Today's race coverage starts with the break - yet again, Skydive Dubai are out there, well done lads! Good job! They have Stinkoff and Vini Fantini with them, their shades of yellow clashing horribly in the bright Emirates sunshine. I think it would have been better - or at least "less worse"! - if Stinkoff had gone for two blue shoulders, rather than having one yellow shoulder. Again, do none of these kit designers ever actually watch any race footage?
Ah, here's Doper Hesjerdal going back for bottles.
Oh, I've just noticed (going back to kit again for a moment) that Trek have one thick white band on a leg, so in a really bad crash, their legs could easily be confused with Omega's arms. It remains to be seen whether this will be a serious mistake, or not. *laughs*
Our commentators are having a big discussion about Natural Breaks, ie peeing in public, and the difficulty of doing so when the entire route is in a city, even one with as few spectators as we have here. Quiggers is suggesting that some riders divert down side streets, and LLB suggests that the organisers should sling a long plastic sheet along a section of central barrier, with a trough underneath it: a Pee Zone, if you like. A more amusing alternative would be to have the team car hold a bucket out of the window. As you can tell, we are not taking this race terribly seriously.
The Dubai buildings, I have to say, are truly spectacular, especially the hotels: the one shaped like a sail is just outstanding, but the one with the huge curved drop, with the row of balconies cascading down the side, is just breathtaking. It's certainly a good way for the government to spend their oil money, to make hotels so stylish, extraordinary and beautiful that you'd go there just to see them.
Brian Smith is now discussing kit colours again - ha ha, my favourite subject so far this year - and he's saying that the UCI are going to have to step in and ensure some sort of order appears among the kit colours: they want to promote the globalisation of the sport, they want more spectators, more viewers, more fans, but at present the colours are confusing, even to professional commentators such as themselves, and the constantly-changing names are baffling to new fans.
I've been saying this for years!! But I shall write about it on a separate post.... meanwhile back to the race.
There's 12k to go and suddenly we see groupage - I love this moment in cycling, when you see the teams suddenly forming up. Today we have all of Ass-t'na on the right, with one lone rider at the front on the left, presumably having failed to hear his team leader shouting instructions - of course, no race radios in this race. Whoops!
Only two riders have dropped out of the race, in four days of racing, which is not really surprising - there's been no crashes, and hardly any punctures, probably due to the beautiful wide, clean, new roads. Plus it's been practically all flat, and there haven't been much in the way of side winds either. There was a bit of sand on the road at one point, we saw the front riders screwing up their eyes and spitting it out as they rode, but not for long. Even though there have been some horribly tight U-turns, it just doesn't feel as fast or as dangerous as a UCI race.
6k to go and everyone is trying to get on the front, but no-one wants to starts pushing on yet.
Oh dear! 4.3k to go, and I spoke too soon about the crashes, "Jammy Dodger" Sagan is down, and is throwing his bike petulantly against the barriers. The hole in his shorts suggests that he slid out on the corner, and I bet he is cursing me, whoops!
The final 3k is fantastic, just like a real race, with all the trains pushing and shoving, Giant do a superb job to get Kittel to the line first, and Cav is nowhere to be seen. We spotted him sitting up just before the last bend, and it turns out that he hit a bollard and lost his chain, which is really bad luck. But it was an excellent end to what turned out to be quite a nice little race.
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