TdF Stage 17: Mont Blanc -> Courchevel

I won’t argue,  i think pog and others are probably doing something too. Pogs 2020 win has to be among the most suspicious rides too

If you want to have Vingegaard as a doper then you really need to accept that the whole barrel is still rotten. And this is why I choose to suspend judgement, because I want to watch and enjoy cycling.

For me i watch and enjoy it with more of a cynical twist that i don’t KNOW, but i suspect all of the big players are sailing somewhat close to the wind in terms of ‘help’… It may be fully maximising the best of the best in terms of legal assistance, or it may be crossing that line with new technology, who knows.

One thing i do know is that they’re superhuman in terms of effort, determination and pure will-power even if they are/not enhanced a bit… Not just the fastest, but the WHOLE of the riders, they’re all just complete and utter beasts to do this day in day out, again, again.

For me i watch and enjoy it with more of a cynical twist that i don’t KNOW, but i suspect all of the big players are sailing somewhat close to the wind in terms of ‘help’… It may be fully maximising the best of the best in terms of legal assistance, or it may be crossing that line with new technology, who knows.

Yes, that’s pretty much where I’m at. The other mental trick is not to invest too much in any one rider!

I’m not saying that anyone is wrong but comparing the time gaps you expect in a normal 22km time trial to one with a cat 2 climb in it isn’t the way to win an argument

Putting+5 minutes into someone who has bonked and would be lucky to be putting out zone 2 power levels (even if those levels were super human by most standards) isn’t a huge feat.

I’m pretty cynical about road cycling after believing in the likes of Millar, Landis, & Virenque but I’d still like to believe.  Up till now Vingegard and Pogacar have been pretty well balanced and don’t look any more remarkable than Yates walking away with the Giro (until he wasn’t).  Performance for anyone pushing themselves day after day is so finely balanced that something as minor as a slightly disturbed night’s sleep is enough to make someone else look good.  It might be doping but there are plenty of other explanations

Why not have Pog riding for Yates? If (a big if) Pog is suffering and not at his best and Yates is, it just makes sense.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and there have been so many good riders abandoning this year, that it’s easy to say who should or should not have been GC. Talking mainly about Ineos here.

The GC gaps are also a function of the best two riders having strong riders supporting them in their teams and once they have pulled at the front they drop off, so I’m not worried about that.

I think that either Tadej has a virus or he’s paying the price for the interrupted preparation when he broke his hand.

The TT did feel like a little the bad old days but there doesn’t feel like all of the other unbelievable efforts of team mates, randoms from other teams are happening like the lance/mig eras – and the riders having a bad day is the stuff that we didn’t see so that is another indicator that the current riders aren’t doing stupid sh1t, although they may well be flexing the rules as much as they can flex

Why not have Pog riding for Yates? If (a big if) Pog is suffering and not at his best and Yates is, it just makes sense

If he’s that cooked he wouldn’t be much use.

UAE will probably tailor their tactics on the last hilly day depending on how everyone feels and what the opposition do. Ideally they want to fill those 2 podium places and to do that, Pogacar and Yates just need to mark those close behind them in the GC. If Pogacar can’t do that but Yates can then that puts Yates in second. GC wise there isn’t a lot of point in Yates attacking but maybe they’ll target the stage with him.

For me i watch and enjoy it with more of a cynical twist that i don’t KNOW, but i suspect all of the big players are sailing somewhat close to the wind in terms of ‘help’… It may be fully maximising the best of the best in terms of legal assistance, or it may be crossing that line with new technology, who knows.

Same as F1, Football, name a sport…

One thing i do know is that they’re superhuman in terms of effort, determination and pure will-power even if they are/not enhanced a bit… Not just the fastest, but the WHOLE of the riders, they’re all just complete and utter beasts to do this day in day out, again, again.

Yo need to remember Therese are top 200 or so cyclists in a world of billions of cyclists, a tiny percentage.  Go and watch a few GCN YouTube video’s to see just how effective event he slowest tour riders are against some pretty decent standards of “normal”.

One thing i do know is that they’re superhuman in terms of effort, determination and pure will-power even if they are/not enhanced a bit… Not just the fastest, but the WHOLE of the riders, they’re all just complete and utter beasts to do this day in day out, again, again.

GCN put one of their (former) pro riders onto the Alpe d’Huez segment to see if he could make the time cut – the stage from 2022 won by Tom Pidcock. They ignored that time and instead went for the cut-off; the final rider up the Alpe, just inside the time cut was Fabio Jakobsen. So they took his time up that segment, 57 minutes and tried to beat it.

Didn’t come close.

Bear in mind that Jakobsen is not a climber, he was 2 weeks into a Grand Tour, he’d done 120+km to even get to the foot of the Alpe that day (over several other cols) whereas the GCN pro (admittedly not WorldTour level but considerably better than most riders) simply went to the bottom of the Alpe, warmed up and then smashed it. He was nowhere near the time cut from even the non-climbiest person in the race.

It’s like when people say “oh Cav can’t climb”. Against Pogacar, no he can’t. Against any club cyclist, any random 2nd Cat off a training camp, he’d **** annihilate them. He’d be waiting at the top on his second coffee before the likes of us crawled pathetically up the hill.

Wout out

GCN put one of their (former) pro riders onto the Alpe d’Huez segment

Is Hank a former pro? I thought that was the enormo-tall fella, Hank’s just a ‘good club level’ cyclist. Happy to be wrong though, and +1 to the rest of your post

He’d be waiting at the top on his second coffee before the likes of us crawled pathetically up the hill

Totally! With his rainbow stripes to make the point even more blatant.

So they took his time up that segment, 57 minutes and tried to beat it.

Doesn’t seem right. I did it in 60 minutes and there were loads of people faster than me.

It’s a shame that we’re all looking at time gaps on the top 2 and various bits of doping speculation and rather ignoring the really quite impressive stage win from a first year Tour rider.

AG2R played yesterday really well. Three guys in the break, a lot of hard work and Felix Gall put in a brilliantly timed attack towards the end. He didn’t look like the best descender on that last little plummet yesterday but to be fair it was so fast that no-one was really going to gain any time on it. And then he hung on to the last on the runway.

He did a similar attack at the Tour de Suisse and actually moved into the race lead briefly before losing it again next day so he’s clearly got the raw talent but he’s definitely one to watch in future.

Really good win, very impressive – even if I was also cheering Simon on 20″ behind him!

It’s like when people say “oh Cav can’t climb”. Against Pogacar, no he can’t. Against any club cyclist, any random 2nd Cat off a training camp, he’d **** annihilate them. He’d be waiting at the top on his second coffee before the likes of us crawled pathetically up the hill.

I don’t doubt that for a single second.

Wout out

He’s definitely not a team player: Selfish bastard has just wrecked ny fantasy team because his wife is going to pop a sprog. Putting himself first again 🙁

^ I went to the Tour of Flanders in April and rode the 90 mile sportive. There were fit club riders flying past me all day but the next day the pro men rode nearly 300km at an average 3 x my speed. If those fit club riders had been up against the pros they’d have been passed all day just like I was.

GCN posted this overnight, enjoy!

I’m not saying that anyone is wrong but comparing the time gaps you expect in a normal 22km time trial to one with a cat 2 climb in it isn’t the way to win an argument

That’s an entirely fair comment. There’s still been some quite extraordinary performances though. We’re almost getting used to seeing stuff that until recently we hadn’t seen in the modern era.

Personally, I don’t worry about it too much and it has been very entertaining. I also think discussions on here are generally quite balanced.

If there was foul play involved I’d be fascinated to know what it is and how they get away with it.

I have no idea what power output I have,  but I know it would be a fraction of what they did in that video.

YOu only have to compare it to ‘flat’ rides that we or anyone here mostly does.

If you can ride a flat route and average 20mph, you’re pretty bloody decent for a normal person… They’ll average over 30mph at that sort of stuff even solo. That’s 50% quicker !

Yep,  when you see the kmh shows on screen for the tour it still amazes me.

Speeds most people would do in a car and they are doing it on bikes

Is Hank a former pro? I thought that was the enormo-tall fella, Hank’s just a ‘good club level’ cyclist. Happy to be wrong though, and +1 to the rest of your post

I think he was in a team but not like a world team pro. I was pretty pleased that he got the same time as me up the climb – I totally misspaced it – dying at the end.

In other news I see that Jumbo and UAE got extra blood test doping tests. IIRC they don’t normally do the blood testing during the actual race, just the pee testing. So I guess someone in the TDF circus raised an eyebrow…. (and if there is one thing the TDF is not short of it’s people who ‘know’ about doping)

https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/james-lowsley-williams

Did no-one see the interview with Pog’s DS (i think that was his job)? Basically he said they knew before the tour that he wasn’t fit – the performance director was certain of it. But they thought “we’ll just go and see what happens”

Did no-one see the interview with Pog’s DS (i think that was his job)? Basically he said they knew before the tour that he wasn’t fit – the performance director was certain of it. But they thought “we’ll just go and see what happens”

Sure but what else was he going to say?

Anyone watching the Tour De France Unchained on Netflix?  Gives a seldom seen insight into the riders, team tactics and what really makes them tick behind the scenes.

Normalised Power on some of the rolling flatter stages, hidden from the wind, is lower than people think (and I had that data from a well-known pro who did rather well). A decent Cat 2 cyclist could sit in the bunch. Once it goes uphill, things will change significantly.