Velominati Super Prestige: Paris-Roubaix 2015
No one can be happy about Sunday’s weather forecast (except for 95% of the riders and support staff). I am not. Now every Norwegian non-cobble riding specialists has a chance of winning this. I was hoping for day that would separate the Rule #9 riders from everybody else. Bah!
We can take some comfort in knowing our Keepers Tour brothers will be at three different cobbled secteurs, hydrating and yelling with the the locals. Keep an eye out for the V-flag.
There is not much to say about Paris-Roubaix that has not been said. It is the race of the season.
Consult your god. Go with your heart or your head on this. Enter your choices, prepare your frites deep-fryer, the beer selection, assure your family that drinking and swearing on a Sunday morning is part of your religion.
The VSP page has the details and in case anyone forgot, the end of the season could get you here:
- First place– A custom Jaegher frame, handbuilt in Belgium.
- Second Place– A Café Roubaix/Velominati wheelset, Chris King hubs, hand built by professional wheelsmith and Velominati Dan Richter.
- Third Place– A Velominati kit: jersey, bibs, and cap.
[vsp_results id=”32609″/]
And now, railway boomgates…
Wiggo’s on the move. Come on!
Result:
1. Degenkolb
2. Van Avermaet
3. Stybar
4. Boom
5. Elmiger
Chapeau Degenkolb. Great ride.
Motion to brand De Vlaeminck a Judas. Changed my Dege, V’bergh, Stybar top three on his advice.
Hmm they’re now saying Stybar 2nd, GVA 3rd.
Anyway great ride by Degenkolb, made it for himself bridging across when no-one else wanted to do it, then he was always favourite to win it in the velodrome. MSR and P-R double, chapeau to you sir.
Degenkolb and Stybar bridging to VA then sprinting it out. Giant rode really well – had Degenkolb in the right place throughout and even had some help to launch him to the winning move. I had envisioned VA having one last attack in him and Stybar going with him and pipping him at the post but in the end I ha.d top three none in position. Degenkolb showing Sagan how it’s done – ask ’em to work and when they don’t just take them to the line then out sprint them.
This valuable, and painful lesson has taught me that Rule #6 also applies to the VSP. Never change your initial picks, even if one of the prophets compels you to.
Here’s a question – how did a guy who made it publicly known he was aiming to win the race (Wiggins) end up getting well beaten by his own domestique (Luke Rowe)?
Rowe actually used to ride for my own club, so as pleased for him as I am gutted for Geraint Thomas. But Wiggins? Must try harder.
Last guy to do MSR/PR double? Sean Kelly in 1986. Awesome race, great result.
@RobSandy
Because Wiggins tried to win, and Rowe didn’t?
One has to wonder how Zdenek would have done if he hadn’t spent most of the week at the dentist…Little Shop of Horrors fears are not good ahead of P-R. And fuckinhell, for a cyclocrosser, guy has some pretty amazing results in the P-Rs he’s raced.
As for Greg VA, he looked truly pissed on the podium. Baby formula aside, the guy is there in every race that matters. Doesn’t win enough, but damn he’s always there.
@Gianni
Guy liner is what happens when men wear eye liner. I am trying to find the video, but I remember seeing him in an interview wearing a leather jacket, scarf, and (I am fairly sure) eye liner. Negative style points for funny hats on the podium and guy liner.
@AJ
Agreed, why on God’s green earth anyone would choose a baseball cap over a casquette is beyond me. Stybar looked the absolute business on the podium. However I’ll forgive Degs for riding an awesome race and taking the initiative where others wouldn’t have. Sean Kelly was pretty emotional on Eurosport as Degs has made no secret of the fact that he inspired him as a boy. One two for me in the VSP, very happy bunny!
Mutha fucka, Zero points. Damn you @Dan Collins and whatever god you are in with.
When VDB went off by hissefff I thought there was a chance.
@AJ
Now I’ve forgotten who was wearing guy liner. Who in their right mind does that, unless a quality cross dresser.
@Geraint
Basically this, Wiggo rode a great race & had a crack where he had a chance to pull it off (10k to go, on a slightly lesser set of cobbles). Rowe could just do what he wanted without anyone paying him attention.
Fucking cracker of a race. Dare I ask it, is the racing a little better without Fabs & Tommeke?
@LA Dave
Ahhhh, I’d forgotten about the Beaker nickname. Now I’m kind of sad we won’t have Beaker to kick around anymore. The VSP generator seemed to remember it. Oh fuck, the generator is smarter than I am.
Seems I was denied a podium place by prioritising family needs on Saturday over entering my picks, some Rule #11 revision is required methinks.
Degenkolb’s race was awesome… more to the awesome german guys thread. The way he crossed the gap and didn’t panic when the other riders wouldn’t help in the work catching up was amazing. Chapeau.
@1860
I think Stybar bridging to the front group did Degenkolb a favour, because then the other Etixx QS rider had to work. I wonder if Etixx blew another chance for a win there – they looked so strong in the closing stages.
@Mikael Liddy
Who gives a monkeys what the actual result was when they both looked this awesome at the finish.
Great race. Pity the riders chose to ignore my VSP picks. I’m already screwed and it’s only April!
Re the train crossing. In this day of incredible communications technology, is it not possible to communicate with the damn train driver and get things sorted so we don’t have the level crossing farces happening every few years? That being said, I got railroaded yesterday but I was in no hurry . . .
@Chris
Brilliant! – Not even Beaker looked this much like Beaker – most awesomest picture evr of Wiggo
@Dr C
All good points.
Just found out I competed against Luke Rowe’s dad in a time trial last month.
That is all.
@wiscot
One of my favourite routes crosses the East Coast Main Line twice. It’s a rare day when I don’t get stopped at least one of them and somehow the timing seems to work out that I have to wait for three trains to go past each time.
@Chris
Being railroaded can be a pain (hell, I used to live in Terre Haute, IN) and had to cross multiple sets of tracks to get anywhere. The trains ran right through the center of town and I lived between two sets of tracks. Mind you, railroad stoppage time is always a good time to practice the art of casually deliberate.
@wiscot
Indeed, but one of my two crossings is out in the Fens and is Not Very Sheltered At All. I prefer to spend my time feeding my face and trying not to either be blown away by a Siberian gale or go hypothermic.
@Chris
I hear you. I did 130 kms yesterday and the SW wind gusts were up to 50kms an hour. My route meant the last 35kms were into the headwind. I used every bit of local know-how to keep sheltered on the way home, but there were a few sections where it was impossible to do anything but suffer. Mind you, it was warm, so there was at least that to be thankful for!
@wiscot
I was planning on doing a similar distance yesterday on the Rapha Hell of the North ride out of London which looked like a cracking day out. Grave sections and a midway feed/coffee stop in the outdoor velodrome at Welwyn Garden City.
Unfortunately a momentary lapse of reason and a healthy dose of ineptitude whilst changing pads and discs on my car left one of the brake piston lying in the ground in a puddle of brake fluid.
The kids ran and hid as I rather noisily contemplated the loss of my Sunday ride.
Ooo, I got 9 points. Looks like I’m in this thing (finally, after a Delgado Spring). Sad for Sir Brad but that is definitely a classic photo.
But that man has some skinny, skinny calves.
@RobSandy
I’d love to know what’s going through Beaker’s head.
@Chris
Grave sections? They were going to ride through cemeteries? (Forbidden combo of semi-colon, dash and bracket here)
I was pretty disgusted with the commissaires to be honest. Spartacus tweeted the race rules around level crossings and it is clear they should have all be DQ’d, this just now means that next time they will go for it again. Does someone have to get killed for them to apply this rule? I can forgive the first few riders who could not stop safely but ultimately most of them just went for it.
I also wonder why the police were not managing this better, the train is a TGV they are fast, reliable to the second and police radio with the driver could have foreseen the possibility and it could have been stopped.
And we all know if this had been better managed the final result would have been 1. Greg Van Av 2. Kristoff 3. Gee (he would not have fallen if he was less worried about the crossing hazard) 4. Saggy (his brake levers would never have been knocked by the descending barrier) and Tricky Nicky……
Exactly as I predicted! I feel robbed!!
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/no-sanction-for-riders-who-broke-level-crossing-at-paris-roubaix
And the guy most likely to have been pasted to the front of the train…was in the French champs tricolore! Talk about a national tragedy!
@wiscot
Hell yes! Talk about the perfect opportunity to work on CD art! And the line of drivers behind you can’t even get pissed at the fruity dude in Lycra because they’re too busy being pissed at that archaic machine holding them up.
Lots of trains around my town/city. I really enjoy seeing them go by, feeling the ground rumble, thinking back to when trains ruled and smartphones didn’t exist, oh the fleeting joy!
@Ron
Merckx know I don’t miss living in Terre Hautre, But I do get a bit wistful at the memory of the train horns at 2am off in the distance. There’s also something great about the rhythmic clack -clack, clack-clack of the wheels on the track.
When I got stopped at the crossing yesterday I was the first in line. I took position right in the middle of the lane and carefully picked my way over the tracks before moving over to the right.
@wiscot
“Paris-Roubaix is so much fun. I wonder if I can re-negotiate my contract so that I can come back and do this every year.”
@wiscot
According to inrng.com, they do try and tweak the start time of the race so that they don’t clash with the trains. But apparently the tailwind meant that they got to the crossing sooner than anticipated.
And every single rider who had to dodge around the barriers should get turfed out. I had another look at the video today and it looks like there was about 10 seconds between the last cyclist across and the arrival of train. And then the riders start crossing again before the barriers start coming up. What if there was another train coming?
Numpties, each and every one of them.
1970
@LeoTea
yeah they were about 15 minutes ahead of even the fastest predicted time, which would explain why they got caught out by the train. Official word is that the UCI commisaires were too far back to pick the numbers of the riders that should be dq’d
PR as seen by the Grubers…
http://stories.strava.com/roubaix
@Mikael Liddy
Epic and awesome!
How hard is it to prepare for it. Every couple of years the race gets stopped and there’s a controversy about people ducking the barriers. Warn the riders, set up a camera, review footage if people jump the gate and DQ the riders involved. Otherwise one year all the headlines will be about a rider ducking the barrier and getting killed.
I’m surprised to be hearing about the boom gate thing from people who aren’t into cycling, but know I pay attention, so (incorrectly) presume I care about their incredulous judgement of the peloton. It must have got a bit of a run in the mainstream media.
I always thought the rule was that you can’t cross once the boom gate is down. You wouldn’t want the riders to slam on the breaks and cause a pile up with riders spilling onto the tracks – I’ve never riden towards one of these crossing at speed so I can’t say as to whether there’s flashing lights providing sufficient warning before the boom gates start descending – but I think it’s safe to say having riders try to stop too quickly would be worse than riders squeezing through safely as the gates descend, hence the current wording (which I think is supposed to be in the technical info riders are provided before each event rather than in some UCI rule – but I might be wrong about that). I haven’t watched it back but from memory there was only one or two guys that went around once it was down, they should be easy to identify on review and should have been dq’d – the bulk went through as it was coming down and the way the rule is worded and to my mind, they should not be dq’d.
@Roobar
Well the thing is, they had prepared for it, but the pace that race was run at is what caused the problem.
Trains are a big worry for race director Gouvenou and his team at ASO. They spend hours poring over rail timetables especially as the race crosses the same railway line five times within a short space. The best plans can go wrong and the tailwind sped the race way ahead of schedule exposing it to the risk of a level crossing closure. Even a ten minute delay to the start to compensate for the tailwind wasn’t enough.
Source: http://inrng.com/2015/04/the-moment-the-race-was-won-paris-roubaix-2015/
@dyalander
If the crossings are anything like the ones here in the UK then there is plenty of warning from flashing lights that the barriers are about to come down. After all, they are designed to deal with cars etc travelling significantly quicker than even a wind assisted peloton.
Whilst the organisers can claim that they’ve done everything they can to avoid this, it would seem to me that there are a few things they could do. First up they could contribute towards upgrading the barriers so that they shut off both lanes on either side (the majority, if not all barriers in the UK have been upgraded because too many people were getting killed when they decided to drive around the barriers). Not only would that prevent riders crossing after the barriers came down but it would contribute to safety generally and be a big PR win. Failing that, a couple of policemen with a crowd barrier they could move into place as the barrier came down would have a similar but cheaper effect.
I totally agree with everyone who has said that riders should be DQ’d if ID’d. Massively televised events like PR are last place we want to see cyclists disregarding the rules. It’s bad enough that the general public perceive us to spend our time running red lights and hunting down pedestrians on pavements (sidewalks for the Americans).
@Chris
I don’t think the comparative speed is the most significant factor – a peloton is far more difficult to stop than a car or a group of cars travelling in a line. Far more difficult. If the first rider hits the brakes when he sees the lights flashing there is a real chance that a pile up would ensue and riders would end up on the tracks in a far more dangerous predicament.
The gates may be similar to those in the UK, but then, they may not be. I couldn’t say. But I would expect that ,they are designed for general traffic not for a peloton in a race.
As far as the effect of watching cyclist flout rules go – I’d accept that it’ll confirm existing anti-cyclist sentiment but I don’t think it’ll create more such sentiment. I don’t think it creates a significant issue for cycling advocates or advocate groups in their work.
I don’t consider cyclists in an organised race flouting speed limits while descending to be setting a bad example – the road rules don’t apply to racing cyclists. I think this is comparable – they are choosing to flout a road rule (not a race rule – only those that crossed when the gate was down contravened the race rule and they should be dq’d) – they are putting themselves in danger in both instances. I’m fine with both on that respect. However, they are also risking others by crossing – this is something that needs to be considered and I can understand reservations on this basis – but I come back to my opinion that it’s unreasonable to think a peloton can stop in the same distance as a car and that the rule as it stands – if enforced properly is sufficiently safe.
@unversio
This one is my fave – http://stories.strava.com/roubaix#view:le99xlj5t2pm0a4ivmt5kfvkco8khuxr9lm8
What a canvas for the human spirit!