VeloBalls

Bike reviews and cycling news that BITES

Tour de France

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Froome says ‘yeah, why not’

Chris Froome, the 29 year old champion from Britain, is showing his willingness to compete in Tour de France 2015, though earlier he had hinted that he is more likely to compete in the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana. Next years’ tour was described as a “tough test” by this 2013 champion, when the tour route was announced in October.

Froome, the Captain of Team Sky, who is currently training in South Africa, has decided to make this race his number 1 priority. “At this point in my career, I feel the Tour takes priority,” he said.

With a shortfall of individual time-trial kilometres and a problematic first week, Alberto Contador of Spain and the defending champion Vinceso Nibali will be starting as favorites for the tour.

Froome shared his plan of action with the Team sky website, saying “It’s a climbers’ Tour next year so I’m going to have to work extra hard in the mountains and spend less time on practicing time=travelling. I enjoy the challenge and there’s no reason why I would be any worse off than any of the other contenders. It is our responsibility as a team to adapt accordingly so that we can be as competitive as possible there.”

For a prize fund of one million euros, rival team owner – Oleg Tinkov has challenged Froome to compete in all three 2015’s Grand Tours. To which Froome further added: “The concept of doing all three Grand Tours in a season has got appeal, but I know how hard it is to do two Grand Tours while targeting the overall win. There may come a time at some point down the line where other races may take preference, but, for 2015, it’s the Tour”.

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Contador coulda carked it

The Spanish star, Alberto Contador, is anything but resentful about crashing out of 2014’s Tour de France because he believes it could have been worse: he might have died.

After breaking his right tibia (shinbone) during the 10th stage of the tour, and continuing to ride for nearly 20km, Contador eventually gave up. When asked about it, he said “When I think I was going 77kmph at the time and I only broke my tibia, well, on balance, that’s good. Maybe I lost the Tour, but I did not lose my life.”

Contador’s exit came within a week from 2013 winner Chris Froome’s injury retirement following three crashes in two days. The two competitors had come together into the biggest race as joint favorites. Although Chris Froome’s exit was dramatic, Contador’s crash was far more serious.

The Madrid-born rider was a third of his way through the Vosges Mountains into the 161.5km stage, when he came down on a fast and straight downslope, made riskier by the rain.

Contador denied that he was trying hard to make up for the time he lost earlier in the race, but he accepted that the crash was his fault when he was asked at his team TInkoff-Saxo’s training camp in Gran Canaria.

He further added: “A lot of people have spoken about the crash and said things that aren’t true. What I
will say is you’ve got to concentrate for every second on the bike or you won’t win the Tour.”

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Cav rejoins The Tour de France

Showing what can only be described as a remarkable amount of bounce-back following the operation on his shoulder less than two weeks ago Mark Cavendish made his way to France to support his Omega Pharma Quickstep team mates.

During an impromptu interview with Ned Boulting during the ITV4 coverage of The Tour de France Cav was keen to show Ned the scar on his shoulder, in fact he kind of insisted on it!  And very well-healed it looked too.  Cav then proceeded to show how flexible his newly bolted together shoulder was, and with all the enthusiasm of a kid showing off a new injury in the school playground he gleefully informed Ned Boulting that he could ‘feel where the screws are’.

When asked when he would be fit to ride again Mark Cavendish said that he was already gently back in training, but wouldn’t be risking a career-ending injury by entering a race for a while yet.  Yesterday Cav was spotted riding in the Omega Pharma Quickstep team car, as to what duties he had been assigned to earn his place in the car we can only speculate?  Expert power-sprinter and keeper of the team sarnies?   We’d like to think so.

Get well soon Cav!

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Michal Kwiatkowski says ‘nice one lad’ to Tony Martin

Michal Kwiatkowski expressed his gratitude to his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team-mate, Tony Martin, for his selfless assistance at the Tour de France yesterday. Following his solo victory the day before, Martin did not contest the intermediate primes in the mountainous 161 km run to La Planche des Belles Filles but instead, protected Kwiatkowski. The Polish rider stayed glued second wheel in a break, which Martin controlled for a lengthy time.

The Polish rider compared the German’s performance to a time trial. Later on the day, Kwiatkowski referred to martin as incredible and noted that it was his first such experience. Their team had virtually no assistance from fellow escapees. The Polish rider was fourth overall and four minutes behind Tony Gallopin at the beginning of the 10th stage. After parting from Martin, Joaquim Rodriguez followed him closely, but faded in the finale, thereby dropping to 13th overall in the standings. Kwiatkowski also opined that the break provided some relief to the riders but lamented that no one supported him. The Omega Pharma-Quick Step team was prominent within the first phase of the Tour with two individual victories, despite the loss of Mark Cavendish, who crashed out in the first stage.

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Cancellara naffs off from Le Tour

Fabian Cancellara is the latest in a remarkably long line of riders to leave this year’s Tour de France.  Unlike many of those who have gone before him Cancellara has left of his own accord, and without injury.

Cancellara has said that he wants to focus on the World Championships, and so has decided to leave this year’s tour.  It’s not like he was near the bottom of the field and decided to cut his loses and leave; during stage five many were touting him as a possible favourite to be one of the big players in the overall race.  We can’t imagine his team mates at Trek Factory Racing are too pleased, taking into consideration the early exit of Schleck and Danny van Poppel Trek are now facing the rest of the tour with just six people left in the team.

The decision to leave a Grand Tour just as things are getting interesting may seem unusual, but Cancellara has had a very busy year.  By the time his exit was officially announced yer man Fabby had raced for a total of 59 days since his season started in Dubai in February.

Or maybe he’s looking at the epic list of injured riders and is leaving rather than take the risk that his name might be added to this grim list.

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nah, it’s Nibali

The Spaniard, Joaquim Rodríguez, was left devastated when Vincenzo Nibali razzed past him, thereby ending his dream to grab his second Tour de France stage victory. He also acknowledged that the Italian rider was faster than him and that it was not possible to overtake him. However, he was confident that more opportunities would come his way.

Rodríguez, who moved into the lead of the mountains classification, was aggressive right from the start and though, classification leader, Tony Martin, followed him closely, the Spaniard was always in the driving seat. The Katusha rider came to the Tour carrying injuries earned at the Giro d’Italia in May. With the next big target being Vuelta a España, Rodríguez and the team chose not to contest the general classification. Still, Rodríguez was confident of taking home the polka dot jersey.

Apart from winning a stage, he revealed his intention of fighting for the mountain classification. His compatriot and friend, Alberto Contador, crashed heavily during the stage, hitting a pothole and losing control on the wet roads. He had to abandon the stage with a fractured tibia. Rodriguez would face his fellow countryman at the Vuelta at the end of August. He also wished Alberto a speedy recovery.

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Porte to consume Le Tour like a big juicy steak

Richie Porte from Team Sky is now second overall in the Tour de France. The Australian is focused and determined to seize the opportunity that has come his way. Initially, Porte was part of Plan B of Team Sky , but owing Froome’s departure, he is the centre of attention at Team Sky.

Porte also opined that the race would be fought tooth and nail and every rider would give their best to topple the current leader, Nibali. Currently sitting 2:33 behind Nibali, Porte is the main hope for Team Sky and after Froome’s premature departure, coach Dave Brailsford has formulated a new plan around Porte.

Porte has thrived on the extra attention that the audience showered on him. Owing to his robust performances on the bike, he is confident of having a good Tour.  He also thanked his team for their support. Though, most of the people believe that Nibali is the overwhelming favourite to win the Tour, logic reveals that anyone can be the winner. The second to 10th positions are separated by less than two minutes. A crash, a moment of concentration lost, and bad day and everything could change. Porte may draw on inspiration from Giro d’Italia in 2010 and believe in himself that he can compete consistently. He has also lost weight post that race.

Since finishing seventh in his maiden Tour, Richie has improved a lot as a rider. He is also confident of his team backing him. Team Sky has performed well for the last two seasons with two different riders and that speaks volumes about the depth of talent and relative strength in adaptability. He expressed his gratitude for Froome’s friendship.

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Geraint Thomas talks about his pelvis on his day off

Geraint Thomas is fast becoming one of our favourite pro-riders.  His apparently unshakable joie de vivre was in full force during the brutal Paris-Roubaix stage, and in his latest blog post for the BBC he refers to the fractured pelvis he earned in last year’s Tour de France and the crashing out of many of the top riders this year as ‘just one of those things’.  He probably shrugged and gave a cheeky little grin while saying it; what a dude.

In his blog post (posted today, a rest day) he also talks about a brown-trouser moment when his brakes failed during a fast descent during yesterday’s mountain stage (stage 10). Apparently he crashed.  Who knew?!?

During this genial little blog post Thomas also states the he believes Richie Porte can probably win Le Tour, something we entirely agree with.

Read the full post here…

 

Photo Credit: Brendan Ryan

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Contador crash – Van Den Broeck ses ‘I was there man!’

Following Alberto Contador’s exit from this year’s Tour de France there have been questions asked about what exactly happened that caused him to crash.  Whenever a rider crashes out there is a mix of sympathy and commiseration from riders who have been in the same situation themselves before.  With Contador’s sudden crash-related retirement yesterday his peers appear to be neither surprised nor sympathetic.

Reports from the peloton point the finger of blame for the first crash quite squarely at Contador himself, most rumours confirm that he was taking a big risk trying to get past Jurgen Van Den Broeck when he went down at the front of the group.  Crashing at the front of a field is never going to make you the most popular man on two wheels, but Van Den Broeck himself is being very public about his feelings on the matter:

“Apparently he felt the need to overtake me. It was in his typical style, standing on the pedals. He hits a pothole and goes over the handlebars. His head was next to my front wheel. He could’ve taken me with him. I can’t understand why you take that many risks to move up one spot” Van Den Broeck said after the race.

Jens Keukeleire also had something to say when asked about the crash by the fine folk at Cycling News;

“According to me, he was moving up during the descent. That didn’t seem necessary to me because we were already quite near the front. I didn’t see exactly what caused the crash but I saw him crashing. He touched the ground a couple of times really hard. Eventually, he ended up at the side of the road. At first I thought he would not get back up. It was a big hit. We were going really fast,”

The second crash apparently happened when Contador was aggressively moving forward through the group surrounded by his team.

Television footage of the aftermath of the crash focussed on a bike with broken frame laying on the road, causing speculation that a mechanical failure may have contributed to the crash.  Speculation that Tinkoff-Saxo official bike supplier Specialized were very quick to extinguish.  Rumours point to the broken bike being one of Contador’s spares, which makes us wonder what the hell happened to it to sever the frame?  A question I very much doubt we’ll ever get an answer to.

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Contador crashes, cracks and leaves Le Tour

Alberto Contador is the latest victim of what is turning out to be one of the most brutal Tour de France years we’ve known for a while.  We were horrified to hear that Mark Cavendish had borked his shoulder, we sighed with sad disappointment when Chris Froome was forced to bailout before the cobblestone sections of the Paris-Roubaix stage.  Now we’re feeling bad for yet another fella what could have won Le Tour has had to go home.

During stage 10 Contador licked tarmac not once, but twice during the descent of Petit Ballon and despite looking in a very sorry state indeed he was given a fresh bike by his team.  Getting back onto the bike was clearly proving almost impossible, but eventually with a bit of help Alberto set off in search of his team mates.  During the Tour de France (and most professional races) riders are very specifically forbidden to go back in search of fallen comrades, so it was up to Contador to catch his team mates so they could coach him back to the Peloton.

Remarkably Contador managed to make it up the next first category climb, but after descending the Col du Platzerwasel he was forced to abandon the race.  An x-ray back at HQ revealed a fractured tibia (shin bone), which not only shows that Contador is probably a lot harder than anyone gives him credit for, but also raises a few questions about why his team let him continue when Team Sky had the sense to talk Froome into the team car before the damage could be made worse.

There is no official explanation for how Contador crashed, the television cameras missed both falls, but we dare say speculation will run riot when members of the peloton sit down to supper tonight.