Finally, I have the results here for you as well as the overall results and the random prizes. I personally had a lot of fun with the league and it should be an ongoing thing every year for Le Tour. A special thanks to the sponsors who made it all possible…

Oakley, Pure Planet Racing, Puma, Black Spade Racing, Rehidrat Sport all came to the party and gave massive value to the whole experience. The banter that went around on email alone was worth it and next year I will try co-ordinate all the banter in a forum somewhere.

First off, here are the stage results, for the outstanding stages:

Stage 10: Trevor White
Stage 11: Trevor White
Stage 12: Rob Gilmour
Stage 13: Ian Smuts
Stage 14: Carlo Botha
Stage 15: Henk v d Helde
Stage 16: Jaco v Tonder
Stage 17: Carlo Botha
Stage 18: Daniel Cunnama
Stage 19: Mark Ward
Stage 20: Ian Smuts
Stage 21: Johan du Toit

That left us with an amazing top 3, who won:

1st Place: Custom Oakley Jawbones: Carlo Botha

2nd Place: Pure Planet Racing Cycling Kit: Trevor White

3rd Place: Puma FAAS500 Shoes: Jaco v Tonder

We also had some random prizes, here are the winners:

Oakley Ten Eyewear: Donovan Dunn

Sinimatella have been kind enough to donate a Lantern Rouge type prize, two tickets to the Cape Town screening of Life Cycles on the 17th August 2011. I wanted to award this to the guy/girl who I know put a bit of effort in, but may not have gotten the results. I wanted to award these 2 tickets to Andrew Hall. Keen as mustard, but way off the money for the win.

The 2 random Urban Ninja caps go out to Vincent Nortier & Johan Badenhorst, because well… I say so.

Thank you to all who played. A great Tour was had and now we look forward to the Vuelta, just around the corner.

If you have won anything, please drop me an email at raoul [at] urban-ninja.co.za with your details.

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I have had the personal luck to have ridden with Frank and Andy Schleck. I believe them to be two of the most talented cyclists the world will ever see. I also believe them to be two of the most molly-coddled cyclists in the world. This Tour de France has proven that. Their will to win at all costs, a fundamental driver of professional and amateur sport, is gone. Half heated attacks so as to not drop your brother in the process doesn’t cut it, sorry Frank. You are the stronger rider, so I urge you to bury your brother with endless attacks and in the process, possibly win the greatest race in the world.

Sounds right to me?

If they turn to see where the other one is one more time, I may actually throw something at the TV. It’s disgusting. At this rate, they`ll both end up off the podium and what is the point of that? Their “where for art thou brother” attitude (coined from Matt Eager and Marc Perel) saddens a million people at once instead of rising to their greatest chance of winning the greatest race in the world. I am sure if we were able to keep up, we`d hear non-stop calls, like a childhood swimming pool game of Marco…Polo…Andy…Frank…

When you get a chance in the Tour, you take it. Damnit! It’s the same in life. Take your chance, it may not come again. Life is not always fair. Survival of the fittest/smartest/luckiest is a real thing. When you are all equally fit, smart then really, your luck is your greatest asset. Having a 3 time Tour winner on the ropes means you attack and attack again until he wants to fall off his bike and die. Then you crawl your way to the line and take the Tour like a hero.

They seem like they have done too many trust falls and are too scared to hurt each other, never mind the competition.

So what are we going to do about these two boys, who have all the talent in the world, but don’t have the balls to attack each other?

1. We should input a Sensitivity Coach of this stature into Leopard-Trek:

2. We make them practice the greatest Monologues of all time to up their aggro just a little.

3. We put them in a boxing ring with the only way out being to knock the other guy out, the alternative being to be the only guy without a helmet in a helmet-important situation.

My work here is done. I would like to see TODAY being one of the greatest days the Tour has ever seen. I can’t see how else we are going to get it done, do you? Leave a comment here, but only after reading why I need to get to get my rear end to Europe and ride my bike there with a few mates.

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Watching Le Tour this year I have noticed how much “fronting” is going on. How much the crowd, the media and the riders like to play up their chances and their stories and how much “Presentation” is going on versus how much “Action” is truly going down. It has not been my favorite Tour by a mile and yesterday we finally saw some real action and have started seeing the time gaps appear.

Over the last 2 days I have been in long workshops in Jozi for a big project I am working on at my normal work. It has meant early to late hours and putting on a smiley face even when exhausted at the end of the day and aiming to provide valuable contribution as well as being able to extract the vital information that is and isn’t (body language, hidden messages – all part of my job) being said.

I realised this was also just a part of presenting the right story to the audience.

Sometimes we have to fake it till we make it. At other times, we have to be truly honest and say that we just don’t understand or possibly have what the other party is looking for.

Whilst there may be excuses for not matching action with presentation, at times we simply have to present to get ahead and hopefully be able to deliver on the action in the near future. This is an essential part of business, of sport, of relationships, etc.

My to-do list has just dropped under 40 and my “For Follow-up” email folder just dropped under 100. I am going to take the action here to say that tomorrow, I will be back with a full blog post, with oomph and gusto. Today, I cannot present to you that I have the time to put all that together. I can simply leave you with another great image from Le tour.

Whilst I have been critical over where the GC heroes are, we have been presented with real heroes at this Tour and one of the biggest for me is Thor. His style, his panache and the way in which he wins is truly out the top shelf. So many lessons.

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With the Tour de France going for a week now and the Fantasy League at 85 competitors, Black Spade Racing have already donated socks as daily prizes for the League. In addition to this, they wanted to offer all the readers of Urban Ninja some discount on their bicycles for the next 2 weeks whilst le Tour is running. Check out their website here and have a look at the specials, listed below. Some really great deals going:

Road:

Carbon Road bike, ISP, Ritchey handlebar and stems, Rival and Carbon BSR wheels, RRP is R 31 000

Special: R 26 500

Same bike with force : R 34 000 RRP

Special : R 29 000

Same with Red : RRP is R 39 000

Special is R 35 000

For Time Trial:

Uberhund 420g Carbon TT bars, Carbon Frame and full carbon fork, seatpost, Ritchey stem and saddle with carbon BSR wheels.

With Rival: RRP R 31 500

Special : R 27 000

With Force: RRP R 34 500

Special is : R 29 500

With RED: R 39 500

Special is R 35 500

Some really nice deals in there if you are currently in the market for a new road or time trial bike. Black Spade do full custom bikes as well at a marginal extra cost, so if you have any inquiries for these specials or custom bikes, drop them an email on their contact page.

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Yesterday the league launched. Some questions came in on where to find the best tips, current teams, form of riders, etc, so that you can make the best choices for your team.

Here we go:

The Tour de France Guide, via INRNG.

Some inside info on What the Experts Say, from ITV.

That is a good start and where I will be making my picks later today. Need to get it done!

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So the competition is here. What do you do? How do you win? Simple – I have created a Fantasy League for you to play off for the prizes. Yes, I have found more prizes. For you. So join and get in on the fun. The Tour is the best few weeks of the year, each stage bringing challenges and now, a chance to enter your own “dream team”, making you Sports Director… it’s going to be awesome!

Here is the process:

1. Log onto www.udt.co.za and click the Tour de France Button.

2. Join the Urban Ninja League. It’s FREE! League Code is 19617238485236.

3. Put together your team…

Last week I hinted at the first prize (overall highest points) in the Urban Ninja Tour de France Competition. Custom Oakley Jawbones.

They are worth R3 500.00

That is first prize. Here are the other prizes:

2nd Prize (2nd overall on points) – 1 set of Pure Planet Racing Cycling Kit (top + bibs) worth R1 500.00

3rd Prize (3rd overall on points) – 1 x set of Puma FAAS500 shoes, worth R900.00

Daily Prize – There is a prize per stage of 1 set of Black Spade Racing socks worth R75.00 for the person who earns the most points per stage. Total value is R1 575.00

There are 2 random prizes of Urban Ninja Caps worth R180.00 each. Here is a picture of a legend in the cap. Know his name?

And then lastly, I am going to award a prize to someone completely random. I won a set of Oakley Ten’s at Garmin Warmwater Weekend. I have yet to use them. I am simply going to give them away. What I want for that prize is yet to come – have to think of something unique, probably using Facebook. So like my Facebook page and the details will follow on there.

Pretty simple hey, just like Superbru. Let’s rally each other up, get your mates to join and lets play the league. Currently that’s around R8 000.00 worth of prizes.

As a bonus, you also enter the Bicycling league and can win their hamper too. Every little bit counts.

So slot in NOW before the slots close and the competition is running.

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It was a Tour that kept us glued to the stupid box, making sure we got home either early or avoided Facebook, Twitter, The Internet and anyone who may have actually watched it live so that we could watch the last 2 hours on Supersport a little later as well, as if it was live. To us, it was. It was a close Tour, one filled with more excitement than the last few put together, where there was no clear winner, even by the time we reached Paris.

We were witness to two boys doing absolutely pure boyish things. Attacking and attempting to destroy the other one only to high five after the stage in celebration of being the best. Its classic boys stuff. So with that, I expected a mistake or two and we got them splattered out in front of the world for all to see the mistakes and personally, I think they handled it like men. There was A LOT of growing up going on behind the scenes at the 2010 Tour de France.

Viva! I cannot believe we have to wait 330 odd days for it all to happen again.

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So there we have it. Bert is sorry for what happened yesterday. After the absolute plethora of abuse he took from the Twitter universe (although, really, how much do you think he cares about that) after yesterday I thought to give as neutral an opinion on the matter as humanly possible. Right from the offset, I need to clearly state that neither of these riders even make my Top 3 favorite riders at the 2010 Tour de France. So far my favorites have been Chavanel, Van den Broeck and the always giving Jens Voigt. I have nothing to gain from either of these riders winning Le Tour even if I have had the privilege of riding with one of them for a few days here, in Cape Town. If anything, I should favor Andy. I think they are both young and will both continue to make mistakes, much to the delight of the cannon fodder with 140 characters to comment without considering all angles.

So here is the rundown, in my opinion, of the said events.

Andy attacked, without success, the first time. He couldn’t hold tempo high enough to keep the followers and quite quickly, the group swelled to about 15-20 riders again. Stupidly, Bert and Andy were sitting near the back of this group. A gap appeared and Andy went right, Bert was left and seemingly attacked just a few seconds later, following Andy and wanting to go by as he slowed. Andy got a gap on the group by virtue of having the clean line. As I saw it, Vino was the only Astana rider on the right and followed. Bert launched the same attack on the right, but was a few seconds behind Andy, invisible to the camera angle. Then came the stupid mistake, but we need to go back in time a little, just quickly.

As any decent rider will tell you, a power shift (read: shifting a few gears while applying massive power or even worse, changing front and rear derailleur at the same time) will result in catastrophe. In this years Cape Epic, we saw many of these and even experienced one within our own team that cost us roughly 90minutes in overall time. Read here about it too. It often happens when you are in a rush or when you are not 100% thinking. Now, 15 days into a Tour that has been marred by crashes galore, 40 degree heat and record speeds has left the riders a little kaput. I bet 99.99% of people who watch the Tour have no real idea how big an effect this has on the riders. This, from one of the smartest guys out there, Garmin Team Director Jonathan Vaughters:

So the guys are a little fried, very antsy from being so close, a little frustrated at not being able to drop each other. Andy sees he has a small gap on an Astana rider (Vino) on the right and sees Bert coming on the left. He knows he has to shift to the big ring to keep momentum (he was visually slowing at this point) as Bert is coming hell for leather with the red mist going full tilt. He, from what I saw, was trying to move from the small to the big ring, as well as shifting the rear derailleur. STOOPID. His entire rear wheel lifted as the chain buckled under the pressure at the back of the bike. It then came off the front as well, as a result of this.

Rookie error. Power shift. Heat of the moment stuff. It happens.

In my opinion, he is lucky he lost 40 seconds yesterday. If he had been a big rider like a Hushovd, he would have snapped that rear derailleur into a hundred little pieces. His team car was about 5-10minutes down the road behind the group. I still believe it was a mistake on his part and he is a lucky boy to have got back on his bike. Had my Fretten been shifting like that, we would have seen a crying man on the side of the road.

Add to this the confusion of Bert, who goes by Andy as he is shifting (watch the video) to get his chain back (not even realising the problem lies in the back of the bike yet), has just launched his attack.

Menchov called it: “I can’t explain [what happened with Schleck] because I didn’t see what happened. We know that Alberto and Andy play with each other. We have to follow one of them. I saw the reaction of Contador and I thought it was decisive, so I tried to follow him,” Menchov said.

So Menchov (The Russian), who was behind Contador, couldn’t even see Andy’s problems. Dirty (Sanchez) followed too, as he is only 13seconds clear of The RussianI felt so bad for Shleck as his mechanical could not have been timed worse. His main rival had just launched the best attack he has made all Tour, taken the two guys in 3rd and 4th overall with him, and he is left to ride back to them on his own. If I were the yellow jersey, I would have been mad, at that moment, for a few things:

1. I should not have shifted like a tool.
2. I should have got the chain on the first time.
3. I should have shouted that I had a mechanical.

But these pro’s don’t all think like me. I am tough on myself.

By the time Bert, Dirty and The Russian would have realised there was a mechanical, they would have been 40 seconds up the road. Were Dirty and The Russian going to wait? HELL NO. If they get within 2 minutes of Andy both of them could see the podium in Paris. They know that. So they pushed on. It’s not like previous tours our there, even Big Tex agrees with this comment: Armstrong recalled when he waited for Jan Ullrich in 2001 and when Ullrich waited for him in 2003. However he pointed out that the race was ‘on’ and so the unwritten rules of fair play and sportsmanship do not count in the heat of the moment, when other riders are attacking and other placings and jerseys are at stake.

At this point I felt bad for both guys. The perils of yellow, the win at all costs and the confusion of being tired, burnt, frustrated and finally getting the break you need. They were both making silly errors even if the blame was going to go one way at that point.

Asked for their opinion on the incident, Laurent Jalabert, Bernard Thévenet and Bernard Hinault all described Schleck’s incident as an inescapable part of racing and said they were looking ahead to see how Contador and Schleck will respond. Those are 3 of the most respected names in the cycling world. They are not on the couch at home rooting for a favorite underdog. I think the reactions were very one sided when there were 4 guys involved here. Shleck, Bert, Dirty & The Russian. When 3 guys are off the front going hell for leather there is no way they stop to ask where the 4th guy is. They are going to keep going and ask afterwards what happened.

If you have ever raced that deep into your limit you will know this. I hardly remember talking to people at Ironman SA this year. There are people I passed who I don’t even remember seeing. When you are “all in” there is a tunnel vision that occurs.

Nobody waited for Chavanel when he had two mechanical incidents in yellow on the cobbles. Fabian was on the front, killing the pace. He came back the next day and took it in style, with panache and determination. Further proof of being tunnel visioned is Vino riding Bert off his wheel on the same stage when Bert punctured, 1km to go. Vino was so in the zone he didn’t even hear his radio over the noise from the crowd and the deafening pain in his legs. That cost Bert 20seconds as well. Being so in the zone, you hear nothing. 50 000 people in that last kilometer, limited radio cover, I don’t think they knew until it was too late and even then the info would have been sketchy. With less and less cash to go around for sponsors, the podium is huge in Paris and the Team Directors in the cars would have been driving their guys to keep pushing.

To give you a full idea of how complicated and emotional this situation was for the general public, even Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were at war, live on air. Paul was lambasting Bert as if Andy were his long lost love child who held the keys to Atlantis. I thought we might hear a big crash and no more coverage as they were in fisticuffs. I would be willing to say that the dinner conversation was light and short after the show.

Overall, a great stage filled with confusion, rookie shifting errors and desperate hot headed guys in lycra. Viva le Tour. Headline news, trending topics on Twitter and public apologies via YouTube so we can all see it unfold in front of our eyes. If anything, be grateful for the most exciting Tour in the history of me watching it. Feel free to comment below.

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I’m going with the emotional stuff today. Trying to show you just how hard this Tour de France has been. It’s without a doubt the hardest tour I have ever watched. More scabs and injuries than I have seen in possibly all the Tours I have watched. I have nicked and edited some pictures from here as they are about the best I have seen.

For me, the Tour begins now. The last week is the hardest of the lot and about twice as hard as the other two weeks combined. After looking at these pictures, I am sure you would like to think, how much harder can it be? I am sure you are thinking perhaps these guys are not just skinny lycra clad weaklings. There are guys racing near the front with fractured elbows, cracked ribs and more tendinitis than left over lentils at a meat eaters retreat.

The evidence speaks for itself.

Fall on the descent, get back up, ride back into the pack. Finish with “that” wildness in the eyes. Rock star stuff..

Riding into yellow with a cracked elbow.

Breaking down completely after losing 10minutes. Cadel Evans, I salute you.

Just another day at the office, right?

Cav, what an emotional boy. All the tension, all the pressure released for all to see. Wearing his heart on his sleeve…

Sylvain has showed true grit and ballerness this Tour. He is my rider for the Tour so far. He will just NOT give up, at any stage. Thank you.

Make sure you watch today, it is going to be crazy. Andy has to attack today. He can’t let Menchov get another minute, never mind Sanchez. He may end up off the podium after the TT if he let’s them get a minute. Bert is either hiding something or hurting from something else. His spring is just not there for me. Either way, the Tour has been epic this year. The best part is that it has only just begun.

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…have a plate of gnocchi or two, won’t you please?

The perils of power to weight ratio are showing here for the masses.

Would you want to look like this, to be the best in the world? I think his elbows freak me out more than his legs, or face.

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