Well, that was exciting wasn’t it?! What for today’s stage – a snoozefest as we all catch our breath or one for the breakaway as the peloton finally take a rest after days of smashing each other relentlessly or everyone going full gas to give the remaining poor deprived sprinters a chance of glory?

188km of flat transition heading north out of the Pyrenees to the lovely medieval town of Cahors, famous for its wine.

Nothing to trouble anyone today bar the inclusion of a couple of small lumps at the end potentially suitable for a lone attacker to launch a long one and solo clear while all the sprint trains wonder who’ll pull it back. It’s happened before…

Barring disaster, the jerseys are sewn up now. Vingegaard has what should be an insurmountable time gap in yellow and mathematically has the Polka Dot. Pogacar has White by a hefty margin over Tom Pidcock and Wout van Aert put his name on the Green Jersey several days ago!

Come on INEOS – do something nuts and rip it up 😂

Did Jacobson make the cut off?

Stick Ganna on the front for a TTT! Ganna and Rowe should be able to do some nice big pulls.

Massive respect for Pogacar, he’s a hell of a racer and it seems a jolly decent human being

“There couldn’t be a better way to lose the Tour de France than this,” Pogacar said.

“I gave it all today. I will leave the race with no regrets. There is still one stage left I might win before Paris, and I will push for it.”

He added: “Jumbo Visma has been perfect in this Tour de France. They have been really strong every day. Today the best man won. Jonas [Vingegaard] was stronger than me.

“I gave it all on the second-to-last climb, but I feel I still had something left for an attack on the final climb. Unfortunately, I crashed, and the crash took its toll from me.

“I have nothing but respect to Jonas Vingegaard. I think we respect each other a lot. When he decided to wait for me after my crash, he was in a good position to do it as he had teammates all over the road. It was fine for him to wait. It’s me who wanted to go fast on the descent but I pushed it too far and crashed – I can’t blame anyone for that.”

And in reply to

Did Jacobson make the cut off?

Yes he did

F. JAKOBSEN QUICK-STEP ALPHA VINYL TEAM 04h 36′ 30” + 00h 36′ 40”

Good stuff, hopefully something will work for him today.

Whilst the show isn’t over, it does look very hard for Pog to do anything but I think he’s still won during this tour. Showing he can be beat and how gracious he has been in defeat has surely turned some of his critics. It’s also taken an exceptionally strong team with a great leader and a masterclass in tactics to do so.

Not strictly TDF related but this has come as a surprise, wonder what that’s all about

The news that was spread in the media yesterday evening caught us by surprise, and at the moment we do not have any details. In this regard, the team decided to suspend Miguel Angel Lopez from any activity within the team until all the circumstances of the case are clarified.

— Astana Qazaqstan Team (@AstanaQazTeam) July 22, 2022

Pog and Vingegaard handshake, sporting (in every sense) moment of 2022 so far?

Wonderful to watch.

Anyone else a bit knackered after the last couple of days and just hoping for a 4 man break with a 4 min gap until 4k to go?

I just want to look at some sunflowers for a bit and listen to the comms talk about the back story of some dude from B&B Hotels.

Astana being Astana shock.

Miguel Ángel López is reportedly under investigation for alleged drug trafficking and his connection to a Dr Marcos Maynar, whose career has been punctuated with doping cases.

with a light cross-tail wind can see anything happening today.

An outstanding day yesterday for le Tour, cycling and sport in general.

The fantasy league sees more shuffling of names, albeit no major leaps/falls at this stage.

Fantasy League

Strong break today – Quinn Simmons (he must surely be a strong contender for overal combativity award?!), Nils Pollit, Mikel Honoré, Taco Van Der Hoorn, and Matej Mohoric

will they make it? QS have a man up the road in Honoré so they wil be able to sit back and say “we’re not chasing” which means the other sprint teams will be forced to chase.

Only 1’30” though at 151km to go

Anyone else a bit knackered after the last couple of days and just hoping for a 4 man break with a 4 min gap until 4k to go?

+1 Hours of lying on the sofa watching athletes being great has left me worn out! 😀

@crazy-legs thanks once again for all of your work

BTW, Cahors if nice but if you’re down that way you really should try some Fronton

http://www.vins-de-fronton.com/les-vignerons-domaines-et-caves/#

So with about as quiet a stage as this years race has seen I have been wondering something and I can’t decide if I’m just being overly suspicious or not.

After impressive early season rides this year, seemingly building on impressive showings last year, both off the back of very average results in the years previous.  Is there a correlation between the almost complete invisibility of Bahrain-Victorious at this years Tour (yes I am aware that Mohoric is in the break today, that’s what reminded me), and the police raids on their facilities in the run up to the Tour.?

And is this because the teams Tour prep has been derailed by that disruption or (tinfoil hats at the ready!) are they being deliberately invisible in an effort to deflate/derail any upcoming prosecution.??

Looks like the group up the road have said “sod it, if you’re keeping us on that close a leash, we’ll sit up”

Nils Pollitt has properly sat up and is back in the peloton proper

Miguel Ángel López has been arrested by the Spanish police at Madrid airport, accused of (medical) drug trafficking apparently.

I thought that too about Bahrain as I’ve mohoric in my dream team and it looked like they had done heehaw. But, they have figured in a good few attempts albeit all unsuccessful. Caruso, Wright, Sanchez and today Mohoric. I’ve a feeling Tuens has had a go too?

Looks like the group up the road have said “sod it, if you’re keeping us on that close a leash, we’ll sit up”

They’re absolutely smashing it! Average speed of nearly 48kph for the first 70km, that’s just mental!

It was mentioned it’s been the fastest ever Tour. It does make you wonder if something is going on if they’re faster than Lance and Co. I know tech has improved but it can’t have improved THAT much can it?

BUrgaudeau still on the front of the peloton doing his Julian Alaphillippe impression

It was mentioned it’s been the fastest ever Tour. It does make you wonder if something is going on if they’re faster than Lance and Co. I know tech has improved but it can’t have improved THAT much can it?

There’s a discussion on it in the final page of yesterday’s thread

Caleb its time, you can do this.

Who was the other rider in front of Jack Bauer that got taken out by a motor bike yesterday?
Shameful not watching out for the riders.

Who was the other rider in front of Jack Bauer that got taken out by a motor bike yesterday?
Shameful not watching out for the riders.

Nils Eekhoff. Dutch rider for Team DSM.

Ooh, it’s got windy and it’s got interesting!

Quinn Simmons is off the fron on his own, but Fabio Jakobsenis out the back, so the pelototn are catching Simmons at speed

and they;ve turned the corner so the wind has dropped, the peloton has calmed and Jakobsen is back n the bunch

Simmons is caught, and then at 32km the counterattacks go, including Alexis Gougeard (yay, he’s in my team) and Fred Wright

Is there a correlation between the almost complete invisibility of Bahrain-Victorious at this years Tour

I’m sure Fred Wright has been the only one of them to stand out, Mohiric seems to have been nowhere this Tour after some great racing last year and beginning of this..?

🤞 for Fred Wright. He’s been close a couple of times, got 2nd to Mads Pedersen a few days ago.

Great finish. I feel for Fred Wright, he’s so close again.

SO close!!
Oh, poor Fred – he must have a stage win in him soon though.

Not been a good Tour for the pure sprinters, few stages as there was to win, and then they still get taken on a number of occasions when there is a “sprint” stage..

Absolutely chaotic wasn’t it?!
Half of them either couldn’t ride or wouldn’t ride, there was a fair chunk of bluffing going on, including a nice play by Jumbo-Visma to set it up for Christophe Laporte while everyone else thought that WvA was just chaperoning Vingegaard through, meanwhile out the front the final three were hanging on for grim death.

Cav wouldn’t have allowed that! 😉

You can’t help but wonder if the heads of quickstep will be looking at each other and realising they screwed up.
Had cav been there and got one stage they would have had 10x the amount of coverage they had in this tour

You can’t help but wonder if the heads of quickstep will be looking at each other and realising they screwed up.
Had cav been there and got one stage they would have had 10x the amount of coverage they had in this tour

This 100x.  It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t just Lefevre doing his usual thing of the opposite of what everyone wants.  Given that Cav had/has a chance of breaking a record that’s stood for nigh on 50 years, the sponsors could have lived off that for ages. I can’t believe that they weren’t pleading with Lefevre to take him.  Can you imagine that flack he’s going to get from his sponsors if Cav goes to EF or Wanty or something next year and breaks the record..  The image of him crossing the line, arms aloft, sponsors highlighted is one that will be used for years, if not decades.

Now I think about it and putting my tinfoil hat back on..  coincidental timing or something more that Deceuninck switched from Quickstep to Alpecin pre-tour.?  Bit of a sponsor revolt perhaps.?

So, for the uninitiated – what will it take, exactly, for Pogacar to make up 3 1/2 minutes tomorrow? If they’re riding for 40km I suppose that will take in the region of an hour, so 3 minutes seems not huge at face value – but maybe it is? Can you help me out and put it into context?

so 3 minutes seems not huge at face value – but maybe it is?

It would take a crash followed by an injury. There is no way on earth the gap between them would be possible to close in any other circumstances. 3 mins is beyond huge.

So, for the uninitiated – what will it take, exactly, for Pogacar to make up 3 1/2 minutes tomorrow?

It would take a complete falling apart of Vingegaard, a crash or something. 40km will be about 50 mins, both Pogacar and Vingagaard are excellent TTers, closely matched so the chance of a time gap being more than about 15 seconds is very slim.

Plus JV goes last so he’ll have all of Pogacar’s time checks, he’ll know exactly how fast he has to ride. he can just pace it the same or fractionally under, roll round safely, lose a minute if he absolutely had to and still be fine.

If they’re riding for 40km I suppose that will take in the region of an hour

I’ve never ridden a TT bike, I could do it in an hour

Time for some traditional Tour photos from today! Sunflowers! 🙂