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2014 Tour De France


ScottCM

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I liked the way a woman in a skirt and big yellow top hat helped Andrew Talansky fix his bike after he crashed. It was surreal . . . . :-)

I read somewhere it was a man in a Scottish kilt ...

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I liked the way a woman in a skirt and big yellow top hat helped Andrew Talansky fix his bike after he crashed. It was surreal . . . . :-)

 

And she looked like she knew what was required

Very cool

 

 

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And she looked like she knew what was required

Very cool

 

She knows her way around a bike.....my kind of girl :thumbup:

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Re. Talansky:

 

Seems to me that 'Pitbull' has a bit of an anger management problem. It's the second day in a row that he's thrown a tantrum and refused to speak to the press, gone straight to the team bus without acknowledging anyone around him, and where he's had to come out again to warm down on the rollers, he's positioned them to face the bus so that no-one can look at him. He seems to be unable to handle disappointment, unable to keep his cool when things don't go his way. Is that a useful quality to have as a high profile pro bike rider? Maybe, maybe not.

 

I see where he got his nickname from now.

Edited by tombeej
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Just 21 years old. The face of the future? Just wait for his brother to join him in the grand tours. Giddy times for the poms :)

post-22004-0-15846200-1405238578_thumb.jpg

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Brothers who have competed in the Tour over the last hundred+ years:

  1. Maurice and César Garin
  2. Henri, Francis and Charles Pélissier
  3. Antonin and Pierre Magnin
  4. Rodger and Guy Lapébie
  5. Louison and Jean Bobet
  6. Rodger and Erik De Vlaeminck
  7. Jo and Eddy Plankaert
  8. Pascal, Régis, Jérôme and François Simon
  9. Marc and Yvone Madiot
  10. Stephen and Laurence Roche
  11. Miguel and Prudencio Indurain
  12. Laurent and Nicholas Jalabert
  13. Andy and Frank Schleck

 

... and in 2015:

 

Simon and Adam Yates

Nairo and Dayer Quintana

Edited by tombeej
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The curious case of Dayer Quintana. How and why Nairo Quintana's brother went from racing his bike, to unwillingly becoming a police officer.

 

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http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mLqM73LD35E/UWi1qREVoLI/AAAAAAAANS8/EvmJcYz9ySY/s1600/quintana1.gif Dayer Quintana (Photo: Nuestro Ciclismo)

 

Like Nairo Quintana, his brother Dayer grew up in Boyaca, a cycling-rich department of Colombia, northeast of Bogota. Like Nairo, Dayer also knew next to nothing about cycling growing up. Riding a bike, for him, was a simple necessity.

 

Financial realities were tough for the Quintana family, but their fighting and industrious spirit persevered. The two siblings learned to drive a car early on, at only ten years of age or so, in order to make a living. This is something they learned from their older brother, who also began driving taxis at night around that age, in order to make a living while not being spotted driving by the authorities. This, I would argue, is exemplary of the Colombian spirit, and a certain saying that is common throughout the country: pa'lante, an informal compression of the words "para adelante", which mean moving forward, or always looking on and forging ahead despite obstacles.

 

At any rate, these days, Nairo's brother Dayer is 20 years old. Having seen his brother's success from early on, he's wanted to follow in Nairo's footsteps. Like his brother, Dayer is a climber, and at 128 pounds (58 kilos), 5'5" (167 cms), he's ideally suited for the task. But this is where things get rather interesting.

 

In order to help his young brother a couple of years back, Nairo worked to create a U23 squad in his local department, for the riders that the state-sponsored team in their region hadn't picked. To do so, Nairo secured sponsorship from the local police, in order to make sure that the riders would have some pay, as well as food and altitude training covered. In order to do this, riders had to sign up to be police officers, on paper, in order to draw their salary through their sponsor. Though unusual, the matter appeared to be merely administrative.

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vtir1Fqk7m8/UWi_FrCWEFI/AAAAAAAANTU/VaRxKEH8nys/s1600/496147e8066b3f90ac3104e3077335ac_L.jpg Dayer, wearing the kit for the team sponsored by the National Police (Photo: Nuestro Ciclismo)

 

While this arrangement was made with a General in the police, eventually there was "an issue with politicians" according to Nairo, and the team's riders were made to actually serve as police officers, though they didn't want to, and never intended to. They were, in a sense, conscripted to serve. That included Dayer, who served as an officer for 18 months, "patrolling the streets, in boots and full uniform" according to Nairo's account.

 

Luckily for Dayer, his brother's connections within local government (his friend had been mayor of Tunja) came in handy, and Dayer was allowed to leave the force just recently. Not so for the other riders in the team.

 

During Dayer's 18 months in the force, he was not allowed to race or train, thus loosing a full season in the sport. He's just now back on the bike, and with Nairo's help has signed on with an amateur squad in Spain for the season. Curiously enough, Dayer's Facebook page still lists the National Police as his employer.

 

It's perhaps because of this type of circumstance, that novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez once rightfully said that as a Colombian, he's had to ask very little of his imagination. Such is our reality.

 

"Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude."

 

– Gabriel García Márquez
Edited by tombeej
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Re. Talansky:

 

Seems to me that 'Pitbull' has a bit of an anger management problem. It's the second day in a row that he's thrown a tantrum and refused to speak to the press.... He seems to be unable to handle disappointment, unable to keep his cool when things don't go his way. Is that a useful quality to have as a high profile pro bike rider? Maybe, maybe not.

 

I see where he got his nickname from now.

 

I heard audio footage on a podcast where he came pass the OGE bus after his stage 6 crash and shouted demanding an apology from Gerrans for causing him to crash.

 

I started liking him after Dauphinè

That's now changed

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What scenery right now

Wow

"highjack"

Did you train today quite wet in the Cape! Not as cold as Gauteng though!!

"unhighjack"

 

Beautiful scenery today in the TdF

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"highjack"

Did you train today quite wet in the Cape! Not as cold as Gauteng though!!

"unhighjack"

 

Beautiful scenery today in the TdF

 

Just an hour active recovery, Sharkie'

Had two tough days in the saddle the last few days

 

Brrrrrr

 

*Gauteng hijack done*

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