Rest day round-up – where everything stands in the Tour de France

A rest day today. Nowt going on. The riders will be cyling non-competitively for mere tens of kilometres, the lazy sods, so we’ll have to make do with taking stock of where we’re up to.

Overall/yellow jersey

Bradley Wiggins has a 2m 5s lead over his team mate, Chris “Froomedog” Froome. He has 2m 23s on Vincenzo Nibali, who’s having a solid race, and 3m 19s on reigning champion, Cadel Evans, in fourth.

A lot of people think this lead is sufficient, particularly being as there is another time trial to come and Wiggins is the best time-triallist.

I dunno. It’s certainly a good lead and he hasn’t really looked threatened so far, but by week three no-one’s in peak condition. Race the same mountain stage on day eight and day 18 and you’ll get different results. One of the things about grand tours is that it’s not just about having stamina, it’s about recovering well too. That’s always a bit of an unknown because riders undertake three-week races so rarely.

Maybe Wiggins is a fader. Maybe he’ll hint at this halfway up the Col d’Aubisque tomorrow, encouraging a fiendish pace up the Col du Tourmalet. That’s the thing with cycling – until someone reaches their limit, you don’t really know what it is and everybody’s limit changes as the Tour wears on. The evidence suggests Wiggins is strong enough to hold his own, but let’s just see.

Points/green jersey

Peter Sagan has basically already won this. No-one else is even bothering to compete for it any more. As long as he doesn’t ride into a dog or one of those drunk men who run alongside riders in their pants, he’s home and hosed.

Other riders

In keeping with his generally low profile, Denis Menchov managed to lose the race without anyone really noticing. When Cadel Evans went out the back door on stage 11, Menchov had long since slid from view. He lost almost a quarter of an hour on that day. Gaps measured in fractions of an hour are pretty much insurmountable.

As for The Schlecks, he’s contended himself with a more consistent, low octane inadequacy, losing a minute here and a minute there. He’s almost 10 minutes down and confirmed he’d given up hope around stage 12, which was around 12 stages after he’d actually given up hope.

Gallopin’ Tony has abandoned, as has Mr Breakaway, Anthony Delaplace. I believe Johnny Hoogerland’s still in the race, but I’ve no idea what he’s been doing. Hiding behind Denis Menchov maybe.


Comments

10 responses to “Rest day round-up – where everything stands in the Tour de France”

  1. Farrell avatar

    Following on from yesterday’s comments, I’m inclined to agree that sitting in the peloton behind a team of hugely talented riders seems to be the way to go. Instead of concentrating on work today, I’ve taken those 8 hours to come up with a solution. And this is it. As soon as a rider drops more than an hour behind the leader he is out. Not of the stage, the entire tour. Case in point, Cavendish is over two hours behind Wiggins, and is out of the race. However Wiggins still gets the comfort of rising behind him, which seems a tad crazy to me. With the one hour plus rule, it would force main riders to step up a bit in the later stages, give the smaller names greater impetus to remain competitive, and then maybe have more actual racing. Surely it would be more exciting with only a handful of small teams going hell for leather down the Champs Élysées than the procession it is now?

    1. They do have a cut-off each day. A cumulative overall cut-off is an interesting idea, but tricky to establish because every Tour de France is different.

      If it was an hour, that would take out most of the riders at present, including the majority of the sprinters and one of the existing ways of keeping the Tour interesting is to have different competitions, so different riders and different teams will make more effort on different days.

      Sometimes circumstances come about where it seems like no-one’s really doing much, but there’s always the stage win up for grabs. Personally, I like the sacrifice of team members. I think it’s part of the sport.

  2. daneel avatar

    Sounds like The Shlecks have been naughty boys. How embarrassing is it to be doping and still miles off the pace?

    1. Ooh dear.

      Not sure I’d want to take a diuretic during the Tour though. I guess there must be some sort of advantage gained from it if it’s a ‘specified substance’.

  3. Why in the blue blazes would you want to promote urination on a bike. The good book Wikipedia says “some diuretics help to make the urine more alkaline and are helpful in increasing excretion of substances such as aspirin in cases of overdose or poisoning”. I guess in this context this could mean The Schlecks have been taking ‘asprin’.

    That alkaline urine hint is super useful though if you’ve suffered a bee or wasp sting and can remember which is which.

    1. Agh! Someone get me a diuretic! I need to deal with this sting in a few minutes’ time.

  4. The subscription thing just asked me to type

    Weepi

    1. I have it set to mirror my mood.

  5. daneel avatar

    Maybe The Schlecks got them from Shane Warne’s mum?

    1. I’ve had it up to *here* with Brigitte Warne and her shenanigans.

      What was that, Brigitte? What was that just then? Was that another shenanigan?

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