Category: Tour de France
-
Crashes on stage six knacker up the general classification
Never mind Peter Sagan’s third stage victory, today’s flat stage had a big impact on the general classification. ‘General classification’ isn’t a particularly catchy way of referring to the overall times, so we’ll be tagging relevant posts “yellow” from now on. The Tour de France is rarely won. It is more about who loses last.…
-
Andre Greipel’s legs
I was massively disappointed that Anthony Delaplace didn’t get into the break today, but I was less disappointed that Mark Cavendish was beaten by everyone’s favourite wide-mouthed Germanic meat sack in the sprint. You need only take one look at Andre Greipel’s legs to know that it’s right that he win races. When someone has…
-
How powerful is Andre Greipel?
Andre Greipel’s angry mashing got him over the line first today. I’m glad I’m not a pedal. He was lucky in that he didn’t have to beat Mark Cavendish who was mangled in a pile-up about 2.7km from the finish. He beat everyone else though. Like any Greipel win, it was a triumph of leg…
-
Peter Sagan and his victory celebrations
Peter Sagan once won the Slovak Cup on his sister’s bike after selling his own and then finding that the replacement from his sponsor had been delayed. If anyone tells me it wasn’t a ‘sit up and beg’ bike with a basket on the front, I will not listen. Some stories are better if you…
-
Mark Cavendish bollocks Kenny Van Hummel while sprinting
One of stage three’s highlights was seeing Mark Cavendish bollock Kenny Van Hummel during and immediately after the intermediate sprint. Van Hummel had done a bit of a manoeuvre and Cavendish felt it necessary to tell him how he felt about this. For maximum emasculation, he did this while basically just drifting past Van Hummel,…
-
Three reasons why Mark Cavendish is inhuman
1. The ability to maintain a high speed Not the speed of the sprint, the speed of the run-in. The peloton was doing 45mph over the last few miles of Stage 2 of this year’s Tour and riders were disappearing out the back because they couldn’t maintain that flat speed even when drafting someone else.…
-
Anthony Delaplace is a nutcase
Peter Sagan’s victory was new. Anthony Delaplace being in a Tour de France break wasn’t. Delaplace is a nutcase. Most people won’t know Delaplace. He’s only 22 and he hasn’t really won anything yet. However, as we remember it, he was in every single break last year. Being in the break is an exercise in…
-
The Schlecks lose half a minute in Tour de France prologue
You don’t really imagine that much will happen in a prologue. It’s only a handful of miles out of a race that covers thousands of them. The Schlecks had other ideas, however. In keeping with a season that has largely revolved around whinging about being in the wrong races, whinging about injury, dropping out or…
-
Bradley Wiggins – Tour de France rider to know and love
Say what you like about Wiggo, at least he’s got the decency to be quite tall and over 30 years of age. Those are qualities I can get behind. Not so sure about the freakishly low body fat or the decision to stop drinking to achieve that, but nobody’s perfect. Wiggins often comes across as…
-
Cadel Evans – Tour de France rider to know and love
I haven’t really formed a strong opinion about Cadel Evans yet, even though he won the 2011 Tour and is one of the favourites this year. About the only thing I ever think when I see him is: “Your head doesn’t match your body.” Evans doesn’t have a cyclist’s head. He looks like he should…