Bol called a truce to roll in together, and Mrkv simply marked everyone out of it.
Col de la Loze:
Col de shoulder:
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We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver1 -
What a solo lanterne victory on the hardest queen stage in a decade looks like
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Got to love your man in the broom wagon living his best life there1
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The top cockerel M©rk©v only gained a poultry 10 seconds on Cheese Rol so he can't start counting his chickens*.
One would think that a 24% gradient would give the riders the perfect opportunity to slip forwards on the GCLR by zig-zaging back and forth across the road but the crowds put pay to that idea.
The problem with sadistic stages like this is that it tends to neutralise the race.
Mountain stages are a leveller.
Due to the fact I am still reeling from a sort of sympathy altitude pain which is affecting my cognitive ability more than usual, I shall now turn to the immortal words of Albert Camel**:
Nothing is more despicable than respect based on the fear of steep gradients and elimination..
Basically, at the very bottom of the hill, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is souplesse.
The struggle itself towards the heights of Courchevel is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
When the moon winks, the vulture flies sideways.
*You what?!
**Some stuff might be lost in translation.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
Stage 18:
A quiet day in the Lanterne today as everybody apparently called a truce and pretended to chase the break down to set up the sprint. Asking a bunch who have happily been taking time to go up front and work for a change went exactly as well as you'd expect this deep into the tour, and a subtle bit of quiet quitting saw them extract their revenge, although they had to work hard to keep the break at six seconds for the last three kilometres or so.
None of the favourites really showed their faces in the wind though, possibly because Jasper Philipsen was patrolling the front of the peloton like a drunken peacock in a hall of mirrors, although Fedorov found a strategic gap in the final metres to wrongfoot Freddie Frison and retake third. That left a host of unusual names - and previous winner Lawson Craddock - to compete for stage honours, with Quinten Hermans taking the honours.
Touch of cramp:
Touch of cloth:
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