OT: TdF climbs Alpe D'Huez
It's that time of year again, where a few cycling fans talk about the Tour de France and a couple of people pop into the thread to say that it's boring or that cyclists are dopers.
They climb Alpe D'Huez today, the most famous climb in the sport. As I type this Stephen Kruijswijk has a 6 minute lead on the race leaders, but Sky and Movistar have a lot of bullets left in the chamber. Kruijswijk seems to have a good shot at the stage win; holding onto his virtual yellow jersey is more tenuous, but it'll be fun to watch.
There have been some good stages so far, and Geraint Thomas has the lead rather than Chris Froome, but with Sky controlling everything up front it seems like now is the time for drama before Sky closes its stranglehold on the race for good.
Competitive exercise posts, soccer...WTF. We won WWII, did we not?
/s Did I do that right?
Pretty good, 8/10. Need something about doping to get the perfect score, though.
Kruijswijk starts up the climb with 4:19 on the field. It'll be pretty bananas if he has a good lead at Dutch Corner. Also pretty bananas if the field has detonated and he's been swept up, though.
Real confusion about the gap to the lead. It looked like Kruijswijk's lead was plummeting, but then it got posted back up to a respectable 3:30. At the foot of the climb he could afford to lose 18" a km and win.
I know essentially nothing about professional cycling, but I am curious about something I heard somewhere: the teams were reduced in size from 9 cyclists to 8 this year.
(a) Why? and (b) Has that had any noticeable effect on the race?
My assumption is that the less wealthy teams are helped by this (because presumably the 9th best cyclist on a wealthy team is much better than the 9th best on a poor team), but I don't know if they are helped to the extent that a fan of the sport would notice it.
Two main goals, as I understand it:
1. Most top-level teams have commitments to multiple races at the same time. In May, for example, teams send squads to both the Giro D'Italia and the Tour of California. Combine that with riders that are peaking at other times and it's hard to get enough riders. This does, indeed, reduce financial stresses a bit.
2. Competitively, reducing the number of riders per team ostensibly limits how much control a single team can exert over a race by removing a bullet from the chamber. The idea is that the races can be more open.
Interesting test of that today; Sky and Movistar still seem to have good numbers.
Interestingly, point 2 seems not to have worked quite as planned. Fewer members per team just makes it easier for Team Sky to fill their entire roster with domestiques that would otherwise be GC contenders.
To decrease the level of doping in the sport they had to get rid of some of the cyclists. Fewer cyclists = less doping.
I believe it was also to reduce the overall number of cyclists. With all of the narrow roads there have been a lot of crashes the past few years.
All at once, Froome catches and passes Bardet who was leading by 10", Nibali crashes, Thomas dropped. Froome is about to pass Kruisjwijk and take over the stage lead.
Froome caught by Domoulin (!)
Now it's four guys attacking each other. This is fantastic. Froome, Thomas, Bardet, Domoulin, all taking shots.
It was really unique where at that one point they were four abreast. Had to agree with the on-air folks, I'd never seen something like that before in a competitive stage where they weren't holding up intentionally.
And Thomas wins in a 5-up sprint. Great stuff.
What position does Alpe D'Huez play and how many stars is he?
Speaking of Alpe D'Huez does any of our cyclists also use Zwift?
Zwift created the exact Alpe D'Huez course in the game called Alpe D'Zwift, minus the finish is about 1km shorter. It's a bitch. They say a good time is 60 minutes for your non-professional riders. But even then you need to push 300 watts plus to get up that sucker in that time. I can't do that myself. My fastest time is like 84 minutes. And I'm spent the rest of the day. Still cool to virtually ride is and feel the gradient. I use a smart trainer so the representation is pretty accurate. Now to one day dream to do it in real life...
A friend of mine has done L'etape du Tour a couple times, where they let you ride a stage (normally a bit of climbing) before the riders do it... you should do that.
Follow it up with the Alpe d'Huez...
I use Zwift in the winter months. Did Alpe D' huez a couple times, once was during the Tour of Waptopia. Think my time that day was around 52 mins. It's tough to pace yourself on such a long steep climb.
Wow. Seriously impressive.
That sounds like a pretty nifty concept. I've seen plenty of ads for Peloton but hadn't heard of Zwift. Have been thinking about something like this for a while.
The only way I'd make that wattage is to burn a bulb along with my effort. That said, check out Haute Route. It's a fondo style event that hits several different routes/locales. They have an Alpe D'Huez event as well as hitting the Pyrenees, Dolomites, and Mt. Ventoux.
You know, usually doping helps to increase excitement. But not with cycling. Adding dope to cycling makes it still boring to watch. When Lance won 27 in a row, it was only interesting enough to see how hot the women on the podium with him were. Had we known, we could have been looking for his dealer!
You might be happier watching an immaculately clean sport like college football?
Love watching the Tour. Problem is I spend too much time in front of the TV.
I DVR it and FF through the commercials as well as some of the long, flat portions of a given stage. The mountains are about the only time I watch an entire stage.
Romain Bardet amongst others is on Strava. It's pretty cool to look at their Tour rides. Of course,no HR or Power data, but still. He did Alpe d'Heuz at 41:23 with a preposterous VAM of 1593. I can VAM 1593 for a half-mile climb. Doing it for 8.64 miles...LOL. FWIW, he KOM'd the segment.
https://www.strava.com/pros/1630132