A 40km ITT to finish things off and sort out the top 10 (although it would take a miracle / complete disaster to alter the top 3).
One of the longer TT’s in recent years, this one is a fast flat run into some slight undulations before a more technical final; a fast descent then a gradual climb out then the same again to the finish in the UNESCO heritage site of Rocamadour, a town perched giddily on the edge of a gorge.

These are new roads for the Tour.

Last year’s penultimate day ITT was won by Wout van Aert and he’s one of the top picks for today as well – presumably before he heads off to try and win the final sprint on the Champs-Elysees as well…

Geraint Thomas might be hoping for a smoother TT than his first day and he’s got World TT Champion Filippo Ganna to give him some course info and timings in advance of his own run. Yves Lampaert was a slightly surprise winner on Stage 1 and while the final climbs don’t suit him, he’s likely to have another excellent run.

Lanterne Rouge Caleb Ewen is off first at 2.05pm UK time.

Ah, the time trial. The race of truth. The beauty of watching man & machine in perfect harmony battling against nothing but the wind and time itself. While wearing a snood.

Wind and weather do not appear to be too bad to have any effect. I did see Pog sprinted yesterday for the line and took 10secs out of Vingegaard…..I really don’t think he thinks it’s over yet.

Edit, scratch that 10secs, I’ve just checked.

Done the course yesterday at a leisurely pace.

Believe it favour a technical rider with guts and lots of time spend on TT bike, very few long stretches to get the power down.

First part lots of moderate corners but with often poor visability and uneven road surface,, whoever recced it several times will have a massive advantage. Two powerhouse inclines at moderate gradient in first 15k).

Last 10 k’s might do quite some unexpected time damage 1,5 k at 5% twisty technical(on a TT bike) descent into the valley and then climb out not finishing at village bu towards the vantage point so 1,5K at 7 % mostly rather smooth resurfaced though.

Commentators suggesting that the road surface may have interfered with Bissegers di2 system.

Why in god’s name would they not put a bottle on the spare bike, beyond stupid!

Talking of bottles, has there been any mention of Jumbo refusing to give G a bottle? Was that why he attack, I expect INEOS to have long memories and return the favour sometime.

Ganna is a machine!

Ganna has smashed it! Reckon that time will stand for a while!

Bonkers isn’t it, going up an 8% hill at the end and shifts into his 58 tooth big ring 😱

Bonkers isn’t it, going up an 8% hill at the end and shifts into his 58 tooth big ring 😱

I could do that*

*if I had a 58T cassette as well…

Good time for Fred Wright. Provisional 3rd at the moment. Couple more years, I reckon he’ll be a stage winner, he’s come very close and he’s a great all-rounder.

WvA is really starting to take the proverbial now isn’t he…

WvA is really starting to take the proverbial now isn’t he…

He is that, I wonder if the team have told him to dial it back a bit.

He had ketone casserole for dinner last night!

So 2 days ago he drops the world’s best climbers.. he’s beaten the worlds best sprinters all Tour and now he’s making the TT world champion look average.!

It’s getting to the point where it might not matter if he’s clean or not.. it doesn’t look good for the sport. In the bad old days, Armstrong would destroy climbers and TT’s, Pantani would embarass everyone in the mountains but be nowhere in TT’s, Indurain was a TT monster and powered up the climbs.

I can’t think of a single rider since Merckx who competed in the mountains, the TT and the sprints and there is barely any comparison between then and now.

Hmph. No AeroSnood, no Giant Helmet of Doom. This is bullshit.

Some chat suggesting that the wind may be contributing, Pog, Vingegaard and G all doing rather well.

Some chat suggesting that the wind may be contributing, Pog, Vingegaard and G all doing rather well.

I really hope so..

It’s getting to the point where it might not matter if he’s clean or not.. it doesn’t look good for the sport. In the bad old days, Armstrong would destroy climbers and TT’s, Pantani would embarass everyone in the mountains but be nowhere in TT’s, Indurain was a TT monster and powered up the climbs.

Take your tin foil hat off, it’s not like Wout ‘suddenly’ got good at riding a bike, he’s been exceptional since his junior days and he won his first senior WC CX as a junior. Armstrong in comparison wasn’t pre-cancer – I was in a bar in France in 99 when Armstrong rode off the front on Sestriere and the whole place erupted in laughter at the ridiculousness of it.

Armstrong in comparison wasn’t pre-cancer

Do you mean pre cancer or pre epo? He was wearing a rainbow jersey pre cancer……

Take your tin foil hat off, it’s not like Wout ‘suddenly’ got good at riding a bike, he’s been exceptional since his junior days and he won his first senior WC CX as a junior. Armstrong in comparison wasn’t pre-cancer – I was in a bar in France in 99 when Armstrong rode off the front on Sestriere and the whole place erupted in laughter at the ridiculousness of it.

I’d be the first to admit that it’s a bit of a rabbit hole to fall down. I would point out though that Armstrong became the youngest senior WC pre-cancer. And being a world class CX rider doesn’t obviously transfer to being a world class climber AND and world class TT’er.  CX is an ideal breeding ground for the type of rider he was a couple of years ago.  Perfectly suited for the classics with short spiky climbs and repeated hard efforts, and having that explosive finish for a bunch sprint. It’s a little less convincing an argument when he then goes on to drop world class climbers who are 15kg lighter than him on a 15km climb at 2000m and destroy TT’ers who have been in the bunch for the last 3 weeks while he was in the break every other day.

It’s a little less convincing an argument when he then goes on to drop world class climbers who are 15kg lighter than him on a 15km climb at 2000m and destroy TT’ers who have been in the bunch for the last 3 weeks while he was in the break every other day.

He’s been there / thereabouts with Ganna for a couple of years though. They’ve been pretty equal every time they’ve been up against each other.

Plus as mentioned, there seems to be more of a tailwind now. The final few are all putting in some super-fast times.

Vingegaard and Pogacar are both well up alongside WvA and it’s not like they’ve been sitting back relaxing recently!

Plus as mentioned, there seems to be more of a tailwind now. The final few are all putting in some super-fast times.

It does look like the wind is playing a role here.  As I said earlier, I hope that’s the explanation.

He’s been there / thereabouts with Ganna for a couple of years though. They’ve been pretty equal every time they’ve been up against each other.

Also true, and Ganna may not respond as well in a 3 week tour, he has only ridden a couple of them.  But, he has also only been in 1 or 2 breaks all Tour and he was generally dropped early in the mountains. I can’t even count how many breaks WvA has been in, at one point it seemed like he was just riding away from the peloton whenever he felt like it.

Vingegaard and Pogacar are both well up alongside WvA and it’s not like they’ve been sitting back relaxing recently!

They also haven’t been contesting sprints, spending all day in breakaways and winning the green jersey.

Fred Wright 8th. Get in sunshine. Brilliant to see

Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like I am certain that there’s something unsavoury going on. As a lifelong fan of cycling since watching Greg Lemond win his 2nd Tour I love the sport and really really hope that I’m wrong, but as I said in my earlier post at this point it may not matter. With cycling’s history this JV performance overall is going to provoke questions.

Breakaway show just highlighted that JV have won the last 3 stages on the trot with 3 different riders, the yellow, polka dot and green jersey. From memory they won 7 stages now(?) as a team this tour with a good chance at another tomorrow. The number of ‘never been done before’s’ is stacking up at a rate of knots.

#EDIT: Just checked, it’s only(!) 6 stages so far.

CX pedigree seems to be the new track, remember Sky/Inneos were mostly bred there. A CX background seems a good fit for the way racing is going and it’s all good in my book. The track crossover where power sustaining and marginal gains was boring and really a continuation of the Postal/Disco race analytics. Attack attack attack and expect the unexpected, fantastic stuff.

I read some critiques of the reliance on power but one opinion was that the amount of data out there is proving to the new kids that they don’t need to respect the old order of things. I’d say that’s what we are seeing too, riders happy to have a go because they know they can.

Rouleur Magazine have done two articles recently about the shift in racing style and this sort of got picked up on in the thread from yesterday (or day before, it’s all a blur now…)

https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/there-has-been-a-vibe-shift-at-the-2022-tour-de-france

https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/three-wins-in-19-stages-does-this-tour-de-france-mark-the-end-of-the-pure-bunch-sprinter

We have been here before with this sort of domination although that’s slightly tempered by the fact that it was in the era of mass doping. Hinault, Merckx, Kelly – they all won bunch sprints, mountain stages and TTs.
The previous racing style of sitting there as a big train on the front is mostly gone now and there’s been a shift in the racing format too – fewer long transition stages where everyone sits there for 4hrs, then winds it up to pull the break back and have a quick sprint. Much more dynamic now and CX is an ideal breeding ground for that style of racing where you’re on and off the gas, short intense bursts, micro-recovery, and so on.

A few years ago a mate did RideLondon – his entire “training” had been 45-60 min CX and circuit races. Family guy, didn’t have much free time etc so it was literally early Sunday morning CX races and midweek evening crits plus a few short commutes to work.
He absolutely smashed it, well under 4hrs for the 100 mile RL circuit. All that short intense riding meant he could go into the red then recover almost instantly.

I’ve read much of this and appreciate a shift in both terms of racing style and race design but I’m still struggling to see this as not ‘not normal’. Yes, it could be being of an age where what the public was presented with was all pulled down as a facade. It’s made me a disbeliever. But fundamentally, we’ve had two teams with team members doing the seemingly impossible and making pretty much every other team and rider look very ‘normal’.

It’s going to take me some time to digest. Which is a shame, because as a spectacle I’ve watched feats this race that have entertained me more than I can remember (well I can remember, but those memories were erased along with the official records).

Well G just beat the world champ Ganna too. In 99.9% of world’s we’d find that abnormal too?

Tailwinds, isn’t it?

Well G just beat the world champ Ganna too. In 99.9% of world’s we’d find that abnormal too?

No, he’s British, totally normal. See also Cav doing things at 37 looking more like a 27 year old.

Convert, also bearing in mind they lost their (or one of) team leader(s) at the start too.

Saying all that I’m still a believer. Let’s call it modern training methods, better analytics and a youth spent in the drops….🤞

Edit, and that tailwind

Fred Wright, Tadej Pogacar, Tom Pidcock and Jonas Vingegaard all an interviewers dream.

‘G’ you are a star, fabulous to be on the podium, don’t fall off tomorrow.

Fred Wright at cahors was a peach … You’ve just been beaten within sight of the finish what would you have done differently.

“Nothing” “I did what I could and I didn’t quite make it but soon”

Rocamadour really is VERY photogenic.

Even with an insanely bright Owain Doull in front of it.

Well G just beat the world champ Ganna too. In 99.9% of world’s we’d find that abnormal too

Worlds is a one-off race. Doing it straight off the back of a Pyrenean summit finish and three weeks of tough riding would probably shuffle the pack a bit.

Rocamadour really is VERY photogenic.

I have pics somewhere of sunrise hitting the cliff face on a summer morn after a run up the hill Vinegaard nearly crashed on. It is a lovely place to stay.

There were balloons at breakfast time too