Peloton Cafe || 2015 Giro d’Italia Stage 20 – Fabio Aru (image copyright RCS Sport)
Commissioners: Winners – Nibali’s Ejection and Subsequent Ban
2014 Tour de France Champion had a motor in his bike! No, no, wait, the motor was in the car that his director was driving at 60k up a hill. That’s where the motor was. When the reports flew, it would be easy to question, “Why is Nibali being tossed for taking a sticky bottle? Everyone does that.” Then you see the video and all the questions dissipate. He cheated, fair and square. After being booted from Spain, he attempts to jump into the Canadian races and the Tour of Britain in hopes of gaining the much needed condition for Worlds, a race Nibali has never won. Nope, sorry, mate. You cheated, and you are not allowed to go play in someone else’s yard. Losing a big name from a grand tour is a massive downer, but it was the right call. The organizers and the UCI got this one right.
While we are talking about Astana and controversy, let us spend a moment on Fabio Aru’s Stage 19 ‘push.’ There was brief talk about the Italian facing a time penalty, after all, they did throw Nibali out of the entire race. However, the judges decided that there was no reason to penalize Aru. This is the right call. A small push at the end of the stage is no great offense. The organizers got both instances of Astana getting a bit ‘handsy’ correctly.
Motorcycle Pilots: Losers
Hey, at least Nibali was not run over by a media motorcycle, right? That could have easily happened as 80% of the Tinkoff Saxo team was in fact hit by motorcycles. People (and cyclists) are pretty worked up about all this. If we break down the problem into three parts, cause, symptoms, and solutions; it may clear itself up. The motorcars and bikes are only there to film the race for the adoring crowds all around the world. If there was no crowd to please, would there be any camera motorcycles? The Fans are a bit to blame. We want those close-up pictures of cyclists climbing, descending, and sprinting.
Second cause: symptoms. There was that one time the lead car took out the entire breakaway at the Tour de France in 2011, but between that incident and 2015, there were precious few problems to speak of. This year has been the perfect storm of rubbish. When the right people are there, doing the right thing, everyone wins. That’s the UCI’s job. If the UCI does their due diligence to get the right people behind the wheel, none of this is an issue.
Lastly, potential solutions? They are already in the works; the personal action cameras are in the peloton and being tested. The next step is creating a secure method to remotely broadcast those images live. Once that happens, camera motorcycles will be of less value, and the issue should correct itself. Probably. Almost certainly. Maybe.
Estaban Chaves/Orica GreenEdge: Winners
PelotonCafe has been pretty keen on the spunky Columbian since 2014. That year, he broke onto the World Tour scene in California beating a certain Bradley Wiggins to a summit finish. He has had a bit of ups and downs, but he has not fully delivered on the promise he presented last year. This year at the Vuelta though, he’s proved he’s not only an elite climber, but he is capable of taking care of himself in the pack. With two stage wins and a top five overall in the bag, he has provided Orica GreenEdge with their best individual performance of any grand tour to date. That’s top shelf stuff for the 25 year old. He lacks a proper time trial, so he will likely never win the Tour de France, but he can easily target the Giro and Vuelta for the foreseeable future.
Joaquim Rodriguez: Loser
Joaquim Rodriguez is so old; he had Socrates as a primary school instructor. Yet, he had no problem rubbing elbows with the prepubescent youth at the Vuelta. Mikel Landa (25), Fabio Aru (25), Estaban Chaves (25), Tom Domoulin (24), and Rafal Majka (26) are all more than ten years younger than the veteran Spaniard. Joaquim Rodriguez has likely forgotten more about bike racing than these kids have experienced in their young careers.
Yet, with all his experience, he still has not learned to time trial. Stage 16 turned out to be his downfall. The tiny climber lost buckets and buckets of time to the smooth pedal stroke of Domoulin and could not match a determined Fabio Aru. The 2015 edition of the Vuelta looked primed for ‘Purito’ to finally win a grand tour, instead, it was another missed opportunity. 2015 was just another year, with another solid effort, but no victory for the Eternal Bridesmaid.
The Giro/Tour and Tour/Vuelta Double: Loser
The three best cyclists in the world attempted to pull off a double grand tour victory. Alberto Contador kicked things off with a commanding victory in the Giro, but fizzled out at the Tour. Chris Froome won the Tour, but suffered from less than ideal fitness and a crash that broke his foot at the Vuelta. Nario Quintana failed to win either despite being very impressive in short streaks in the two races. It is safe to say that modern cycling is not conducive to winning, or even racing back to back grand tours any longer. Looking forward to next season, it would be surprising to see any of the biggest stars attempt to race back to back grand tours with the intent to win the overall.
However, what appears to be still possible though is the Giro/Vuelta double. Fabio Aru rode well in both Tours, despite only winning the Vuelta, the Giro was within reach. , During the Vuelta, the rest he gained by not racing the Tour was immediately noticeable. Perhaps this strategy will be incorporated into the play book for more teams next year.
Best Prep for Worlds?
The World Championships remain a lofty goal for many members of the peloton. The question these focused stars have to answer is how best to prepare for a 260 kilometer race of attrition? For the first decade of the 21st century, the answer was clear; race the Vuelta. That image is being muddied by recent history. Both the 2013 (Rui Costa) and 2014 (Michel Kwiatkowski) winners skipped the Vuelta and took different routes to prepare for Worlds.
There are certainly several paths from which to choose. Riders can use the Vuelta, as discussed, but the with race getting more and more mountainous and climber friendly, the larger men of the peloton can suffer too much and reach Worlds flat. Now riders can get the same amount of racing but spread out over more days with more rest between. These races include the Eneco Tour, the Tour of Utah, the USA Pro Challenge, the Canadian package of racing, and The Tour of Britain. More and more riders are opting out of the Vuelta and into the other races on the calendar. Tracking the success of racers will, over time, help identify the best race regimen for Worlds preparation.
Calendar Reform in 2017:
Brian Cookson has been working on this new calendar thing for a few years now. We have not heard a whole lot in the way of concrete details for our new World Tour calendar though. He has said that “anything is possible,” and we are rather keen to see what he has cooked up. With regard to the Vuelta, will the race remain a three week grand tour, or will it be shortened to help reduce the economic strain on Spain? How close to the World Championships will it be? As discussed earlier, the race currently offers one of the most popular build ups for the World Championship. If the time table changes, the whole flavor of the Vuelta could be altered.
Tom Dumoulin: Loser (for the time being)
The Dutchman’s performance was more than a bit surprising. From the second stage on, the Dutch rider has been surprising critics, fellow riders, and himself. Dumoulin was stunned after his Stage 9 victory, “What did I do? How did I do that?” Likewise, his teammates were just as stunned. The Giant-Aplecin team came here with sprinter John Degenkolb, hoping to hone his form for Worlds and win a few sprints in the process. What a change of tactics the team has had.
Time trialists have been turned into great stage racers before as Miguel Indurain, Brad Wiggins, Lance Armstrong come to mind. Tom Dumoulin seems perched to be the next. Whether this year’s Vuelta was a flash in the pan or not remains to be seen. However, the climbs in Spain are more severe than France’s mountains and the stages that Dumoulin has endured have been labeled as some of the toughest in recent history. Sure seems like Domoulin could be the next big general classification contender even if he failed to bring home the Red Jersey this year.
Aru and Astana Tactics: Winners
The best Vuelta, in our opinion, was the 2013 edition with the duel between Chris Horner and Vincenzo Nibali. That was quite the race. If you recall, on the final day enroute to Alto de L’Angliru, Nibali’s Astana boys somehow managed to get four riders up the road. Four. It was incredible, yet somehow Chris Horner managed to battle the Astana Armageddon and went on the become the oldest grand tour winner.
This weekend, Astana lined up with the same plan. This time though, it worked. Tom Dumoulin cracked and faded like a satellite falling out of orbit. A sea of blue helped guided Fabio Aru into red Saturday. It was a whole team effort that paid dividends. Tom Dumoulin may have won our hearts, but Fabio Aru goes home with the trophy.
