Stage 3 - Accidents and GC Drama

The biggest news of today was the severity of the accidents.  While flying down hill at about 80 Km/hr, one or more riders bumped into others and caused two huge chain-reaction accidents.  About 40 riders hit the pavement.  With so many riders sprawled on the ground, and the roadway full of ambulances and support cars, the race officials stopped the race for about 10 minutes.  The official race car led the survivors to the top of the next hill and then officially restarted the race.  The most severely injured seems to be William Bonnet (FDJ), with fractured vertebrae in his neck.  He and three others abandoned immediately.  Others, including Cancellara in the Yellow Jersey, resumed riding and finished the stage.  But Cancellara not only lost the Yellow Jersey, he was diagnosed after the race with fractured vertebrae in his back, so he will not continue tomorrow.

The stage winner today was Joaquim “Purito” Rodriguez (Katusha).  He surged up the final steep hill to victory, with only Chris Froome (Sky) able to stay close enough to claim the same time.  But even in 2^nd place, Froome was the big winner, as he captured the Yellow Jersey, and improved his time margins against all GC challengers.  Contador, Nibali and Quintana, the rest of the so-called “Big Four,” trail Froome by one-half to two full minutes.  Eight others are within three minutes of Froome, with Van Garderen being closest at -13 seconds.  These first stages were not supposed to impact the GC standings.  But if Froome continues to gain small increments in these “safe” stages, he and his strong Sky team will be in a position of defensive strength heading into the mountains.

On another front, André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) (whose withdrawal I prematurely announced) has staked the first serious claim for the Green Jersey – sprinting points.  By winning Stage 2 and scoring points in both intermediate sprints, he has accumulated 75 points, beating Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) at his own game.  Sagan trails with only 48 points.  It’s way to early to anoint a winner in this category, but Greipel seems to understand the importance of contesting the intermediate points as well as the finish line battles.

Nan Kennard conquering the steepest part of the Second King, in North Salt Lake's 2015 edition of the Three Kings Bike Challenge.  Nan won third place among all women riders in this year's race.  The climbs in this annual race are as steep as the Mur de Huy in today's Tour de France Stage 3. 

Aaron Kennard laboring to drop a competitor on the steepest part of the Second King, in North Salt Lake's 2015 edition of the Three Kings Bike Challenge.  He readily conceded that his wife had already dropped him! 

Stage 2 - No Surprise; Big Surprise

Stage Two ended in a sprint finish.  No surprise.

Stage Two shook-up the GC standings.  Bis surprise.

1.  Sprint Finish:  Etixx-Quickstep did its job of reeling in the early breakaway and setting up Mark Cavendish for a sprint finish.  In fact, Etixx not only reeled in the escapees, they managed to drop many of the best sprinters from the peleton.  Looks perfect for Cavendish, doesn’t it?  But he seemed to start his sprint a bit too early.  This allowed André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) to rev-up their engines in his slip-stream and then to sling-shot around him at the end to take 1^st & 2^nd places.  When Cavendish let off the gas to coast in for 3^rd, Fabian Cancellara (Trek) fought all the way through to the line to nip 3^rd place by mere inches.  Having lost the stage win, Cavendish may not have cared much for the difference between 3^rd and 4^th, but Cancellara cared plenty.  Third place carries a 4-second time bonus, which catapulted Cancellara into the Yellow Jersey.  (See explanation below in discussion of GC standings.)

2.  Surprising Shake-up in GC (Yellow Jersey) Standings:  This was supposed to be a safe stage for the GC boys.  Long and flat, with a sprint finish.  Just stay with the peleton, let the sprinters fight for the stage win, and roll in with the same time as everyone else.  Ooops!  Something went wrong.  About 50 Km from the finish, strong cross winds created a gap in the peleton.  Etixx and the others leading the peleton got the word and tromped down hard on the accelerator.  Before anyone knew what had hit them, all but 26 riders were trailing the peleton by a minute or more.  Most of the GC hopefuls were caught off-guard by that split, and lost more than a minute to the lucky ones (or were they just cagey?) who managed to stay in the lead peleton. 

First, the big GC winners:  Chris Froome (Sky), Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), and Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quickstep).  They are all within 18 seconds of each other overall.

All other serious GC contenders finished at least 1:28 behind the stage winner, and now trail the leading four GC riders by one minute or more.  One or two minutes can be redeemed in the mountains, but only with superb tactics and power; not by riding defensively.  This early gap also means these riders have no cushion for further mistakes in the remaining “safe” stages – like Monday’s or Saturday’s hill-top finishes, or Tuesday’s cobbles.  Today’s surprise big losers include: Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Nairo Quintana (Movistar), Bauke Mollema (Trek), Robert Gesink (LottoNL-Jumbo), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), J-C Péreaud  (AG2R Le Mondial), and Andrew Talanski (Cannondale-Garmin).

Yesterday’s winner, Rohan Dennis (BMC) found himself stranded in the trailing group, and necessarily lost his Yellow Jersey, after wearing it for only one day.  Since Tony Martin (Etixx-Quickstep) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek) both managed to stay with the leading peleton, it looked like Martin would inherit the Yellow Jersey.  But by streaking in for 3^rd place and the 4-seconds time bonus, Cancellara erased his previous one-second deficit and leap-frogged Martin to claim the prize.  The time bonus is small, but in this case, it made a huge difference in Glory for Cancellara.  Peter Sagan made a similar coup in the recent Tour of California.  With a photo-finish for 3^rd place in the final stage, he collected a few seconds time bonus, just enough to win the overall Yellow Jersey.

I hope you like these photos from the huge mural of children's art in the Lyon bike tunnel.

 The tunnel goes from the Rhône River to the Sôane River (1.3 Km) underneath the Croix Rousse hill.  Imagine a tunnel from Salt Lake City to Bountiful, under Capitol Hill!  Wouldn't that be cool!

The tunnel has three lanes: One for buses (infrequent), one for pedestrians, and one for bikes, boards & blades.  These latter two are in constant use, but seldom crowded.  The walls are lined with art, some permanent (like this mural), and some projected and changing constantly.  A changing selection of music plays most of the time as well.  It is a centerpiece of Lyon's bike-friendly culture.

Stage 1 – Record Speed As Predicted

I guess 60 Km/hour was a bit unrealistic, but 55 Km/hour proved to be a worthy goal.  Australia’s Rohan Dennis (BMC) covered the 13.8 Km course in under 15 minutes (14:56) to set a new Tour de France speed record of 55.446 Km/hour.  Chris Boardman had set the previous record 21 years ago on a very short prologue of only 7.2 Km.  So, Dennis will wear the Yellow Jersey starting tomorrow, and until someone takes it from him.  If the early stages all end in bunch sprints, he could keep the prize jersey for more than a week. 

Of the six riders I predicted to dominate this time trial, four claimed the first four positions, separated by 8 seconds or less: Rohan Dennis (BMC) first, Tony Martin (Etixx-Quickstep) at -05”, Fabian Cancellara at -06”, and Tom Dumoulin at -08”.  Alex Dowsett (Movistar) was respectable in 13^th place at -36”, but Mikal Kwiatkowski disappointed me in 64^th place at -1:06. 

I said earlier that the time trial would not have a significant bearing on the final GC (Yellow Jersey) standings.  I still believe that prediction.  Of the six riders I featured as likely challengers for that top prize, they all finished within 24 seconds of each other.  They crossed the line in approximately reverse order from that predicted by the odds-makers, led by Bauke Mollema (Trek) (worst odds at 200:1), followed by Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Chris Froome (Sky), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar).  Quintana’s teammate Alejandro Valverde and Contador’s teammate Peter Sagan are also within that 24-second group, as are two favorites of the French fans, Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) and Jérôme Péreau (AG2R Le Mondial).   But with 20 more stages to race, including 7 high-mountain stages, those 24 seconds will be shuffled and re-shuffled into oblivion by the end of the Tour. 

The only stages before the mountains where a GC shake-up might occur could be Stages 3 and 8 (hill-top finishes) or Stage 4 (featuring the cobble stone lanes from the Paris-Roubaix spring “classic” race).  Of course, accidents are a risk in every stage, and can derail the favorites without warning – as they did early in the 2014 Tour.

Admission of Blunders: 

In my late post of yesterday I reported that André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) would miss the TDF this year because of an injury.  Imagine my surprise this morning to see him riding in the time trial!  I went back to my research notes, and discovered that I had mistakenly lumped him in with his teammate Jurgen Van den Broeck.  So, if you are keeping score, you can add Greipel back in as a top prospect in the sprint finishes.

I also reported that Lars Boom was scratched from the Tour at the last minute because of a low cortisol reading.  The low reading is true (attributed to permitted use of asthma medication).  Only the voluntary compliance organization MPCC (Movement for Credible Cycling) calls for the rider to not race.  The governing body for the Tour, UCI considers him still eligible, and the team’s medical advisors deem him perfectly healthy.  Still, in order to satisfy MPCC, Astana was willing to replace him with a designated alternate.  But UCI would not allow the substitution, because the test results came out after the rosters were finalized.  Therefore, Astana chose to defy the MPCC.  That is why Lars Boom did ride in today’s Stage One, and Astana has its full complement of nine riders.  That improves Nibali’s chances of ultimately defending his Yellow Jersey, or at least eliminates a serious set-back.

For lack of photos of the actual riders, here are some more photos of French clocks:

French alarm clocks.

Clock in Church tower, Vallée d'Azergues, north of Lyon.

Clock in church tower in village of Vaugneray, south of  Lyon

Not all of the clocks are in churches.  This one is at the Lyon Mairie (City Hall).

Last Pre-race Post - Yellow Jersey and Sprint Predictions

On the eve of the Grand Départ in Utrecht, Netherlands (Holland) let me cover three topics:

1.  Identifying likely contenders for the Yellow Jersey

2.  Identifying likely sprint winners

3.  Identifying Tour regulars and fan favorites absent from the 2015 Tour de France

1.  Likely Contenders for the Yellow Jersey.   The Yellow Jersey is the coveted prize for the rider with the fastest cumulative time at the end of all of the 21 stages – three weeks of racing.  This prize category is also referred to as the General Classification or GC.  At the end of each stage, the rider leading in this category is awarded the Yellow Jersey for the next stage, and keeps it until another rider improves upon his cumulative time.

The unofficial “Big Three” GC contenders this year are Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), and Chris Froome (Sky).  Each has already won the Tour de France before.  Each is a first-rate climber, and each has the backing of a corps of  equally strong climbers to support him. 

There are seven mountain stages where the GC battle will be decided.  Three in the Pyrénées during the second week; and four in the Alps during the third and final week.  This program favors the team that can burn through a succession of “domestiques” at the front of the peleton, forcing a murderous pace.  Their own designated leader will follow in the sheltered slip-stream of his teammate pace-setters, while the other GC contenders and their teams are forced, one after the other, to drop out of the ever-shrinking peleton.  Then, when most of the GC hopefuls have been dropped, the leader of the pace-setting team launches an attack on any remaining contenders to create a time differential and take control of the Yellow Jersey.

Sky worked this strategy to perfection in 2012 (Wiggins & Froome 1^st & 2^nd) and in 2013 (Froome 1^st).  In 2014, with Froome and Contador both victims of early accidents, Astana used the same strategy to send Nibali to a dominating victory.  Barring accidents, I see Sky (Froome) as having the strongest climbing team, followed very closely by Tinkoff-Saxo (Contador).  Astana (Nibali) is missing two strong climbers (Aru and Landa), and learned on the eve of Stage One that Lars Boom is out because of a low cortisol test.  This news came too late to activate a replacement, so Astana will only have 8 riders.  Therefore, Astana will likely be weaker than those other two teams.  I’ll go out on a limb and pick Contador, just because he’s so motivated to complete the “Triple Crown” all in a row – Tours of Spain, Italy and France.

So, does anyone else have a chance?  The other GC leaders will need to be mostly defensive – being sure to match the fast pace set by the Big Three throughout the seven mountain stages.  And then, they will need to launch one or more perfectly timed attacks in order to gain enough time to steal the Yellow Jersey.  Nairo Quintana (Movistar) is capable matching almost anyone’s pace, so he has a chance to win it all, but it will require some luck and perfect timing when he decides to attack.  His Movistar teammate Alejandro Valverde is a strong climber, but will be riding in support of Quintana.  The main American hope is Tejay Van Garderen (BMC).  Like Quintana, he will need to mostly ride to match the Big Three pace, and then find just the right moment to spring a surprise attack.  My final candidate for possible glory would be Bauke Mollema (Trek).  Like the other two, he does not have the team that can dominate the pace.  So, he will need to match the pace, and then be ready to attack when (or if) the opportunity arises.  Of these latter three riders, I give Quintana the best chance to pull off the upset.

Just as a matter of interest, the odds-makers rate the Big Three and Quintana at 5:1 or better (with Quintana having the best odds).  Van Garderen is rated at 33:1; Mollema at 200:1 – with Cadel Evans, Franck Schleck and Jurgen Van den Broeck (all absent from the Tour this year!) at the same 200:1 odds.  Is that a vote of No-Confidence or what?

2.  Likely Sprint Winners. 

The stages most likely to end in a sprint finish are Stages 2 through 8, in the first week of the Tour, possibly a couple of stages between the Pyrénées and the Alps, and the final stage into Paris – maximum of 10 stages.  To win a sprint, the rider must first have a team willing and able to push the pace of the peleton in order to catch the inevitable breakaway in each stage.  Then, having caught the breakaway, the rider’s team must provide him with a “lead-out train” of riders to carry him at top speed to the front of the peleton, where he can launch into overdrive for the final 100 meters or so to nip the other sprint specialists in a photo-finish at the line.

The undisputed best sprinter in the field is Mark Cavendish (Etixx-Quickstep).  His team is built specifically to help him win stages, and he has the experience to make his own luck (a very key ingredient).  I expect him to win at least three stages, and five would not be out of the question.  So, who are the other riders who might hope to pick up the scraps?  The following is a list of likely stage winners, in no particular order of strength.  Norwegian Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) has won 20 stages in the last 12 months, since winning two stages at the 2014 TDF.  Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo).  In spite of winning two stages and the overall GC Yellow Jersey at the Tour of California, Sagan’s team owner is disappointed in his results this season, so he needs to win at least one stage, and he needs to win the Green Jersey for sprinting points.  Both are within his reach, be he is not likely to match Cavendish for stage wins.  (Cavendish won three stages at the Tour of California.)   Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis), perhaps the most promising rising French star, has been having a very good year, winning sprints against top competition.  Fabian Cancellara (Treck).  He is more likely to shine in the time trial, but he could also win a sprint stage.  John Degenkolb (Giant Alpecin) is a young German sprinter with great promise, and will be supported by his team in the absence of Marcel Kittel (injuries).  Edvald Boassen Hagan and American Tyler Farrer (MTN-Qhubeka) are both capable sprinters.  Bryan Coquard (Europcar) is another young French sprinter with a lot of promise.  As you can see, it will be very crowded at the spear-head of the peleton on the sprint stages.

3.  Who is Absent This Year? 

Here is a list of well-known GC contenders or strong climbers who will not participate in this year’s Tour de France.  Both Andy and Franck Schleck (injuries and/or retirement).  Brad Wiggins, Cadel Evans.  Jurgen Van den Broeck.  The Herrada brothers, and the Henao brothers.  Benat Intxausti.  Simon Clarke.  Americans, Tom Danielson, Matthew Busche and the King brothers.  Yaroslav Paulinho.  Fabio Aru, rising star of Astana – it appears Nibali did not want to risk sharing the limelight with him.

The following well-known sprinters are absent this year, leaving a few stage wins possibly up for grabs:  André Greipel (injury).  Marcel Kittel (injury).  Philippe Gilbert (injury).  

 Simon Clarke (Orica Greenedge) - rider on right - during Stage 12, 2014 Tour de France (Lyon).  Clarke is absent for the 2015 Tour.

    

What Can We Expect for the Opening Time Trial?

SPEED!  The stage is only 13.8 Km long.  It involves a pancake-flat ride through the streets of Utrecht, Holland.  The beginning elevation is only 3 meters above sea level; and the finish is at 5 meters.  That’s flat. 

Consider that the cycling one-hour speed record was broken three times this year at 52.491 Km by Rohan Dennis, at 52.937 Km by Alex Dowsett, and then at 54.937 Km by Bradley Wiggins.  Those riders maintained that 50+ Km/hour pace for a full hour.  Could they have averaged 60 Km/hour for a mere quarter-hour?  Those records were set in the controlled environment of indoor tracks, with banked corners and ideal riding surfaces.  Stage One of the Tour will have about as close to similar perfect conditions as a road race can have.  The course is perfectly flat.  There will only be about twenty 90-degree corners, but there will also be longer straight-aways.  Negative factors could be possible wind and the distraction of spectators along the route.  The question remains whether anyone can push the 60 Km/hour pace for that intense-but-short zip around the city? 

In the 2012 Tour, the opening Prologue in Liège was only 6.4 Km.  Fabian Cancellara won that race in 7 minutes and 13 seconds, for an average speed of 53.21 Km/hour.  In order to finish this year’s opening stage in 15 minutes or less, the winner will need to average better than 55 Km/hour.  A winning time of 13 minutes 48 seconds or less will break the 60 Km/hour barrier.

So, who might be able to do that?  The top two favorites are Fabian Cancellara (Trek) and Tony Martin (Etixx-Quidkstep).  They are perennial winners of their own countries’ time trial championships (Switzerland and Germany respectively), as well as most of the prestigious time trials in the biggest races on the pro circuit.  But will Cancellara’s age or his injury earlier in the season slow him down?  Two others who have demonstrated their speed this year are Alex Dowsett (Movistar) and Rohan Dennis (BMC), recent one-hour world record holders.  If you want a couple of “dark horses,” cheer for Dutch rider Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) – winner of three ITTs already this year; and Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-Quickstep) – Polish time trial champion and frequent winner of ITTs. 

None of these riders will challenge for the final Yellow Jersey at the end of the three-week Tour de France; but each of them would dearly love to win Stage One, and thus the honor of wearing the coveted Yellow Jersey for the first few days of the Tour.   So, pick your favorite, and let the race begin.

You know, they use very special bikes in time trials.  But here are a couple of real antiques.  I spotted these in the attic of the Château at Nyon, Switzerland.  No speed records will be set riding these babies.

Here's another doozie!  We found this in the village of Oingt.  We had to get in line to take the picture - a wedding photographer was there first, using it as a prop for the bride in her wedding dress.

And here is my "vélo d'appartement" - apartment bike - from our recent LDS mission in Lyon France.  I would ride it on our patio early in the mornings, with encouragement from the passersby in the street one flight below.  Some were revelers returning home from a night on the town; others were working stiffs heading off for an early start to their working day.  I could imagine I was riding the Tour de France - at least I was in France.

Three Reasons the Time Trials Will Not Decide the Yellow Jersey

!.  There are only two days of time trials, and only one individual time trial (ITT).

2.  The time trials are too early in the Tour, especially the ITT.

3.  The time trials are very short, especially the ITT.

1.  Only two days of time trials, only one ITT:  In 2012 the Tour de France had three days of  ITT.  The 2013 Tour had two days of  ITT, with also a team time trial (TTT) for a third day.  That extra day or two of ITT gives a distinct advantage to the GC contenders with time trial prowess, over GC contenders who might not be strong in time trials.    Because the 2015 Tour de France has only one ITT, the advantage for a strong time trial rider is minimized.

2.  Time trials are too early in the race:  From 2011 through 2014 the Tour’s final ITTs were in Stages 20, 19, 17 and 20 respectively – i.e., late in the 21-stage race.  This year, the only ITT is the very first stage.  When the ITT is late in the race, the then-leader has the advantage of riding last in the ITT, allowing him to know throughout his ride the pace he must match in order to keep his lead.  This worked very much to Vincenzo Nibali’s advantage in 2014 when the ITT was Stage 20 – the second-to-last stage of the race.  With his rivals all riding before him, his team could tell him by radio the pace he needed to ride in order to preserve his leading time margins.  But when the ITT is the first stage – as it will be this year – no one will know whose pace to match, nor how many seconds of difference in Stage One will be needed to win the Yellow Jersey by Stage 21.  Even the TTT (Stage 9) is early in this year’s Tour – before any of the mountain stages of the Pyrénées or the Alps. 

3.  Time trials are too short:  This is the biggest reason the time trials will not decide the Yellow Jersey in 2015.  The Stage One ITT is only 13.8 Km long.  The TTT (Stage 9) is only 28 Km.  The shorter the course, the smaller will be the time differentials among the riders. 

The Prologue (ITT) in 2012 was only 6.4 Km, and the Prologue time differences between the eventual Yellow Jersey winner (Brad Wiggins) and the next four riders in the final GC classification were between 3 and 21 seconds – hardly significant in the 3-week Tour de France.  Wiggins’ final GC margins over those four riders ranged from 3 to 11 minutes.  Obviously, the short ITT Prologue was a non-factor for the final GC standings.  By contrast, in that same year the final ITT (Stage 19) was 53.5 Km long (almost 4 times longer than this year’s single ITT).  In that longer race of 2012, Wiggins’ time margins over his 4 closest GC rivals ranged from 1 to 4 minutes.  In an otherwise close GC battle, time differences of that magnitude in an ITT - especially near the end of the Tour - could mean the difference between winning or losing the Yellow Jersey.  In 1992, Miguel Indurain won a 65-Km ITT with such dominance that he lapped his 6-minute man, Laurent Fignon!  But this year, we do not have either a 53-Km nor a 65-Km ITT; but only a race of 13.8 Km.  The potential time gain for the 3-week Yellow Jersey competition will be mere seconds, not minutes.

As for the Team Time Trial (TTT), again the course this year is fairly short.  And any advantage for a strong time trial rider will be tempered in the TTT, because each team’s time is determined by the time of its fifth rider.  This requires the strongest riders to “pull” the weaker riders along.  On a team whose GC leader is strong in time trials, the teammates slow him down.  On a team whose GC leader is weak in time trials, the teammates improve his time.  The time differences in a TTT are not as dramatic as in an ITT of comparable length.  In 2013, the teams of the final top 5 GC riders were separated by 25 seconds or less in the 25-Km TTT - a race very comparable to this year's 28-Km course for Stage 9.

Bottom line?  The two days of time trial racing will not be critical to determining the eventual winner of the Yellow Jersey.  This can be a good thing.  It will allow the race to focus on other riders and other teams.  There are many riders who are their own nations’ time trial champions, but who have no chance to contend for the Yellow Jersey.  This year’s situation gives those riders and their teams a chance to fight for single-stage glory without being overshadowed by the Yellow Jersey drama.

Speaking of time trials ("contre la montre" in French - "against the clock"), here are a few French clocks:

Sundial on wall of château at Azay le Rideau

Sundial vendor at medieval fair in Perpignan.

Clock tower at gare (train station) in Limoges.

Clock at the Communal Hall, Guillotières, Lyon.

Clock at the old Brottaux Gare in Lyon.  (Replaced by the new Part-Dieu Gare).

 

St. Nizier Church clock tower, Lyon.

Do Not Overlook the “Other Spaniard” – Alejandro Valverde Could Be GC Darkhorse

Alejandro Valverde is the designated GC leader of the Movistar Team.  Yet he is not even among the top five favorites to win the 2015 TDF Yellow Jersey, according to an Internet site for betting odds.  His own teammate Nairo Quintana leads the top 5, followed by Nibali, Contador, Froome and Van Garderen.

Still, Valverde has been having a good year.  He won two of the spring classics, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.  He won three stages in the Volta a Catalunya (Tour of Catalonia), and he won the Sierra Tramuntana Trophy in Mallorca.  In addition, he placed 2^nd in the Tour of Oman. 

The Movistar Team (so named since 2011) has a very long history full of glory, albeit under a confusing genealogy of names.  During the 1980s as “Reynolds” the team’s Pedro Delgado won the Tour de France in 1988 and the Vuelta a Espana in 1989.  From 1990 to 2003, the name changed to Banesto, during which time Miguel Indurain won the Tour de France five times and the Giro d’Italia twice.  In 2005 the team, as “Caisse d’Epargne-Illes Balereas,” placed Francisco (“Paco”) Mancebo as the TDF’s winning young rider (White Jersey) in 2000, and overall GC 4^th in 2005.  Already by 2005 Valverde was a rising star on the team.  Valverde’s best results in Grand Tours were: Vuelta a Espana: 1st 2009, and seven other top-5 finishes; Tour de France: 2 top-5 finishes, including 4^th place in 2014.

Movistar inherited several of the strong Basque riders when Euskatel-Euskadi folded, including Benat Intxausti and Igor and Ion Izaguirre.  Promising young Columbian rider Nairo Quintana joined Movistar in 2012, and could well be their new GC leader before long.

But, for now at least, Valverde is still the designated leader.  In order to conquer the Yellow Jersey in the 2015 Tour, he will need strong support from Quintana, Intxausti and the other climbers.  The odds-makers do not expect him to win, but I am sure that the so-called “favorites” will not overlook him in the decisive mountain stages of this year’s Tour.  

A couple of Movistar news updates:

In May, Movistar’s Alex Dowsett set a new One-Hour record of 52.937 Km.  This may help him secure a spot on the Movistar squad for the TDF.  Unfortunately for him, a month later his record was broken by Brad Wiggins at 54.526 Km.

This week (June 7 to 14) Valverde and Movistar are prepping for the Tour de France as they ride the Critérium du Dauphiné.  After Stage 6, Valverde was in 3^rd place, only 30 seconds behind race leader Vincenzo Nibali.  But the next day in Stage 7 (June 13), Team Sky lit some fireworks in the peleton and rocketed their leader Chris Froome to the stage win, and from 9^th to 2^nd overall.  Valverde could not match the firepower of the attack, so his teammate Benat Intxausti was allowed to leave him and try to keep up with the attackers.  Valverde lost 2 minutes, but Intxausti finished in 4^th place for the stage, and moved up to 3rd overall, just 45 seconds behind current race leader Tejay Van Garderen.  So, will Valverde be able to match the other leaders next month in the Grand Tour?  Only time will tell.

The Movistar Team advance car, 2014 Tour de France (Lentilly - a village near Lyon- Stage 12).

The Movistar Team support car, 2014 Tour de France (Lentilly - a village near Lyon- Stage 12).

Valverde's former teammate, Francisco ("Paco") Mancebo (left), and Levi Leipheimer (yellow) fighting for supremacy in Park City at the 2010 Tour of Utah.

Mancebo still holding King of Mountains jersey after Park City stage, Tour of Utah 2010.  He finished the race in second place overall, but lost the King of Mountains jersey in the last stage.  He no longer rides the Tour de France, but is popular in the Tour of Utah.