Official - 2010 Vuelta a Espana - Thread

[1066familyman]

Interesting start.

Stage 1 - HTC Columbia win the night time team TT putting Cav in Red.

Stage 2 - Cav beaten in the sprint by Hutarovich. Farrar 3rd, Petacchi 4th.

Very brief coverage of stage 2 sprint finish here ( hopefully )
Stage 2 Highlights - Vuelta a Espana 2010

 

[Stat Brother]

Thanks for that FM, sadly I won't be contributing much as the Vuelta is a distant 3rd in my Grand Tour understanding.

 

[1066familyman]

Thanks for that FM, sadly I won't be contributing much as the Vuelta is a distant 3rd in my Grand Tour understanding.

That's a shame, was relying on your good self along with the usual suspects on here to keep this thread rolling along. I will only be making do with clips and news off the internet myself

On a side note. Shame that Andy Schleck won't be riding in the World Championships - sure Tyrone would have been looking forward to seeing him live.

Hope you can be relied upon to kick off next summer with the official Giro thread on here ?

 

[1066familyman]

Just reading even more bad news for TB. Kreuziger is not riding the Worlds either - pretty sure he mentioned Kreuziger was the rider he was most looking forward to seeing.

 

[les dynam]

thanks for the link. sort of pleased to see cav get beaten, was looking a bit uncompetitive in the tour... which doesn't make for a great finish.

long time TDF fan but this is the first i've ever seen of this Vuelta. Couple of beginners questions:

i assume the red jersey is for overall leader - but what are the other shirt colours used? i.e. green is what? white is what? etc

are the teams the same size as in the TDF?

are the stages of a similar length and severity?

Cheers guys!

 

[Stat Brother]

Vuelta A España: Stages, Route Maps & Results | Cyclingnews.com

Is my pro racing home, it should answer all your queries.

 

[1066familyman]

I won't pretend to know very much about the Tour of Spain myself. I'm also a long time TdF fan and only started this thread as I know several on here are bang into their cycling and will hopefully pick this thread up and help get us TdF glory hunters into a proper cycling season of races too.

Red is certainly the GC leaders jersey ( although I don't think it's always been that colour ? ) and apparently the polka dot equivalent is blue with a fish on it or something ? Not sure about the equivalent for green or even if there is a young riders competition ( white ).

 

[1066familyman]

This is an intertesting post from the cyclingnews forum on the colour of jerseys in the Vuelta :

The combined classification has been around for a long time in various races, it's for the person who is best all-round the other classifications. They add up your position in the GC, points and KOM classifications and the rider with the lowest total wins. Unfortunately, it's pretty much universally won by the winner, so is usually worn by another GC contender; the last rider to win it but not win the GC was Alejandro Valverde in 2003.

The problem is, unlike the Tour or Giro, the Vuelta was not started with a sponsor whose key colours were as clear (the yellow of L'Equipe and pink of La Gazzetta dello Sport are well known), nor did the initial sponsor stay on long enough that the colour was ingrained enough to be kept. The shift to red was almost inevitable when Ahorra Energia took over as prime sponsor, for the same reason as we had the 'maillot butano' in the 80s, and the blue points jersey became the fish jersey a few years ago. The KOM always used to be orange, but that changed to dark red with the rise of Euskaltel. In 2007, for reasons unknown, the dark red mountains jersey and blue points jersey swapped over. Last year, the points jersey changed from blue to green as a sop to the ASO; this year the KOM changed primarily because the old KOM jersey would clash with the new red leaders' jersey.


Basically then, I'm still none the wiser and come next year it could alll be change again.

 

[Statto]

Good to see Cav leading tho. The first brit to lead the race since the great Robert Millar in the mid 80s. he wont have it all his own way tho, petacchi and Farrar are looking strong aswell. Should be a good stage today, but he will get more chances, the first week is almoast entirly flat. I also fancy Skys Ben Swift to pick up a stage soon.

 

[Statto]

thanks for the link. sort of pleased to see cav get beaten, was looking a bit uncompetitive in the tour... which doesn't make for a great finish.

long time TDF fan but this is the first i've ever seen of this Vuelta. Couple of beginners questions:

i assume the red jersey is for overall leader - but what are the other shirt colours used? i.e. green is what? white is what? etc

are the teams the same size as in the TDF?

are the stages of a similar length and severity?

Cheers guys!

1 alredy answered
2 yes
3 yes.

Hope this helps.

 

[Statto]

Red is certainly the GC leaders jersey ( although I don't think it's always been that colour ? )

You are right, it used to be gold. (Mallio Oro).

 

[1066familyman]

Good to see Cav leading tho. The first brit to lead the race since the great Robert Millar in the mid 80s. he wont have it all his own way tho, petacchi and Farrar are looking strong aswell. Should be a good stage today, but he will get more chances, the first week is almoast entirly flat. I also fancy Skys Ben Swift to pick up a stage soon.

I see a bug has swept through the Sky team and Ben Swift is one of those who had to retire today as a result

 

[Stat Brother]

Blimey sad loss to the sport

Laurent Fignon Dies Aged 50 - BikeRadar

 

[Stat Brother]

I guess we had better note Cav being only the second Britain to win stages in all 3 grand tours.

One hell of a lead out from Goss (the 2 white figures on the right hand side).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5QnUriWHk

 

[Statto]

Was a gret ride by HTC today, they where nowhere with a kilomitre to go, and then Matt Goss sprang that suprise attack to win it for Cav. Gotta fancy his chances of winning the sprinters jersey now (providing he gets through the mountains in the coming final week).

 

[Stat Brother]

bit of ahh moment:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga72-ASP1uM&feature=youtu.be