Finally! A normal sprint stage, won by a sprinter, animated by a decent break, carried out at a reasonable pace, and taking place entirely on French soil. It’s like were in the first week of the Tour de France, or something. Still looking forward to getting a peep at this one, just so I can see the awesome lead out by Hushovd’s teammate Julian Dean, who will no doubt be the least comfortable rider in the peloton when he hits the steaming French Alps in that all black kit. Still, from a fashion standpoint, it’s an improvement for the Credit Agricole team; remember what Kirsipuu’s CA kit used to look like?
It wasn’t such a great day for everyone, though. The folks at Campagnolo are probably a little bummed that their cool and pointless proto group got all scuffed up in a late-race crash. Personally, I think it was the Bike Gods taking revenge on the Cofidis team mechanics for leaving the cable stops on an electronically shifting bike. While I’d never hope for any specific rider to come to grief (except maybe Virenque), I do hope that Shimano’s fugly new carbon cranks (with their ludicrous Q-factor) suffer a similar fate; maybe they could get ripped off the Gerolsteiner team car at a drive-thru or something.
Question:
What was the mechanic supposed to do with the cable stops? Leave a sharp square piece of metal exposed? If you haven’t looked under your cable stops in a while take a look. Pro mechanics on the whole are very OCD about the bikes, Euro mechs might be a little less so. This being the Tour, everything is about how pretty things look, maybe lacking a machine shop in the back of the truck the mechs were unable to find a suitable replacement for a cable stop that worked. Oh, what if the system crapped out? Time to rebuild, and you’re going to need them anyways.
-C
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Stage, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.