Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2019 Tour of California Stage 6

Introduction

Sportscasters covering professional cycling have a massive challenge: how to describe the action while continuously biting their tongues. They’re not allowed to bag on dopers, so they have to pretend that it’s exciting to watch a totally lubed rider destroy everybody. The Tour of California, however, runs concurrently with the much more prestigious Giro d’Italia, where the heavy hitters are. The TofCA is bound to be a cleaner race, so the announcers have got that going for them. Which is good.

So yeah, you could watch the coverage live, using the Amgen Tour of California Tour Tracker which really is the greatest streaming video platform ever. I’m so stoked on it, I feel like supporting Amgen by buying a bunch of their EPO. But even with this great tracker, the coverage is in the middle of your workday, so you don’t have time, and if you try to watch the highlights later, they’re going to give the outcome away in the first five seconds for some reason. You don’t want that.

Besides, maybe you’re a bit disgruntled by the sport, like I am, so you like my snotty remarks. Of course you do … you wouldn’t be here otherwise. So read on for my biased blow-by-blow report of the all-important, GC-deciding Tour of CA Stage 6, which finishes atop Mount Baldy in southern California (motto: “Don’t you dare walk here, we’ll ticket your ass!”).

2019 Tour of California Stage 6 – Ontario to Mount Baldy

I join the action way, way late. I took the whole day off work, went for a bike ride, went too slow, got home late, and then had a nice lunch at a Tibetan restaurant were the service was so slow, I almost wonder if they hired the cook after taking our order. Only 14 kilometers remain in the whole race, so I’m going to have to really rush here, which means typing “km” instead of “kilometers” from here on out, and not taking time to change kms to miles for you. Also, if I need to talk about the weather, I may express the temperature in Kelvin.

There’s a breakaway. Behind, some Bora-Hansgrohe guy has attacked the peloton. He’s trying to bridge up to the break, which only has like 30 seconds on them. That’s not a lot when at least half the remaining distance is uphill. The Bora guy is Felix somebody. With a first name like that, you don’t actually need a last name … “Felix” is distinct enough. I have a pal named John and I told him his name is useless. He agreed: “It’s a fcuking disaster.”

Okay, Felix’s last name is Großschartner. I admit I was stalling just a second ago, because that’s a really hard name to type. Steephill.tv had it as Grossschartner which I knew couldn’t be right. I mean, three Ss in a row? Nobody would have such a name. You couldn’t say it without hissing. Everyone would hate you.

Felix has a teammate in the breakaway, Maximilian Schachmann. So if Felix bridges up successfully, he’ll be able to help Schachmann win, obviously. I don’t know if there are time bonuses in this race because I was barely aware it was even happening until two days ago. Someone mentioned it was going on this week, so I looked for the Tour Tracker and happened to check out the final 10 km of the Morro Bay stage, which had apparently been super boring until the last 8 km. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Felix is on the short descent to the base of Mount Baldy. The top ten riders are all within like 30 seconds of each other in the general classification and there’s no time trial in this race, so this climb will be absolutely decisive.

The breakaway is Schachmann, Hugo Houle (Astana Pro Team), Matteo Fabbro (Katusha Alpecin), Pawel Bernas (CCC), Lennard Hofstede (Jumbo-Visma), and one other guy whom I’ll call John because hey, why not.

Schachmann is only 22 seconds off the GC lead, so this break is probably doomed. Tejay’s EF Education First team will surely reel them in, and even if they don’t, the race officials will bend the rules until Tejay comes out on top. They did that already in the Morro Bay stage, where Tejay crashed, then took a wrong turn, then blatantly drafted a support car for a really long way, and then only caught up to part of the peloton—specifically, the riders who were on the ground due to another crash—and because this was inside the final 3 km the officials gave Tejay the same time as the entire peloton: that is, as the part of the peloton that hadn’t crashed and was way, way ahead of Tejay. Meanwhile, this was actually 3.2 km from the finish, but the officials didn’t really care. I think they want a known rider, and an American one, to win the race because it looks better. I mean, if Hugo Houle won, what would that do for the sport? Everyone would remember it as “a foreigner called Huge Hole won,” and they’d shrug and go back to NASCAR. At least, that must be the thinking of the commissaires. As if this sport weren’t a big enough joke already.

Lawson Craddock is leading the chase for Tejay. He’s a great ungodly godlike domestique. I wish I could get him to work for me. Not in my races, of course, because those are few and far between. I could really use him for some light filing, maybe going through my mail and throwing out all the junk. Running errands. Things like that. I wonder of Craddock does that for Tejay during the off-season.

Wow, Schachmann has dropped the break and is trying to solo! He’s only got like 6 km to go, but also 2,000 vertical feet. And it’ll be hard to pedal effectively with such big balls crowding the crotch of his shorts. He looks like he’s pretty cool and calm, but that could just be a poker face.

Okay, the announcers just said there’s a 10-second time bonus for the win. But is that really going to happen? Tejay is really fast, obviously, and I think his teammate Rigoberto Uran Uran is in that field with him, and on a good day Uran is almost matchless on the climbs so he should pace Tejay quite effectively. (I guess I should hedge a bit though and point out that I haven’t watched a road race since last year’s Tour de France, where Uran crashed out, so for all I know he’s gotten too old to go fast.)

This stage is such a great one to watch, because there are plenty of GC hopefuls who haven’t had much opportunity to do anything in this largely flat stage race and have put all their hopes on this climb. Another rider to watch is Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo), who had so many not-normal performances with Team Sky that the only thing holding him back today would be not being able to find a fresh vein to inject himself in. I guess maybe his new team is clean though. Maybe he’s a really good guy and Team Sky was just a bad influence.

Speaking of Team Ineos (née Sky), its leader Gianni Moscon, wearing bib #1, is going out the back! So I guess the peloton is already going pretty damn fast. That being said, Schachmann has increased his lead to 35 seconds with only 5 km to go.

Tejay looks pretty comfortable. That yellow jersey looks so much better than the pink ones EF riders wear. In this one instance, I wouldn’t fault Tejay for wearing a yellow helmet to match the leader’s jersey. But a black helmet would be even better.

Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) is now leading the peloton. He would be wearing the leader’s jersey today were it not for the clowns officiating this race (as described above). He must be impatient with the EF team or something, or maybe he’s trying to crack them in Merckx style instead of attacking. That worked pretty well for Merckx … everyone since him, not so much.

Shirtless idiots have arrived to run alongside the riders. I hope one of them gets smacked. Not hard or anything. Just a smack.

Whoooooah, Tejay is cracking! Dude is just getting shelled, with his own teammates ahead of him! Who’d have thought! I guess he’s getting old or something. It happens to the best of us. Heck, even Chris Horner kind of sucked toward the end, not that I blame him. I feel so old myself now, talking about riders who have retired. I confess I kind of lost track of this sport after Chris Froome was exonerated and I could no longer bear to watch.

Wow, Asgreen has been dropped! He looked so good earlier.

Now George Bennett (Jumbo-Visma) makes a dig and gets a bit of a gap before anyone can react. He’s being joined now by Tejay’s teammate Sergio Higuita, and not far behind it looks like Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates). I think that’s Porte struggling along behind them.

Higuita attacks!

Higuita is hauling ass and there’s no poker-face here, he’s just drilling it, his face a pitcher of pansies. You didn’t think I was gonna say “picture of pain” did you? I would never do that. His face is a pitcher. A patchwork. A bun. A bane. And more.

Porte is having bike problems. Good.

It’s only 1.6 km to go! Higuita is still really motoring. It’s hard to tell how far behind he is from Schachmann. Do I care who wins? Not much, though I don’t like Higuita’s neon green shoes. His Pepto-Bismol-pink jersey is ugly enough without introducing neon green to the outfit. Behind Higuita, Pogacar and Bennett keep up the chase, Porte having been totally distanced.

The break has completely dissolved, every man in it for himself. Like all the rest of us. Except moms. They’re in it for their kids. But I digress.

It looks like Pogacar is catching Higuita. He looks really smooth, and started the day only 16 seconds behind Tejay on GC.

Pogacar and Higuita are together now and look like they’re kind of crawling. The camera makes these grades look way flatter than they are. It must be insanely steep. I’m so glad I’m just sitting in this armchair typing, not out biking with these fools.

OMG, there’s 100 meters to go and still no sign of Schachmann, which means they must have passed him at some point. I’ve been thinking he was up the road this whole time! Maybe he was abducted by aliens or something. Crazier things have happened in this sport, like Froome getting off the hook after testing positive.

It’s the final sprint, and Bennett is coming back! And now Higuita overcooks the final curve, taking it too wide!

Pogacar comes blasting through! He’s freakin’ flying! He’s got proper black shoes and he’s blowing Higuita out of the water!

Pogacar’s got the wine! I mean win! He’s got the win! He’ll get the wine later. See how these typos work?

And now we wait to see how far back Tejay finishes. Wow, it’s not good. He’s clearly lost the GC. And he’s so tired, his arms are all crooked.

Gosh, Pogacar is super young. He looks like he’s about 15 years old. I think he cools himself the way dogs do. Maybe all the young humans are being made this way now. Okay, they’re saying he’s actually 20 years old. Too young to buy booze, which is surely why he had that extra edge today. I love to drink beer and look how slow I am. (No, you can’t actually look. Nobody is filming me. Thank God.)

Tejay’s daughter is too young to realize just how badly her dad fcuked this up today. She still loves him. That’ll change. When she’s a teenager she’ll read this blog (like all the cool teens will), and then she’ll be like, “Dad, the beginning of the end was Mount Baldy. Speaking of which, how’d you get so bald? You’re, like, a living fossil! And your chain of auto dealerships is failing.”

So, Pogacar not only has the yellow jersey, but rumor has it he’s going to get a video game made in his honor. Here he is getting his yellow jersey. Note that the podium girl doesn’t kiss him. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll get in trouble. Or maybe they’re not doing that anymore.

Man, Pogacar is so fricking young, some thoughtful race official got him a teddy bear! That is so fitting! They’ll have cookies and milk waiting for him later. I love the thought of him snuggling with that teddy bear tonight, maybe wearing his medal over his Star Wars pajamas.

They’re interviewing him now. “I was really strong and that made me go fast. Strong means fast, I have noticed. Higuita took the turn too wide. This black stuff you see at the corners of my mouth is Oreo. I just ate like five of them really fast. In Slovenia we have no Oreos. Also I have won very many bike races back home but nobody ever gave me a bear. I love America.”

Note: as you probably already figured out, I totally made all that up. He did say something about going fast and being strong, but after that it got really boring. “Thanks to my team blah blah blah.” It’s possible that my freestyling got us closer to the real truth. Though you must not quote me on the Oreo thing. I just did some light fact-checking and discovered this blog post, all about Oreos in Slovenia. I did not make that up. Click the link.

Now they’re doing the team podium. Here are the top three teams:

Wait, how did that get in there? That’s not just the wrong race, that’s the wrong sport! What you see above is the Albany High Cougars mountain bike team celebrating their victory in the team overall for the season. How that photo made it into this report is beyond me … probably some kind of online tampering. I’m going to leave it though, because they’re even younger and more fresh-faced than Pogacar. And that’s saying a lot.

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2016 Tour de France Stage 9

Introduction

If you’ve fallen behind on the Tour de France, or can’t be bothered to watch it, you’ve come to the right place.  Not only is my report almost live (not meaning close to dead, but almost real-time), it’s biased—that is, I don’t pull any punches when it comes to calling out a doper, an inelegant rider, or a jerk (or in the case of the obvious favorite, Chris Froome, all three at once).  That’s the benefit of being an unpaid blogger.

2016 Tour de France Stage 9 – Vielha Val d’Aran to Andorre Arcalis

As I join the race, there are about 50 km to go.  Today is a brutal stage, with five categorized climbs, including three category 1 and a huis-categorie (HC) climb at the end.  What is “huis-categorie?”  Imagine a rock climber saying, “Dude, that first climb was like a five-twelve, but then there was this other one that was like, so totally sick you just couldn’t even put a number on it.”  Or imagine a little kid saying, “My dad could beat up infintity-times-infinity of your dads,” and the other kid saying, “My dad could beat up so many of your dads, you couldn’t even count it, not even with infinities.”  Huis-Categorie is the French way of saying, “Don’t even try to describe how hard this climb is.”

Not much happening now, particularly as regards my Internet feed.  This has been the worst race ever for live Internet video.  I’ve got the British feed on one computer, with a picture so bad it looks like it’s finger-painted by a small child, and it freezes up constantly.  Then I’ve got a French-language feed, muted, on another PC with a separate Internet feed, and it’s a nice big, clear picture but it halts so often my coverage is more like a slide show.  On the plus side, I enjoy the French ads, particularly the ones for food or beverages, which all carry a public service announcement at the bottom (this one translates, “For your health, eat at least five fruits and vegetables per day”).

So the big news so far today:  one-time race favorite Alberto Contadar (Tinkoff Team) has dropped out due to injuries suffered in back-to-back crashes in two early stages. 

With 43 km to go (that’s right, I missed 7 km futzing with my feeds), two riders are off the front of a huge breakaway:  Jerome Coppel (IAM Cycling) and Tsgabu Grmay (Lampre-Merida).  Grmay is an interesting rider:  he’s Ethopian (the first from his country ever to ride the Tour), and he has a most interesting name.  In Ethopia, your last name is always your father’s first name.  And how did his father get his name?  His father invented it in a bid to use up all has Scrabble tiles.  They have strange house rules over there.  (Okay, the Scrabble thing is speculation.  But it’s true about the first/last name thing.)

So anyhow, this duo has a bit of a gap on this giant breakaway numbering almost 20 guys.  The only GC hopeful in that group is Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), though actually Pinot became a Tour hopeless with some very poor riding in the early stages.  So poor, in fact, that he has declared his season “over.”  I didn’t make that up.  I think the guy is a bit of a head case, honestly.

Interestingly, the term “Tour hopeful” has become synonymous with the term “Tour dopeful.”  I’m referring, of course, to Team Sky, which has put on their typical display of dominance, with an absurd number of riders taking the front on all the steepest climbs.  They did it yesterday, and they’re doing it again today.

To the credit of Team Sky’s leader, Chris Froome, I’ll say that he’s in yellow today because of his descending, not his doping.  (I don’t think they have a syringe for descending yet, unless it’s something old-school like amphetamine.  My teenage daughter, cynical beyond her years, has pointed out that Froome does have the physique of a meth-head.)  He took off just after the summit of the final climb yesterday and descended like a maniac, holding off the (albeit lackluster) chase to win by 13 seconds and pick up a 10-second time bonus.  Why did he bother?  First, Alberto Contador (Tinkoff Team) had been dropped on the climb and I suspect Froome wanted to make sure the GC group didn’t play it too safe on the final descent and give Contador a chance to cut his losses.  And why was the chase lackluster?  I’d guess that other favorites like Nairo Quintana (Movistar team) and Tejay van Gardaren (BMC Racing Team) are fine giving up a couple dozen seconds when this forces Team Sky to defend the yellow jersey for two whole weeks.

Returning to today’s stage, the leading two riders have been absorbed by the disposable diaper of the breakaway.  Do you like my metaphor?  It’s better than some of the hackneyed ones you’d have to hear from the TV coverage.  The one I’m getting sick of is “so-and-so makes his way to the front and begins injecting pace.”  Can we not use “inject,” please?  I’m trying to pretend the sport has cleaned up.

Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) has dropped the others and is making his lone, useless way up the climb.  With 35 km to go, the leaders are on the Category 1 Col de Beixalis.  This is a short climb but has some seriously steep pitches, like 17-18%.  If you’re not a cycling aficionado and don’t grasp what 17-18% means, imagine you’re driving up one of those crazy steep hills in San Francisco and your friend’s girlfriend gasps and asks to take a different route, fearing the car will begin sliding down the hill backwards.  That’s the kind of grade we’re talking about here.

My video feed has stabilized but I’m still hunting for some audio.  The freezing has stopped but it’s some dirtbag announcer I’ve never heard before, a second-string would-be game show host who is somehow sucking all the excitement out of this race.  I’ve got to look for a better feed.

De Gendt is now overtaken by the breakaway and he’s going backwards.  He looks at the cameraman with a look that says, “Stop filming me you bastard.”  I get that look from my teenager a lot.

Froome is riding oval chainrings.  Is there anything I like about this guy?  Look, I’ll go ahead and admit that I thought his move yesterday was pretty cool, particularly if I decide to believe that it was his idea and not just a clever instruction over his radio.  Certainly his aerodynamic tuck was one of the ugliest in cycling’s history, particularly when he pedaled while sitting on the top tube, but it was inarguably effective.  It would still be a stretch to say I was developing a grudging respect for Froome, but perhaps the earliest stages of this respect-building process were starting to be laid down.  Think “terraforming on Mars” and you’ll get an idea for the massive scale of such a project.

But anyway, that was before I read an interview with him about a 200 Swiss franc fine he was slapped with for decking a spectator.  I saw the video replay of it and don’t have a problem with his action, because the spectator was way too far out in the road.  Bernard Hinault, one of my heroes, would have done the same thing.  But in justifying his action, Froome said, “Nothing against the Colombian fans, I think they’re fantastic and bring a great atmosphere to the race.  But this guy in particular was running right next to my handlebars that had a flag that was flying behind him.”  Why bring up the guy’s nationality at all?  Why pretend to have nothing against Colombian fans while bothering to inform the world that this dirtbag fan was Colombian?  Like I’ve said before:  Froome, man, get some class.

The huge number of nobodies in this breakaway is making the race pretty boring right now.  Somebody is going for KOM points.  I think it’s George Bennett (Team LottoNL-Jumbo), whom I’ve never heard of.  He’s duking it out with Pinot.  That’s nice, but I don’t care about the KOM and I can’t get excited about either of their stage win prospects this far from the finish.

Pinot is first to the summit with Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana Pro Team) not far behind.  The breakaway has pretty much detonated now and most—probably all—of these guys will be vacuumed up by the GC group despite the 8-minute lead they have with 27 km to go. 

I’ll take the opportunity, during this boring descent, to fill you in on some other Tour highlights.  Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) is back on great form, after (oddly enough) focusing on track races this year, and has won three stages.  He even earned his first-ever yellow jersey, which set up a touching moment of dramatic irony.  Being interviewed after winning the first stage, before the podium ceremony, he was bored and tired and had nothing much to say other than running a few macros (e.g., “My team is putting 50,000 Africans on bicycles”), and then his little daughter crawled into his lap and he turned his attention entirely to her, saying, “Daddy won today, and you know what you get when Daddy wins?”  His darling daughter replied, “Flowers.”  He said, “That’s right,” but didn’t seem to grasp that this time she would also receive a stuffed lion.  So neither of these two were even aware of how totally stoked they were about to be—but we, the viewers, were well aware of it.  That’s what dramatic irony is, and recovering English majors like me just love that shit. 

In other news, Peter Sagan (Tinkoff Team) has the ugliest helmet in the race and won a stage.  

Sky is still swarming the front as the GC group clears this summit.

Another early stage incident to recap:  you know the giant flame rouge, which would be a banner across the road indicating 1 km to go, except this is a grand tour where everything is fancy so it’s a giant inflated tube, leveraging bouncy-house technology?  Well, apparently somebody tripped on the cord and the damn thing collapsed just as the peloton was approaching it, which caused chaos and a pretty bad crash, with the current best young rider, Adam Yates (Orica-BikeExchange), getting a nasty scrape on his chin.

Returning to today’s action, the remaining guys from the breakaway are sprinting across the flat section, attacking each other like it’s a fricking criterium, before the final climb as though that could possibly make sense.  Positioning is nothing when it’s an HC climb.  I once stopped for like two minutes at the base of Alpe d’Huez to get some food and Coke, letting a group of like ten guys ride off into the sunset, because I figured they were all going to shell me anyway.  Is it any different for this human shrapnel that was once a breakaway?  I think not.  They’re mostly as doomed as I was (despite their lead over the GC group holding at 8 minutes) and should just stick together to the climb instead of pretending this is a tactical “chess game on wheels.”  (Another stupid cliché.  I’m glad cycling is never quite boring enough to be legitimately compared to a chess game.)

On the front now we have Rafal Majka (Tinkoff Team), who is a great rider but somehow isn’t in the top 20 on the GC this year, joined by Sanchez.  They’ve got 15 km to go but 10 km of those are uphill at an average gradient of 7.2%.

Wilco Kelderman (Team LottoNL-Jumbo), one of the breakaway guys (I think), has a flat tire.  I wonder if he’s riding Hutchinson tires.  My daughter’s Hutchinson came apart yesterday, the bead separating from the casing, and I had to call my wife and have her drive out and pick her up.  Don’t ride those … seriously.

Tom Dumoulin (Team Giant-Alpecin) is leading the race, which is a bit odd because he’s a time trialist (and, to an increasing extent, an all-rounder), not a climber.  By bike racer standards he’s a great big burly man, and I credit his exceptional riding to his size.  Just like a big guy can hold his alcohol better, big guys can absorb more pain on the bike.  The sport would be well served by having more guys like Dumoulin in it.  He’s also got a full head of hair, unlike Froome, who is not only bald but has those weird wrinkles on the back of his neck like one of those ugly pug dogs (or naked mole rats) some people seem to love.  Speaking of hair, as recently as a couple decades ago Dumoulin would have need a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for his Alpecin shampoo, which is caffeinated.  But caffeine is no longer regulated.  I wonder how much caffeine you can actually absorb through your scalp—which leads me to another thought I’ve been having.  Often, you’ll see spectators handing up water bottles to the racers.  No racer with any brains would drink anything a spectator gave him, but they do pour these bottles over their heads if it’s a hot stage.  So why not spike a bottle of water with some banned substance, and add some DMSO for good measure?  (DMSO is the solvent American football players use to chase crushed aspirin into their ruined knees so they can keep playing.)  An evil fan could make a rider test positive!  Why am I entertaining such dark thoughts?  I guess I’m still sore after getting a serious tongue-lashing from a UCSF official after spraying a racer with water during a criterium on a hot day back in 1986.

Amazingly, the gap to the GC group has gone up to 9:14, with Dumoulin still off the front solo.  And now a rider hits a spectator!  It’s Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon 18), who tried to avoid the guy (who was way too far out into the road) but slammed him with his shoulder and came this close to going down.  It was an impressive display of bike-handling skills.  The spectator was knocked flat—look closely and you’ll see him on the ground in this photo, on the left end of the zebra crossing.  (No, I’m not going to tell you the nationality of the spectator.  You can tweet Froome later and find out.)

Dumoulin is still hammering away solo on the front, with just 7 km to go.  The remaining guys from the breakaway will surely stay away now, with 9:30 in the bag, but will Dumoulin be able to hold off Majka, Pinot, and now Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa (Lampre-Merida) who is attacking?  Perhaps.

Wow, Pinot detonates!  He’s rocking on the bars and his head is down and he’s cooked.  What is Dumoulin’s time gap?  This is getting exciting!  And now the road is wet and there’s a proper storm brewing!  Daniel Navarro Garcia (Cofidis) materializes out of nowhere—who is this guy?—and I think he’s a contender now, working well with Majka to try to reel in Dumoulin. 

Now hail is coming down!  They’re showing the finish line and the weather is just awful up there.  Just 6 km to go now.

So some Movistar guy and an FDJ are driving along together but I think they’re off the back.  Forget them, they’re dead to us.

Back in the peloton, Sky are still well represented with at least four guys.

I think Dumoulin has like 30 seconds on Majka and Da Costa.  He’s got just 4km to go.

The grade has eased to 4-5% so he may yet hang onto this, being a time trialist and all.  I’d love to see it.

Back in the peloton, a Sky dude attacks!  I think it’s Sergio Luis Henao.  But he’s dragged back.  And now Froome attacks, and Quintana is right on him!  Porte is trying to bridge up!  This is so gloriously awfully brutal!  It looks like Porte has got them, and now he counterattacks!  Man, he’s really looking good.  And now Dan Martin comes from behind and attacks!  It’s like when everybody attacked Lance on Alpe d’Huez in the 2003 Tour!

Dumoulin is really suffering, his cadence grinding down, but he’s still got 42 seconds on Majka and Da Costa!  I’m using an exclamation point because I’m excited!  And my daughter, watching alongside, questions my use of the exclamation point!  She says I’m abusing the power of it!  But I don’t care!  And now Porte attacks again!  And amazingly, Froome has lost all his henchmen!

Tom Dumoulin is under the Flamme Rouge, and it’s staying inflated for now!  I’m going to use an exclamation point on every sentence now, because all these guys are such heroes, drilling it in such foul weather, and also to spleen my daughter!  Yay!

Look at Porte, man!  He’s on the high-test shit today!  He’s really putting the wood to Froomestrong!  And now, who’s this attacking, some guy in a white jersey, I have no idea who, and he’s taking his turn at battling Froome!  It’s Yates, of the scraped chin!  How does he even shave?!

Dumoulin has got this!  He approaches the line!   He drops his sunglasses on the road—his mom will be furious!  That’s the third pair this year!

Dumoulin gets the win!

Does he look like he’s about to cry?  Yes.  Would I be crying in that circumstance?  Hells yeah!  I’d be crying if I were a spectator at this race!

Da Costa dukes it out with Majka for second.  Majka is content with third, I suppose.  More than that he’ll be content to climb into a warm team van and drink about a gallon of cocoa.

Da Costa approaches the line, looking suitably miserable.  So, you know baseball, the great American pastime?  Those guys have big paunches, and when it so much as rains, the game is canceled.  Bedwetters, all.

I haven’t seen Tejay Van Garderen at all.  He didn’t fare too well in the rain in the Tour de Suisse recently … I guess I can’t blame him.

Dan Martin is just macking it on the front, Froome et al tucked in behind.  Sure enough, TVG is not in this group.  This gives the team leadership to Porte, even though he lost almost two minutes to an untimely puncture in an early stage.  BMC is officially adrift in this Tour.

The GC group is now down to Porte, Quintana, Yates, and Martin (who is now struggling to keep up).  Yates attacks!  Unbelievable!  He’s a real upstart, wearing the white jersey of the best young rider.  Yates holds it all the way to the line!  What a badass! 

Here comes Tejay, who has lost at least a minute or so.  A pity…

Here’s the top 10 for the stage:

So, the number of real GC contenders has shrunk again today, with Quintna and Martin the only real challengers left after this stage (though AG2R La Mondiale’s Romain Bardet still has an outside chance, I suppose).  Contador has abandoned, Fabian Aru (Astana Pro Team) was dropped today, and Tejay, Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team) was nowhere to be seen, and Porte was pretty far behind going into the stage.  Pinot takes the KOM jersey, but is over 15 minutes off the back in the GC.  Yates hangs on to the white jersey and his chin is healing nicely.

I am very happy to see Froome failing to increase his lead on this brutal stage, and I’m particularly pleased with how the Sky domestiques folded up a bit at the end, as their Postal-esque dominance is a blight on the sport.  Maybe they’ll continue to fade and we might have a real race here.  But then, whom am I kidding?  Tomorrow’s a rest day, and that means blood bags.

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2015 Tour de France Stage 9 TTT

Introduction

What do you suppose goes through the minds of race announcers, that they’re not allowed to say? Maybe things like, “That guy’s obviously coked to the gills,” or “So-and-o looks like a damn clown.”  Sure, announcers hint at stuff:  “Froome has injected some, uh, life into this race,” or “Not the most elegant rider, surely, but he gets the job done.”  And why can’t they be perfectly candid?  Because they’re professionals.  I, on the other hand, am not.  So I’ll say it how it is, or at least how it looks to me.  And if I’m a little on the cynical side, can you blame me?

I know you think team time trials are boring, so I’m going to work really hard as I go along to make this as entertaining as possible.  And you should read anyway, because this is an important Tour stage.  The Tour hasn’t had so little time trialing since 1933, and this year’s only individual TT already happened, without breaking up the GC all that much.

I’m missing a Mount Diablo ride with my pals for this, BTW.  One of them really egged me on, e-mailing me last night to say, “Dana, thanks for writing the TTT preview!  Now that you fulfilled your blogging obligations to your mom, you can meet us....”  He has an impressively firm grip on how elite my blog readership is.  Today you can see how I did with the predictions I made, about the outcome of this race and its affect on the GC battle....

2015 Tour de France Stage 9:  Vannes – Plumelec TTT

As I join the action, FDJ is hammering along and the Eurosport announcer (I never learn their names, as it’s too sad when they leave, which at least they tend to do before getting too old to think straight) has just said, “So-and-so is out with a broken neck.  It’s actually broken in two places, and he’s lucky to have escaped serious injury.”  WTF??!! Is this guy joking?  Who jokes about a broken neck?  Or does he somehow consider this minor?

And just like that, we’re on to some ads.  I’m joining the action late here, so I hope I haven’t missed any important teams.  I had a bit of a glitch this morning because my Internet connection is down.  Fortunately, all bloggers have dueling Internet connections.  It’s just part of the value we bring you readers, for free.

Here’s my favorite current ad.  ANNOUNCER:  “Marcel Kittel, do you use this shampoo because Alpecin is your new team sponsor now?” KITTEL:  “No not at all, I just like the feeling of thick hair.”  I’ve seen this ad several times this week and I still can’t believe I’m hearing it right. I mean, I’ll grant that it’s theoretically possible to absorb caffeine through your scalp.  Dumb idea, but okay, possible.  But “the feeling of thick hair”?  Look, nameless ad agency, hair doesn’t have nerves, and if it did, it’d be one nerve ending per shaft ... how could you sense thickness? 

The Lotto Soudal team has started their TTT.  As I mentioned in my preview yesterday, these Lotto guys are (by bike racer standards) simply huge, with the highest numbers I saw for height, weight, and body mass index.  If this TTT were, say, 3K in length, I’d pick them as favorites.

Sean Kelly, the evergreen Eurosport announcer, says that these teams warm up for 40 km before a race like this.  Man, that’s a lot.

IAM Cycling is on the line.  I don’t know what product or service IAM produces, so I just consider this the “dog food team.”  I could look it up, but I’m too busy.

Lotto Soudal looks pretty cohesive.  All their guys have great position on the bike, which is more than I can say about some GC contenders (okay, one GC contender, and I won’t bag on him by giving his name, though his initials are CF and he’s on Sky).

Poor Orica GreenEdge.  They won the last long Tour TTT, two years ago, but they have only six riders left in this crash-ridden Tour, and they obviously went in to this one with the sole goal of making the time cut (kind of like choosing a class in junior high because you heard it was an easy “C”).  Orica GreenEdge look like they’re on a training ride.  Check it out, one guy didn’t even fasten his helmet strap!

Weird.  I’ve restored my better Internet connection and refreshed, and now the announcer is a woman!  I’ve never encountered that before.   Maybe she watched “In A World...” and got inspired.  She’s interviewing some dude with an Irish accent, Brian Smith.  I can’t tell his role because my video is too grainy.

Ah, we’re back to the main announcers.  I guess they had a special guest star asking the questions (since all that requires is a script and a good voice, and she had both, and I miss her already).

Lampre Merida finish their ride, in around 33 minutes.  I was slurping coffee and missed exactly what Kelly mumbled about their result, but I think these guys are now leading.

Another ad!  There’s this highlights reel of all the sports that Eurosport carries, and the announcers just about pissing themselves with excitement (e.g., “He didn’t just break his world record, he absolutely SHATTERED it!!!”) and then, incongruously, they show a snippet of same-sex diving, with the announcer totally quiet.  What?  You haven’t heard of same-sex diving?  Maybe that’s not the official name.  Synchronized diving?  Yeah, that’s probably it.

Bora-Aragon has launched their offensive.  Okay, I know that’s a bombastic way to say “started their TTT,” but there are a lot of teams here and I don’t want you to think this was a computer-generated sports story.  (That’s a thing now, believe it or not.)  I promise I won’t use the word “gallop” at any point during this blow-by-blow.

IAM Cycling is going really fast, getting the best intermediate split.  And now Trek Factory Racing is on the start ramp.  The camera pans across them and man, one of their dudes is really small.  It’s almost comical.  They should have arranged them in order from tallest to shortest like at a wedding, to look less jarring.  And lose the bridesmaid dresses, guys!  Poor Trek.  Earlier in the Tour they lost their best guy, Fabian Cancellara, who was the first of two race leaders to crash out this year.  Unlike Orica GreenEdge, these guys can’t afford to loaf, because they have a GC rider, Bauke Mollema, to support.

Team Europcar doesn’t look fast at all.  They’re bunched up like a peloton instead of strung out in a line.  Thomas Voeckler is attacking!  He just never learns.  Remember when everybody used to love him?  You can thank Lance Armstrong for that.  I know, Lance lied, he cheated, he was a dick, but at least he gave the French their underdog for awhile there.  Look for the silver linings, people.

Astana is on the road.  They had a great TTT in the Dauphiné.  They also looked unbelievably good in the Giro.  I really mean “unbelievably,” as in I don’t believe it.  They reminded me of US Postal.  On final climbs Astana would have like four guys in a lead group of ten or fewer.  Oddly, though, they kept attacking their GC rider, Fabian Aru.  Since we’re into another ad (which is also unbelievable) I’ll take a moment to describe Astana’s latest optimization efforts.  Their tactics were so sloppy in the Giro, not only confounding Aru but surely demoralizing him, they’ve decided to tweak their world-class doping program yet again.  You read that right:  doping for the mind.  Their directeur sportif, Giuseppe Martinelli, was apparently having trouble concentrating and is now on Adderall.  Not to be outdone, the team’s general manager, Alexandre Vinokourov, always an impulsive type (but hailing from the good old days when hunches and gut feelings hadn’t yet been totally obliterated by race radios), is testing a new drug, LogiContin.  And both of them are also experimenting with Alpecin-SC, a new caffeinated leave-in conditioner.

IAM Cycling has the best time at the second intermediate check, by a larger margin than before.  They look pretty awesome, if you can ignore the visors built into their helmets.  They’re not the kind of visor that sticks out to form an awning, but more like what welders use.  Is there a name for that?  Speaking of which, I was out riding up the Huis Categorie Mount Diablo with my teenage daughter last weekend, and there was a woman up there with one of these dorky TT helmets (and aero bars).  She instinctively started giving my daughter advice, as though her old man obviously couldn’t.  I like that about riding with my kid.  Nobody ever gives me advice.

Oh dear.  Astana’s mental doping is clearly not working!  Their TTT line has completely disintegrated!  They’ve lost like four guys on this first climb and are trying to regroup.  Only two riders have made it back up.  One of the two who can’t reconnect is gesticulating wildly to the guy behind him.  And now he swats himself on the butt!  It’s so sad ... I almost can’t bear to watch.

IAM Cycling now has the best time, ten seconds faster than Lampre-Merida.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

Team LottoNL-Jumbo is on the road, and so far so good.  The “J” in “Jumbo” is that special Dutch kind, so it’s pronounced “Gumbo.”  No it isn’t.  Just seeing if you’re awake.  Of course it’s actually “Yumbo.” 

Okay, I’m back.  Watching Astana’s troubles had a serious impact on me—as in, my bowels thought it was race day for me.  You might find this TTT boring, but that’s my fault.  This can be a very exciting event for anybody who’s had to suffer through a crucial TTT himself and can relate.  I think this is very likely the most painful event in cycling.  Why?  Well, first off, TTTs tend to be pretty short, so the effort is far more intense than with the patient pacing you need for a really long mountain stage.  Yes, the individual time trial is often of similar length, but if you loaf in an ITT, you don’t screw over your team.  In a TTT, you have to be awesome the whole time or you blatantly ruin everything for your comrades.  It’s kind of like ballet, where if a dancer breaks her ankle during a performance she has to keep right on dancing.  (If you think it’s silly to hold ballet dancers up as the ideal, think again:  they have the highest pain threshold ofanybody.)  I’ve always sucked at ITTs because I knew there was no real consequence of failing to ride hard enough.  I was lazy.  But in TTTs I was driven by the fear of shame, and dug deeper than in any other event. 

Think about it:  if you’re in a hill climb and get too miserable, you can back off and watch the others ride away from you and feel like you’re giving them a gift!  “I suck, so you get to win ... enjoy it.”  But imagine being in the collegiate national championship TTT as one of the favorites, and failing to deliver.  Forever after you wouldn’t be able to look at your teammates for fear they’re thinking, “We could have won if you didn’t screw it up!”  I found myself in that position in 1990, and was so miserable during that TTT, I seriously fantasized about killing myself.  I thought, if I ride full-speed into that post, will I die?  That would end the pain and I wouldn’t have to face my pals!  It was too risky, though ... what if I lived?  So I pushed on.  Yesterday I was boring my wife with this story, when suddenly she became interested. “Wow, you’re moved by this!” she said.  “Are you crying?”  I wasn’t, but I was very close.  And this was 25 years later.  TTTs are a bitch.

Oh my god.  Astana is down to five riders.  They’re in the final kilometer.  They really don’t look good.  They look really deflated, I mean physically.  Their fifth guy is so fried he’s on the wrong side of the road, not even getting a draft.  That’s surely the sign of mental collapse.  Sometimes that’s okay, though, as it means you left absolutely everything on the road.  If you finish too fast, that can mean you didn’t exhaust yourself properly. 

And how about that!  Astana has managed somehow to take the lead.  Of course, the best teams are still to come, but still, I guess they couldn’t have gone that slowly.  Poor Nibali.  His Tour isn’t going well, and I’m sure he hoped to validate his victory last year so people wouldn’t just say, “Yeah, you won, but Contador, Quintana, and Froome weren’t there.”

AG2R La Mondiale is on the road.  They look kind of climber-y to me.  Not so good for TTTs.

Eurosport is interviewing Michele Scarpone, who has so little hair left, he could make a bottle of Alpecin last for like a year.  He should use their special Espresso version.  He says nothing of any interest, predictably enough.  I’d quote him if he said something like, “Yes, I visited Dr. Ferrari, but not for drugs, or even for training advice.  You see, we’re lovers.”  Actually, let’s pretend he did say that.

Tinkoff-Saxo is down the start ramp and hammering along.  This is one of the really important teams, because a) their GC guy, Alberto Contador, is obviously a favorite, and b) if they have an outstanding ride today, they could put Peter Sagan in the yellow jersey, which would be amazing because he’d then be holding the green, white, and yellow jerseys simultaneously. 

Movistar is having a good ride and some have tapped them as favorites for this TTT.  Naturally their motivation is super high, with GC favorite Nairo Quintana in their ranks.  They look pretty good out there, if you can get past their boring uniforms.

Oh dear!  The Movistar line has broken!  You know, I’m going to blame the radios for this.  After all, the directeur sportif can’t give a continuous patter about whether everybody is together, and so many riders have forgotten how to use their spidey-sense to know what’s going on.

BMC are on the start ramp!  No pressure, guys.  Man, I hope they light it up out there.  An American in yellow, without all the asterisks of doping, would be fricking awesome.  I wouldn’t expect him to hold it for too long, if he got it, but how awesome would it be to bring home a stuffed lion for your kid?

Movistar has the fastest intermediate split, notwithstanding their troubles a bit ago.  But they’ve taken the lead over from a team with only five guys left ... their placing may yet tumble.

Now Eurosport is interviewing Juan Antonio Flecha about the weather.  “The wind is blowing, as wind often does, and though it was blowing also earlier today, it may not be blowing is much as it was, though it could be blowing harder now, and there was wind when Astana was riding, like there is now, and wind can be a factor in a TTT when a team can be slowed by wind, unless it’s a tailwind, which would tend to blow you forward and actually speed you along.  Also, I myself am a windbag, and I’ve been breaking wind this entire time, by which I mean I have been releasing gas from my anus.”  Flecha’s chatter is the verbal equivalent of a college kid using a really big font and wide margins to make the five-page minimum with his essay.  Might I recommend a Bora kitchen ventilation system for this fellow?  I’m reminded repeatedly during this coverage of how well Bora handles “vapors that smell bad.”  They’re insulting your cooking!  Great ad copy, that.

Okay, they’re showing Sky now, and Froome with his ugly helmet.  The commentator is going on about how Froome’s handlebars were created using a 3D printer.  I know, this dude’s just making shit up, right?  Froomie’s helmet is of a piece with the rest of his ghastly gaunt ungainly look.  It completes the insect look.

BMC has the fastest intermediate split, but only by two seconds over Movistar.  I’m not sure that heralds an awesome ride but of course it’s hard to predict these things.

Saxo-Tinkoff isn’t looking all that tight.

But then neither is BMC, actually.  Couple gaps there between riders.  I guess you can’t tell from this photo, but one rider is sitting on the back, unable to move up through the line.  At least he’s communicating well to the others about it.

See that thingy sticking out from the last dude’s saddle?  That’s a GPS device, to make all the split times more precise.  Every racer has one for every stage, just to further remove guesswork from the armchair generals’ over-precise operations.  It’s also how they can put up that little speedometer graphic you see in the photo there.  I’d like to see the big data from Stage 4, when Tony Martin overcame a mechanical problem and soloed to victory on his teammate’s bike.

Team BMC has the fastest split now with Sky through the first intermediate check, but it’s by a fraction of a second! 

Weird ... Tinkoff-Saxo has only seven guys in their group.  I thought they had nine going in ... maybe not, or maybe they accidently shelled a couple dudes.

I have to say, Sky looks pretty good.  All nicely lined out, no gaps, and totally aero.

BMC is at the second intermediate point and now leads Movistar by 3 seconds.  That’s not a ton, considering Movistar isn’t the team they’re most worried about.  I’m thinking mainly about a yellow jersey for Tejay, of course; even a 30-second deficit wouldn’t hurt Sky too much since Froomie, when he’s properly lubed (i.e., on any day of the season), can take that kind of time in just a few kilometers on the right mountain ... and there are so many brutal mountains ahead.

Tinkoff-Saxo are looking okay, other than their uniforms, which are so bizarre ... they’re made to look like they’re spattered with mud, evidently.  I just don’t get that.

Uh oh ... BMC is somehow down to six riders.  Maybe it’s according to plan; maybe they’ve figured out that certain guys will slow them down on the climbs or something.

Sky are through the second intermediate check, and they’ve got the virtual lead by one second over BMC!

Tinkoff-Saxo are over the line and have lost about 25 seconds for Contador.  Not great, but not a complete disaster.  The bigger issue for Contador is if he tired himself out too much in the Giro.  I’m surprised he even raced it, frankly.

BMC has gapped their sixth rider!  Okay, he’s back up ... they’re going so fast, the slipstream must be really long.  They’re on the penultimate climb and riding cohesively.  But what’s this?  They’re actually down to five guys, and Sky down to six.  I think it’s because we’re 8 days into this race that teams are breaking up so much.  A TTT earlier in the Tour probably wouldn’t feature so many breakdowns.

BMC are now on the finishing climb and they’re clearly suffering.  Out of the saddle now, going for the line!  They’re trembling all over, so the camera can’t properly focus on them.  (No they aren’t.)

They’ve got the fastest provisional time, but I have a feeling Sky could win this.  No yellow for Tejay in any case, as I pessimistically predicted.  You never know, though ... maybe Sky will fall apart, like they did in the Dauphiné.

Sky has 1 km to go.  They’ve got two minutes to get to the finish, which might be tricky only because of the finishing climb.  Geraint Thomas is hammering on the front and has been for a fair bit now.  Now Froome takes it up.  Nicolas Roche is dying on the back of the line.  They’re having to regroup a bit here and Roche is back on.  Froome is out of the saddle, looking like Ichabod Crane.

Check it out!  BMC has managed to win this thing!  Sky got second, by one second!  Both teams beat Tinkoff-Saxo, also as I predicted.  Also, Tejay has moved from third into second on the GC, also as I predicted.  As it turns out, all of my predictions were spot-on.  How do you like that, Mom?