The Lanterne Rouge 2024 Spoiler Thread
Oh god. Really? This?
Again?
Oh okay then...
A wizard is famously never late, nor is he early, and in fact he arrives precisely when he means to. Well sod that. Let's talk about people who arrive precisely when the cameras have packed up and gone home. It's much more fun. Yup, it's time again for the Lanterne Rouge - the superior, the purest, the simplest competition in cycling. Whoever does the most cycling wins.
Join us as we find out who - like Beck before them - can hit the big time by being a loser, baby*. Defending champion Michael Mrkv is back once again with Mark Cavendish in support - newly knighted for his selfless support in multiple Lanterne campaigns and, I suppose, some other minor competitions at the other end of the field. But there will also be new names to celebrate - the unexpected, the brave and the lame - and defending the title is almost impossible.
As ever I'll be providing nightly updates on the movers and shakers, but don't forget that this is also the best place to celebrate the weirdness and misfortune that attends professional cycling, so feel free to highlight anything you've noticed and just generally, y'know, chill out away from all that nonsense about yellow jerseys.
Last year's thread and links to older ones here:
https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/13120419/the-lanterne-rouge-2023-thread-definite-spoilers/p1
* Beck was subsequently banned from competition for four years after testing positive for butane in his veins. WADA's investigation into the beefcake pantyhose came to nothing, although Alberto Contador later claimed it was the source of his own positive result. My word but it's a weird song.
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Hey hey, welcome back. This fanboi likes you 😊 Who needs to worry about yellow, white, green-ish and spotty?
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Mark Cavendish hanging straight off the back even on the depart fictif - is he going for the big one that's always eluded him in an otherwise glittering career?
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Hirt getting his bid in early crashing in the neutralised
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Arriving at the start line in perfect condition.
(I'm actually a bit worried for him - it looks pretty nasty, and what a horrible time for it to have happened)
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Having to eat through a straw for three weeks is taking things to new extremes. There's a certain amount of nutrition required just to make the time cuts
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Having broken a front tooth myself, it wasn't too bad once I'd got a temporary crown on iirc. I certainly don't remember not eating. He might have to find a new way to open gels for today though.
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If he does get it fixed it could be worse for him in the mountains. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
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Is Cav finding his sir knighthood paraphernalia a bit too weighty for this sort of stage? Unless of course he has reversed his ambitions.
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As I said... Michael Mrkv is back once again with Mark Cavendish in support
Didn't expect them to make this sort of move this early though.
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Has he been trying to eat it?
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Onwards, to what I believe the kids are now calling "Stage 1"...
Most amateur athletes have heard of the concept of "carb loading". The idea is that you first starve the body slightly and then fill it to the brim with as much carbohydrates as possible the night before the race. Hopefully the body will store more of these reserves than usual, enhancing your performance.
It appears some genius nutritionist at Soudal Quick-Step has now applied the theory to the Lanterne, with appropriately named Jan Hirt taking one for the team - and more importantly a mouthful of asphalt - just before signing on. Presumably as well as the extra ballast somebody has done testing and revealed a smile like Shane McGowan is worth seconds in the wind tunnel. Naturally we wish him a full recovery, and await tomorrow's marginal gains with interest. He might want to walk to the sign on point, mind.
Before the race there was much muttering about Louvre-sponsored Mona Lisa Bike and their new-fangled tactics truck. Though it remains to be explained why they think it's sexier and more exciting to have people sitting in the back of a van drawing offside lines and finding ridiculous handballs when they could be sitting in an industrial estate in Stockley Park built on a haunted plague burial pit. This nefarious plan is apparently so boring even the UCI allegedly refuse to sanction it - and this, I remind you, is a bunch of fellows who obsess over sock length to the nearest millimetre. It also delivered absolutely bugger all, with Astana's unorthodox nutritional plan of buying all those dodgy salad leaves from Tesco proving by far and away more successful.
This new technique of carb unloading became obvious almost immediately, with Mark Cavendish soon hanging off the back of the peloton and intermittently hurling his guts up (and it's perhaps no coincidence that this happened about thirty seconds before a disgusted break of the day shot off up the road). The highwire balancing act involved in the Astana fuelling plan soon became apparent, however, as the six-man breakaway was trimmed to five by the loss of Michele Gazzoli. Nonetheless, with the Lanterne experience and firepower of riders like Cheese Bol and Mrkv out the back it was impossible to see Astana failing to time their finish perfectly and seize the stage win.
BUT WAIT!
Erratically capitalised dsm-firmenich PostNL had a cunning plan that involved sending two riders up the road, and whilst everybody else assumed the forlorn hope would end in disaster, they rode with belief and panache, and delivered a win for the ages. Oh, and Roman Bardet apparently had a good day too.
Yup, not since Ian Stannard made a fool of three Quickstep riders in a four-man sprint have we seen a result like this, with Fabio Jakobsen somehow taking stage honours against no fewer than five Astana riders. A staggering result that calls into question both Astana's tactics and Quick-Steps decision to let him go.
I do hope Alexander Vinokourov is taking something for his blood pressure though. I mean, he probably is. Let's face it, he's taken things for virtually everything else. Including some diseases only found in cattle...
Florence (and the machines):
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Best writing on the entire website! 👏👏👏
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.3 -
Disgraceful bit of wheel sucking, should be ashamed of himself.
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Astana are putting Jacobsen out to fry. Tactically astute.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!0 -
While 39'12" is the headline time, it's worth noting that's a good chunk of time over the chasing group - 8'54" to be precise. That's a decent lead for those eight riders, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if one of them took the overall
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I predict a good few, if not all, are going to fall off the leaderboard once we get to those tricky flat stages.
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 -
Well shirking the work at the wrong end got a little trickier for Astana riders as they lost a teammate there
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Stage Two, and my notes from the Tour's new head of marketing* says we need to talk about Kevin.
Yeah, right.
Meanwhile at the important end of the race, Bram Welten put in the big attack of the day by slipping off the front. Seasoned Lanterne watchers will know exactly what happened next - a strong performance inside the break to demonstrate just how hard he was working to his DS, followed by an inexplicable onset of melancholy and weariness that results in slipping all the way back to the end of the field. Bram Weltenschmerz, if you will. Unfortunately for Bram, Astana were wise to his tricks and marked out the resulting attack. It's not been a great summer for Bram, really, after his tandem partner for a novelty race was banned for consuming blood products. Well that's what happens when Bram's Stoker's Dracula, I guess.
Elsewhere the new asphalt-doping craze continues unabated, this time with Wout Van Aert taking a tumble during an utterly pointless intermediate sprint. Any claims he's the complete rider will have to wait until he makes a proper tilt at the Lanterne instead of these token efforts, I'm afraid. There was also significantly less of Laurens de Plus after he left bits of himself on the same stretch of the road.
In the underall there wasn't much movement, with no changes on time but Cheese Bol assuming red light status on countback. Tomorrow's widely expected to be a sprint, which implies Cavendish and Jakobsen will be leaving us shortly, but with a handy lead over their nearest rivals it's unlikely all of the riders now an hour up will find themselves off the podium at the end of the day. Lookout for Eekhoff though, now on the edge of the top ten after a precipitous 65-place move and stage honours. Join us tomorrow to find out how it goes...
Spaghetti Bolognese:
Alphalbertobettiol Spaghettiol:
*One L. Schriver
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I tried to flag that post, but apparently there's no reporting category for "pun so awful it should be a criminal offence"
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I'm now looking up international legal terminology to find if tortured is considered the same as torture.
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Stage Three, and I think the best thing we can say about that stage is that eventually it finished. I mean, seriously, it was the sort of thing so awful that only the US Supreme Court could rule in its favour. The early breakaway decided they were no more interested in going through the motions than bathers on a British beach, literally climbed off to wait for the peloton, and that was it for the next five years.
There's a well-known experiment where people who are sufficiently bored will start self-administering electric shocks, which might explain the continued employment of Carlton Kirby. Cyclists are no more immune to ennui, and Fabien Grellier eventually snapped and went on a pointless attack for the sake of feeling something. Well it's either that or the DS's clubbed together to encourage everyone to chase him down and finish before not only twilight but quite possibly the heat death of the universe.
It's also possible that a similar urge to relieve the tedium caused Caspar Pedersen to crash. Whilst it earned him the stage win, it also earned him a collar bone fracture and a no-expenses paid trip to A&E - we hope he gets well soon. Grellier meanwhile took a few minutes on LR as a reward for his tomfoolery, so I guess it's nice to see the old traditions observed, and Jan "14:30" Hirt also dropped into the top ten after finally refocussing his efforts.
Elsewhere Pogacar indulged in a little light lanternery to get rid of the yellow jersey for at least a day - how long before GC teams hire LR specialists to help manage this delicate task? - and something similar happened at the other end of the field to adjust the underall and return Mrkv to his accustomed position. Astana now lock out the bottom four, but let's see what happens in the mountains tomorrow.
Turin:
Borin':
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It felt like a serious battle for the stage win today to be fair. Everyone was working so hard to finish last the level of languidness made it a stage for the ages. Those two Norwegian lads got caught out to such an extent they had to stop completely just to catch up (is that even allowed? It feels like the equivalent of holding onto a car at the other end of the race). Plenty took the option of using the new 5km rule to try to gain an advantage and those that missed out resorted to the tried and tested method of throwing themselves on the asphalt when finding themselves too close to the front for comfort with the line in sight.
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Typical "difficult to win time in the mountains" stage this one, especially given the short stage length disincentivising too much mucking around
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And so to stage four, where Pogacar returned from Italy with a souvenir Henri Desgrange. It's a bit posher than a fridge magnet and a bottle of something unspeakable, I suppose. Being the first proper mountain stage we were always likely to find out who is really here for the long haul and who was merely suffering delusions of langueur.
The biggest loser was Jan "14:30" Hirt, who rose a staggering 73 places and completely blew apart any hopes of competing for the top honours. Casper Pedersen also failed to start due to a popped collar bone- one look at the drag up the Galibier and I'd have followed suit, frankly - meaning the underall got a bit of a shake up. Of note is the number of Dutch riders present in the bottom places - presumably they've got an inbuilt physiological advantage over those born at altitudes measured in a positive number of metres above sea level.
With eight riders in the bottom ten, it's increasingly looking like a two- way tussle between Astana and S&M- Firminich. There are rumours Jakobsen may say the safe word after tomorrow's sprint, with even Cavendish apparently dropping him at times on the climb. On which note tomorrow may see a further finessing of the standings - but that's looking like an increasingly useful buffer at the bottom.
Climb every mountain higher:
Not like that, Piccolo! Not like that!:
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Gaviria is a dark horse here. He's a double world champion in Omnium, which famously features the elimination race, otherwise known as the Devil take the hindmost. He's just lurking at the back waiting for the DNFs and OTLs to start picking off his competitors.
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The problem everybody has here is that Astana are clearly not going to waste a single molecule of energy more than necessary to meet the cut off, and have brought a crack crew of riders who can do the required calculations in their sleep. You can't compete with experience like that. - you'll win nothing with kids, you know.
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I've done the very important and complicated maths (so you won't have to). Every sporting event has to have their own 'statto' and I have elected myself: 'Patto'.
3 Belgians in the top ten
5 Astana riders
3 DSM riders
@25 mins per stage average approximately nearly, that's... let me see... the winner of the LR is going to be almost 9hrs ahead at the end of the 3 weeks.
1 Brit. I have a friend who was roadside up the Galibier* and Cav went by saying 'bollox...f*ck...bollox...f*ck' with every pedal stroke. I can only presume this was on account of not being able to shed his team mates. They just hang around him like a bad fart. The damn Autobus nullifies creative tempo.
*At the last weigh in, he was 17st 6lbs, 4 and a half ounces, so 'up' is figuratively speaking.
seanoconn - gruagach craic!2
