drlogik 

Late in stage 9 when Rigoberto Uran's derailleur failed, I didn't see any cables. Are these guys now using electronic shifters and derailleurs now?

And dang! His mechanic, hanging out of the car window, shifted the derailleur with his fingers while the guy is riding??? Adjusting I can see but working the derailleur by hand....man, that's dedication!

Impressive that Uran came back to win!

Metacortex

Uran's derailleur was kicked by Martin after Porte crashed and wiped out Martin in the process. I believe Martin's foot disconnected Uran's cable so shifting was no longer possible. Note that was *not* Uran's mechanic who made the manual shift, it was a mechanic from a Mavic neutral support vehicle. More details here: Uran beats the odds to take first Tour de France stage win | Cyclingnews.com

Was riding the last 23 Kilometers with essentially one manual shift made by a neutral mechanic and still winning the stage impressive? I'd say so!

Maelochs

Oh, come on. The guys had two gears: 52x11 and 36x11.

Pretty funny when this stuff happens. On the one hand we know it was just a superhuman effort to beat all those other guys--on an uphill sprint no less--with only two gears. On the other hand, we can (humorously) ask, What are all the other gears for then?

Could we all have been sold a lie that "More is better"?

02Giant 

For mere mortals, no.

europa

Many people ride fixed gear and if you search the internet, you'll find stories of people riding those big TdF mountains on a fixed gear.

This bloke climbed Mount Ventoux from all four directions in one day... as a warm up to riding Paris Brest Paris

Climbing Mont Ventoux on a fixed gear, four times | Bicycle Times Magazine

jefnvk

What is more impressive is that Froome didn't hold the group up for him to flat out change bikes, like Froome benefited from not too much earlier in the stage.

Only if where you are riding is relatively the same gradient wise. Had it been an uphill finish, instead of relatively flat, he'd have been fairly screwed. Gears help you adjust to varying conditions, nothing more, nothing less. As mentioned above, one can easily climb hills on a SS if the gearing is right, but then they would have been screwed for the sprint at the end.

corrado33

No.

Gears were introduced into the TdF because the pros (on fixed) were getting beat by normal people with gears.

Gears make you faster overall. (However the argument of say 11 speed vs. 10 speed when they cover the same range is less concrete.)

You have to realize that almost no one on the TdF is giving 100% all of the time. If so, the riders would be dead only after a few short days. It's more a game of energy conservation than anything else. So if someone breaks a derailleur they can put in slightly more energy to "keep up" or "keep away" from the peloton, but at the expense of probably reduced performance the next day.

Try it yourself. Ride your favorite route only using 2 gears. Try to keep the pace you normally would. I'm sure you can do it, but you'll be a hell of a lot more tired when you're done.

Milton Keynes

But the other guys, when they go up to 10, where do they go from there? Nowhere. But these go up to 11. That's one better.

indyfabz

For realz!

Hiro11

100% accurate.
Nope. Cannondale Drapac rides SRAM eTap so no cables are involved. Lack of shifting was due to physical damage to the hanger and derailleur.

Maelochs

Only Milton Keynes and Indyfabz managed to catch the flavor.

I wouldn't expect an economist to grasp humor ... learn something every day, i guess.

Hiro11

You can't really dust for vomit.

jefnvk

Hmm, I rescind my statement. After reading about that guy who went up Ventoux four times in a day, even he changed gears (albeit, by flipping the back wheel) for one of the ascents.

scott967

From personal experience losing the cable does drop you into the smallest cog and there's no "manual adjust" unless you are screwing the limit screw (while riding?)

scott s.
.

Marcus_Ti

Negative.

See the "Dura Ace" on those levers...

Uran won that Tour sprint on a singlespeed - Cannondale-Drapac Pro Cycling Team

Every photo I've seen of Cannondale-Drapac bikes from 2016 and 2017 I've found shows Shimano transmission. Their only listed component sponsor is FSA. Not that this in any way alters the bent hanger being the source of his problem ofc.

drlogik 

Maelochs,

I agree with an above post, for us mere mortals, more gears are better. That said, my main road bike now is my Wabi fixed.

My poor Pinarello Montello sits in the corner of the garage looking very neglected and her Campy parts are starting to tarnish. I'm afraid to take her out for a ride now because she'll flat twice on my next ride as jealous revenge......

Maelochs

I am a little disappointed that so few people realized I was teasing. Y'all are a lame bunch sometimes.

Do you think Uran would have won if he had had discs and Barguil had rim brakes?

jefnvk

Maybe Porte and Martin would have been less tempted to crash in front of him had he known there was sawblades attached to his wheel

ddeand 

The Cannondale team manager had some interesting things to say after the race regarding Uran's situation. First, he heaped praise on Uran as a leader, national hero, and top competitor. He suggested that Uran might have had greater success over the years if he had handled his choice of gears in the latter parts of races. By being limited to only two possible gears, a lot of guesswork and options were removed, and he finished with pure talent and guts for his first stage win. Really good interview and a nice description of the kind of rider Uran is.

europa

Sounds a little like the owner of a football club saying 'we have every confidence in the coach' after a string of losses

Of course, I'm only working off your post, I haven't seen/read the interview which probably says a lot more.

Doug64

However, if you go back a ways in the Giro you will see that triples have been used in major races. I even think I heard the commentator talking about triples in a TDF (maybe 15 years ago).

Yendor72

I would say a pro rider has about 30 seconds of 100%. What is your max bench press weight? Is that for 40-50 times or just 1 rep? 100% means your doing everything to failure, 100% in an endurance event is not possible for any length of time. Go check Froome's heart rate information. When you realize that he is in Zone 2-3 most of the time, doing things that you and I are maxed on you will realize he is not at 100% very often if ever.

Maelochs

I think what corrado33 means is they aren't even going at 100 percent of their cruising speed. Not 100 percent sprinting ... not even 100 percent of their practice pace over distance.

I wholly agree with him---the reason Uran could overcome the gearing was because he sacrificed himself. Still impressive ... because Barguil wasn't holding anything back at that point. But ... Barguil had probably been doing 90-95 percent in the break and recatching Bardet, and all the stuff I have forgotten (he wanted a stage win)---while Uran was probably doing 85% back with the yellow jersey group and with the Porte/Martin group. (It's all pretty dim and fuzzy now.)

In the end I think Barguil saved some tiny burst of energy to try to steal the stage, and Uran said "Screw it, I will kill myself before I let this one go."

Both of them new it was a few days until the next GC/climbing stage.

corrado33

Yes, @Maelochs is correct. Obviously I didn't mean "going as fast as they possibly can, aka sprinting" when I said 100%. I meant that many of them aren't going as fast as they could on that particular stage. "As fast as you can" over 100k is much slower than "as fast as you can" over 100 meters. When I said "100%" I meant "as fast as that particular rider could do that stage in if they tried their hardest, aka "Race/Time Trial" Pace. If that particular stage was just a single stage time trial (no drafting), then everyone would be riding at 100% for that race to try to win.

When my coach in XC told me "I want you to run as fast as you can for these 5k" I never took it to mean "I want you to sprint for 5k." That's obviously ludicrous.

Yendor72

Gotcha. The biggest factor is the ability to draft. He was able to save some energy and really push it at the end based on that.

It is why people get reeled in when they break away. The peloton has the ability to get someone out front to hit their max cruising speed and drag everyone else with them. Swap out to fresher legs, wash, rinse, repeat. Uran took advantage of that. Was still pretty cool to see with only the 2 gears to ride.