NOTE: This post is
rated R for mild strong language and extremely coarse humor.
Introduction
Any cycling aficionado will tell you that Milan-San Remo is
the most boring one-day race on the entire World Tour calendar. And you know what? That’s an unfair thing to say, because
actually some cycling aficionados will say it’s quite exciting. This minority of fans is actually wrong, of
course. The fact is, MSR is a boring-ass race. The course is too long, and too flat, and the
only action that matters is on this tiny little climb toward the end that
wouldn’t figure at all except that certain really fast sprinters almost couldn’t
make it over a speed bump after almost 300 kilometers of racing.
Being boring, this is a perfect race to follow through my
biased blow-by-blow report. If I think a
rider is doping, or ugly, or both, or too dependent on his race radio, I’ll say
so. And if I don’t even know for sure
that they’re even using race radios,
I’ll just guess. And if the action gets too
boring, I’ll share other tidbits such as riders’ beauty tips to make sure
you’re entertained.
Biased Blow-By-Blow - Milan-San
Remo 2016
The big news this year is the defending champion John
Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) will not be lining up in Milan to defend his
title. Evidently he’d promised his wife
he’d stain the deck this weekend, having totally forgotten about the race, and his
wife put her foot down and wouldn’t let him weasel out of it. She’s having her family out to visit next
week and by god this has to be done, etc.
So the race is really up for grabs now.
As I join the action, there are 78 kilometers left to
race. There’s a breakaway of nobodies
3:39 up the road, and some of them are pretty funny-looking. One of them has the goofy superhero sunglasses
and the Euro-trash mullet. You can see him at the far left in this
photo. Also note the leader’s ridiculous
handlebars. These nobodies always look a
little off to me.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how things pan out,”
declares the anonymous Eurosport commentator uselessly. Has this ever not been true for any bike race, or any sporting event? I’m going to have to play the devil’s
advocate here and tell you: it’s going
to be really boring seeing how things pan out.
Or, conversely, it will be really interesting to walk away from my PC at
the end and not see how it pans out.
The peloton is in the feed zone, grabbing musette bags while
riding by at like 30 mph. Pretty
impressive. Little known fact: almost 40% of English-speaking World Tour
riders still call musette bags “horsey bags.”
Apparently that’s what Lance Armstrong called them, and riders either
mimicked him out of respect, or because they were scared not to. Following Lance’s doping scandal, it’s
believed that at least half of the riders still saying “horsey bag” are doing
it ironically.
The commentator just used the phrase “uphill sections of the
climb.” Where do they find these guys?
It’s 61.3 kilometers to go.
To catch you up on what’s happened since the starting gun went off: everybody started pedaling, at a “ferocious
tempo” according to the Eurosport guy.
Eleven riders broke away. Their
lead has fluctuated between zero and five minutes. Everybody has been pedaling most of the
time. There is very little
coasting. No rider has gotten lost. The weather is fair.
With 56.8 kilometers to go, some riders crash!
Nobody slid under barbed wire fence or anything
dramatic. One guy looks like he may have
scuffed his shoe. I’ve definitely seen
more interesting crashes, such as this one.
Look at how that wheel collapsed! Pretty sad that I have to go back to the 2010
Tour de Suisse for an example of a fascinating crash. On the plus side, look at the damage to this
wheel from the crash that just happened:
“It does suit a rider who can ride well,” the announcer says
of the finishing stretch of this race.
Is that what passes for insight these days? I sure hope this is just the B-team, and that
we’ll get the good announcers for the last few dozen kilometers.
How come kilograms got to be shortened to kilos? Who decided that mass is more important than linear measure? I’d love to type “kilos”
instead of “kilometers” but I’d confuse my readers. It’s so damned unfair.
With 48.5 kilometers to go, the lead is down to 1:38, so it’s
like this breakaway never happened.
Maybe one or two of these guys will tell his grandkids, “I was in a
breakaway in Milan-San Remo once. We got
caught.” To which the sniveling little
grandkid will reply, “Dammit Grandpa, stop living in the past!”
I interviewed race favorite Peter Sagan (Tinkoff Team) earlier
this morning. He said he didn’t care
about the win—he just wants to make the podium so he can show the world how
well-behaved he can be this time. He was
referring, of course, to his infamous misstep when he squeezed a podium girl’s tush
after the 2013 Tour of Flanders. I’d always
wondered how he expected people to react.
Did he figure the commentators would say something favorable? “Ah, and there’s Sagan, the perfect
gentleman, giving the podium girl a little affection. A less refined racer would be grabbing handfuls of ass right now.” I asked Sagan what he was thinking, if
anything, when he did that. “Well,
actually, I meant the gesture as a social commentary,” he replied coolly. “I’ve always been bothered by the barbaric
practice of having young models kiss sweaty racers after the race, and I
thought by tweaking this retrograde tradition just slightly, I could highlight
the absurdity of it and put the sexism issue into starker relief. And actually, I arranged the whole thing with
the podium woman beforehand, so she wouldn’t be surprised. She’d totally agreed to it and then changed
her mind later and acted hurt. I don’t
know what her deal was … probably she was on the rag. Oh no … did I just say that out loud?”
Sagan is an interesting racer. On the one hand, he can do a no-handed
wheelie while climbing a Huis-Categorie grade, and can ride right up onto the
roof of his car. On the other hand, he
looks like the guy on the cover of a romance novel, and has the intellect of a baitfish.
There’s another crash!
I thought that by employing the exclamation point I could get you
excited about the crash. But it wasn’t
that exciting, actually. If these guys
were required to ride with nitroglycerin or some other highly unstable
substance in their jersey pockets, such that they actually exploded upon
impact, I think you’d see a lot fewer crashes, but they’d be really exciting
ones. The only significant news from
this crash is that Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) was involved. That might cost him the race, if he’s hurt.
In looks like Michael Matthews (Orica-GreenEdge) was also
caught up in the crash, as he’s furiously chasing the peloton now. Matthews won two stages at Paris-Nice recently, so he must fancy his chances here today. Of course, he probably wouldn’t say “fancy”
like I just did. That’s not a very
common word, even though it can be used as an adjective (e.g., fancy pants), a
verb (e.g., fancy his chances), or a noun (e.g., Cat Fancy magazine).
There are 26 kilometers left and the breakaway has just 15
seconds. I wonder which chaser will be
the first to say, “Okay, guys, the fun and games are over!” Man, I’d like to be that rider.
I had a brief chat this morning with outside favorite
Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-Quick-Step). Though
only 21 years old, and riding in his first MSR, he’s being supported by teammate
Tom Boonen, who has decided he no longer enjoys training and will use his huge
talent to be an out-of-shape domestique from now on. Gaviria was nervous before the start. “My mom’s gonna kill me,” he said. “I put my retainer under my napkin at dinner
last night and must have forgotten about it.
That’s the third one I’ve lost!”
Gaviria is the only rider in this race who is undergoing orthodontia,
but a lot of these riders still live with their parents.
With 23 km to go, the peloton is all back together—but somebody
attacks! It’s Giovanni Visconti (Movistar
Team) and Ian Stannard (Team Sky) and they quickly open up a nice gap.
Pretty good move, actually, because there’s a pretty twisty
descent and they’ve quickly increased their lead from 12 seconds to 23. Man, they’re just flying!
Stannard has accidentally dropped Visconti but I’m sure they’ll
be back together soon. Could they hold
off the field for 18 kilometers? Of
course not, but they’re surely hoping other great riders will bridge up. Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) would be just
the rider to do that, because he’s plenty strong but of course couldn’t win a
field sprint because he’s older than George Burns.
Three more riders have joined the lead duo. They’re about 7 km from the Poggio, which
passes for a climb after so many hours in the saddle. The lead is down to 15 seconds with Katusha
and BMC leading the chase, and Etixx-Quick-Step starting to get their guys in
position. I have to predict an
Etixx-Quick-Step victory because two of the widely touted favorites are on this
team (Gaviria along with Zdeněk Štybar), and it can’t hurt having Boonen helping.
With 2 km until the Poggio, the group is suddenly
caught. I never even got those other
three guys’ names.
It’s under 10 km to go and Greg Avermaet (Team BMC) is on
the front drilling it, as he is wont to do.
Michael Matthews has reconnected to the peloton but is dying on the
back.
“It’s all about going as hard as you can,” says the
practically brain-dead commentator.
Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) is well placed. Obviously he’s a favorite. His boys are collected at the front along
with a bunch of BMC guys. The pace doesn’t
actually look that high … the group is pretty much gutter-to-gutter whereas if
the hammer had gone down, it’d be a narrow line.
Some dude is attacking!
It’s Filippo Pozzato (Southeast-Venezuela) according to the graphics,
but the announcer says, “No, it’s not, it’s number 180.” There is no number 180 in this race,
according to the cyclingnews start list.
So I have no idea who this guy is.
Fortunately, he’s caught and dropped.
Kristoff attacks, followed by Michal Kwiatkoski (Team
Sky)! This could be a really good move! He’s first over the Poggio! And now Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Team) is
going after him! What, are you
kidding?! We got us a bike race here!
With 5 km to go, Kwiatkoski has a handful of seconds, but
Nibali and Cancellara are closing fast!
But as the road goes up with about 4 km to go, the gap is going back
up! Nibali goes for it up the left of
the road, just flying! With 3.2 km,
Kwiatkoski has 4 seconds and still looks great!
Right on schedule, my feed freezes! My wife is running the microwave and it’s jamming the WiFi! I’m doomed!
Whew, I got my wife to delay her breakfast and now my
picture is back. With 1.8 km to go,
Etixx-Quick-Step is drilling it on the front and 5 seconds isn’t much
anymore. Cancellara is on the warpath
now, and Edvald Boassan Hagen (Dimension Data) flies off up the right side, joined by Van Avermaet
with 1 km to go! Boassan Hagen is
killing it on the front with 500 meters to go!
Cancellara isn’t far back! Now
they’re looking at each other, and a dude stacks! But somehow, not a single rider is taken down
with him! DAAAAAMN!
The road is slightly uphill and the sprint is well
underway! Wow, it’s some random FDJ guy
on the front!
And the race goes to Arnaud Démare, a Frenchman!
A Frenchman hasn’t won this in like twenty years! The dude is totally stoked and as he is
mobbed by his teammates, he’s whooping like an American, like a cracker from
the deep South no less! What a win! What a race!
We'll need a follow-up post of course, given the allegations of Demare having taken a tow from a team car, and the whole question of whether his Strava data helps or hurts his insistence that he did nothing wrong.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a worthy topic. My biased analysis is here:
Deletehttp://www.albertnet.us/2016/03/biased-commentary-did-demare-cheat-in.html
Also please write about what a doof Gaviria is, crashing like that because of his own carelessness, when he would almost certainly have won that sprint and the race.
ReplyDelete