Loupe - Day Two (including Prologue)

LLB bought a new freeview box at the weekend, and we found some cycling on a really obsure Freeview channel.

In case you missed it, here is the commentary by Lars Fargleson and someone whose name I didn't catch, it might have been Rob Bacall, I'm not sure.

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Hello and welcome, this is Lars Fargleson and I'm here in Loupe with my colleague Rob ("Hi!" from someone off camera) covering the second day of this very exciting four day race.

As you will all be aware from criticism in the cycling press, the UCI is trying to ban the use of race radios in order to make races more "spontaneous and exciting", in their words. Well, this race has been used as a model for that idea, and already it is proving to be, well, I wouldn't say spontaneous, but it certainly has become exciting - in fact, a bit more exciting than some of the riders would have liked.

The Prologue yesterday was, well, umm, interesting. It was a Team Time Trial through the swamps to the south of Loupe, and I'm afraid the phrase "We've lost a few riders" took on a new and sinister meaning after the long section through the crocodile reserve. For many teams, the rope bridge over the bear pit proved to be a substantial obstacle, causing long delays as some riders struggled to maintain their balance, and indeed their lunches, as they crossed above the chasm.

This lead to many team times falling outside of the time limit for this stage. Now there is always confusion about this aspect of stage races, so I'll get Rob to explain it. Rob!

(Rob speaks)  Oh, it's not that bad, Lars! This is how it works: the finish time for the leader is taken as the base measurement, and the last team has to arrive within a certain additional percentage of the winner's time.

This percentage varies according to the average speed of the race, so if the race proceeds at less than 42km/h then the final riders have to get to the finish within 13% of the leaders' time. The faster the race, the longer they have - if the race speed averages 48km/h or more, they have 20%.

To make a really simple example: if the leader gets home in one hour, that's 60 minutes, at a slow speed, then the last rider has to get home in 60 minutes plus 13%, which is 67 minutes.  If it was a really fast race, like a time trial, then they would have had to get home in 60 minutes plus 20%, which is 72 minutes.

Does that make sense?

(Lars comes back) Thanks, Rob, that was brilliant. Unfortunately, this means that many teams were judged to be outside the race limit, and we are now down to just 9 teams for the second day of racing, which is taking place here within the town limits of Loupe.

In line with the UCI's stated aim of making races more interesting, the organisers, PUIAB, asked the riders to compete in today's short section using various riding styles suggested by the town's schoolchildren. This made a lightweight day for the riders, and after the trials and tribulations of the Prologue yesterday, this was not a bad thing. All the events were Team events, which made the scoring much simpler.

We started the day with the Wheelie competition:

First into the fray were the Individual Wheelies, where competitors gained points for their team by pulling the highest wheelie.

Some teams struggled with this discipline:

And some left the course altogether, and were disqualified: this unfortunate rider (left) lost control and ended up ramming one of the Town Walls.





Luckily, he wasn't injured, and the local police agreed not to press charges for damaging a Listed Monument.

After the individual section, teams competed en masse, and the last team with a man still "up" was declared the winner (right).







Once the teams had regrouped, they were given maps and told to make their own way from the start to the finish point, and of course with no radios, this caused a lot of confusion.  Astana stormed off from the line with great confidence, followed by Geox, AG2R, Euskaltel and Garmin, but the Leopard, Saxo Bank and HTC teams spent a little time checking maps and conferring, before leaving the start line.

The Sky team didn't have any hesitation, they rode calmly and quietly away from the Town Centre, many of them riding one-handed while they consulted what appeared to be phones with SatNav capability.

One team went in entirely the wrong direction, and were seen taking drastic measures to get across the River Loupe.

Astana, after a very fast start, found themselves outside the Town limits, and were forced to take a break to recuperate.


Eventually, all teams made it back to the Town Hall, and Sky were declared the winners, having beaten the others by nearly half an  hour.


Euskeltel were nearly disqualified, but managed to get their last man across the line just one minute short of disqualification.

The next section was supposed to be Fancy Dress, but unfortunately there were complaints from some of the teams who thought it was a bit below them to take part in such a section.


Leopard-Trek were the only team to even attempt this section, and were awarded all the points for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places together.


This put them firmly in the GC lead.


Their spokesman, Team Captain Jens Voight, commented afterwards "Ve vill do voteffer it reqvires to vin the race, ho ho ho".


This left just two more sections to be completed, and the first one led to a great deal of confusion.

Teams lined up at the start - once again in the Town Square - and then the race organisers, PUIAB, took away half of the bikes.

The start flag was immediately dropped, leaving the teams frantically doubling up, to get all their team out of the town, along the beach, and back to the Town Hall.

As you can see from this picture (left) some teams were desperate enough to hijack the bikes of other teams!

Once all the teams were safely back at the start line, bikes were returned, and the teams lined up for the final section for the day: riding backwards.

This proved to be extremely difficult, and it was left to a non-competitor, one of the few surviving VacansOleil riders, to show the townsfolk how it should be done.

Sadly, the race rules did not allow his team to be reinstated into the race: rules are, after all, rules.

The overall winners of this day's riding were judged to be Leopard-Trek first, with Astana a close second, and Saxo Bank trailing behind in third.

Do join us again tomorrow for Day Three, which is a traditional flat stage through the countryside surrounding Loupe.