Tour de France 2023

[beesonthewhatnow]

Forgive my newbie question but here's the stage today

View attachment 383164

My question is - why do they have the sprint just after climbing a not quite categorized hill? They had 80km before that on fairly flat land. Why wouldn't you do the sprint earlier?

Why not, basically. They do have a habit of putting them in some occasionally odd places.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Anyway.

KWIATO

What a bloody fantastic ride.

As for Pog, being able to sprint like that on a double digit gradient after 17km of climbing is utterly ridiculous. Pidcock reckoned he was doing 700 watts just to stay with them at that point, so Christ only knows what sort of power it took to take off like that

 

[1927]

Does he want yellow yet? If Vingegaard has it then Jumbo have to expend more energy defending it.

Adam Yates was great today, dropping back and then nonchalantly heading back to the front to attack. His out-of-the-saddle style reminds me of peak Contador.

Finally, and I've been meaning to ask this for a few days, who approved the tepid green for the points jersey this year? It was a lot easier to spot back when it was luminous.

Changing the green is ridiculous imo, done at the request of Skoda to match their new branding i believe.

 

[Cid]

Anyway.

KWIATO

What a bloody fantastic ride.

As for a Pog, being able to sprint like that on a double digit gradient after 17km of climbing is utterly ridiculous. Pidcock reckoned he was doing 700 watts just to stay with them at that point, so Christ only knows what sort of power it took to take off like that

About a minute at full gas I think? And pidcock is 58kg. That's just... a fucking lot.

And yeah, Kwiato - we've had some fantastic stage winners this year.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Changing the green is ridiculous imo, done at the request of Skoda to match their new branding i believe.

Yep, it’s awful, and really hard to make out in a bunch.

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Marc Soler, best pain face so far
Interesting to see JV team’s tactics in the forthcoming mountains. Still think Jonas could take time on one of the big stages but who knows?

 

[Cid]

Not a great start (massive crash, neutralised).

Antonio Pedrero stretchered off (conscious, but obviously hurting).

 

[Cid]

Looot of road rash being attended to, derailleurs being replaced etc.

 

[planetgeli]

They are about half an hour behind. Which should make C4's coverage (and schedule) interesting at the finish.

 

[Cid]

Really bad start tbh. Meintjes and I think Esteban Chaves also abandoned, Bardet went down on the descent and also doesn't look great. James Shaw (EF) went down at the same time.

e2a: yep, Bardet also out. And Shaw.

 

[planetgeli]

No WVA you can't do that.

Ridiculous.

 

[Cid]

Well that was wild levels of tension for 1 second to Vinge (I think)

Good stage in the latter half though, and nice win for Rodriguez.

 

[stavros]

Was the two motorbikes side by side, when Pogacar attacked, an error on the organisers' part?

Kudos to Adam Yates for the way he's riding. He did to Kuss exactly what WVA did to Majka.

 

[Cid]

Was the two motorbikes side by side, when Pogacar attacked, an error on the organisers' part?

Yes, but no blame on the bikes really I think. They're partly there to keep spectators away from the riders, and if they can't move freely, well, you also don't want them accelerating through a bunch of people. The solution is probably barriers, and never quite understood why they don't do this.

In terms of the race... Think bit of a case of 'it is what it is'. Pogi has taken advantage of moto positioning plenty of times before (believe he did earlier), if they also stump him sometimes, so be it. And the other factor is that he's good at using crowds for strategic attacks (see the stage where he took a bunch of time back, launches just after people light flares)... Here I think he probably noticed the space narrowing, reckoned he could use bikes/crowd to slow Jonas, and launched. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, it just didn't work this time. Pretty sure he'd have taken the bonies if events hadn't happened. So yeah, it's on the organisers for not putting barriers on the last couple of hundred meters of what was clearly one of the major summits of this tour. But no point in counterfactuals - had they been there, pogi would probably have launched later etc.

 

[agricola]

Another crash caused by an idiot taking a selfie.

 

[hash tag]

Another crash caused by an idiot taking a selfie.

It was quite a start today until that happened. It's totally changed the race for now.

 

[twistedAM]

No WVA you can't do that.

Ridiculous.

Yeah he's ridiculous. Jumbo hold the yellow by ten seconds and two of them were involved in the big crash today yet he's six minutes up the road with his nose in the wind most of the time.

ETA and now Soler thinks he is still riding for Movistar with Van Aert doing all the work to close him down, lol.

 

[agricola]

bad crash for Neilands

 

[rubbershoes]

Is the GCN audio slightly ahead of the video or is it just me?

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Brilliant win by Poels when you consider who was in the breakaway. He simply demolished them.

 

[twistedAM]

Brilliant win by Poels when you consider who was in the breakaway. He simply demolished them.

He was always going to smash Van Aert on a climb like that.
Time is running out for Van Aert to win a stage

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

The time trial is going to be crucial. Absolutely nothing between Pog and Vin on the road.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Can we say “best tour in years” yet?

 

[stavros]

The time trial is going to be crucial. Absolutely nothing between Pog and Vin on the road.

Which TT specialists are in this year? No Geraint, no Ganna, no Dennis. Küng's the only one I can think of.

 

[twistedAM]

Can we say “best tour in years” yet?

Only negative I can think of is that the two main protagonists have only finished 1st and 2nd on one stage. Both seem scared of losing bonus seconds so letting breaks go which can be entertaining but ideally you want to see the main guys fight it out at the head of the race.

Was a genius move to get racing started on the first two lumpy stages in the Basque Country instead of a prologue and a sprint. So much better than the Giro route which had all the hard stuff at the end.

 

[twistedAM]

Which TT specialists are in this year? No Geraint, no Ganna, no Dennis. Küng's the only one I can think of.

Cavagna and Van Aert are the only others ranked in top ten TTers this season but it's a very hilly TT so the GC guys should do better than the big engines.

 

[hash tag]

The time trial is going to be crucial. Absolutely nothing between Pog and Vin on the road.

Exciting isn't it, to see them glued to each others wheels day in day out.

 

[twistedAM]

Anyone care to pick a winner?
Heart says Pog, head says not.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Anyone care to pick a winner?
Heart says Pog, head says not.

Ask again after the TT

Too close to call right now. 10 second gap doesn’t even really need one of them to properly crack, just have a slightly bad day or a bit of bad luck.

 

[twistedAM]

Ask again after the TT

Too close to call right now. 10 second gap doesn’t even really need one of them to properly crack, just have a slightly bad day or a bit of bad luck.

Care to predict the final podium place then?
That’s another good battle but Adam Yates might have to sacrifice it for the cause. He’s been brilliant, smashing the supposed best mountain domestique Kuss at least twice though Kuss had to to tow Roglic round Italy for three weeks.

Rodriguez is supposed to be going to Movistar. There were a couple of times where Pidcock could have helped him but instead chose the mini Van Aert option. Would be faf if Ineos best GC rider left.