Tour De France 2018

crunchman

Only problem is there is too much luck involved.  On commentary they were talking about someone who had his fifth puncture.  It's not longer a test of who is the best rider.

the_jaffa

Or was Bardet getting the punctures because he’s not such a good bike handler and causing himself issues?

littlegreenman

Brutal day. 9 seems to be Richie's unlucky number, crashing out before they even reached the pavé!

It was great to see John Degenkolb back to winning ways after what was thought to be a career ending accident, pretty emotional interview after the race.

crunchman said:

Only problem is there is too much luck involved.  On commentary they were talking about someone who had his fifth puncture.  It's not longer a test of who is the best rider.

A mechanical can end your Tour on any day though, and 5 punctures sounds like a poor choice of tyres/ tubes rather than just bad luck.

In other cycling news, Annemiek Van Vleuten stormed up the mighty Zoncalan to cement her place at the top of Giro Rosa, hard to see anyone catching her now.

duotone

Stage 9 Podcast

https://youtu.be/BhKqP-JuJ_E

duotone

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

MagicPigDetective

Go Geraint. Great to see my namesake doing do well for now. Anything could happen of course, he usually breaks something or other! 

TheBigDipper

crunchman said:

Only problem is there is too much luck involved.  On commentary they were talking about someone who had his fifth puncture.  It's not longer a test of who is the best rider.

That's what my wife thinks. I'm a bit more relaxed about it as it is the rider who decides how fast to go, what tyres to use, etc.  And it's just the one day with unique hazards to cope with inside a long race. 

TheBigDipper

duotone said:

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

If we're trying to prove he has a motor inside his bike, then maybe that's what did it. Easy enough to check, isn't it? 

If we believe that's not the case, then he pushed the bike up from the shallow ditch at the roadside with some aggression,  so his bike had some velocity as he came back onto the road and the back wheel kept on spinning as he lifted it to turn.

I've no idea. 

BigLicks67

duotone said:

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

It's not long enough of a clip to say one way or the other. But it could be easily explained away as not something sinister. Most likely he was just checking the back wheel prior to the film starting. Also, not sure why anyone is asking Armstrong's opinion about anything.

roundthebend

duotone said:

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

It looks pretty dodgy, but there's a chance that the right pedal caught his foot as he wheeled it forward, and causes it to rotate. But, the wheel does appear to spin pretty rapidly.

TheBigDipper

roundthebend said:

duotone said:

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

It looks pretty dodgy, but there's a chance that the right pedal caught his foot as he wheeled it forward, and causes it to rotate. But, the wheel does appear to spin pretty rapidly.

That's true, it is rapid, but compared to my Trek hybrid clunker of a bike, my mates road racing bike has wheels and tyres that weigh nothing and respond very quickly. It feels like the laws of physics have been suspended just for him. 

Teetonetal

BigLicks67 said:

duotone said:

Can you guys jump to 21.50 on the video above.

Would be interested to know your thoughts.

It's not long enough of a clip to say one way or the other. But it could be easily explained away as not something sinister. Most likely he was just checking the back wheel prior to the film starting. Also, not sure why anyone is asking Armstrong's opinion about anything.

Damn right. 

Wheel looks odd in the shot - can only hope that as they are designed to run so free, that he caught it with enough force on the kerb to make it spin. I can certainly get my bike to do that.

roundthebend

Also, the wheel stops spinning as soon as it touches the road which suggests there's nothing driving it.

duotone

roundthebend said:

Also, the wheel stops spinning as soon as it touches the road which suggests there's nothing driving it.

Yeah, a good point.  it’s a shame he wasn’t in view on that video clip for longer though.

Cheers for your thoughts all!

guitars4you

MagicPigDetective said:

Go Geraint. Great to see my namesake doing do well for now. Anything could happen of course, he usually breaks something or other! 

would love Gee to have a great tour - will be interesting to see how team orders pan out

thermionic

The conspiracy theorists are out in force with that spinning wheel. The wheel is spinning fast but the cranks aren't. You can buy motors that sit in the seat tube just above the bottom bracket and drive the cranks via the spindle. It's unlikely that anybody has managed to cram a powerful enough motor inside a rear hub yet so that the wheel is driven independently of the cranks.

crunchman

This wouldn't be the stage for a motor anyway.  Seems to me the biggest issue is staying upright.  Adding more speed is going to make losing control more likely.  There would be far more benefit from a motor on a mountain stage or a time trial.

rolls1392

In the podcast, is Lance trying to be poacher turned gamekeeper?
Sodding cheat!

ewal

The bikes are checked for mechanical dopng although the subject continues to be debated.

1979

Good ol’ Lance, still awful