Caisse d’Epargne’s Rigoberto Uran tried to play Alberto Contador, making a gutsy break right before the final climb jumped to 23% that ended up crushing him (much to my sincere sadness).
Stage winner Igor Antón’s (Euskaltel-Euskadi) move wasn’t so dramatic, but his pacing was immaculate, taking him to the limits of his reserves, leaving him fearful that Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) would run him down over the closing meters.
Philippe Gilbert of OmegaPharma-Lotto and the oddly pronounced name didn’t have the legs to take the stage, but managed to stay in the Red (leader’s) Jersey.
Saxo Bank’s Frank Schleck and Rabobank’s Denis Menchov didn’t get aggressive, which isn’t really a surpise so early in the three week event. But it still makes me wonder how tough and serious Frank is and, at least in me wee brain, confirms that Menchov is only gonna play for the win if it damned near falls into his lap.
Schleck and Menchov are still riding well enough to remain in 8th at 50″ back and 14th at 1’11” back.
Some fantastically gutsy riding already and we haven’t even closed out week 1.
Today was the day that Frank and Andy Schleck of Saxobank either made a serious move or spent the entire stage marking Rabo Bank’s Denis Menchov as they awaited the opportune moment to pounce in a snarl fangs and claws while rending flesh and drenching their enemies in their own blood.
Er . . . um . . . ok, maybe not exactly.
Frank came in at 13th, 19 seconds back, just barely managing to hang with Menchov, who finished the stage 7th at 18 seconds back.
Baby Schleck? 103rd, 14’10’ back, behind even Garmin’s cursed and woeful Christian Vande Velde (102nd, also 14’10”).
Frank? Andy? I know you’ve been hinting at some bad blood between you and team boss Bjarne Riis (ok, between Riis and any rider who’s so much as ever ridden by Saxo’s team bus), but is this really gonna be your grand F*** Y**!? Not very sporting at all.
And Andy, you can’t seriously support dear brother Frank very well if you’re gonna spend the entire Vuelta SUCKING.
I’m just sayin, is all.
But on to Stage 3’s boy wonder.
Philippe Gilbert of OmegaPharma-Lotto (and, can’t you guys fookin’ shorten that up? I mean, damn.), who made what would have been a gorgeous break with just under 800 meters to go if he hadn’t spent the entire damned thing looking over his shoulder as if he couldn’t believe he was really pulling it off and expected that either the gods of cycling were going to strike him dead at any moment or some stronger, faster, better rider who was actually breathing down his neck and mocking his feeble excuse for a solo break was on the brink of easily overtaking him.
He slammed that shiite!
You’d think that out of respect for him, now that he’s topped the big dogs in a meaningful stage in a really, really big race, that they’d stop calling him “Philippe JillBear”, though. Again, I’m just sayin’.
The curse of Garmin’s Christian Vande Velde is transferable.
Tyler Farrar’s (Garmin) leadout man, Julian Dean (also Garmin), crashed due to uneven pavement between the road and a bike lane, an hour prior to the Prologue’s team timetrial (TTT).
Sounds like he may have hurt his elbow and rib pretty badly. Though he tried to race he, fell back from the team early on. He finished the Prologue, but was dead last, 3:24 behind winning squad, HTC.
Which put Mark Cavendish in the Red (leader’s) Jersey for Stage 2.
There were complaints about Stage 1 being run at night, which did contribute to Dean’s crash. I’m a little surprised we didn’t see more crashes for the same reason.
But if riders didn’t have that to contend with they would have had to deal with the ungodly hot afternoon temps, which have been topping 110F recently.
Dean was supposed to be ok to start Stage 2.
STAGE 2:
Former sprinter, currently milking his past success and ability to steal a team spot he doesn’t deserve, Thor Hushovd (Cervelo) finished 32nd (same as his age), after bad-mouthing Carlos Sastre for under-performing over the past two years.
Garmin’s Tyler Farrar pulled a Petachi and jumped early in hopes of blind-siding HTC’s Mark Cavendish in the final sprint. But Cav must have been waiting for it because he was instantly on top of Farrar. Cav seemed to easily take the front away from Tyler and held the lead at the approach to the line . . .
. . . which is when a non-French guy from a French team, Yahueni Hutarovich (Francaise de Jeux) swept along the barriers to overtake Cav and stole the biggest, coolest win of his career, snatching away the Points lead at the same time.
Can we change “Yahueni” to “Yawhodahellishe”? A lot to type, I know, but . . .
So Cav holds on the to Red, but gets bumped back to 2nd for the Stage and in the Points (sprinters) competition.
Farrar, coming in 3rd today, who was my great hope for the day and for the Points, doesn’t seem to have what he needs in order to top Cav over the course of this Vuelta.
After his amazing performance with a broken wrist at the Tour, I was really expecting him to be The Man, here.
Alessandro Petachi (Lampre) finished just behind Farrar in 4th.
Looks like Garmin’s Julian Dean did finish today. The official Vuelta site lists him as being in 196th (last) place, 19:55 down.
All the GC guys finished waaaaaaaaaay back (100th+ placings), knowing that as soon as the climbing begins the sprinters will all fall to the back whimpering while the big dogs take over for real.
If you’ll read that chart you’ll notice two headings:
“Pedestrian Injuries and FATALITIES in Motor Vehicle Crashes”
and
“Pedestrian Injuries in Bicycle Collisions”
Notice the missing word in the second column? “fatalities”
Because except for Stuart Gruskin there aren’t any. He’s their one and only rallying point, their lone poster child (and I apologize if it seems that I’m minimizing Mr. Gruskin’s death as I use him to make my point).
Compare the 49 Bike v Ped injuries in 2009 to the nearly 11,000 injuries and FATALITIES caused by Car v Ped accidents in 2008 (the last year that stat was available for) and tell me, which is the “Upper East Side’s No. 1 quality-of-life menace”.
11,000 killed and injured by cars. 49 injured by bicycles.
CBS and the NY Post have shown no integrity (journalistic or otherwise) and no honesty in this matter. Why? Because they feel that their hatred of you justifies their lies just as it justifies their “right” to harm, cripple and kill you.
Cyclists, if you want the truth to be known, get yourself a helmet cam. Seriously.
Because shiite like this isn’t gonna stop until you can document it and take these wannabe assassins to court and have them thrown in prison. They think that because they hate you, they have a RIGHT to hurt, cripple or even kill you.
You have less value than an animal in their eyes and you DESERVE to be hurt and murdered, usually for something as heinously egregious as making them take an extra five seconds to reach their destination.
This guy wasn’t even on his bike. He wasn’t doing a damned thing. But people who hate cyclists feel it’s their right to destroy, to maim, to kill.
Cycling lane schmycling lane.
If a cyclist in front of you commits a really, really serious crime, like maybe he prevents you from making it through a yellow light? Then this is perfectly reasonable behavior according to CBS and the NY Post.
Wait, let’s look at that again. Guess who the criminal is? A cop!
See, it isn’t that difficult and takes just a few extra seconds to be safe and courteous.
Ummmmm, this is reasonable behavior from an man obviously well versed in cyclists’ rights.
So, if a cyclist follow traffic laws, that’s bad, too?
If you happen to see the same cyclist on your route over and over, it’s perfectly fine to “crowd” him, just to show him that he doesn’t really have any right to the road and that you are the enforcer of whitetrash law and justice.
In case you were unaware, the road shoulder is actually intended as a “bicycle avoidance lane”.
Robbie “Head-Butt” McEwen has been culled from Australia’s short list of riders to be included on their team for the upcoming Worlds.
Head-Butt, possibly the toughest man in professional cycling, was having a year better than the combination of age and injuries should have allowed and was getting better, hotter, as he moved through the season. He had somehow been performing at a level I’d thought was behind him.
But at 38 he’s still been miles behind his best performances and it isn’t just physical.
Head-Butt, in his glorious prime, wasn’t just good, he was scary. He had physical ability by the bucket-load (or busket load if you’re a “Suicide Kings” fan) and he was flat out mean on the bike, too. He was a force, a raw, ugly, brawling force, a huge and intimidating presence.
Now, as his speed and his physical strength subsides, he’s mellowed, but not softened. His outward brutality no longer beats against the will and bodies of his opponents. It’s been transformed, becoming an iron shell, protecting what remains of the furnace of his heart, making him simply hard and relentless.
But he’s no longer that savage and intimidating force on the bike that he was just a few years ago.
So Australia’s Worlds selection committee has shut the door in his face. No matter how gently or sadly they may have done it, the clatter of its lock rattling into place is no less brutal.
We’ll see them go with the less experienced and softer Heinrich Haussler, who recently gave up his German citizenship to become officially Australian, and they’ll team him up with Mark Renshaw.
It’s a sweet pairing, but lacks the emotional punch the team would have with Head-Butt.
Though I can understand it, it still pisses me off.
Hopefully, this doesn’t affect Head-Butt’s decision to ride another season, because I think he still has something significant to give.
If he quits, if this snub has so injured him that his fire is extinguished and he has no option but to quit even on himself, then I can only be disappointed. I’ve come to expect a lot more from the toughest man in professional cycling.
But, hey, it’ll let us see his auto-biography that much sooner, right?
Have you ever seen a movie that was either so bad or so over the top that you thought, “This has got to be intentional”, but you just couldn’t be sure?
That’s how the new anti-cyclist, anti-cycling hate coverage from CBS and the NY Post hits me.
These are “news” stories, but have clearly been reduced to well, sorry, but blog entries. There’s no real reporting, no journalistic integrity, just a pile of “I hate cyclists so they need to suffer . . . A LOT!”
And that’s totally ok, or would be, except that they’re TRYING to pass it off as real journalism.
The articles I cite and link to below are filled, nearly beginning to end, with such outrageously overstated rhetoric that it has been thrown into the realm of hyperbole. When you read it you’ll very likely find yourself inclined to scratch your head and think, “Are they serious? Or are they trying to punk us all?”
That’s what CBS and the NY Post have fallen to, while attempting to disguise what they’re doing as a real deal journalistic endeavor.
Andrea Peyser of the Post says that this guy is the ” Upper East Side’s No. 1 quality-of-life menace”.
Then, when she snags a polite and helpful bike delivery guy named Ivan Zamora to browbeat him regarding his evil ways she claimed to be “Taking my life into my hands”
Ms Peyser also says that cyclists are “assassin wannabes”, indicating that it is, in fact, their intended goal to commit murder with their bicycles, but they just can’t get it right.
Soon after that she calls them “lethal”, so her implication that they’re all murderers, while certainly slanderous, was no accident.
Of course, she also cites them for being “fearless” as if that in itself is a hanging offense.
She lists anyone who supports NY’s mayor as a “minion”, anyone who supports cycling as a “sympathizer”, attempting to conjure the most negative emotional imagery. But, she doesn’t really give us anything like a fact beyond one illiterate messenger and one unidentified cyclist who “sped around the corner” and claims that “every pedestrian ever to tread the sidewalks” has some tale of cycling related terror to relay with great trepidation.
Ok, no, there is the story of Stuart Gruskin, 50, or “athletic 50” as Ms Peyser tells us in her emotionally manipulative style, who died of a head injury after he crossed “between 5th and 6th avenues” (as the video below tells us) and was struct by a delivery rider heading the wrong way on a one way street, while he was jay walking.
The cyclist was cited with safety violations, but no criminal charges, why? Because both people were at fault (though we’re getting back to the whole messenger / delivery rider thing and their issues in Part 3).
In Ms Peyser’s mind this accident between two people acting in a careless manner automatically elevates ALL cyclists to “wannabe assassins”.
Then she’s outraged, OUTRAGED, that (by her own numbers) 63% of all cyclists do in fact obey traffic lights and 90% never ride the wrong way down a one way street. So apparently while we’re all out blinded by our blood rage and hoping to kill as many pedestrians as possible, we do it all in a fairly law abiding manner. For shame!
Ms Peyser’s one accurate statement is this:
“Bicycle riders who run roughshod over the city should face the law.”
But her assertion that all cyclists fit easily and with room to spare into this category is disgustingly far off the mark.
Ms Peyser, to be more blunt, is a liar exaggerator, a hate-filled manipulator wrongly painting every New Yorker as a bike fearing martyr, every cyclist as a blood-crazed killer and top of all that she’s a charlatan posing as a real journalist.
In addition to the grossly elevated hyperbole there’s the contradictions.
Like the “journalist” on the CBS post says that tickets to law-breaking cyclists are up by a considerable margin, but also makes it clear that the police to nothing about this homegrown bunch of street level terrorists.
Which is it?
They also chalk all of this bedlam up to either brand new ignorant cyclists (er, “bikers”) or to simple scofflaws. Either way it comes out to be just your run of the mill, every day guy or girl on a bike.
But the video they show is almost entirely bike messengers and delivery guys. Commercial riders. (again, we’ll come back to them in Part 3)
Once more, which is it?
Then there is the intentional slight of hand. Like when CBS’s Tony Aiello tells us that there are no DOT statistics on “dangerous cyclist encounters”, only to find out later that he, in fact, never bothered to contact the DOT.
Or Ms Peyser at the NY Post again:
In the same paragraph that she cites “reams of anecdotal evidence” (as opposed to even a hint of actual evidence) she admits that while there has been a considerable increase in the number of cyclists in NYC, the number of cyclist vs pedestrian accidents as DECREASED from 130 a couple years ago to just 49.
There is one interesting little fact thrown in all of this.
Manhattan has 14 whole miles of bike lanes. Fourteen miles!
Now could you tell us, how does that compare to the hundreds of miles of streets? Do the bike lanes cover even one percent of that?
Do motor vehicles and pedestrians honor those lanes? Or do they freely cross into them and even park in them, block them off and loiter in them?
Are these lanes placed in such a way as to allow cyclists to travel without fear of riding directly into a suddenly opened car door?
If not, then the system itself forces cyclists to ride in ways that put them in direct conflict with vehicular and foot traffic and the system itself needs to be modified so that all may coexist harmoniously.
So tsk tsk to CBS and the NY Post. Is that really what passes for journalism in NYC?
If what CBS and the NY Post are feeding us IS journalism, then it’s something you’d find put together by the goofy kids who weren’t anywhere close to good enough to make it onto the staff of their High School Freshman newspaper.
Red FD “flimsy and fails quickly”, “titanium cage is flexy”, “two right shifters fail”, “I had my SRAM force group set for 2 weeks until the Front shifter broke. Got it repaired then it broke again last week only after riding about 200km and then 400km”.
A tale of SRAM failure and the company’s utter contempt for its consumer base. No emails possible, we’d rather not talk to you on the phone, go see your dealer if you want to “reach” us.
More tales of SRAM failures, big, big failures. And can you guess which “reader” is a SRAM plant?
SRAM has a long history of dangerously poor quality. SRAM powerlinks failures from 2005.
October 2009 still saw significant complaints of chains breaking under a varied circumstances.
Old news, old news, old news, right?
Ok, let’s look at something more recent:
Maybe June 24th 2010: Unrecalled brakes failing. LBSs so sick of the failures that they no longer carry SRAM, SRAM Elixir CR brakes utterly dying, SRAM attack dogs pretending to be readers quickly jump in, customers convinced by their experiences that SRAM has NO concern for customer safety, SRAM “tech guys” refusing to speak of or acknowledge “known issues”.
How about July 27th? One SRAM Force grouppo three brcoken parts: shifter, chain and brake caliper.
This is not good, SRAM. Not good at all.
I understand how you might want to shave a few cents here and there to cut costs, but there’s no excuse or reason you can give that will justify knowingly, willing, repeatedly putting costumer safety at risk in order to boost profits.
This isn’t an isolated instance or three, but a clear pattern. In my mind it indicates obvious intent combined with an astounding indifference if not contempt or even outright malice toward their customer base.
— Gavia says, “Yay” to podium girls” and “Booooo” to the total lack of respect women’s racing gets in organization, coverage and prize money.
I totally agree.
And why must the Guardian join in to the long list of “professional” journalism outlets that just can’t be bothered with fact-checking?
Pathetic.
— Tour of Chihuahua nixed due to the whacko “regional government” changing to a different whacko regional government.
No one wants to get a bunch of cyclists kidnapped and horribly murdered.
But just a few is ok, so they’re still going with a criterium.
— Carlos Sastre is jumping ship at Cervelo TestTeam and joining the new Geox team.
Teammate Thor Hushovd says it’s not a big deal because, “He has not really done crap the last two years.”
Carlos, of course, is the team GC guy and Thor the sprinter.
Point #1: Carlos was working with several disadvantages this year.
At 35 he’s already handicapped vs the new GC Bigs like Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador.
In that article Thor acknowledges that the team’s real support was taken from Carlos and given to him during the Grand Tours. Carlos was either too classy, too practical or too mousy to make a big stink over it. I’m thinking that a lack of adequate team support doesn’t do good things to counterbalance the age thing.
Thor does NOT acknowledge that Carlos rode the Giro and Tour with a back injury. I find this to be a symptom of a lack of class or a lack of clue.
Point #2: Thor grossly over-estimates his own fading value to the team.
He keeps beating the “I won the Tour’s Green Jersey twice.” drum, but conveniently forgets a few important details.
At 32 he’s old. Not like falling down and can’t get up old, but beyond his prime sprinting years and losing ground fast old.
The author of that article thinks that Thor will magically regain his youth and strength for 2011 and strike fear in the hearts of riders like Mark Cavendish and Tyler Farrar. Ain’t gonna happen and I don’t care how hard he trains.
Supporting Thor instead of Carlos at this year’s Tour was a stupid move by Cervelo. Even injured and alone Carlos was clearly the class of the team.
With Heinrich Haussler being nine years younger than Thor, Thor may very well find himself riding a support role next season.
Thor himself has admitted that he’s become better at climbing and overall riding but as lost something in the sprints. He may well be able to reverse his gains in climbing and overall riding, but he’s living in a fantasy if he thinks he’s gonna be jumpin’ back on the Big Boy Sprint Wagon.
He was forced this year to go after intermediate sprints that the real elite sprinters stick their noses up at. Honestly, I loved it. Yes, it was a little desperate, but it also showed some respect for those intermediate sprint points.
But, even with full team support and considerable success in gaining points at those intermediate sprints, he couldn’t get the job done.
And totally as an aside, notice how in attempting to ride for both the GC and the Green Jersey, Cervelo’s divided team was inadequate to both tasks. Sky? Australian National Team? You guys listening?
— With Robbie “Head-Butt” McEwen deciding to race another year, will he be pushing back the completion and publication dates of his autobiography so that he can include his twilight ride?
Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank), who’d I’d expected to have a strong showing, here, finished 2:33 down in 97th. Maybe the climbing didn’t suite him, or maybe he’s just got a case of late season Don’t-Give-a-Damn.
Head-Butt McEwen won this race in 2008 and he’s seemed strong the past couple weeks, but got his lunch handed to him as he decides to give racing one more year. He came in 9:33 back in 119th.
Andre Greipel (HTC)? 3rd. Poor positioning? Or just not as good as Farrar and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky)?
— I still say that racing an MTB 100 miles is insane. Cool as hell, but still insane.
Leadville Trail 100? Insane. Right.
Levi Leipheimer wins it, cutting 12 minutes off of Lance Armstrong’s record setting time from last year.
In support of my belief that his feat indeed smacked of insanity, Levi admitted, “That was just ridiculous. I don’t know if I’ve suffered that much before.”
In another article I read, he said something like, “I was just praying for it to be over.”.
Rebecca Rusch, setting a new women’s record said something similar, “That was one of my most painful days on a bike”.
With that kind of effort and suffering it really sucks that the race wasn’t streamed lived. That was a huge loss for cycling fans.
Right, that means with no team. None. Zero. At what is largely considered to be America’s toughest stage race.
It seems like Levi is out to have fun during the late season and like he’s actually enjoying pushing himself, solo, to his absolute limits on the bike.
I think he’s not entirely sad to be out of Lance Armtrong’s shadow, not to mention out from under the crushing force of Lance’s thumb.
— It’d be cool to see an Australian national ProTour team. But looks like they’ll be picking over a lot of aging talent closing out careers.
“In cycling, Australia has punched well above its weight for a number of years and now I believe we are ready to go to the next level, which is ProTour. We’ve got a lot of guys who could ride in the ProTour, but up to now there hasn’t been an Australian team for them to aspire to. Cadel Evans, Michael Rogers, Mark Renshaw, Simon Gerrans, Stuey O’Grady, Richie Porte and Wes Sulzberger currently ride for either American, French, British or Danish teams.”
Could 38 year old Robbie “Head-Butt” McEwen miraculously rejuvenate if a guy like Mark Renshaw was his leadout?
Cadel “The Executioner” Evans will be 34 next season. Not completely spent, and still remarkably tough (in fact, I think he’s actually gotten tougher and better as he’s gotten older), but not a long term GC option.
Michael Rogers will be 32 at the end of this year. Would he be content riding behind Cadel with his own chances at GC glory winding down?
Stuart O’Grady just turned 37. Good rider, well liked, but not much left in him.
Would the up and coming Richie Porte be willing to sit behind Cadel for the next few years?
Could Mark Renshaw be a team’s #1 or possibly only sprinter?
Does this Australian team want to be a serious sprint team or a serious GC team? Or do they, like Team Sky, honestly believe that they can fully support both missions over the course of a three week Grand Tour in 2011?
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