TdF2015: Stage 9 TTT

At last! Time for the Team Time Trial, always a fun event, but even more fun than usual this due to the delay in it appearing, and the number of people already out of the race due to crashes.

Usually the TTT is much earlier in the race, often it is the very first stage or even the prologue: but for some reason, this year the organisers decided to push it back to the very end of the first week of racing, just when everyone is really tired, and in the full and certain knowledge that the first week of the Tour is always filled with crashes, and therefore this is when we are likely to lose riders.

With 13 riders out already, there are only 12 teams with full rosters, out of 22 teams: most of those teams have only lost one rider, apart from O'rica who have lost three riders, and have one of their few remaining riders struggling with cracked ribs.

I don't know why ASO decided to put the TTT so far back in the schedule, apparently they had to get special permission from the UCI to do so.

We watched O'rica do a very "measured" TT, taking it very steady indeed: we've been trying to work out how slow they can afford to go, and it's not easy. LLB calculated that if 57kph was the fastest ever TTT, then O'rica need to do 43kph in order to come within the "30% of winning time" cut off time.  Meanwhile, P&P suggest that a gap of 6-7 minutes is probably going to be the safe zone.

Personally I'm just happy to see them all arriving safely at the finish line, nice and controlled, with all members intact. No falls, no mechanicals, all safe and sound.  I sent a tweet to Carlton Kirby asking if ASO would really, seriously, disqualify a whole team if they were to fail to meet the time cut, but my luck with getting mentions seems to have run out, and there is no direct answer. Shame.

Trek go off, with many discussions about the loss of Fabian:  then Ass-t'na with a full set of riders. I'm very pleased to see that Jakob was riding well, and wasn't one of the several riders who dropped off the back,

Movistar make a good early effort, 18 seconds up at the second time check, but then disaster! We see them tackling the main hill on the course, and several riders at the back were making frantic "slow down!" arm waving signals as half the team zoomed off up the hill, and the rest of them sweated and struggled. Apparently the routine is that the rear riders wave in distress, the car behind sees them, and radios to the leader to slacken off until they catch up. It would seem that either the guys in the car were asleep, or the leader had taken off his earpiece,  because the team were blown to pieces on the climb and ended up in tatters.  Luckily it didn't take them long to get themselves back together, but it looked really untidy and unprofessional. As they come up to the finish, we think they are doing badly as there are only five members left, but they beat Ass-t'na by 31seconds.

Meanwhile Stinkoff are on the road, and Sky leave the ramp: apparently they were forced to wear the nasty cheap baggy yellow skinsuit instead of their own high-tech fabric, so they compromised by bringing in a local seamstress to nip and tuck. Presumably they get it off with a can-opener after the end of the race.

Stinkoff are charging along, I'm intrigued to see that Ray Formica has what appears to be shin-pads made of kinesio tape. LLB and I discuss whether kinesio tape is more aerodynamic than skin, in which case you could get round the UCI rule about not having long socks by wrapping a lot of tape round your legs.

As it turns out, Sky come second by something ridiculous like 0.6 seconds to BMC, so BMC are happy, and Sky are also happy as they get to keep the yellow jersey - and have extended their lead over most of the other GC contenders. They also get G back into the top 10, which is always good.

One final note of amusement - Richie Porte, being interviewed immediately after warming down, interrupts his own interview to bark at Chris Froome "Froomey! Wipe your nose!"  as Chris passes him. Sweet.

And best of all, no-one crashed!