Ah, the Tour of Flanders, and our first sight of the much-vaunted Sky cobbles-bike, with suspension. Not really a new idea, Trek bikes produced models with suspension ten years ago for Discovery, but presumably Pinarello, working with Jaguar (who now own Land Rover, so they might know something about off-roading) have found new ways, new materials, new applications, to make the idea actually work this time.
Unfortunately, our first sight of the bike is Bradders taking a really silly tumble for no apparent reason, and flinging the expensive new bike to the ground in disgust. Sky bunged him onto a normal road bike, and shoved him off down the road, leading to speculation on the sofa that the new bike was no good at all. However, just a few kms later, there was another bike change, and Brad was back on the bouncy bike, so it must have some things in its favour.
This lead to me speculating that the mechanic and the bike had been bundled into the back seat of the car, so that he could frantically work on it, in order to get it back on the road. I pictured the scene as being something like the illustrations of Alice in the White Rabbit's house, with one leg up the chimney and one arm out of the window....
However, before all this happened, there were shrieks of dismay at the horrific sight of a neutral service car - this time, a dark blue Shimano-sponsored car, not the usual bright yellow Mavic ones - side-swiping Jesse Sargeant of Trek, spinning him across the road and right out of the race with a broken collarbone. Shades of Fletcha at the Tour! Just a few minutes earlier, LLB and I had been commenting on how many cars and bikes there were, and wondering what the justification was, for such high numbers.
This crash was unforgivable, the car cut up on the inside of a corner, exactly into the space where a cyclist would want to be: and as far as we could see, there was no particular need for the car to be overtaking the lead group at all. Service needs to be behind the riders, not in front of them, and the gap was something like four minutes at that point.
I do hope that Trek are going to press for compensation.
According one report, the driver of the Shimano-sponsored car was a policeman, a professional driver, and someone who really should know better. He is reported as not remembering anything about the incident.
Hmmm.
Anyway, the race continued and, as is typical in the Classics, it was a race of attrition, with riders tumbling off in all directions. Bucking this trend, Little Luke Rowe (Schlecklander Pet) took THREE bottles at a feed station, one after the other, and managed not to drop any of them. Impressive bike handling skills, eh!
Sagan was getting a lot of name-checks, but mostly along the lines of "he hasn't performed this year so far" which is a bit harsh, the year is yet young... naturally, it's hard not to wonder if his poor form is down to changing teams, which has to be disruptive for him, along with the hoo-ha about Uncle Bjarne getting the sack, not to mention the possibility of Ass-t'naa losing their World Team licence... not a good time to be in Ass-t'na. (*sighs - poor Jakob!*)
Just as we all feeling rather sorry for poor Sagan, there is a major crash which holds him up, and he takes a leak right there, in the middle of the road, while waiting for the riders ahead of him to sort themselves out.
There goes our sympathy...
And instead, it goes to John Degenkolb: he's never been a favourite of mine, in fact I have had an irrational dislike of him, based solely on his stupid pencil moustache, which makes him look like Private Walker in Dad's Army. (For the benefit of non-UK residents, and those under about 45, Private Walker was a black market spiv, very dodgy.) However, in a pre-race interview, he came over as being very nice, very pleasant, sensible, articulate and fairly humble and - best of all - he's stopped plucking the moustache and it is now a "proper" moustache and goatee beard, which is much better.
I have therefore promoted him to Schleckland Pet: Provisional.
As an aside, there was lots of squeeing on Twitter earlier, when Trek and Fabs announced that he would be their twitter representative for the duration of the race - knowing how tangled he gets in normal tweeting, I can only imagine how he must have been spluttering at the sight of his team-mate being flattened by the Shimano car. But I'm not allowed to go online and look, as LLB and I are watching the race slightly delayed, we are about 20 mins behind everyone else, so if I go on twitter, I will see what is happening in real time. Oh well, I can always catch up later.
At 77k to go, there are screams of horror from the sofa: another rider has been hit by a car! This is unbelievable, and the screams were in stereo, as LLB and I both yelled at the same instant. Not quite such a bad incident this time: the FdJ car screeched to a halt to service Sebastian Chavanel who was standing at the roadside. Then another Shimano car shunted the FdJ car so hard that it was pushed forward 20m, and the already-opening door slammed into poor Chavanel. He didn't break anything, but was badly bruised and presumably shaking like a leaf, so he withdrew from the race. Can't say the same about the team cars, they both appeared to be badly dented.
This simply has to be sorted out - there are far, far too many cars, and far, far too many motorbikes.
Presumably, if we had had the normal Classics weather (ie rain), the rate of attrition would have been much higher, and there would have been fewer riders left - but there still seem to be way too many vehicles.
Of course, that's how the organisers make money: people pay to be in the cars, and presumably they also pay to be on the motorbikes? There are clearly some that are camera bikes, some that are marshalls - although they should all be either way ahead, or whipping round the back roads, not following the break - and I think there are occasionally bikes doing live commentary, but I think I counted nearly 40 bikes at one point, and this just can't be right.
On a different note, I have been intrigued throughout the recent races to see, if Wanty were riding, that there seems to be a very loyal and determined fan who has a huge two-handed banner with the Wanty flag at the bottom, and a handwritten "LUC" at the top.
Anyone know what this means? I tweeted Wanty and asked them (twice) but there was no reply, boo: and there is no Wanty rider called Luc.
Whatever it means, this fan has a positive knack for being filmed by a camerabike as the break go past, he then legs it to his car, and pops up later on in the race just in time to be filmed again. Clever advertising, but who or what is Luc?
At 69k go, O'Rica get someone in the break, and Sean Kelly starts talking about Michelle Docker. That's Mitchell, Sean, Mitchell.
Talking of mis-pronunciations, I'm surprised to hear about a team called Borer Aragorn. Aragorn? Son of Arathorn? Oh, it's Bora-Argon. Pronounced Air-gorn. Big disappointment, thought they might produce The Bidon That Was Broken, but apparently that is not going to be the case.
60k to go, and there is a deflating air-bridge! Panic and pandemonium as the break just barely squeeze underneath it, while the team cars - with bikes on top - cannot pass. Well, I suppose it's one way to keep the neutral service cars out of harm's way.
Aha, another climb: boy, I wish they'd ban those stupid confetti "bombs". If I were huffing and puffing up a hill, the last thing I would want would be a lungful of lightweight paper particles. Those horrible coloured smoke things are bad enough, but confetti - ugh!
My day is brightened by seeing a bunch of Fab fans, all holding placards saying We Heart You Fabian. Aww, bless! They do know he's not in the race, don't they? Perhaps they know that he'll be watching it (while tweeting, or "twetting", probably).
By 46k to go, we're down to just three Sky on the front, still pulling hard, and I have to say that I have never seen a huge peloton at this stage of a Classic. Must be due to the dry weather, although the neutral service cars have done their bit. No, I won't be forgiving them, for quite some time.
We see an amazingly slick flying bike change, as an FdJ domestique nobly gives his wheel and a shove to his team leader. That's the sort of change you want to video, and send round to cycling clubs with the instruction "watch and learn, guys". It's not just the technicality of the fast change, but the selfless loyalty of the domestique that I appreciate.
By this point in the race, LLB and I are exhausted with shrieking "mind the car!" every time a blue can is in the shot, and at one point even Sean Kelly says it! We speculate as to what else can possibly go wrong with this race: earthquake? Sink holes opening in front of the break? Then a level crossing comes in sight. Oh no! A train? But no, nothing happens, and we are told that the trains are stopped for the race - how very enlightened of the Belgian authorities.
Again, Sagan runs out of steam at the very end of the race, and ends up rolling forlornly over the finish line, head drooping, and looking a picture of misery. Mind you, our sympathies are all with
poor G, who, having dragged the chasers for most of the previous 60k, was mugged at the end, ran out of ooomph in a rather Sagan-like way, and ended up not even getting in the top 10.
So that was the tour of Flanders: more exciting than I would like, and a good warm-up for Paris-Roubaix which is on tomorrow - so let's hope that there are no more car-related injuries!
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