The last week in the Tour looks exciting. Although Froome is most likely strong, his team has been weakened. It’s hard to know if they’ve been sitting back and plan to attack tomorrow on Mont Ventoux like they did on Stage 8 or if they’ll ride more defensively and try to preserve their grip on yellow – my hunch is they will do the latter.

Froome still has a strong grip on the yellow jersey; 2:28 to Belkin’s Mollema, and just 2:45 to the cunning Contador. However, given the apparent vulnerability of Sky it is a lead that seems at least penetrable.

One thing that has been a surprise to me at least is the vulnerability of the team charged with protecting the yellow jersey. Froome doesn’t have near the team that Bradley Wiggins had last year when he wore yellow. Wiggins isn’t here to help Froome either, neither are strongmen Rigoberto Uran or  Sergio Henao who were both left off the Tour squad after competing in the Giro. Two of the riders expected to support Froome in the Alps were Edvald Boasson Hagen and  Vasil Kiryienka, both of whom are out of the Tour. There’s no doubt Froome is more exposed to attacks with the loss of those two; particularly by Saxo-Tinkoff and Contador.

If I were Froome and Sky I’d be more worried about Contador and his teammate Kreuziger then the Belkin duo.

Froome is solid physically, I don’t doubt that, but his team is not. I’m not so sure Froome is solid mentally. He can’t be as confident as he was when he strutted up the final climb of Stage 8 to take the win. Since losing his 2 teammates, being isolated in Stage 9 and losing 1:09 to his GC rivals in Stage 13, he certainly has to doubt the strength of his team.

The first sentence in my Understanding the Tour de France Guide is:  “Remember this simple fact – bike racing is a TEAM sport – not an individual sport”. We may all get another lesson in the importance of a strong team as we head to the Alps.

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Stage 15:

Tomorrow’s stage on Mont Ventoux, a long stage at 242 kilometers – the longest of this year’s Tour, should give us a glimpse of any weakness in Sky’s armor or that of any of the other GC contenders. 

Or, it may not be that subtle. We could see the race blow apart like we did yesterday.

We should be so lucky!

Don’t know about you, but I was okay with a normal day in the Tour. Yesterday’s blog post was lengthy and took more time to write than I wanted to do today. While the Tour was running live, we were recording and out riding.

Rain is predicted here for the next few days so we wanted to get a ride in while we can. Two things we never get in July are rain and mild temperatures. If by some off chance the weather-tellers are right, we’ll have both for a few days. Nice.

Stage 14 was lumpy, with several Category 4 climbs. A break of 4 riders got away early and then a group of 14 broke from the peloton to join them. Several notables were in the break; Van Garderen, Voigt, Bakelants, Talansky, Millar, Rojas – a break of 18 riders. The highest placed rider in the break was Talansky who was 13+ minutes down from the yellow jersey.

Initially, the teams that didn’t get a guy in the break – Euskaltel and Lampre – went to the front and chased. Eventually they gave up and Sky had to go to the front. Sky wasn’t interested in catching the break, and sent that message to the rest of the peloton by spreading across the road to slow the pace. Most of the other teams had riders in the break and weren’t interested in chasing either. Two more riders went off the front, Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Cunego (Lampre), but they were never able to catch the break.

Tour leader Chris Froome looked a little tired or tense or maybe tense and tired. After yesterday you can’t blame him. Froome had his team around him doing the work in a relatively easy pace conserving energy for the showdown on Ventoux tomorrow. No doubt Contador and team were doing the same as were the Belkin boys.

As the break got near the finishing city of Lyon, the cat and mouse games began. A flurry of attacks came by Burghardt, Van Garderen, Bakelants, Frenchmen Simon (who looked like he just might hang on for the win, he soloed out in front for several k) and Kadri, Albasini and Bak. Everyone but Millar and Voigt gave it a go, and they would have too but they were dropped when the attacks started.

It looked like the French would get their first win of the 100th Tour de France on the eve of Bastille Day, but they fell short. Even worse for the French, an Italian won – Omega QuickStep’s Matteo Trentin. Trentin came from nowhere going full gas and pipped Albasini, Talansky and Rojas at the line to narrowly take the win.

The last week in the Tour looks exciting. Although Froome is most likely strong, his team has been weakened. It’s hard to know if they’ve been sitting back and plan to attack tomorrow on Mont Ventoux like they did on Stage 8 or if they’ll ride more defensively and try to preserve their grip on yellow – my hunch is they will do the latter.

Froome still has a strong grip on the yellow jersey; 2:28 to Belkin’s Mollema, and just 2:45 to the cunning Contador. However, given the apparent vulnerability of Sky it is a lead that seems at least penetrable.

One thing that has been a surprise to me at least is the vulnerability of the team charged with protecting the yellow jersey. Froome doesn’t have near the team that Bradley Wiggins had last year when he wore yellow. Wiggins isn’t here to help Froome either, neither are strongmen Rigoberto Uran or  Sergio Henao who were both left off the Tour squad after competing in the Giro. Two of the riders expected to support Froome in the Alps were Edvald Boasson Hagen and  Vasil Kiryienka, both of whom are out of the Tour. There’s no doubt Froome is more exposed to attacks with the loss of those two; particularly by Saxo-Tinkoff and Contador.

If I were Froome and Sky I’d be more worried about Contador and his teammate Kreuziger then the Belkin duo.

Froome is solid physically, I don’t doubt that, but his team is not. I also get the sense Froome is worried and not nearly as confident as he was when he strutted up the final climb of Stage 8 to take the win.

The first sentence in my Understanding the Tour de France Guide is:  “Remember this simple fact – bike racing is a TEAM sport – not an individual sport”. We may all get another lesson in the importance of a strong team as we head to the Alps.

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Stage 15:

Tomorrow’s stage on Mont Ventoux, a long stage at 242 kilometers – the longest of this year’s Tour, should give us a glimpse of any weakness in Sky’s armor or that of any of the other GC contenders. 

Or, it may not be that subtle. We could see the race blow apart like we did yesterday.

We should be so lucky!

Today was to be another typical flat stage: a break, a catch, a bunch sprint finish. It was anything but. For my money, it was the best stage of racing thus far in the 100th Tour.

Something besides mountains and crashes can wreak havoc on a peloton and GC hopefuls. Crosswinds.

Crosswinds – the riders hate them, fans love them. Today’ stage 13 was a perfect example of how crosswinds can shake up the overall classification. Some guys gained time and moved up, some riders lost time and slipped down the GC.

Stage 13 started out predictably enough – the break du jour had about a 3.5 minute lead. The peloton, driven primarily at the front by the Lotto-Belisol, Omega-QuickStep and Argos-Shimano teams. The only difference between today and yesterday at this point was they weren’t allowing the break to get as far ahead.

With about 110k to go, all hell broke loose. Seriously, the race blew apart.

With Omega-QuickStep at the front, you could instantly see the wind change. OQS fell into an echelon formation and started really pushing the pace. Others didn’t react and were caught unaware and then caught out.

Alejandro Valverde had the misfortune to have a flat in no-mans land. His team car couldn’t get to him, instead Valverde and teammates changed the wheel using a tire from one of the service vehicles. Valverde had 4 teammates helping him, going full gas they only got within 12 seconds of the main group – then boom – they fell so far back they chose to sit up and wait for the 2nd group containing Marcel Kittel and a lot of BMC riders and others, it was a large group.

Kittel had several Argo-Shimano teammates and they worked with Valverde’s Movistar team to try and bridge the gap to the front group containing the yellow jersey and the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th  placed riders in the GC. They didn’t gain any time because once the Belkin guys in the front group got word of the 2nd placed Valverde being dropped they, along with OQS, drove the pace, widening the gap further.

If you’ve watched the Tour very long you’re probably aware there is a code of conduct among riders that says basically, you don’t take advantage of a rider when they’ve had a mechanical or crashed. This rule generally pertains to the higher placed GC guys, maybe the top 5 or the top 3. Valverde, as I mentioned, held 2nd place. Belkin went to the front for one reason, to move their 3rd and 6th placed guys up. Both were in the front group.

Meanwhile the front group quickly reeled in the break. The polka-dot jersey, Pierre Rolland also had a flat and even though he was back on the bike fairly quickly he never made contact with the main group again. Like Movistar, Rolland and teammates ended up in the 2nd group and working with Movistar to try and cut the gap – with absolutely no luck.

About 30k from the finish we had big fireworks in the main group. Alberto Contador and his 4 Saxo-Tinkoff teammates attacked the yellow jersey! They caught Froome completely off-guard, quickly opening up a 10 second gap. Froome tried to follow initially, then looked behind, saw no one else was going to chase and sat up. He didn’t even try to catch on to the 14 rider group, tactically he should have. He may not have been successful, but he looked vulnerable when he didn’t even attempt to go.

Froome is vulnerable now because his team is vulnerable – down to 7 riders. They showed they were vulnerable in Stage 8 and they certainly were today. Teams will attack them even more in the Alps. 😀

Besides Contador and his merry men in the lead group, there were Belkin’s 3rd and 6th placed riders, Cavendish and 2 teammates and Sagan plus a teammate. The grouped worked together very well and managed to grow their gap to just over 1 minute. Behind them in the yellow jersey group, Sky did have a couple of guys go to the front to drive, but to no avail. Oddly, Froome was near the back of this group. You would think after getting attacked and dropped by Contador he would have tried to stay near the front. Maybe he couldn’t – if true, that shows he’s vulnerable too. 😀

The race did end in a bunch sprint – a small bunch – Cavendish had a good jump on Sagan, easily taking the win.

The big news of the day? Contador, Mollema, Kreuziger, Ten Dam all gained 1:09 on Froome. Valverde and Costa lost 9:54 slipping from 2nd and 9th to 16th and 18th respectively.  The only good news for Movistar was Quintana held on to 8th place. Those were the big shakeups in the GC, but many gained or lost places in the overall classification.

What an extraordinary day of racing! With the GC contenders smelling blood with Froome and the Sky team, the final week starting Sunday on Mont Ventoux should be fun.

Stage 14: Look for the break to win tomorrow (but who knows), maybe Thomas Voeckler.

What a sprint! What a win! What a statement!

I can’t recall the last time I screamed with joy (and surprise) during a sprint finish.

Not only could Phil Liggett not believe someone was going to come from behind Mark Cavendish (after Cavendish had already begun his sprint) and beat him to the line – Cavendish couldn’t believe it either.

Just before Cavendish hit the finish line he looked over at Marcel Kittel and apparently couldn’t believe his eyes. Kittel hit the finish line perfectly throwing his bike at just the right moment to take the stage win, finishing half a wheel length ahead of Cavendish.

As Kittel crossed the line he didn’t even celebrate, Cavendish stared at him in disbelief probably not quite believing he actually got pipped at the line.

I don’t know what Cavendish was thinking, but what many of us were thinking was – Justice.

In the 2 days since Stage 10 when Cavendish knocked Kittel leadout Tom Veelers off his bike causing him to hit the pavement hard, he has had urine thrown on him, been uninvited to a Dutch race and today lost a stage he and most everyone else thought he would win.

Priceless.

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The fat lady in France, the one dressed in yellow, she’s singing.

Short of something catastrophic, Chris Froome will win the 100th Tour de France. I said it after Stage 8 and all he did in the time-trial today is add to his lead.

Froome’s closest rival Alejandro Valverde, is 3:25 down. That isn’t time Valverde is likely to make up on him. Sure, there is still a battle for the top 2-5 spots, with only seconds separating them. There is also more exciting racing and courageous individual efforts still to come, but no story of the Tour is as compelling as the race for Yellow.

Instead of that tight race for the yellow jersey we were hoping for, the biggest question floating around Tour de France fandom is whether Froome and Sky in general are clean or have their “marginal gains” – which aren’t marginal at all in reality – come as the result of performance enhancing drugs?

I’ve stated how I feel previously – to me the data – past and present – speaks for itself. People much more knowledgeable than me have written extensively about it so I’ve decided to post excerpts from a couple of excellent articles I’ve recently read.

Anti-doping expert Dr. Michael Puchowicz (@veloclinic on Twitter) wrote at Outside Online:

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“The simplest place to start the analysis is with Froome’s time itself. He took 23:14 to cover the 8.9 km distance at an average gradient of 7.46 percent. AX3 has been included in the Tour five times, three times during the doping era (2001, 2003, and 2005) and twice in the “new generation” (2010 and 2013). With this context in mind, we pulled the top 10 times from cycling archivist @ammattipyoraily‘s AX3 Domaines All-Time Top 100 List:

1. Laiseka 22:57, 2001
2. Armstrong 22:59, 2001
3. Froome 23:14, 2013
4. Ulrich 23:17, 2003
5. Zubeldia 23:19, 2003
6. Ulrich 23:22, 2001
7. Armstrong 23:24, 2003
8. Vinokourov 23:34, 2003
9. Basso 23:36, 2003
10. Armstrong 23:40, 2005

Aside for Froome’s time, every single performance in the top 10 has come from a rider during cycling’s known doping era. With the 3rd fastest ever, his time beat the top efforts from Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, and even beat two of three times for Armstrong.”

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I also recommend reading Ross Tucker’s blog “The Science of Sport” and following him (@scienceofsport) and Puchowicz (@veloclinic) on Twitter for their insights.

It is encouraging to know that there are fans and journalists studying and analyzing available data on riders in an effort to identify performances that appear to be “enhanced” i.e., “not normal”.

When organizations charged with performing the watchdog function don’t, citizens and journalists must do what they can to shine the spotlight when and where it is needed. That is precisely what Puchowicz, Tucker and others are trying to do.

Just like many of us, they love the sport of cycling and want to see it get beyond the culture of doping so prevalent in its past and to whatever extent it still is.

Tucker on Science of Sport put it more eloquently when he said:

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“Cycling is where it is, in part, because too many people who might have added value early were silenced or cast aside as being problematic, unwanted because they ‘spat in the soup’.  The result, to paraphrase a piece by Paul Kimmage, is that the denial of doping hurt cycling more than doping.  And the easiest form of denial is not to openly deny doping ("It doesn’t happen"), it’s to distract from the debate by diverting questions and pointing to others, which seems, in my opinion, to happen too often.  We all hope, even the most cynical, that the riders we watch today are clean, or at least cleaner than those of ten years ago.  The mere existence of ongoing debate is, I hope, indicative that people want change and want to believe.  Few are maliciously cynical, even if they have by now forgotten their real purpose of becoming vocally anti-doping.

And so I would hope that those who defend the sport will at least find it possible to recognize the origins of the skepticism, and why they should not be trying to silence or divert the questions and allegations, but rather encourage them and heed the solutions they may reveal.  The mistrust of cycling can be turned into constructive feedback, unless it is diverted through defensiveness.”

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