Author Topic: Tour de France 2018  (Read 133832 times)

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1050 on: 31 July, 2018, 12:35:27 am »
I read in the Graun (so it must be true) that Geraint Thomas was at the same secondary school as Gareth Bale and Sam Warburton.
And Luke Rowe.
Luke Rowe went to Llanishen High School (as did Elinor Barker).
Thomas, Bale, and Warburton went to Whitchurch High School

Basil

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1051 on: 31 July, 2018, 07:45:07 am »
Oh.  Ok sorry, I'm not sure where I picked up that piece of mis-information.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Beardy

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1052 on: 31 July, 2018, 07:55:41 am »
The poor chap is having to do the media circus rounds at the moment. He was on the BBC last night looking knackered and somewhat bemused and he’s just been on radio 4 sounding somewhat bemused.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1053 on: 31 July, 2018, 09:08:19 am »
I read an article somewhere saying that the plan was for G to arrive at the TdF in top form. Remember that there was a point where Froome wasn't going to be allowed to ride the Tour at all, and given that Froome wanted to ride the Giro, he might have come out of that too tired to do the Tour (unlikely) or he might have been injured during the Giro (these things do happen). So it makes sense that Sky had G ready and waiting with a totally Tour-targeted build-up.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1054 on: 31 July, 2018, 09:29:00 pm »
What next for Geraint Thomas, I wonder?
I hadn't forgotten about the post-tour criteriums, just assumed GT wouldn't be interested.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20180731_03642259

I wonder what could have induced him to go to Surhuisterveen before returning to Wales. The quality of the racing no doubt.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1055 on: 01 August, 2018, 09:10:39 am »
What next for Geraint Thomas, I wonder?
I hadn't forgotten about the post-tour criteriums, just assumed GT wouldn't be interested.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20180731_03642259

I wonder what could have induced him to go to Surhuisterveen before returning to Wales. The quality of the racing no doubt.

ICBW but I thought it was a contractual obligation written into the TdF entry terms to attend certain post-tour crits for the jersey winners.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1056 on: 01 August, 2018, 09:26:04 am »
What next for Geraint Thomas, I wonder?
I hadn't forgotten about the post-tour criteriums, just assumed GT wouldn't be interested.

https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20180731_03642259

I wonder what could have induced him to go to Surhuisterveen before returning to Wales. The quality of the racing no doubt.
Those post-Tour crits are not races, but a staged kind of cycling promotion. The winner is known beforehand, yet every 'hero' of the past Tour de France or Giro d'Italia gets to ride at the front for a while as well, in a solo escape, just to harvest the applause of the public.

Riders get paid, at lot, ride two hours at a good training pace, and get cheered at. In the olden days the pros easily earned a year's wages in the fortnight after the Tour. These days, with their basic salaries much higher, there is no real need to ride those crits. Except that it is ancient tradition to do so as well.

citoyen

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1057 on: 01 August, 2018, 09:49:15 am »
Those post-Tour crits are not races, but a staged kind of cycling promotion.

I have a feeling Nuncio knows this already and is being slightly mischievous.

Like Mornington Crescent, you're not really supposed to spoil the fun by explaining how it works.
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rob

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1058 on: 01 August, 2018, 10:02:42 am »
Bit of an aside but Kimmage's book seemed to indicate that the post-Tour crits developed a lot of the doping culture.   Riders were using amphetamines to race on but also to get them through the long drives between each race.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1059 on: 01 August, 2018, 10:20:10 am »

I have a feeling Nuncio knows this already and is being slightly mischievous.

Like Mornington Crescent, you're not really supposed to spoil the fun by explaining how it works.
Forums are read by more than one reader...

But those post-Tour criteria are dying out. Surhuisterveen used to be 10 or 11 days after the last stage in Paris. Nowadays it is on the second day after the finish, because there came room for that in the schedule.

So every year I am tempted to cycle the 10 mile to Surhuisterveen and watch for awhile, and endure the accompanying village fête as well, because it will probably be all gone during my life time. Getting too old for blind admiration though, let alone crowds.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1060 on: 01 August, 2018, 10:40:45 am »
Those post-Tour crits are not races, but a staged kind of cycling promotion.

I have a feeling Nuncio knows this already and is being slightly mischievous.

Like Mornington Crescent, you're not really supposed to spoil the fun by explaining how it works.

You're right, but in restrospect a  ;) wouldn't have been out of place.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1061 on: 01 August, 2018, 01:17:01 pm »
Bit of an aside but Kimmage's book seemed to indicate that the post-Tour crits developed a lot of the doping culture.   Riders were using amphetamines to race on but also to get them through the long drives between each race.

Bernard Hinault springs to mind 😉

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1062 on: 08 August, 2018, 05:11:48 pm »
Moscon banned for five weeks. Wonder if he is not supposed to be racing during this period?

orraloon

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1063 on: 08 August, 2018, 07:07:13 pm »
And what was Bouhanni's sentence for actually hitting another rider Jack Bauer during a Tour stage again?

TheLurker

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1064 on: 08 August, 2018, 07:10:53 pm »
Moscon.  Not good enough.  Don't care how good a rider he is; he's a troublemaker and I think Sky will have cause to regret it.
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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1065 on: 08 August, 2018, 07:22:27 pm »
And what was Bouhanni's sentence for actually hitting another rider Jack Bauer during a Tour stage again?

Fined 200 Swiss Francs (£156 at current exchange rates) and a 60s time penalty.

Word is that Monsieur Chauvin put in one hell of a character reference in Bouhanni's defence.  ;)
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

orraloon

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1066 on: 08 August, 2018, 07:55:51 pm »
'Course, Bouhanni didn't / doesn't have a troubled historical record or anything like that, not like one of them Sky riders.

Mr Larrington

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1067 on: 09 August, 2018, 10:34:58 am »
And what was Bouhanni's sentence for actually hitting another rider Jack Bauer during a Tour stage again?

Fined 200 Swiss Francs (£156 at current exchange rates) and a 60s time penalty.

Word is that Monsieur Chauvin put in one hell of a character reference in Bouhanni's defence.  ;)

And Jack Bauer, unlike Élie "Twisted Firestarter" Gesbert, is Not French :demon:
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woollypigs

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1068 on: 09 August, 2018, 08:05:36 pm »
Little G is in Cardiff today, have a look at that crowd ... brilliant !

https://twitter.com/TeamSky/status/1027582788076224512
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Basil

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1069 on: 09 August, 2018, 08:55:03 pm »
I was also in Cardiff today.  Stayed away from that though. I don't cope well with crowds.
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1070 on: 16 August, 2018, 04:48:45 pm »
Thomas and Froome will be riding the Tour of Britain:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/aug/16/team-sky-geraint-thomas-chris-froome-ride-tour-of-britain
(this should probably go in a ToB/Vuelta thread but there isn't one).

Pingu

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Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1071 on: 20 August, 2018, 08:46:29 pm »
Thomas and Froome will be riding the Tour of Britain:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/aug/16/team-sky-geraint-thomas-chris-froome-ride-tour-of-britain
(this should probably go in a ToB/Vuelta thread but there isn't one).

Perhaps some forumite could make them? :)

Re: Tour de France 2018
« Reply #1072 on: 20 August, 2018, 08:52:34 pm »
Here's one I made earlier for random non-Grand Tour stuff:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=84613.0

And trekker12 made last year's Vuelta thread, which has no year in the title, so it could serve for this year's edition and thereafter:

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=104815.0

HTH
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche