Velominati Super Prestige: Tour de France 2015

Sep Vanmarcke rides the cobbles Kelly-Style in the 2014 stage to Port du Hinault. Photo: Cycling Tips

Cobblestones make the race, I’m not ruining any fantasies telling you that. Wet cobblestones, well, those make a legend. Nibbles rose in my esteem considerably when he rode the wet cobbles as well as he rides any mountain descent or climb; that is a boy with some nerves and some mad bike handling skills.

Wet cobbles are scarier to ride that dry ones, but they aren’t really that much more difficult to ride; you’re still playing the lottery that your wheels keep pointing where your bike is trying to go. But wet stones are definitely more draining; the mud and silt you ride through make it like riding through molasses. Awesome molasses, but molasses nonetheless.

The cobbles are back this year, and hopefully so will the rain. Let us pray for rain, because last year’s stage made the race.

The Tour de France needs no introduction but the VSP prizes deserve a gentle reminder. This is a Grand Tour, people, lots of points at stake. And those points are going towards amazing prizes including a Jaegher frame and a Café Roubaix wheelset. There is plenty of time for you to Delgado this thing, too, if you wait around until the last minute. So my advice is that you avoid doing that.

Give yourself enough time to enter your picks so if something has gone amuck, you have time to hit “reload” or come back V minutes later to try again before the event closes. Remember, your procrastination in this matter will not result in our emergency to enter your picks for you. All that said, if you do encounter a problem, please be so kind as to take a screenshot and upload it because the descriptor “it didn’t work” or “hm, not working” doesn’t help us debug the problem. Also, Internet Explorer is not supported and apparently only shows one Pick Entry box, so use Chrome, Firefox, or Safari instead.

The scoring for the Grand Tours is a tad more involved than the one-day races and one-week Tours, so look the guidelines over before making your prognostications.

So get your picks in before the countdown clock goes to zero, hit the go button, and good luck.

[vsp_results id=”33262″/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

JonnyG says:

Jul 4 2015 at 6:52 am

@xyxax

@Minnesota Expat

Of course, it also looks like xyxax and dancollins are playing VSP poker. I expect to see their picks somewhere close to midnight.

Sorry to disappoint, Mr. Expat, but I don’t look at others’ picks until after making my own. Trying to decide picks based on others is a fool’s errand. The method is simple, but it doesn’t favor picking early.

Best of luck to you.

I had to get mine in earlyish this time round due to internet issues scheduled in my area. Seems we both came to almost the same conclusion. Just Froome & Contador switched.
JonnyG says:

Jul 4 2015 at 6:54 am

Froome & Nibali*
xyxax says:

Jul 4 2015 at 8:44 am

@JonnyG

I've been tempted just throw up whatever seems the best at first blush. Probably just wasting a bunch of electrons for no evident benefit. Don't have the guts though.

I did post VSP picks from Chad once, though, where internet and red-heads are equally scarce.
xyxax says:

Jul 4 2015 at 8:45 am

@ped

I do believe in the wisdom of crowds in most instances, except in this case, you know, because it's us.
JonnyG says:

Jul 4 2015 at 9:05 am

Quintana squeezed ahead of Nibali as my top pick because he's riding a Canyon. Heart over head on that one. In with a real chance of winning it obviously. Only 18s seconds down on the fastest of the other big three today though. That's a tick in the plus column for him.
ridley4033 says:

Jul 5 2015 at 2:08 pm

Fabians bike for tomorrows stage under construction
Daccordi Rider says:

Jul 5 2015 at 5:00 pm

And it's on. Moviestar still can't ride in wind. Saxo can, proving why they bought a couple of old diesels along. Froome in the right place, at the fucking front (take note Ryder, meercatting at the back is a recipe for disaster). Surprised to see Nibbles caught out. So glad they don't just do 8 sprint stages to warm everyone up any more.
girl says:

Jul 5 2015 at 5:16 pm

I seriously just took a screen shot of the standings because that is never going to happen again.
girl says:

Jul 5 2015 at 5:21 pm

And I just took one of my comment because I have a yellow jersey next to my name. (I know it is sad).
Daccordi Rider says:

Jul 5 2015 at 6:17 pm

@girl

And I just took one of my comment because I have a yellow jersey next to my name. (I know it is sad).

First Female Yellow? Kudos!