Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de Suisse

AP Photo/Keystone/Karl Mathis

The inaugural Velominati Super Prestige makes an unscheduled stop this week at the Tour de Suisse.  Originally left off the VSP roster, it was decided among the Keepers that the ‘fourth Grand Tour’ is indeed worthy of inclusion in our humble tipping competition. As one of the final hit-outs for many Tour de France contenders, the Swiss race shows who might be ready to step up in July, who’s needing to pull their finger out, and who might be targeting this race as a worthy addition to their palmares.  With a couple of  TT’s, stages that could go to the sprinters or a daring breakaway, and some of the most picturesque mountain passes in Europe, it has something for everyone, and anyone could win.

Can Motorcus find an ‘extra gear’ and back up his 09 victory?  Will the EgoTesticle show signs of his old self on the bike, or just behave like his old self off it?  And are the Brothers Grimpeur finally going to do something, anything?

Let us know your thoughts, and make your picks to pick up a sweet Obey The Rules bumper sticker, in the posts section on this page.  For a full rundown on the competition scoring etc, visit our VSP Schedule, Rules and Results page.

Good luck!

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239 Replies to “Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de Suisse”

  1. good point david
    velonews reports: Mark Cavendish (HTC-Columbia) is being penalized and fined for causing a crash near the finish of the fourth stage of the Tour of Switzerland on Tuesday.

    Cavendish is being sanctioned 25 points in the sprinter competition and 30 seconds on the general classification. He also is being fined 200 Swiss francs.

    Cavendish appeared to change his line in the sprint, veering into Cervelo’s Heinrich Haussler, causing a crash that brought down a dozen riders. Heinrich’s team announced later that he was leaving the race due to a deep cut on his arm.

    “I didn’t see Cavendish coming,” Haussler said in a team statement. “He drove into my wheel and before I knew it, I went down and was lying on the ground. I could have won the stage today.”

    *note* Souleur would have asked, ‘piss no you didn’t see him, you had your head down’….but then I am no reporter either

    I would just keep my mouth shut, it was an accident and either one coulda been blamed

  2. @Jarvis
    Geez: and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’d missed Oscarito””thanks. Boonen, too, deserves some credit. He had no chance to avoid the pileup, but he did an impressive job of slowing the bike down fast before he hit Cav.

    Haussler to hospital as a precaution and has abandoned. Arnaud Coyot likely broken hip. Boonen fell on his bad knee, but say he’ll be okay.

    Cav penalized 30 seconds for “irregular sprinting.” It’s all academic, but I can’t help feeling that Ciolek forced MC-Douche (as the kids would call him””or just C-Douche, or C-Diddy) to jump earlier than he would have liked. Not sure he would have been able to sustain that pace to the line.

  3. She was ugly from the front
    She was ugly from the front
    She was ugly from the front
    And I said ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly

    – Lyle Lovett

    ’nuff said.

  4. @Souleur
    Yours came in after I basically parroted your intel. Second time that Cav is penalized for cutting off a Cervelo rider in under a year.

  5. @Jarvis

    Would it have happened if they were on traditional/old-school 32-hole rims?

    Makes me lonely for the 1994 Champs sprint when Abdujackingoff went into the barriers.

  6. Fuck me the anti-Cavendish feeling is strong here and in the race jury. Not the tidiest sprint ever but full-of-shit Haussler is going to have to do some back-tracking once he sees the video. He had a great year in ’09 and this year has turned into a complete twat.

    Oh and Cav didn’t veer off his line, he went perfectly straight, just diagonally compared to the others…

  7. @Geof
    Now are getting somewhere, thank you, well played. Some Toshiro Mifune, some Lyle Lovett, this place is starting to get some real class.

    I’m not blaming anyone in this sprint but I’m glad HH is taking on C Douche. I like HH. Where is my man Thor in all this?

    @frank
    Abdujackingoff! He f’ed that up. I think he rode himself into that barrier then had to crawl across the line…Hardman(spoken in a Jon Stewart falsetto)

  8. @john @frank
    don’t see his wheel bending though, probably a good job as well. If Abdu’s wheel had folded like Cav’s did today he would have probably have been catapaulted striaght down into the ground and ripped the lower part of his face off.

  9. @Jarvis
    That picture really hurts me. My god, look how flat that wheel is. He won’t be riding home on that one, that’s for sure.

    It has to be said that Cav ran into Haussler, not the other way around. See the sequence below; yellow line is the Hero of our Story, Haussler, and Red is the Big Bad Wolf, Cav:

    If anything, Haussler is moving away from Cav. End of.

  10. Wait a tick! Did Gaysink manage to stay upright in a crash??? Doth mine eyes deceive me?

    There’s irony for ya.

  11. @frank
    Irony, indeed! It should be noted, however, that he finished 37th, so this shot is some five minutes after the initial crash. Reports also indicate that Gesink bounced off the side barrier and crashed three frames later…

  12. Replace Rogers with Martin:
    1. Martin
    2. Kreuziger
    3. COTHO
    4. Frank Schleck
    5. Kloden

    Re: Haussler, great tweet from Our Robbie McEwen yesterday, “i asked H.Haussler loaded q tday,”did ur team win or lose last nite?” he said, “f*$kn lost”. So he is definitely aussie”

  13. @frank
    Actually it looks like he’s in danger of snapping his skinny ankle on that big ol’ wheel lying directly in front of his unclipped foot. Are we sure he survived the impact unscathed?

    Equally as remarkably, Twistin Banged and Felled also appears to have made it through another day.

  14. Geof :
    Equally as remarkably, Twistin Banged and Felled also appears to have made it through another day.

    Almost wish he had: he’s twenty minutes off the pace already and I wouldn’t mind switching in somebody else. But that’s dirty pool to wish someone harm, so I retract.

  15. @brett
    What actually troubles me about this crash is that C-Diddy’s wheel seemed to buckle BEFORE he got tagged by Hein-Haus. Am I right? If so, it doesn’t say much for those deep dish carbon rims that they buckle just because, what, you turn a bit sharpish and get a bit over to one side…

  16. PS Cav is a muppet who loves to ‘squeeze’ the sprinters line. IMO bloody dangerous

  17. @Geof
    nah – no way – he leans to drive his right leg, in doing so angles his deep dishes under HH’s wheel at the very moment he is leaning opposite direction, as they both then swing through the vertical axis with power on opposing, leg HH’s wheel ‘rides over’ the muppet’s. This motion is assisted by the rotational direction of each others tyres (much same way that open wheel race cars ‘launch’ the behind car if they get a wheel clash)

  18. @david
    Yeah, seen that before. Love the way the dog just wonders off as if to say “What? Me?” Brett – those Zipps may have to gather a bit more dust …

  19. @david
    That Steegemans sprint is the coolest thing ever. I love that they switched to that side-view camera. You can see the power in his stroke so clearly.

    He was obviously peaking.

  20. Great photo. Love the guy from the Sopranos there keeping things under control.

  21. @Guy Absolutely a serious Rule #5 infraction. “”We just want to send a message to Cavendish to ask him for more respect,” said AG2R directeur sportif Gilles Mas to AFP.” Giles, harden the fuck up.

  22. Boy it is really difficult for me to understand the animosity against Cavendish. In comments on blogs or news sites, lots of folks saying, “Fuck you, Cavendish”, blah, blah, blah. As if he did it intentionally, which clearly he did not. He’s a pretty clean sprinter. I understand the Velominati’s disdain for his salutes lacking all style. (Although, I liked the telephone call salute, once, just after picking up HTC as a sponser.) It can’t be the fact that he says publicly he’s the fastest sprinter from 200 meters, can it? The dispute he’s had with Griepel? The two-fingered salute to the media? All of these things together? I’m missing something.

    Maybe refined sensibilities, or something.

  23. @david
    He didn’t do it intentionally, it was a racing accident. He was at fault, though.

    It’s also definitely not his “I’m the fastest man in the world” attitude because (a) he is and (b) if that was the case, I’d have to hate Cipo and I loved that dude.

    I think it’s his cavalier attitude and his apparent disrespect for the history and culture of the sport (Wiggo seems to border on this, too, btw). The premeditated salutes are disrespectful to the other sprinters, his sprinting in the stage of last year’s Tour when he was regulated was a problem, too – not to mention the fact that he never takes responsibility for his mistakes. If he’d come out after the stage in the Tour and said, “I balled that one up, fellas. Sorry about that.” it would be one thing, but instead he calls it the worst sporting decision by the judges in history. And in this case, if he apologized for jeopardizing his colleague’s livelihood by potentially ruining their seasons, it might be another matter.

    For me, it all kinda adds up into a pattern that makes him seem like a poor sport and that makes it hard to respect him.

  24. There is a difference between being the best and being the best and a dickhead.

    Bystanders claimed that Cavendish responded to criticism from riders after Tuesday’s incident by spitting on the ground on front of them.

    Humility covers over a multitude of sins.

  25. @Frank – a perfect assessment of Cavendish and why I don’t care for him. Cipo was cocky, and knew he was a badass, but had class, style, and charisma. Cav is fast but also a twatwaffle.

  26. @frank @Cyclops @bikenerd. Thanks. I seriously was asking for some explanation of the animosity, not making any points. But, I still don’t get it. Some sportsmanship gene I don’t have, apparently.

    One thing that catches my attention is the claim that premediated salutes show disrespect for his competitors. Maybe. But just because he’s assuming beforehand he will win, and showing it? Hardly a grave breach. And, none of his salutes mocked his competitors, like Cipollini’s over-the-shoulder-Good-Lord-how-come-all-of-you-are-so-far-behind-me-look salute. / Admitting mistakes? The relegation last year was really iffy. He was right to be pissed, given the Green jersey was at issue. Iffy calls shouldn’t be made when big things are at stake. And, you know my assessment this TdS stage. Yeah, he violated the UCI rule, and should have been sanctioned, but, the crash shouldn’t have happened because Haussler was just out of control. So, I don’t see he has any reason to admit any mistake other than the fact that he violated the UCI rule, which he has already done. And, then, if French teams want to hold up the race like big pussies, Cavendish is right to respond with contempt. Silliness like that deserves a contemptuous response./ No humility? The demand for public displays of humility are to appease people with psychological problems, or else are ways other players try to gain power in the public realm. /Does not show respect for the history and traditions of the sport? I don’t know. I’d be willing to listen to more on that. But, I do recall M Cav saying before the 08′ TdF that he really wanted to finish the race. He didn’t think it was fair to the organizers or the fans that he would start with the intention of quitting when the race got to the mountains. Note how different that attitude is to Cipollini’s. In fact, aside from dopers, one could argue that no one has shown more lack of respect for the TdF than Cipollini. And, M Cav has worked hard to get himself into a position where he can finish the race and compete for the Green Jersey. I doubt Cipo gave it half as much effort.

    I am now as big a fan of Cavendish as ever. I used to not much care for him, because his sprinting lacked the elegance that Cipollini’s had. But, now I’m going to take up his cause. I’m really starting to like his defiance in the face of the unbalanced attacks on him. Instead of a floppy, flacid public persona designed to appease the masses, young Mark has his heart on his sleeve and is going to tell it like he sees it. Perhaps, I’m wrong, but I would suggest some mediation on Rule #5 may be needed for those who respond so negatively to him.

  27. How ’bout some killer Rule #9 action out there today, huh? Man, I just love a good day of racing in the rain.

    And, a fellow tall feller, too, to boot. Nice.

  28. The demand for public displays of humility are to appease people with psychological problems

    You obviously aren’t married. :)

    “A gentle answer turns away wrath.”

  29. @david
    with you all the way on Cav. The answer you are looking for though is that Cav is easy to hate. At times he makes it look too easy and that is why people don’t like him and probably because he didn’t take much time to announce that he was the best of the best and stomp on all the established spinters. There is a huge amount of hypocrisy surrounding the criticism of Cav.

    Let’s have a look at some of these established sprinters:
    McEwen: long in the tooth, but like Cav is now, when he was younger was considered brash, arrogant (remember those one-handed wheelies?), reckless/dangerous (remember that headbutt?)
    Steegmans: Beat Boonen once, when he was his lead-out. Done nothing since other than get blown off his bike by a hurricane
    Boonen: Not as fast as he was, can’t really crticise other people after his last couple of years. Maybe not wayward riding, but wayward living can be just as reckless
    And that it’s, run out of sprinters.

    It’s a shame for Haussler as he was clearly back to form, but he should HTFU and accept that accidents happen, besides it’ll give him more time at the bar. It’s not like Cav took him across the road and into the barriers, the sprint was a lot more wild as they came around Ciolek

    @frank
    your graphic – once around Ciolek, each rider is one a line that will eventually cross the other.
    frame 3 – both with outside cranks down
    frame 4 – as the inside cranks come down bodies lean with it and they come together.
    also, forgetting that Cipo used to taunt other sprinters for losing by telling they knew nothing about tactics and had he bothered to race he would have whipped their arses. Hardly respectful, but hey, this is sprinting. Sprinters are (generally) alpha-males and with that comes a certain arrogance for without it they wouldn’t be able to get a place at the top-table.

  30. @Guy: that is a serious ticket!!!
    I would only be so lucky, but maybe one day
    btw: 1969 was a great year!

  31. It’s probably inaccurate to call Boonen and Hushovd all-out sprinters. They’re fast as hell, but they’re more all-rounders and Classics threats. Which makes it easier to appreciate them. Can’t help thinking that the Green Jersey race last year wouldn’t have been close if Hushovd had had the HTC Columbia lead-out train. C-Douche is faster””no question””but he gets an awful lot of help.

    For what it’s worth, I’m a big fan of panache and irreverence, but C-Diddy is flat-out arrogant. He’s a bit impish, and good for a laugh, but I think Frank’s point about him not appreciating his sport’s history and heritage is a good one; it hurts his character. Spitting in front of opponents (whether they need to HTFU or not): classy!

  32. @souleur cheers for the comments. Looking forward to it in an odd way. We’re going up to the Rapha Cycle Club in London tomorrow for their etape evening. Should be fun. Good stage of the TdS to watch before as well.

    WRT to Cav. I love him. He’s proper world class and he’s a Brit. I don’t buy all the Italian style bollocks. And the teams that protested today need to suck it up. They demonstrated why France hasn’t had a Tour winner for such a long time.

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