Watching the peloton - Professional Road Racing thread 2026

[Rás Cnoic]

Today's stage was one of the best all year. I'll admit it, I like time trials. I was pretty good at them. I only did one team time trial (40km) in my career, and it was really hard. Often, watching time trials is like watching paint dry. Today was the exception.

This race had everything. A very close GC coming into it. WVA crashing on his TT bike the week before and blowing up halfway through. Ben Tullet and others getting flats. A number of riders throwing their chains. Netcompany's Oscar Onley threw his, and the team slowed up to wait for him. Paul Seixas took a hairpin turn too hard and nearly crashed coming out of it. It was literally calamity after calamity.

In the end, Visma, after all that, ends up winning the stage by nine seconds over Netcompany. Alex Baudin and EF went all out so that he could keep the jersey. It's rare that the cream rises to the top so early, but it did. The GC battle has been set.

Baudin 10:01:01
Vauquelin, Onley +0:12
Jorgenson +0:15
Ayuso, Skjelmose +0:47
Nordhagen and Amarail for Visma within a minute and in the top ten.

Great TTT. I was terrible at TTs! And never did a team one, but I absolutely love watching them & I hate when the big tours don't have them. I'm not sure about the rule change from the time of 5th finisher down to 1st. But I can see the interest in having the dropped riders time counting individually in GC, really changes the dynamic. And like with Ineos a dropped chain suddenly can have race changing implacations. Looks like serious competition between Onley and Vauquelin, which I predicted when both landed at Ineos. Seixas now a minute behind, gives the others some hope in mountains ahead. Building up to a great final days of the race.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Have to admit, TTs aren't my cup of T. But glad to see Jorgenson looking strong after his nasty crash early in the season.

Too bad about WVA — was looking forward to watching him today. Hope he's back in form tomorrow, but if today was a crash residual, probably not. Also hope the bad luck that tends to follow him around hasn't returned.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Have to admit, TTs aren't my cup of T. But glad to see Jorgenson looking strong after his nasty crash early in the season.

Too bad about WVA — was looking forward to watching him today. Hope he's back in form tomorrow, but if today was a crash residual, probably not. Also hope the bad luck that tends to follow him around hasn't returned.

Missed that. I mean saw him dropped but just thought he'd down a big stint as per team plan?

 

[stompandgo]

No, he crashed last week training on his TT bike. You can see the scabs on his legs.