Tour '25

[stompandgo]

MVDP, even at 100%, cannot be competitive for 2-3 weeks in any race that features multiple category 2+ (2,1,HC) climbs per day, over several days. A GC contender must be able to do that. Look at all the recent activity in the Top 10. Those are the GC contenders. They don't spend the flat stages leading out their sprinters. He's great in smaller, shorter, punchier stage races, classics, and cyclocross.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

MVDP, even at 100%, cannot be competitive for 2-3 weeks in any race that features multiple category 2+ (2,1,HC) climbs per day, over several days. A GC contender must be able to do that. Look at all the recent activity in the Top 10. Those are the GC contenders. They don't spend the flat stages leading out their sprinters. He's great in smaller, shorter, punchier stage races, classics, and cyclocross.

Makes sense. So he's primarily a "puncheur" and 1-day racer by nature. Wonder how much he aspires to GC success?

 

[stompandgo]

He's much more than a 1-day puncheur. He can win short stage races. Just watch the way he rides on the road. He's a diesel. He can only win a sprint by overpowering everyone else from a ways back. He has no sprinter's jump. He has to win from 1km out. He can climb the "short" punchy climbs to stay in it, but that's it. My opinion is that he has it written in his contract that he will ride Grand Tours to win stages and support his teammates, and to prepare to win Worlds and cyclocross races. He is the best in the world at doing just that. He basically races all year round. I don't know how long he can last at that pace, but he's proven to be able to do it so far.

Wout is very similar, but not at MVDP's level.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Heartbreaking crash at the end. Such a cruel sport.

Silly question for the experts: With Tadej and Jonas at the very front with team members around them, with just a few km to go, couldn't they have dropped the whole peloton for the stage win if they'd wanted to — especially Tadej?

If so, why didn't they? Safety, magnanimity, tradition, unspoken rules?

 

[Rás Cnoic]

It was a flat finish so the riders around them are heavier and more powerful and they wouldn't have been able to get away. Again think of weight divisions in boxing. And yes riders like Pog are so rare because they can win in different divisions. Today the stage was immaterial to the GC riders, nothing to be gained for them stage wins not important always secondary to GC time and no time to be gained, and as I say they would be passed by the likes of Milan. Different races.

 

[stompandgo]

Heartbreaking crash at the end. Such a cruel sport.

Silly question for the experts: With Tadej and Jonas at the very front with team members around them, with just a few km to go, couldn't they have dropped the whole peloton for the stage win if they'd wanted to — especially Tadej?

If so, why didn't they? Safety, magnanimity, tradition, unspoken rules?

They would have been run over by a freight train.

 

[stompandgo]

It was a flat finish so the riders around them are heavier and more powerful and they wouldn't have been able to get away. Again think of weight divisions in boxing. And yes riders like Pog are so rare because they can win in different divisions. Today the stage was immaterial to the GC riders, nothing to be gained for them stage wins not important always secondary to GC time and no time to be gained, and as I say they would be passed by the likes of Milan. Different races.

Each stage has a cutoff distance where all riders get the same time as the field. It's usually between 3km-5km, depending on the stage. The GC leader's goal on sprint stages is to make it to that cutoff intact. So they ride at the front, surrounded by domestiques to protect them. They are at the front not to lead, but to avoid the mayhem in the back. What kind of mayhem is the subject of another topic. They ride encased in their bubble, then fall back to avoid the mayhem at the front. It's survivalist racing.

 

[stompandgo]

CVV said this morning that Mateo has been sick with a fever, which broke yesterday. He's in the lead group today. I can't imagine that he's the only one on Visma.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Stage 18: What a pleasure to watch the lead group (Jorgensen, Vingegaard, Pogi, et al.) sprint and swoop their way down the Col de la Madeleine!

CVV described it as, not a freefall, but a series of sprints out of each corner — of which there are many.

 

[stompandgo]

I still have no idea what Visma is doing. A complete mystery to me.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Oscar Onley what a ride! Only 21 seconds off a podium spot.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

OK, experts, is there ANY way — short of some major calamity — for Jonas to pick up 4:26 on Tadej in the racing left?

 

[stompandgo]

A calamity.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

OK, experts, is there ANY way — short of some major calamity — for Jonas to pick up 4:26 on Tadej in the racing left?

Alien invasion.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Got my days wrong earlier in the week. One more big mountain stage to go. Possible bad news for Healy's 9th place on GC. Rodriguez was behind him but didn't start this morning. Possibly ill? Now he has a jubilant O'Connor breathing down his neck.

Conversely a potential good day for Onley to clinch that podium. Lipowitz looked shaky on the podium. I missed why he attacked and when. It seemed odd unless he went on an early break knowing he couldn't stay with the Pog group maybe feeling unwell. Anyway whatever his reasons he got hauled back and promptly dropped giving Onley a chance. That's going to be exciting tomorrow.

 

[stompandgo]

Libo attacked to catch the two man early break, held it, blew up, then held it to the finish.

 

[Rás Cnoic]

Libo attacked to catch the two man early break, held it, blew up, then held it to the finish.

But why when a podium position is at stake. Why attack?

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I still have no idea what Visma is doing. A complete mystery to me.

Have you figured it out?

 

[stompandgo]

Have you figured it out?

Nope. Visma looked knackered after the stage. TP looked like he was ready for a burger and a beer.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

Nope. Visma looked knackered after the stage. TP looked like he was ready for a burger and a beer.

I'm still thinking a virus in the ranks. MVDP went home with an unspecified pneumonia, Evenepoel couldn't even stay in with a podium spot at stake, Jorgensen was better today but still not himself, and so on.

As for Tadej seldom looking ruffled, paraphrasing the callers in a previous hard stage...

Roll: Even Pogi's looking like he's working for a change — good to know he's really human.

Ligett: None of these guys are human.