Cancellara takes the 2010 Tour of Flanders

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

Fabian Cancellara is the man.

YouTube Preview Image

zMud put a link up in the comment section earlier to the move of the day. It may be part of the same footage in the embedding video above. I can’t understand a word of what they are saying. I don’t have any idea what language they are speaking. But, at the same time, I can understand every word they are saying. Check it out in all its glory: Cancellara laat Boonen achter op de Muur.

The best written word to describe the moment that I’ve read tonight is this right here:

Having watched Flanders since the early 1990’s I can’t remember a more audacious piece of riding (maybe Tchmil going for broke after the Muur on his way to winning it). That was pure class – a 160 mile race decided in about 16 metres putting the Belgian champion to the sword on the Muur de Grammont in front of thousands of baying Belgians.
Source: veloriders.co.uk.

Another post in that same forum directed me to a post-race interview video with Cancellara. You want to know what that charm was Cancellara pulled out of his pocket was? A good luck charm, an Angel, given to him by his wife and daughter when he left Switzerland on Friday. Now that’s good stuff. See it here: sporza.be/permalink.

One last note, was Tyler Farrar’s fifth place on the day the second best American finish ever in the Rhonde? I think George Hincapie’s had a 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th, and a 14th place since around 2000 (which is seriously impressive in it’s own right). Prior to that, I really don’t know if any American has done better than third.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestmailby feather

About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

22 Replies to “Cancellara takes the 2010 Tour of Flanders”

  1. All this talk year to year about how Hincapie has matured and how this is ‘his year’. Well, I actually believe it…dude looks fit one week before roubaix and just seems to have missed the split.

    Cancellara is a monster though:

    “If you give him a few meters, you won’t see him again. I was racing after him at 55 km/h, and he took a minute off me,” Boonen said. “What can I say? He was the strongest.”

    Read more: http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/04/news/cancellara-conquers-flanders_110336#ixzz0kDvYrHyy

  2. A Cancellara that looks that effortless on the Muur is very bad news for everyone else this spring.

  3. Two things jumped out at me from that clip:
    1) It looked like Cancellara was able to stay in the saddle because he was geared lower. Of course, his low is probably 39×25 or higher, but it probably kept the rear wheel from spinning off the edges of the cobbles. And he had some legs left at the top.
    2) Nobody hits those cobbles on semi-deep carbon wheels unless they plan on spending some significant time off the front. See that and be very afraid.

  4. How bout’ Sherwin commenting on Boonen, something about showing his power and strength and showing who’s boss etc. etc. etc. bout 2 seconds later Cancellara just fucking pins it!!!!

  5. Cancellara’s SRM numbers:
    Max W : 1450 (on the Muur)
    Avg W : 285 (non-normalized) 320 (normalized)
    Avg speed : 40 kmh
    Max speed : 80 kmh
    Avg cad : 73rpm
    Max cad : 147rpm
    KJ : 6459

  6. Great “Spartacus” dropped the weighty flemish in the mur …
    How can we now imagine next week-end’s race ?

  7. You can ride with your butt off the saddle up the Muur, no problem, if you know how to ride and it is not raining. At least that’s how I climb it.

    The funny thing is to see “well informed” riders “go up” with 8 to 10 bars in 23mm tyres… I use 25 with 6.5 at the front, 6 at the rear for the classics.

  8. “The funny thing is to see “well informed” riders “go up” with 8 to 10 bars in 23mm tyres…”

    heh heh, and you know you can also save a solid 20g by running the 11-23 instead of the 12-25 cassette. Sure, your cadence will be about 30 on the pitchier sections, but dude, 20 grams.

  9. I’m pretty sure I detected a “holy jesus mother fuckin shit, excuse my french, but Boonen doesn’t have a fucking prayer now”…such salty talk on the most holiest of weekends. Good stuff.

  10. 20 grams? Jesus tittyfucking CHRIST, do you have the slightest idea how much of ME I’d have to lose before more than a couple pounds of bike would make any differance?

  11. Awesome video!!

    I’m assuming that they’re speaking Flemish which interestingly enough, I could understand being fluent in Afrikaans.

    To state the screamingly obvious the title translates to:

    ‘Cancellara leaves Boonen behind at the wall’

  12. Dutch. On Nederlands 1, which I fucking forgot to record. Fuck.

    2:16 “it looks good for Boonen”
    2:37 “this is the steepest part and Boonen doesn’t flinch.”
    2:54 “Cancellara is over the top..is this the deciding point?”
    3:50 “and now is he loose..”

    The rest is pretty much “Cancellara isn’t coming back..he is so much better than the rest.”