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.
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Here's how it's going to happen:
The forecast rain for the TT on Saturday and the cobbles on Tuesday.
This will be too much for Quintana; as much as I love the little mountain goat—bless him—his time-trialling really isn't up to snuff (cf. last year's Vuelta), and he will drop out of contention (or retire) on the wet cobbles.
After last year, Froome will be extra careful on the cobbles and will number-crunch brilliantly in the mountains.
Contador will try to exploit Froome's cautious approach and will crash in the wet. He won't pull out (cf. Giro; collar-bone) but will lose time that he will struggle to regain later. Additionally, Sagan will want the Green Jumper again and won't like playing second fiddle so will act out when he's needed for domestique duty.
The choices of Pinot, Van Garderen (that's a pain to type) and Bardet are based on palmarès, current form, and a lot of time on the internet researching team politics, bookies' odds*, ambitions. Also a lot of V-channeling.
And those will be the final standings on the Champs-Élysées on the 26th.
Alternatively, none of the above.
VLVV!
*This is not advised. Bets are still on for Aru, Pozzovivo, and (most hilariously) Cadel Evans.
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Ticklehimalot for Teklehaimanot?
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