2014 Tour de France, Stage 7: Epernay–Nancy (234.5 Km)

[Dr. Juice]

Rewatched the last 10 km. First thought: Trentin was a beast in the sprint. I saw him in front at about 300 m to go, thought "way too early". Sagan and the 1-2 guys behind/ alongside to seemed to pass him with 100 m to go. But he just held on.
Nibali and Contador both seemed brilliant, always in front on the climb and smartly keeping themselves out of trouble.

Tomorrow will be the 1st little test, monday the " big day". In between a nice stage for a good quality breakaway.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Too many crashes!

I have to wonder if they had stuck a 30-40km ITT in around Stage 3-5 if riders would have been a little less aggressive yesterday and especially today.

 

[Arnout]

Sagan is just too good on steep little climbs and as a descender that it costed him the vicotry today. He got the gap despite not even trying and couldn't decide whether pushing or waiting, did something inbetween and that was incorrect.

Yeah I just watched the stage. At this point he doesn't know what to do anymore. Calling team, riding at one point, stopping, then riding again and once again he loses out.

 

[kurtinsc]

While I tend to put a little bit more of the blame on Gerrans then Talansky after watching the last kilometer... both obviously weren't riding like they should. Talansky certainly deserved enough of the blame that his getting all mad afterwards seems pretty childish.

 

[Flamin]

Very impressed by Vanmarcke today. Right on Nibali's wheel when Roche upped the tempo. Would have done a lot better in the sprint as well if not for that *** move by Talansky.

Talansky and JvdB made their own crashes by the looks of it

JVDB was brought down by Kangert. Impossible to avoid him.

 

[Kender]

Of course he would be beaten by Kittel, but if he is in OPQS instead of Cav this year, with few changes in the team they would killed the peloton this first week.

Anyway. It is so easy and good to be cycling fan in Slovakia these days. 7 stages, 7 times with the best in the end.


You might hate him for several reason, but none of them is cycling ralated.

How did you get hate from that? I don't hate Sagan, I was just pointing out that Sagan is not the fastest man in the peloton

 

[uconnryan]

Gerrans on Talansky crash

"It was really unfortunate for Talansky that he crashed in the final. We had a chat a few hours after the stage when everyone had calmed down and we agreed that no one was really to blame for the crash, it was simply a racing incident."

 

[UpTheRoad]

While I tend to put a little bit more of the blame on Gerrans then Talansky after watching the last kilometer... both obviously weren't riding like they should. Talansky certainly deserved enough of the blame that his getting all mad afterwards seems pretty childish.

Rewatch the video. Pay close attention to the lane markings on the street and where Gerrans' wheels are. From the perspective of the viewer Gerrans is to the right of the lane divider marks, veers slightly right to avoid Talansky, and then goes back a little left.

The crash occurs before he jumps towards the sprinters on the left. He did not close the door on Talansky. He might have a few seconds later, but the crash was not his fault at all.

 

[Carstenbf]

So Paul Voss breaks his nose on the barriers and Mathias Frank abandons with a broken femur, and noone notices?

Cynical world, just sayin' ..

 

[The Hegelian]

I didn't realise Talansky was such a ******.

Interesting to compare with Gerrans actually -when Cav pulled a crazy-dangerous move to bring him down, no dummy spits or demands for apology. Didn't even blame him, even though Cav later admitted fault.

 

[movingtarget]

Was Atapuma the BMC rider who fell in the aftermath of Van Garderen's fall?

Yes, he's out of the Tour.

 

[SKSemtex]

How did you get hate from that? I don't hate Sagan, I was just pointing out that Sagan is not the fastest man in the peloton

Sorry It was nor reffering to your quote. It was the general statment like the one that it is easy to be slovakfan. I should have made separate post.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Checking out the impact:

I doubt Contador can drop Nibali before the 2nd rest day.

More pics here: http://www.steephill.tv/2014/tour-de-france/photos/stage-07/

 

[kurtinsc]

Rewatch the video. Pay close attention to the lane markings on the street and where Gerrans' wheels are. From the perspective of the viewer Gerrans is to the right of the lane divider marks, veers slightly right to avoid Talansky, and then goes back a little left.

The crash occurs before he jumps towards the sprinters on the left. He did not close the door on Talansky. He might have a few seconds later, but the crash was not his fault at all.

My view of it is that Talansky looked to the side and veered over toward Gerrans and the two touched shoulders (at about 1:03 on the final km vid on the website).

At that point, Talansky was 100% in the wrong. But at that point he straightened up while Gerrans swerved to the side then immediately cut back across Talansky's wheel (between 1:03 and 1:05) which caused Talansky to go down (and caused Gerrans back wheel to go airborne).

Does that stuff happen in every sprint? Yep. Could experienced sprinters in Talansky's position avoid it? Very possibly. But Gerrans knew where Talansky was (they had just touched shoulders) and in his haste to stay involved in the sprint he cut across Talansky's front wheel.

So that's why I say they both had blame (Talansky initiating the first shoulder to shoulder contact and Gerrans initiating the back-wheel/front-wheel contact) but Gerrans portion was a bit more to blame for the actual crash (though it wouldn't have happened if EITHER of them had not done their part)

The biggest issue is Talansky acted like it was all Gerrans fault which was childish.

 

[Steve K]

It was Vaughter's and the team's fault

I think the crash was almost entirely caused by Talansky. I don't see Gerrans doing anything out of the ordinary. At the end of the day, the guy who swerved across the group crashed and no one else did. This should have been a non-story. That's why I attribute the real fault to Vaughters and the team.

The first thing out of Vaughters' mouth after the race was how angry Talansky was. He obviously hadn't watched the video yet, but he started criticizing Gerrans and talking about how mad Talansky was. The question was about how he was doing physically. Vaughters should have been protecting his young rider not stirring up controversy, especially when he clearly hadn't seen the replay. Also, what is the team doing releasing the fact that Talansky is ranting to the team doctor? How does that help Talansky? The team should have given a physical update, said that they were going to review the film and talk later. Clearly, when the did look at the film, they convinced Talansky that Gerrans didn't do anything terrible, because Talansky was much calmer today and talked to Gerrans to clear up any issues.

Of course, Talansky is going to be angry right after his crash. In his mind, he did nothing wrong, but that wasn't the objective reality. After watching the video, he at least thought it was an even thing. If his team had protected him and not talked about what he was saying in private this would have been a non-story.

Talansky is in his second tour; Vaughters has ridden in the tour many times and has been a manager for years. He should have known better.