It's the morning after the night before.
Post here with your general thoughts on the event so far.
A free for all to off load.
Ignoring gc it has been fantastic racing throughout.
Been loving it, the next 3 days look horrendous though
This road, Stage 14, Col de St Louis. Wow.
Edit: image embed not working so here's the link with loads of pics
https://www.museevirtueldecaudies.fr/moyens-de-communication/la-route-du-col-saint-louis/
Ignoring gc it has been fantastic racing throughout.
Agree it's hard to get excited about the GC when one guy is so dominant BUT I have been really impressed that the other teams are still trying to work Pog over. Nobody ever really tried (or perhaps just weren't able) to do that in the Sky dominance years.
Todays fun fact: this rest day is the first day that Alaphillippe hasn't been in a break or working on the front since 2018.
Is the Alaphillippe quip the new Voigt quip?
(jensvoigtfacts just goes to Wikipedia now 😢)
Been enjoyable races far, and liking the attacking rides by Guillaume Martin and Ben O'Connor, think these type of long race attacking are the only way to gain time or put Pogacar under pressure. Don't think the Ineos train and Carapaz are strong enough to take much time back.
Not sure what others think, but I think that after winning the opening stage stage Alaphilippe is now trying to get ready for the Olympics without showing how good he really is. He is constantly attacking and getting in moves only to drop off towards the end of the stages, getting dropped by riders that he would normally out climb.
Looking forward, I'm worried cavendish won't make it through the pyrenees. Especially the day to Luz Ardiden, at only 130km long and with 2 HC climbs to deal with the time limit is going to be very tight for him.
I think you might be right with Alaphillipe, he does seem to drop off for no real reason. Extended training ride makes sense.
Am so hoping cav gets through as having the world champion lead out green in Paris would be amazing.
Been largely very enjoyable to watch. The Cav 'come-back' obviously has been great, almost too fairytale so I hope he does make it to the end.
I'm still hoping that Pogacar cracks a bit in one of the next two days to build a bit of excitement (nothing against him, but a bit of summit finish second counting is always fun). Has there been less summit finishes than normal? I think only one so far and two next week.
edit. Plus I'm looking forward to the time trial to St. Emillion; always used to stop there for a couple of nights on our way to/from holidays in south-west france. Bet there will be some iconic images among the vines
Yep agree with the Cav's comeback story, so chuffed to see him back winning and just hope he can make it to Paris.
I'd also like to see Podgacar crack a little, maybe just enough that he can win it back in the TT, that would make for great viewing.
The rest of the race has been entertaining but I feel pretty brutal on the riders, I hate seeing so many going out because of crashes.
the time limit is going to be very tight for him.
Given the riders around him yesterday, I think the team are managing the process pretty closely.
Is there any leniency in the time cut-off for jersey-holders? Like if yellow crashes / has a mechanical it's expected that the peloton will 'honour the jersey' and stop. Does the same happen for green wearers who are close to the time cut? Or is that just wishful thinking?
Hopefully ASO want to see Cav get through...
If cav goes lower the time limit then they can reinstate his participation in in the tour but he will lose all the green Jersey points.
On the highlights last night and have been listening to the wiggins podcast and they all think he will make the cuts as the team is helping him a lot
Is there any leniency in the time cut-off for jersey-holders?
It depends. The rules are clear and enforced all the time except sometimes when they are not. I recall He’s come in the past in a massive 80+ group over the time limit and aso had to keep them all in which pissed them off. I think aso will be looking for all the exceptions they can this time round, partly because he seems to be more the story of their race than the gc but partly because there won’t be any sprinters left on the champs at this rate and it’s going to look stupid.
He seems to have living legend status amongst many of the young pros he’s racing against this year so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility the peleton forms a huge auto bus by gentleman’s agreement to get him home. Also not beyond the realms of possibility he climbs off on stage 17 an hour down. Has a big cry. More hugs. Half of QS miss the cut.
The gc competition is getting weird now. Ineos are riding on the front like they are in the lead not 5th. And pog is chasing down everyone on the climbs like he’s 5th not 1st and 5 mins ahead. Why’s he chasing O’Connor? He should watch and laugh as 2-6 scrap each other for seconds.
What eddie11 says. I've been watching the tour since the 80's and never can i remember the big teams all looking so unstructured and disorganised. All the usual rules seem to have gone out the window.
Maybe because there's so many young, inexperienced riders in lead positions in the teams, but you'd think the DS's and road captains would be controlling with experience.
Certainly making for interesting and unexpected racing though!
Looking forward, I’m worried cavendish won’t make it through the pyrenees. Especially the day to Luz Ardiden, at only 130km long and with 2 HC climbs to deal with the time limit is going to be very tight for him.
You know he has got through the Alps and Pyrenees before, yes? 😉
Having such a dominant yellow jersey is making the overall a bit dull but some of that is down to early crashes rather than him simply riding away from everyone so I'll allow some leeway. Would be good if he had a bad day though, would really open things up. The possibility of that is helped by the fact that UAE Team are just not capable of supporting him properly.
Ineos - no idea what they're playing at. Even Peter Kennaugh was questioning it during the highlights show. That tactic yesterday to sit on the front and progressively drill it would have worked if they could have then unleashed an explosive attack from Carapaz. But when it came it was little more than a party popper. To be fair, no-one seemed able to go any deeper, even Vingegaard's attack was over within a few seconds - whether Pogacar was in trouble or not is largely irrelevant since all he had to do was follow wheels and he managed that fine. The battle seemed to be more about Uran, Vingegaard and Carapaz although Ben O'Connor did a great ride in the final descent to limit his losses and stay 5th, always a chance he could cause further upset. Bit of a shame that the main battle seems to be 2nd - 5th rather than pure GC.
KOM is becoming quite an interesting battle too. Quintana seemed desperately trying to find some of his previous climbing form but he was like a yo-yo. Off the front, out the back, attacking again, out the back again. The top 4 in KOM are all within 10 points of each other.
@crazy-legs yes I know that. But you do know that the time limit is a much smaller percentage of the winning time in the shorter stages than the longer stages. So it actually makes it harder for the sprinters to make the time cut on these short mountain stages 😉
It will also be the last chance for climbers to take take time back, so the stage could be raced at a very high pace making it more difficult for him.
It will also be the last chance for climbers to take take time back, so the stage could be raced at a very high pace making it more difficult for him.
I suspect that'll be the KOM battle rather than the GC but yes, with that being so close there could be all sorts of fireworks.
Be interesting to see how the "bunch sprint" pans out on stages 19 and 21 given that there aren't really any sprinters left any more! Nacer Bouhanni went home yesterday.
It does open stages up to be more vulnerable to a well-organised breakaway without the sprinters trains to pull it all back together.
Why don't the websites or broadcasters make much of a deal of the ascent statistics? Get's mentioned in passing occasionally but not front and center on the descriptions of the stages. It's such a massive factor in a ride, especially for us amateurs that surely showing it as often as the stage length, in metres and feet would be of interest?
^^
Very occasionally, they try stuff with showing data like heart rate and power but it's certainly not a regular thing. Part of it is because it's live-streamed and being viewed from the team cars, there's always the chance that a DS could see that Rider X was at his limit and radio to his team to attack. I'm not sure how much bandwidth impacts on transmission as well.
UCI also has rules about what info can and cannot be seen at any given time between rider and DS which is becoming increasingly difficult to police given the advances in technology.
Something constant like the statistics on a climb though should be no issue - the problem is that a lot of non-cycling people watch TdF and there's quite an art to not turning them off with technical cycling talk. The event is little more than a big moving advert for France which is why you get sweeping helicopter shots, scenery, castles and the commentators are obliged to read out snippets which sound ad-hoc but are carefully curated in advance by the French tourist board.
F1 has a good system where radio messages are broadcast with a slight delay but everything else including on-screen graphics of speed etc are all live. F1 though is a much more sterile environment with vastly greater sums of cash being thrown around.
Watch out for the last descent tomorrow from Potet d'Aspet.
Its been very wet ou here today and there is lots of fuel spilled on the road last 3k of the climb several more on the downhill. Still there late afternoon there was so much we thought it was done on purpose.
Just watching ITV4's rest day programme. Cav is currently 143rd out of 147 riders left. There is half an hour time difference between them. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that should Cav get over the Pyrenees and get to Paris that he holds both the Green Jersey and the Lantern Rouge!
It's been a great tour so far, but as said, just needs a GC twist to spice things up. Not wanting to wish injury but if Pog has a bad day/crash and loses 5 mins, it'll be a stonking watch from then on...