![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stage 1: Rotterdam To Bruxelles
Jul. 5th, 2010 03:22 amToday, with its sunny, bright weather and lovely scenery, was the first full day of cycling in the 2010 Tour de France: 21 days and 2263m or 3642km counter-clockwise through Europe. And though they don't exactly care about July 4th in Rotterdam, they did start off with fireworks.
From the gun, Lars Boom of Rabobank attacked, soon joined by Maarten Wynants (Quickstep) and Alan Perez Lezuan (Euskatel). They opened up a strong lead of several minutes, which they carried for most of the day. Good for them not only for facetime and sprint points, but because, as ever, the opening day of a Grand Tour was, also as ever, marred by numerous crashes.
Lance Armstrong mused with his more mathematically-inclined Twitter followers how many people must have been lining the roads today. They estimated somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million. I don't know how accurate a Twitter groupthink is, but I will say the heavy crowd lining the entirety of the 233.5km course definitely played a big role in both the riders' nerves, and the crashes themselves. A road narrowed by cheering throngs is exciting, but not an easy thing to navigate. And it does not calm the brain of a large group of athletes eager to prove themselves. Thus, over and over, we heard tell of a pileup in the peloton. Early on, Adam Hansen, important lead-out man of HTC/Columbia had an unfortunate dismount that left him a sight that sinks every cycling fan's heart: holding his left arm, favouring his left side, wincing. He got back on his bike and was helped by a teammate back into the peloton, but after the race was whisked off to hospital for x-rays. Diagnosis? Broken collarbone. He will not start tomorrow. I'm beginning to think anyone even considering becoming a cyclist should just have titanium collarbones put in somewhere in their earliest training days as a matter of SOP.
Not long after, another crash was caused by the one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to make me scream: a dog on the road.
I know things happen, and leashes break, but allow me a brief request, here: DON'T BRING YOUR DOG TO A ROAD RACE, PEOPLE. Over and over, well-meaning dog lovers take the opportunity to spend a day in the great outdoors with their RV, their friends, their beer, and their dogs. And every damned Tour, someone's dog winds up facing down almost 200 professional cyclists riding for their lives at speed. (Today's average: 43.3kmph.) This? This doesn't end well for anyone. While most of the cases I've heard and seen have, miraculously, ended well for the dog, they NEVER end well for the riders. Today, a terrified-looking canine (Golden?) cowered in the middle of the road while bodies piled up in almost cartoonish carnage all around. Big names like David Millar and Ivan Basso and Andreas Kloden and one of my favourites, Levi Leipheimer, went down hard. They continued, but the whole thing was entirely avoidable. Friends, if you ever go to the Tour, spend the day with your dog. Fine. Have a blast. But dogs chase bikes. Dogs get excited in crowds. Dogs break and slip leashes. For the love of all things canine and holy, when you know the peloton's coming? PUT THE DOG AWAY. An RV, a car with the windows down, a crate, SOMETHING. Thirty seconds, two minutes, whatever: the race will have passed, and Fido can come out to play again while you continue to get plastered with five hundred of your new best friends.
Here endeth the lesson.
As the stage progresses, Wynant has burned away Boom And Perez Leuzan. He's not alone for long, soon joined by Alexandr Pliuschin, the Moldavian champion of Russian team Katusha. But though they fight their best, by 8.5km to the finish, they've been reeled in, and the whole field is back together, setting up for a fast sprint finish. Who will it be? Columbia's Mark Cavendish? Garmin's Tyler Farrar? Wait-- what? The camera catches Cavendish off the back of the peloton, cruising amiably along. He looks at the camera, shrugs, waves, and smiles ruefully. He's obviously out for the day. No time to find out what's happened-- it's 1km to the end, it's 500m to the end and all of a sudden, the ENTIRE ROAD is blocked by a huge, solid wall of fallen bodies and tangled bikes, with Maillot Jaune Fabian Cancellara flat on the bottom of the pile. Two dozen, three dozen riders perhaps make it through, and ANOTHER crash happens, one rider's bike literally catching on the derailleur of the rider before him, being dragged down the road like a riderless horse-- it's Tyler Farrar! An Ag2r rider's bike has caught his wheel! He kicks viciously at the clinging bike, but it's too late, and the damage is done: his derailleur is actually snapped!
But this is what happens, this is how it goes, and Alessandro Petacchi of Lampre seizes his opportunity and takes the stage!
Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Doesn't seem like any serious injuries this time, but who expected to see Tyler Farrar-- whom so many expected to be throwing up his arms in victory today-- actually walking his broken bike across the line? He'll get the same time as everyone else, as the crash happened within the final three km of the race, and race rules state that anyone involved in a crash within that limit receives the same time as the peloton, but what a tough break. He's sanguine, however: this, he says, is what happens in bike racing.
And he's right.
Trivia for the day: as an honour, the tour went through the Belgian hometown of perhaps the greatest cyclist ever, Eddy Merckx, who turns 65 today. Eddy himself was there at the podium to present the jerseys, and not only was he presented with a special jersey made of all the types specialist jerseys he so excelled at winning (Points, King of the Mountain, Race Leader), but he got more cheers than the King of Belgium, who was actually there, and not climbing a television antenna in North London. (A cookie to anyone who gets the reference.)
From the gun, Lars Boom of Rabobank attacked, soon joined by Maarten Wynants (Quickstep) and Alan Perez Lezuan (Euskatel). They opened up a strong lead of several minutes, which they carried for most of the day. Good for them not only for facetime and sprint points, but because, as ever, the opening day of a Grand Tour was, also as ever, marred by numerous crashes.
Lance Armstrong mused with his more mathematically-inclined Twitter followers how many people must have been lining the roads today. They estimated somewhere in the neighbourhood of three million. I don't know how accurate a Twitter groupthink is, but I will say the heavy crowd lining the entirety of the 233.5km course definitely played a big role in both the riders' nerves, and the crashes themselves. A road narrowed by cheering throngs is exciting, but not an easy thing to navigate. And it does not calm the brain of a large group of athletes eager to prove themselves. Thus, over and over, we heard tell of a pileup in the peloton. Early on, Adam Hansen, important lead-out man of HTC/Columbia had an unfortunate dismount that left him a sight that sinks every cycling fan's heart: holding his left arm, favouring his left side, wincing. He got back on his bike and was helped by a teammate back into the peloton, but after the race was whisked off to hospital for x-rays. Diagnosis? Broken collarbone. He will not start tomorrow. I'm beginning to think anyone even considering becoming a cyclist should just have titanium collarbones put in somewhere in their earliest training days as a matter of SOP.
Not long after, another crash was caused by the one thing that is absolutely guaranteed to make me scream: a dog on the road.
I know things happen, and leashes break, but allow me a brief request, here: DON'T BRING YOUR DOG TO A ROAD RACE, PEOPLE. Over and over, well-meaning dog lovers take the opportunity to spend a day in the great outdoors with their RV, their friends, their beer, and their dogs. And every damned Tour, someone's dog winds up facing down almost 200 professional cyclists riding for their lives at speed. (Today's average: 43.3kmph.) This? This doesn't end well for anyone. While most of the cases I've heard and seen have, miraculously, ended well for the dog, they NEVER end well for the riders. Today, a terrified-looking canine (Golden?) cowered in the middle of the road while bodies piled up in almost cartoonish carnage all around. Big names like David Millar and Ivan Basso and Andreas Kloden and one of my favourites, Levi Leipheimer, went down hard. They continued, but the whole thing was entirely avoidable. Friends, if you ever go to the Tour, spend the day with your dog. Fine. Have a blast. But dogs chase bikes. Dogs get excited in crowds. Dogs break and slip leashes. For the love of all things canine and holy, when you know the peloton's coming? PUT THE DOG AWAY. An RV, a car with the windows down, a crate, SOMETHING. Thirty seconds, two minutes, whatever: the race will have passed, and Fido can come out to play again while you continue to get plastered with five hundred of your new best friends.
Here endeth the lesson.
As the stage progresses, Wynant has burned away Boom And Perez Leuzan. He's not alone for long, soon joined by Alexandr Pliuschin, the Moldavian champion of Russian team Katusha. But though they fight their best, by 8.5km to the finish, they've been reeled in, and the whole field is back together, setting up for a fast sprint finish. Who will it be? Columbia's Mark Cavendish? Garmin's Tyler Farrar? Wait-- what? The camera catches Cavendish off the back of the peloton, cruising amiably along. He looks at the camera, shrugs, waves, and smiles ruefully. He's obviously out for the day. No time to find out what's happened-- it's 1km to the end, it's 500m to the end and all of a sudden, the ENTIRE ROAD is blocked by a huge, solid wall of fallen bodies and tangled bikes, with Maillot Jaune Fabian Cancellara flat on the bottom of the pile. Two dozen, three dozen riders perhaps make it through, and ANOTHER crash happens, one rider's bike literally catching on the derailleur of the rider before him, being dragged down the road like a riderless horse-- it's Tyler Farrar! An Ag2r rider's bike has caught his wheel! He kicks viciously at the clinging bike, but it's too late, and the damage is done: his derailleur is actually snapped!
But this is what happens, this is how it goes, and Alessandro Petacchi of Lampre seizes his opportunity and takes the stage!
Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Doesn't seem like any serious injuries this time, but who expected to see Tyler Farrar-- whom so many expected to be throwing up his arms in victory today-- actually walking his broken bike across the line? He'll get the same time as everyone else, as the crash happened within the final three km of the race, and race rules state that anyone involved in a crash within that limit receives the same time as the peloton, but what a tough break. He's sanguine, however: this, he says, is what happens in bike racing.
And he's right.
Trivia for the day: as an honour, the tour went through the Belgian hometown of perhaps the greatest cyclist ever, Eddy Merckx, who turns 65 today. Eddy himself was there at the podium to present the jerseys, and not only was he presented with a special jersey made of all the types specialist jerseys he so excelled at winning (Points, King of the Mountain, Race Leader), but he got more cheers than the King of Belgium, who was actually there, and not climbing a television antenna in North London. (A cookie to anyone who gets the reference.)