Sprint or breakaway? Today’s stage has the least amount of vertical gain outside the time trial but it’s the last chance for everyone before the Alps tomorrow.
Mind the gap: a predictable stage win for Remco Evenepoel but the surprise was the winning margin, over a second per kilometre on Vingegaard, almost three seconds on Pogačar. 17km was plenty to prise the GC apart. The Slovenian seemed unprepared at times, as if spinning out of gears and freewheeling on the descent portion of the course.
This puts Evenepoel in yellow and sets things up nicely ahead of the Alps… and beyond with Pogačar’s form in a dip.
Other notable rides include Van der Poel racing hard, he had a shot at yellow if events went the right way but could be testing himself ahead of the Tour’s opening week and its time trial too. Who had Eddie Dunbar in their top-10? Plus Paul Seixas too, not bad for a teenager.
The Route: 183km and 2,000m of vertical gain. It’s flat for a long time with a detour via Les Dombes, a flat area full of lakes and ponds… and a bird park that is non-coincidentally a sponsor of the race.
Then it’s into the Beaujolais hills with a series of pronounced climbs amid the vineyards and woodlands. But they’re largely steady, there is the chance to exploit these for attacks but at the same time Jonathan Milan hope to clear these with the peloton.
The Col du Bois Clair is a mountain pass… of sorts but the Paris-Marseille TGV line runs alongside the road to give you an idea of the gradient. Next is the Quatres Vents (“four winds”) and it is a col rather than just a côte but it’s not hard and there’s time to regroup for the finish.
The Finish: Macon has its charms but we won’t see many today, a fast run along the banks of the river Saone with a U-turn before the flamme rouge.
The Contenders: breakaway or sprint? A lot of today’s climbing is concentrated in one third of the route. This counts as spread over the stage it’d be easier to cope with, hard racing here can ditch the sprinters. Plus it’s the last chance for a lot of riders who don’t fancy their chances in the Alps.
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) is a pick but with the reservation that he can be eliminated if enough rivals try. If you like there’s a one third chance of a sprint today and since he’s the fastest sprinter here by some way then there’s almost a 30% of a win. That puts him ahead of any baroudeur on the attack today.
Breakaway picks include Ben Healy (EF), Pierre Latour (Total), Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X) to get away and Axel Laurance (Ineos) if he can get in a group that stays away.
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Milan, Van der Poel |
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Laurance, Leknessund, Valgren |
Weather: warming up, 33°C by the finish.
TV: KM0 is at 12.35 and the finish is forecast for 17.15 CEST with the last 90 minutes live, enough to see some of the climbs.
Postcard from Mâcon
This year’s race doesn’t visit any big cities, Montluçon and Mâcon today are outside the top-200 when it comes to French towns ranked by population. Mâcon, punches above its weight thanks to the wine trade, today’s finish is close to several Burgundy wine appellations; the village of Chardonnay is nearby. It’s also the birthplace of Lamartine, the romantic poet, thinker and politician.
Mâcon never got a Tour de France stage until late. The story goes that race director Jean-Marie Leblanc took a well-deserved holiday here in August 1989 and liked the look of it. Sitting beyond the Alps and near the high-speed TGV railway line it made perfect sense for the transfer to Paris. So in 1991 it hosted the finish of Stage 19… and the start of Stage 20, a time trial too.
That day saw some history made when Viatcheslav Ekimov won the stage, becoming the first Russian stage winner. Riding for the Panasonic team, he was one of the most highly-prized riders out of the Soviet bloc with a pedigree on the track and in time trials. He’s from Vyborg, the same city as Aleksandr Vlasov who might become the seventh Russian stage winner, unless he opts for Italian citizenship soon having lived there so long.
If Mâcon was picked in 1991 in part because of the rail links, no more today. The Tour de France now uses air transport for transfers rather than trains and apparently because the organisers ASO and the French railway operator are both terrified of rail strikes, the fear of a wildcat protest used to exploit the Tour’s notoriety. It feels like this could be allayed with some planning.
Eddie is the current national ITT champion, which might not count for too much. But he was almost top twenty in the opening Giro TT from ’23.(similar distance,profile and same winner as yesterday)
It is certainly not huge surprise.
Top-20 sure but this high up was interesting. Now to see how he is climbing, presumably at a great level too.
Once upon a time … there was value and cachet in a career as a “TT Specialist.” But if the top 6 in Stage 4 were Remco through MVP, has this noble calling been co-opted by gifted all-rounder generalists?
There are some of course that just aren’t there – eg Tarling, Ganna, even Kung, Tho not sure they can match Remco at the moment – particularly with a climb like yesterday’s.
I think there could have been a match with Tarling yesterday, he’s better on climbs than his towering size suggests. We might see at the Tour’s Caen TT stage.
When TTs were 40/50/60km and generally flat or rolling then they were much more suited to a genuine TT specialist. Any TT nowadays is generally about 20km max and always has a really steep climb and fiddly descent. Punchy power and bike handling are much more important now in TTs than they used to be.
Totally so, and albeit I love a “technical” ITT and prefer it had I to choose, still I find it a bit “unfair” (or just boring) that there’s no more variety in stage racing, just as it was “unfair” and boring when it was all 50 to 60 flat kms.
I’m not sure that’s just ’cause “current strong guys would be stronger on such a course” – not all of them, at least.
Remco is proven to be able to be good, less so Pogi, despite the occasional one. And Vingo… I think he *never* raced an ITT over 40 kms in his whole career, I wonder how many times was he ever on his TT bike racing for more than 40 *minutes*, probably not even half a dozen times in his life.
Vingegaard came second on the second ITT of TdF in 2022 (stage 20) which totaled 40,7 kms. You may remember that once he’d assured to improve over Pogi’s time, he visibly slowed down to give team mate WvA the victory.
My fast check source evidently hadn’t decimal showed 😉
So if he really stopped competing those last 700 m don’t count 😛
Let me add… why choosing length vs. technical route, and why not landscape and flavours, when you can have the Cinque Terre ITT in Liguria for the centenary Giro in 2009 (Menchov won in 1h35’… last classified athletes spent nearly 2h racing) or the Prosecco ITT in 2015, slightly “easier”, drank up by Kiryenka in a fast 1h18′ (last men at 1h30′ anyway)? Saltara 2013 among the Marche Verdicchio hills was also great, 55 kms but similar times because of the 900 m of altitude gain and the winding route.
The following ten years have been of decline, although 2016 and 2017 had decent stages in Toscana/Umbria, then 2019 had great variety but already within the dicotomy, technical = short.
Somewhat surprisingly (or not) in recent years the Giro has been defending “the concept” of serious ITTs more often and for longer than the TDF (last year still had Perugia which was good) but the general trend is sadly clear and self-reinforcing…
The decline is time-trials is because they generate less tv audience (something the route organisers study). Now the stages are televised, the organisers have reduced the time-trials and increased the mountain stages. The mountain stages are also more interesting if the GC hasn’t already been decided by a dominant time-trial performance.
Anquetil, Hinault and Indurain used to win so much time in the time-trials that all they needed to do was limit their losses on 2-3 mountain stages to ensure victory. (Merckx also dominated the time-trials but could win in the mountains). One of the modern improvements is that stage races are now decided in the mountains, with GC leaders trying to drop their rivals.
TTs definitely used to have too much bearing on the GC, though I think the balance has become a little skewed the other way. But I really don’t like technical TTs. Going up a steep climb at barely walking pace on a bike and in clothes purely designed for their aerodynamic benefit looks completely ridiculous. Bombing down the hills on a bike not really designed with handling in mind seems a bit daft too.
I’m not sure how that is an improvement.
And we could have the same discussion about sprinters.
It’s all W/KG now.
One thing I’ve always loved about our sport is any body type can be good at some part of it.
Can’t agree with much of the above. True, ITTs don’t have great audience data, but hard to see a correlation given that it’s been like that for decades and now organisers reduce ITTs… precisely in a period when they look to care less than ever about TV audience? Plus, the negative impact on audience is exactly the same whether the ITT course is long or short, so why are they also making them shorter? You can even notice sometimes that 2 or even 3 shorter ITTs are favoured over a single long one, which would be a much better solution in terms of TV audience.
Finally, ITT can produce improved audience if used startegically (e.g., last Sunday, or instead of a sprint stage at the end of the 1st week), or anyway the audience damage can be strategically reduced. It doesn’t look to be a priority, although some work is being done under that respect.
Next point. There’s abundance of well-argumented proposal explaining how the presence of ITTs actually improves action on the mountains. If athletes are subject again and again to the same test (w/kg), the winning strategy *for all the actors* is more often than not waiting, saving energies, playing it out at the very end of the stages and more generally at the very end of the three weeks.
ITTs are structurally intended to create a slighlty different standard of values, i.e. w/Cd s. w/kg hence generating different positions in the game which on turn could or should foster active playing.
Historically and in narrative terms (“the race of truth”) they were also intended as a benchmark to compare athletical values to tactical events and “adversities” which the cyclist had to overcome in order to prove that his athletical strength was supported by cunning and virtue ^___^
Obviously, this belonged to a different cultural and material context for the sport.
Anyway, nowadays as ever, taking complexity of factors away from a competition of sort is never an improvement as such. So, depending on the contenders, organisers must try to look for a balance which avoids just rewarding again and again the same skills.
If w/kg and pure watts or w/Cd become to similar (for a number of reasons) it makes sense to reduce ITTs, but unlike other sports – as ZKelly also implies – cycling is more about a combination of complex and contradictory factors you have to manage on several layers rather than looking for the perfect action carried out by a perfect body in perfect conditions (a difference in opinion between me and Rowe…).
Remco is actually a TT specialist who’s decent doing a couple of other tricks, too ^___^
The level is very high among TT specialists, but it’s quite high as far as “just being Pogi, Vingo, WVA or MvdP” is concerned.
And here we have no Ganna, Küng, Affini, Tarling, Vine, Bissegger, Berg… just Cavagna, Armirail, Foss or Campenaerts, with the two former being 3rd line at best and the latter two having admittedly shifted their focus a little away from pure ITTng.
It’s unreal how well this race is set up. Visma with two potential winners, Remco defending, Pogi needing to attack. Young riders looking to stay with the favorites will be very fun to watch (what can Seixas do?). Today’s stage may not have gc action, but it will be lively to say the least considering how many teams won’t get much out of the later stages. I’m expecting fireworks until the end of the race.
So nice to have a left coaster! And agree.
Pog doesn’t need to attack. Winning at the Dauphine is a bonus for him, but not a “need”.
We might ask for whom in the mighty three is winning the Dauphiné a need?
Is it a goal for Evenepoel to a greater extent than it is for Pogacar or Vingegaard because his chances of winning the Tour are smaller?
Does Vingegaard need to win now because otherwise Pogacar would have some sort of psychological edge on him or what?
I have no answers – and I´m afraid that I can follow the argument that Pogacar was “sandbagging” yesterday as far as the argument that he wasn´t 🙂
We could also ask which of the three has the heaviest legs from the past weeks´ training, i.e. is the furthest from his Tour shape?
I certainly don´t have an answer to that question, either…
They all want to win, Pogi included. And Pogi wasn’t sandbagging, he was just poor. Whether it was a bad day, a lack of preparation on the time-trial bike, or something more serious we will only know at the weekend. But anyone who enjoys watching him compete should be concerned.
They all would like to win here, but they have different limitations & priorities betwen them, which I hope Pogi is aware of…
As for «wanting», what they all *want* to win is the TDF.
They’re elite athletes so they all want to win. They’re aiming for Tour glory so they don’t need to win.
If their Tour prep also encompasses a Dauphine win, that’s incidental but welcome.
This is obviously not the main goal of the big three, but Pogi generally tries to win every race he enters. If he’s interested in winning, he’ll have to take a chunk of time at some point.
As Remco dominates so well in time trials and is a lightweight rider, why does he struggle on high-mountain climbs compared to Vingegaard and Pogačar? On paper, he looks great, his power output is definitely comparable if not higher, and his weight is similar, so he shouldn’t be getting dropped on climbs.
Suspect Remco’s power output (though primo) is not, in fact, comparable; but he is probably the most aero cyclist in history (like Cav was in sprints, never had the most power but boy was he aero).
He’s just particularly aero with his morphology, eg shorter arms. He is still a great climber but just short of Pogačar and Vingegaard; and less able to cope with the changes in pace on a climb. But he’s also changed, he is more punchy now. He’s also improved in the sprint and finishing tactics, and got better at descending.
L’Equipe has a good column on him today describing, in poetic terms, how he has been through a lot… and he’s still eligible for the white jersey.
And, a further remark.
Riding a time-trial bike is different from riding a normal road bike. I suspect that Pogi is rather more aero (relatively, compared to others) on a road bike that in time-trials. It is difficult to see how he competes in the classics so well otherwise. Remco, I suggest, is (relatively) less aero on the road bike than in time-trials.
Remco is very aero on a road bike, too, as we can see in his extremely long solo or the propensity to drop people by exhaustion from his wheel rather than having to attack with a violent jump as typical in Pogi (who could use exhaustion, too, in athletical terms, but attitude mirrors habits, here, and habits do mirror general learning of each own’s qualities and advantage points).
We also have some ITT ridden on road bikes to check that out for Remvo.
Finally, for a set of reasons a bit too complicated to detail here, albeit intuitive, athletes with great results in ITTs from a young age tend to also have an excellent position on a road bike (statistically, I mean, i.e., not the former being the cause and the latter the effect).
Again as a mere hint, Pogi even in his brutal solos or in the Classics or in stage strategy seems to be tending to appreciate the occasional and very sparse sitting on wheels proportionally a bit more than Remco does.
That said, Remco drag coefficient being excellent in both cases, while Pogi’s being surely much less notable in ITTs and probably worse on the road, too, yet I might agree that Cdr(oad)/Cdt(ime trial) could be greater in Pogi’s case. Really hard to say, anyway, because of Pogi exaggerate physical values and because of other factors which do interact on the road (different tiredness etc.)
I have a theory that, now fuelling is so sophisticated, lightweight riders have no advantage on the climbs. Heavier riders can fuel up enough to have an equal or superior power to weight ratio. I think this is Pidcock’s problem as well. Lowering the minimum bike weight might help a bit.
Gravity still counts. Fuelling is still ongoing as a topic though, not long ago 120g / hour was seen as radical, now triathletes are looking at 200g.
Listening to one of the unbound top-10 guys, he was on 170g/hour. Another rider he’d spoken to had been taking >190g/hour.
I feel queasy just at the thought.
I expect him to be able to defend this lead through this race due to his recent weight loss, but he could loose out to the more punchy accelerations from TP (or perhaps JV?) if they repeat these. It certainly bodes for some exciting racing in the comiing days.
I also think he can follow for some time in the TdF but I don’t think his base level is raised sufficiently to last for a full 3 week GT. I will expect him to have a jour sans at some point. But he has definitely become a more cunning rider, which might serve him well. No more youthfull attacking, more patience. But still the worst (in relative terms) bike handler fo the three.
Re. his struggles, it could be that his metabolism copes not so well with the rarefied air above a certain altitude. If that can be trained to some degree, I don’t know.
We’ve still not quite heard what happened on that day in the Vuelta when he cracked for no reason; although the reports of stress/sleep loss can explain a lot.
Sounds like Vingegaard’s problem at Poland years ago, and Visma sent him to “an academy” (so they said) to cure the stress/sleep problems. I think it was Robert Gesink who said he had to sit with Vingegaard at breakfast to make sure he ate.
I think it was some kind of emotional implosion by Remco rather than anything physical: the way he lost 20 mins was just shocking. Vingegaard has got much better at dealing with the stress: his team has got him to relax and accept that so long he does he best then it doesn’t matter if he is beaten. Pogi has always been quite good at this way of dealing with the stress (and doing classics definitely helps him in this regard–there is always a new race coming soon).
Agreed!
Mercifully it’s not that straightforward. So many factors into the mix, including in no particular order team support, how efficiently a racer positions and rides before, between, and down the mountains, tactics and positioning on the climbs, endurance base (Evenepoel is two/three years younger than Pogacar and Vingegaard) etc. etc.
It think its down to a few more things – Remco is technically a TT wonder. Compared to (as I see it) all others he just seem to be fused to the bike and he always seem so well-prepared and to know how to dose his effort over the stage.
I have the impression that Pog and Vingo just don’t focus that much on the details and preps for the TTs. I saw in an interview with Niemann I think it was, that the only two TTs Visma/Vingo had reconnoitered down to the last meter was Rocamadour in 2022 and Combloux in 2023. And Yesterday it also seemed that Pog was not always all that prepared. Not that Pog and Vingo disregard the TTs – for them its (usually) just another brick in the wall, whereas Remco knows that his strenght is there.
As many pointed out already, Remco is super-aero, which means less power output for equal times. Plus, as also noticed above, ITTng is many other things. The man won the Worlds against Ganna without being able to check his heart/power data in real time. Compare that with many stem-staring athletes. Or just look how Vingo’s bike had a lot of micro-swerving in yesterday’s finale (despite his being a monstre result, too!) whereas Remco looks like that TGV which passed by during Tuesday’s finale.
It’s hard to describe how good Remco looks and is in ITTs since very early years, meaning sort of a natural gift which is only partly about power in a specialty which for most requires heaps of hard work to be progressively mastered.
And we’re living an age where ITTs’ level of competition is incredibly high, as we can see thanks to absolute results and top athletes competing steadily among them through several seasons.
Since his 23rd birthday, in two seasons and a half, Remco only lost *three* fast (>48km/h) ITTs – and he was 2nd, once each to Ganna, Küng and Tarling (whom he’s still beating most of the times).
His worst ITT career result, including when racing WT ITTs as a teenager (yep, still a teenager when Euro Champ over Ganna, Küng, Dowsett , plus Worlds runner-up over the same but behind Dennis), was a 18th place in a crowded stage of Benelux Tour, August 2021 (can’t remember it personally, but he was still 21 yo and wasn’t bad, 39″ behind Bisseger, 19″ behind Küng, 16″ to Dumoulin, I assume just many strong passisti that day…).
So.
Since that single day, in the last 4 years or so, he raced 27 total ITTs, fast or hilly, long or short. His worst results were 5th (once) or 4th (twice). He podiumed 24/27 times. And of course won over 50% of them – context, as said, being an absolutely astonishing competition by both historical-level specialists *and* GC contender from more prepared teams.
To quote a currently missing contributor “Mow ’em down in the Chrono, hold ’em in the mountains”, we shall see if Remco Evenepoel can defend. The race hasnt quite conformed to the pre race predictions with three alpha males competing for top spot. Who could have predicted Eddie Dunbar ahead of Tadej Pogacer on GC after the TT! Florian Lipowitz must have a shout at the podium.
Am I misremembering but did Cav win a sprint stage that finished at the Parc Oiseaux a few years back?
I am missing Larry T and his lively contributions. I did see him comment about the Giro in an article on Cyclingnews or Cycling Weekly, so clearly still out there.
Larry: come back!
Vingegaard to win from a reduced bunch sprint after closing down a late attack by the yellow jersey?
He’s made a few comments recently on CW stories so maybe he’s defected!
Dear Mr./Mrs. INRNG,
have you ever thought of making a book out of all the postcards? They are always super interesting.
Looking forward to Le Tour, coffee in the morning and the stage preview open on the iPad.
All the best
A happy reader
+1
No for a book, I want to add some local context to the day but don’t imagine anyone reading them beyond the day the race comes to town.
I get that – but they are good enough to be standalone in a book perhaps published pre-Grand Tour? Then it can be an appetiser or an accompaniment.
Remco is just not a top climber end of. No need for paralysis by analysis.
He is a top climber, but just not the best. See the Tour last year where he was regularly third or near in the summit finishes, and without much of a team around either. Almeida, either Yates, Landa, Carapaz… and many more well behind.
From what I gather it’s because he’s so close the top that he finds a lot of motivation. If there was no Vingegaard or Evenepoel he’d be in a slightly different place.
Vingegaard to win from a reduced bunch sprint after closing down a late attack by the yellow jersey?
The warm weather seems to be a factor in the race so far and tonight will be another challenge for those who aren’t in love with it.
I’m expecting a TV ad for Cervélo that starts with, “When the world champion is interested in your bike …” Also the team putting out some Pogacar quotes for the media instead of the man himself having a chat. All a bit odd.
All still to play for though for the GC. Only 1 minute covers the top 10, Visma have two guys there but Lipowitz only 4 seconds behind Remco might turn out to be the unsuspected guy on the podium. (and he’s out of a contract at the end of this year)
Yeah! ^___^ Thinking the very same…
As written here months ago, I expected Pogi to be probably behind form-wise, despite a favourable course, whereas Visma sticks to the “new protocols” building towards the TDF with a strong Dauphiné, but… evidently enough, the current situation or its extent was way far from what Pogi and his team expected!
I hope he won’t do the “Lance mistake” (one or two or three of them, I mean…), in this case specifically getting too interested in GC here for rivalry reasons when if you haven’t top form it’s better just to go on doing your thing training on at the race according to schedules and programme (see Nibali 2014, Evans 2011, Contador 2009-2010, Sastre 2008… or Pogi 2020) . A bit like MvdP on Tuesday, even if he similarly must be careful not to get to obsessed with a victory today.
Pogi is now in uncharted training territory, much more than he was last season or even in 2023.
The Giro is much more suited as a training (especially if you’ve helped designing the route) and you must bring your body in the same direction as for the TDF, unlike the Classics. An injury stop is way worse, but at least you’ve got references. Instead, the mere fact of going extremely hard for the win from Sanremo to Liège with an unplanned Roubaix as the bonus track midway through is pretty much unprecedented in the last 40 years of cycling, Sean Kelly 1984 being the only comparable example I can recall (and we’re speaking of the most complete Spring by the 2nd strongest Classic specialist ever). Whereas I remember other great Classics champions, and versatile ones, too, like Bugno, Bartoli, Museeuw, Tchmil, Vandenbroucke, Tafi… *all trying and failing* to bring a competitive form across. Zabel also tried, to no effect; then from the end of the World Cup people became less motivated to even try. Most simply didn’t. Gilbert had a go *with no Roubaix* in 2010-11 and performed fine but he slightly sacrificed LBL in one case, Sanremo in the other. GVA the other obvious example rarely arrived at Sanremo with decent form, and rightly so, as when he did he then struggled to keep strong through the Spring.
Lamartine was from a small village near Mâcon which is non called by his name : Milly-Lamartine (as there is a Illiers-Combray for Proust : I dont know if there are a lot of countries where place’s names change because of litterature). His most famous verses were written as a tribute to ITT: “Ô, temps, suspends ton vol, et vous, heures propices, suspendez votre cours…” That’s exactly what Remco was saying yesterday while riding !
++++1
San Mauro Pascoli, it’s for the poet not because people went shepherding herds there…
Torre del Lago Puccini if you fancy music (cycling races nearby) but if you’re a science person there’s Corteno Golgi also cycling famous, between Mortirolo and Aprica.
I find it incredible that Italy doesn’t have a Dante in a place’s name. Firenze or Ravenna don’t need Dante to be famous, but one of the exile’s cities (Mulazzo, for example, that I know nothing about) ? When you see how Dante is important in universities (studi danteschi !) or common culture (I once made a Italian cry just saying ironically the first verses of the Comedy).
I would prefer Pesarossini than Torre del Lago Puccini !
Pesarossini is nice!
There’s at least a little place named after Dante, which I commented about here when the Giro passed by, the Passo di Dante which the ITT went below through a tunnel.
Here in Czechia, we have a town of Brod, formerly Nemecky Brod / Deutschbrod (sic – not Deutschfurt), since 1945 Havlickuv Brod (The Ford of Karel Havlicek Borovsky, 19th century “spring of nations” writer, journalist and politician, persecuted by the Hapsburg regime).
Slovakia has several towns named in similar vein after the dissolusion of Austria-Hungary, mainly in the areas with strong Hungarian minority presence: Sturovo, Hurbanovo, Kolarovo, Bernolakovo etc.
Of course, the reason was political, not cultural.
According to Wikipedia most of them were still poets ? In France also, most of the place’s names are for writers that have a political connection : Milly-Lamartine, candidate at the presidential election in 1848, Ferney-Voltaire, named like this during the Revolution… The exception is Proust.
I’m waiting for a Liptakov-Jàra Cimrman !
Yes, the were kind of post-romantic nationalist (in a slightly different sense than the contemporary meaning of the word – they were rather liberal nationalists) and politicaly active poets. Perhaps similar to the likes of Petofi or Mickiewicz.
Bernolak and Stur even researched and codified modern Slovak language.
Sure, every (re)naming of a place is political – if often less blunt than say the Denali and Gulf of Mexico shenanigans – but both Havlickuv Brod and the Slovak towns were especially politically motivated – by, indeed, difficult ethno-national relationships between former and later minorities and majorities of Central European states.
I would hesitate before entering a town called Kafka!
Ha! Thanks for the chuckle…I love/fear the thought of a Kafka-esque town!
And sure, it’s time to rename Liptákov, but to do so we’d have to find it first. 🙂 No one seems to know where it lies.
Perhaps the least or weirdest politicaly motivated naming of a place after a cultural hero is the Russian uran minning town of Lermontov. I struggle to imagine a political regime Lermontov would feel comfortable with.
Russia loves naming places after the likes of Pushkin and Tolstoy, obviously, but there is also a Tolstoy in the US and Canada (in both of them, not the emerging single entity of Northern American Empire…). 🙂
So we should just rename a town Liptakov !
The weirdest russian city name for me, and for political reason also, is Togliatti, named after the chief of the italian communist party, who died on holidays in Yalta… The name seemed very odd to me until I found the reason.
I’m really disappointed that there is no such thing as a town named Victor-Hugo. Victorugo, in South America, or Victorugov, in Eastern Europe, would be very sweet (and V.H. wrote some bad poetry defending the liberty of more or less all the nations in the world, at one point).
I presume they named it after Palmiro Togluatti because of the atentate? So, in the end, that brings us back to Bartali. 🙂
The race goes through Milly today. He wrote about the risks of monarchical power within democracies and more, all dusty old stuff 😉
Yeah, good thing we don’t have to worry about that any more…
Tom Dumoulin may like to know there’s a place in England called Shitterton.
Fascinating naming of towns discussion, I’d like to add a little side note:
In Slovenia, we have a train called gomulka, officially SŽ 311/315, made in Poland and bought in the 60s, but still active. It is named after Władysław Gomułka, leader of Poland at that time.
Speaking of trains, we also have a locomotive called Brižitka (SŽ 363), made in France in the 70s, still active. Named after Brigitte Bardot for its french origin and elegant form 🙂
Is a cycling helmet’s purpose to protect the head, or to reduce air resistance?
Answer is yes… It is all about balance, a bit like a bike having to worry about becoming more aero vs stability/comfort/weight/stiffness
Helmet’s have to conform to a certain certified level of protection (I want to say determined by UCI regulations) to be legally allowed in professional cycling and they do save lives – see Cavendish’s helmet after one of his 70 km/h sprint crashes.
Aero is very important and different for long 6 hour ride versus the time trial 20 minute effort. Ventilation (and weight) becomes an important factor the longer the ride goes, so the stranger looking time trial helmets that are more aero would not be viable to wear for 6 hours (but there are some closed helmets in the peloton and riders will wear skinsuits for hours, which are more aero, when they know they will be sprinting for a win).
So the ideal helmet is light, aero and well ventilated while still managing to pass the certification process.
Once you cover the first to the required standards, then you can have all the rest as we’re increasingly seeing for sprinters and probably soon everyone, especially when it’s not hot.