Rain and crashes, crashes and rain

There is a delicious irony, unlikely to be lost on the UK readers of RoadCyclingUK, that the more inclement weather of this first week of the 2014 Tour de France has been experienced across the Channel, on the French mainland, and not during the British Grand Départ. Yes, there were showers on the third stage, from London to Cambridge, but nothing to compare to the treacherous conditions of stage five, from Ypres to Arenberg Port du Hainaut, or yesterday’s eighth stage, in which rain was an almost constant feature.

Once again, the slippery conditions brought down riders, and once again Andrew Talansky, was among them. Television cameras missed the cause of his exit from the road, reaching him only as he extracted his machine from the side of a camper van, and received impromptu assistance from a man dressed in a kilt and conical (not to mention comical) yellow hat.

During the rain-soaked fifth stage, there was brief debate about whether Tour stages should be held in such challenging conditions; a non-argument that later morphed into a debate about whether Tour stages should be held on cobbles (step forward, Tejay Van Garderen). Neither should be the case, of course. The riders’ battle with the elements is a much a part of the show as their battle with gradients and road surfaces.

The Tour de France is the toughest sporting challenge in the world: the men who hope to win it must be competent in all aspects, not specialists lobbying to exclude areas in which their talents are not displayed to best advantage. Nibali is a better descender than Talansky, and did not crash on stage eight. That he turned out to be faster on the cobbles of stage five than many who have made a specialism of the cobbled Classics is further evidence that he meets the standard required of a rider hoping to attain the mantle of Tour de France winner. Which bring us to…