TdF Stage 6: Tarbes – Cauterets-Cambasque

Was hoping Jai Hindley could stay in contention a bit longer, otherwise i can see this Tour becoming a one horse race before first week is done…

Well it’s a 2-horse race so far…
Pogacar so far glued to the wheel – clearly yesterday was an anomaly rather than a total falling over.

Pog got out the saddle this time

Yeah, there’s no way that him being a minute in arrears on GC was going to be an issue for the whole race, it’s all still on.

Pog wrist aint right hes just been wiggling it about :/

He looks very relaxed though! Almost bored. Good poker face!
The next climb might be quite revealing. It’ll be a big psychological blow to JV if he can simply sit there on his wheel and follow every move, even if he doesn’t pull back much time.

Moment of consolidation now, the Yellow Jersey group behind has swelled and is at least holding the gap. See how much it blows up on the final climb.

Vingegaard obliterated the old climbing record on the Tourmalet!

Weird from oily jims dodgey lorry boys light it up on the descent then sit up in the valley :/

Mental. JV has taken nearly 2 minutes off the quickest time up the Tourmalet!

probably explain the expression on his face when he looked round just before cresting the Tourmalet and seeing Pog glued to his wheel

Do sometimes think Pog is like an enthusiastic puppy, he clearly has so much natural talent, but sometimes wastes energy when not needed, he has bonked a few times at critical points as he’s not fuelled properly etc.. (cycling weekly article today, said when he snapped last year and lost all that time, that he bonked and his coached said his power dropped from 6.8w/kg, to just over 4 and he just blew up)

His broken wrist won’t have helped, he’s missed loads of racing, probably just needs to ride himself back into it.

Grimace on the face of Wout

From my first post this morning:

Tour de Suisse winner Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) is steadily climbing up the GC rankings and is now just inside the top 10, only 16″ off Pogacar

Yeah well that was wrong wasn’t it?! Dropped from the yellow jersey group, going backwards.

WvA really rode himself in to the black there.. almost came to a complete standstill, tank emptied!

blown! :D

This is a fascinating mental game!
Kwiato gone.

Blimey!

boom!!!!

This really does have the feel of stages 19/20 of the Tour de France, not Stage 6!

The Jumbo plan sort of backfired…
Incredible stage – tactical, bluffs and double bluffs, attacks and counter attacks.

Sucker punch!!

cracking stage

Brits doing well – phenomenal from James Shaw, the Yates twins have just finished, Pidcock up there in the top 10.

Brilliant from Pog

the media were writing him off at the start…. but that was clinical from Pog

That’s proper racing. A great stage.

Game on

the mugging

Wa ne coureur ❤️ #TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/Xhywc1IAZD

— Phil Finch (@PhilFinch91) July 6, 2023

what teamwork looks like #TDF2023 @WoutvanAert @JumboVismaRoad pic.twitter.com/kjUDzBKhwJ

— daniel (@cyclingreporter) July 6, 2023

Oi Pogacar not cool!

"10 stage victories. I'm coming for you, Mark!" ?#TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/WPAK5CSfjM

— ITV Cycling (@itvcycling) July 6, 2023

did Jumbo get greedy ?

I don’t think they got greedy, they played to their strengths and did all they could to support JV, WvA couldn’t have given any more, and it almost worked, bar one fly in the ointment…

His broken wrist won’t have helped, he’s missed loads of racing

keep seeing this, he only has 4 less racing days that Jonas

Cav got in with 5+ mins to spare

ゴール地点にたどり着いたマーク・カヴェンディッシュ??
笑顔でファンとハイタッチ?? ?

?第6ステージ – 144.9km⛰️#ツール・ド・フランス 2023??#TDF2023 #jspocyclepic.twitter.com/BZxFt4WBM4

— Tour de France JPN／ツールドフランス公式?? (@letour_jpn) July 6, 2023

Cav got in with 5+ mins to spare

Saving his energy for tomorrow, good lad! ;-)

I don’t think they got greedy, they played to their strengths and did all they could to support JV, WvA couldn’t have given any more, and it almost worked, bar one fly in the ointment…

This ^^.
I think they expected to drop TP on the Tourmalet, JV would then hook up with WvA in the lead and whatever group was there would ride to the finish leaving TP chasing frantically behind. They were expecting TP to be in the same sort of state as yesterday and they got that very wrong.

I don’t think it’s quite at the 2-horse race stage yet but it’s not far off if they keep going at it like that. Jai Hindley lost a chunk of time in half a stage there.

11 mph cross tail wind tomorrow and quite exposed on the run in to Bordeaux

not this shit again ! :D

"When they started pulling on Tourmalet, I was thinking, if this is going to happen like yesterday we can pack our bags and go home" – ?? @TamauPogi#TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/t7hNtecqKU

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 6, 2023