TDF 2024 general chat *CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Tom Pidcock is out with “Covid-like symptoms”.

☹️

Bugger. Won’t be the last though I think

Covid in the peloton is worrying. I fear a lot more will drop out. It’s surprising people are being allowed to ride after testing positive.

Hope he can recover for MTB at the Olympics

[quot]It’s surprising people are being allowed to ride after testing positive.[/quote]

Geraint Thomas apparently being one of those who has tested positive but isn’t showing any symptoms – he’s still riding.

I think that singletrack as a whole could be due an @TiRed 2024 COVID explainer!

Pete Kennaugh referring to Big Hitters, is he a secret STW regular?

Just a casual 60mph off the Tourmalet!

Just a casual 60mph off the Tourmalet!

They go faster up the Tourmalet than I would feel safe going down it :-)

60-65kph (40mph) is fine, I can do that on many road rides around here.

80kph (50mph) is getting to the sort of point where anything going wrong will go wrong very quickly and very badly.

100kph (60mph) is literally the very knife edge of control, at that point you’re little more than a passenger and doing anything at all, even touching the brakes to try and rein it in a bit is pushing the limits of what the bike (and the average rider’s skill level) will accept.

A fast hill where I used to live i got 85kph a few times and would spend all time panicking that something on the bike would fail and that was a straight road ?

UAE – why this big push ?

Pog had better be having an ouststanding day or else they’re going to look **** stupid here

Getting tense but it could all end up cancelling out like the previous couple of stages.

gentle boom just there

Come on JV! Hang in there.

Pog’s having a(nother) slow-motion chase nightmare

flattening out a bit here ?

Tadej ??? super strong. Another win, already one of the all time greats.

That’s a fairly significant hit to JV there, psychologically and in terms of time.

Could see JV was on a bad day the moment of the attack. Look at how many times he looked down and back. You don’t do that when you’re confident.

Yep, it was pretty much a “minimising the damage” response rather than a “matching the attack” response.

But still, it could all turn around tomorrow or in the final week – anything can happen! Equally of course, the gap could go out to 15 minutes by the final Sunday so who knows?!

Must admit I feared a bit for Pog when it held at 7 sec or so for a few hundred yards

Glad it’s gone this way though.  Not just because I like the cut of Pog’s jib but I also want to see Visma on the attack which they surely must do, now.  Tomorrow should be amazing

Can’t see how Visma can attack given the riders Pog has supporting him

Can’t see how Visma can attack given the riders Pog has supporting him

One of them has already dropped out with Covid. They’ll all have been spending time together, so it will be interesting to see whether they all make it through the next week.

Remco is the biggest surprise for me. I’d pretty much written him off as a grand tour rider, despite winning the vuelta. But to be only a short distance behind Jonas and 4 minutes ahead of the next person, that’s quite impressive. I could still see him having a bad day on a really tough climb, but so far he’s been flawless.

Well unless JV is going to settle for second, or hope for a miracle on the TT, he is going to have to ride more positively with or without his team – final climb tomorrow seems a likely spot to me but he’ll have to go pretty long, esp if Pog has a team left at the bottom

and Remco has that final TT in Nice to wrestle back second. I suspect tomorrow will be a close GC marking game. Unless VLAB are looking weak, and then UAE can try the same again. Who knew that having a team of GC riders as domestiques was a winning grand tour strategy?

Well unless JV is going to settle for second, or hope for a miracle on the TT, he is going to have to ride more positively with or without his team – final climb tomorrow seems a likely spot to me but he’ll have to go pretty long, esp if Pog has a team left at the bottom

Interview in the highlights show seems to show that JV is putting a brave face on it and reckons that tomorrow is better suited to him. Be interesting to see how much (if any) today has taken out of the various GC contenders and their teammates but they can maybe go a bit deeper tomorrow given the rest day the following day.

Nice to see the stuff that doesn’t make the live TV – Biniam Girmay, Cav etc crossing the line WAY back but intact.

Tomorrow is a **** MASSIVE day – 4 x 1st Cat climbs, a HC summit finish and nearly 200km!

Yeah I’ve just seen the profile for tomorrow….. really don’t see the point in front loading the stage with 4 climbs, then a big gap to the final HC climb. I much prefer shorter mountain stages, some of the ones that have been 100-120km in recent years were mega from memory.

JV is putting a brave face on it and reckons that tomorrow is better suited to him

Steep for longer, so I guess it is.  Pog definitely still needs a good day

then a big gap to the final HC climb

yeah, negates the earlier stuff UNLESS somebody got over the penultimate one with a gap and had a couple of strong rouleurs up the road to tow him “home”.  Would be a massively long shot even before the COVID decimation of the field and fitness

Tour de France Stage 15 Preview

Looking forward to today but I hope Pogacar doesn’t win again. I want a bit of a shake up.

Off for an early ride in a bit, back for the bulk of the action on today’s stage of the Tour then packing to head out to France for the final week of it! :-)

The stand out riders for me were:- Nils Politt and Ben Healy. JV still going strong with one of the weakest teams ‘Jumbo’ have ever sent to the TdF.

I too would like some other rider to take this stage, but it’s highly unlikely with UAE being one of the strongest teams I’ve ever seen.

Breakaway – PLEASE !!

Agreed Ben Healy is looking good. Be great to see him get a win.

Breakaway – PLEASE !!

I’m useless at predictions, but I predict WvA in a breakaway today.

I’m useless at predictions, but I predict WvA in a breakaway today.

Do you think other teams would allow this? I’m not sure.

I doubt anyone from UAE or Jumbo will get in the breakaway today, not with that section between the final 2 climbs.

It’s actually probably a half decent chance for Abrahamsen to get some good mountain points early on. I’d like to see Stevie Williams have a pop too.

Full of a cold at the moment, so spending all weekend under blankets in front of the TV… so lucky to have such a good distraction. Yesterday’s action was amazing… and yet it’s almost a warm up for today’s stage! Brutal.

Lol – grupetto already in place !

Yates shenanigans – interesting (or accidental)