Tour de France 2024

[Beninthesortingoffice]

The Giro league code still works.

I am looking forward to it!

League Name: Mumsnet Marauders
League Code: 159285217

I can see Cav doing what Julien Bernard did during the earlier time trial: celebrating with fans as he goes round.

I wonder if he likewise will get fined for damaging the reputation of the sport?

Yep, poor old Artaud Demare being the latest casuality..poor sod had dragged himself up Beille and escaped the cut by less than a minute but didn’t manage it yesterday.

www.courrier-picard.fr/id544083/article/2024-07-19/tour-de-france-2024-arnaud-demare-hors-delai-et-elimine-deux-journees-de-la-fin

I think on at least a couple of Stages (? Beillle and ? Yesterday) the Commissars have added an extra 3% onto the time derived from the standard formula to give a bit more flex but even so…

Probably a bit late but if anyone is interested in how the cut is calculated here’s this years calculator…

velofacts.com/cx-laps/tour-de-france-2024-time-limit-calculator.html

So it’s over for another year…a bit disappointed that in all the coverage about Podj winning there’s been little to no mention that today Cav managed to break away from his team mate Ballerini and win the Lanterne Rouge by 25 seconds….I gather the first time in something like 40 years that a stage winner has also won the Lanterne on the same Tour…

Chapeau to Cav, hope he has a long and happy retirement..

#141
M. CAVENDISH
ASTANA QAZAQSTAN TEAM
90h 02' 07'', + 06h 23' 11''

(for those going ? French wiki link here:
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterne_rouge

At least this year I didn't get the lanterne rouge - although this year I'd have been in good company with Cav

"Only" 15th out of 18th

Can't believe my luck on this one. Getting Evenepoel in at the last minute made all the difference to my Velogames team, but I've also really been enjoying watching his attempts to compete with Pogajar and Vingegaard . Feel a bit bereft now there's no more tour to watch!

Well it seems that Clare Balding (Olympics commentary) doesn't follow cycling.
Or she'd know how to pronounce Evenepoel!

Yes, I watched some of the time trial live yesterday and I wasn't very impressed by the quality of the commentating. The men commentating the women's cycling did a whole section on Anna Kiesenhofer winning the Rio road race.

And the cameras switching to the architecture of Paris, beautiful as it is, at the critical part of the men's time trial was less than ideal!

Indeed. It's not the Tour de France when they've got hours of commentary to fill

I wonder if they were having probs with camera feed at certain parts of the course…Paris does indeed have some wonderful architecture but you have to really struggling if you replace live footage with an overhead of the Westfield shopping centre at Les Halles…which they did at least once.

I wondered what that was!

Ds boasted yesterday that he had raced against the two times Olympic champion

I was a mean mum (but then reminded him it was how he himself had described it previously ) and said I thought “raced against”was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration . “Saw him in the distance and when being lapped” is probably more accurate

lets see what happens in the female races

I find the cycling commentary at the Olympics quite irritating most times but I think you have to remember that the audience is quite different to most other cycling on TV. People who never watch sport watch the Olympics so I think they need to assume a much lower level of audience knowledge. I got really irritated with the amount of time that was spent explaining what, to me, is really basic stuff about time trialling, but then I remembered that I will also be watching sports that I know next to nothing about in the coming days and then I do appreciate the commentators explaining things simply.
I think when you're trying to appeal to a wider audience it's quite difficult to hit the right note all the time.

well the first velodrome event is gold to GB

Oh yes that was good. I must admit I don't understand all of the velodrome stuff - various different ways to whizz round quickly in circles. Apparently a fast track so lots of World Records happening too.

I went to the cycling in the Commonwealth Games velodrome in 2022, and seeing the speed in each race makes you admire the skill even more.

My personal vicarious claim to fame by association is that Jack Carlin's mum taught me about pinning race numbers onto cycle jerseys and the not-so-obvious things I needed to bring for ds to cycle races at the velodrome: a gazillion safety pins, scissors, micropore, antiseptic ointment.... I'm sure there was other stuff but it was a while ago now

I've put together a team for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. It pretty much consisted of random choices together with a few names I recognised.

Unfortunately, Anna Shackley, the Scot who was showing real promise and who ds used to cycle with, has had to give up the sport completely due to heart irregularities being picked up

I've done the same. Been a bit distracted with Olympics.
La Vuelta starts soon, too.

I'm in. Not very sure who's who. Looking forward to it. And the vuelta and the world's too.

Amazing first stage of the TdF Femmes today, my DD used to do all the RSRs with Pfeiffer, so she is made up for her too.

Now that TdF Femmes has started (and my random selection did ok on Day 1 ), I need to get thinking about my Vuelta selection

La Vuelta is live for the picking….
www.velogames.com/velogame/2024/

I've put together my first draft of my Vuelta time Will probably adjust it I struggled with my GC/all rounder pick as there was no one from Team Visma-Lease-a-Bike

Should we start a new thread for the Vuelta?