[sxrxg]

I already have a downer on this year's tour with Cav not making the Quickstep team and missing out to Jakobsen. He looks like he has the form after an amazing win at the British championship last weekend where he had the strength to chase down all the moves on his own. Would have been great to see him win number 35 in the British champions jersey....

As for the overall it looks as though Pogacar has it all done before it starts barring an accident or mechanical, strong odds on favourite and looks on good form. Fingers crossed Vingegaard or someone else can mount some kind of a challenge and keep the race interest into the third week.

[jwi]

A suitable playlist from Fédé Française de la Lose

[TobyD]

Can't imagine what it would have been like riding today's stage in the South of France 202km and hot enough for the authorities to spray the road with water to stop it melting...

3 British riders still in the top ten of the GC as well,  not bad.

[edshakey]

Tuesday will be hellish too. It's been a very entertaining tour this year, will be a proper show down now Jumbo Visma have lost two riders today. Vingegaard with the time, Pogacar with the form, Thomas with the teammates; it's easily up for grabs now.

[andy popp]

On tenterhooks here in Copenhagen.

[sxrxg]

No need to worry. No way he looses that much time today. Has been a belting tour. The top two are so far ahead of everyone else.

Brilliant racing everyday though. So aggressive all day long even on the flatter stages.

[teestub]

Agree, amazing tour, great to see the top two being on such friendly terms too.

Wout has been absolutely ridiculous.

[Paul B]

Wout has been absolutely ridiculous.

Jumbo have been amazing as a team!

[crzylgs]

How did I miss this thread, I love a bit of Le Tour action.

The duels between Pogacar + Vinegaard have been absolutely phenomenal. Pog relentlessly attacking trying to make up time, the ever vigilant Vinegaard alert and capable to respond to every move he made, was staggering to watch at times.

Agree Wout has been on another level. Almost winning a BRUTAL mountain stage, after dragging a break away along with him the entire stage. Only to be pipped at the post because Pog+Vin were racing so hard.

Teams have been getting exploded just about every day since the first couple of stages. Which was nicely highlighted by stage 19 where the sprint teams failed to close the break, allowing Christophe Laporte (another Jumbo rider) to jump onto the break in the final 700m (thanks to guess who... Wout riding his ass off on the front again) and then he rode on the remaining couple of break riders and the main sprinters didn't actually compete. Was such a clever bit of riding fro Jumbo, perfectly timed.

Gutted Cav wasn't there though as non of the sprinters have really shined and most really struggled to survive the mountains so I think he could have been in contention for a couple of stages at least.

All in all a glorious tour. I wonder if Wout can manage to win again today against the remaining pure sprinters?

[Fultonius]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

[Paul B]

If you've not had your fill the Tour de Femmes starts Sunday:
https://www.letourfemmes.fr/en

It's not on ITV4 but is covered by Eurosport, GCN+ and Discovery+ I believe. I've been lucky enough to get a freebie pass from Wahoo/Le Col thanks to a heads up from elsewhere (the first 10k were free):
https://lecolwahoo.com/moreeyesonher

It might still work? I got sent my code about 23:00 on Sat evening.

[teestub]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

Despite all advances in tech, training, nutrition, staying cool (these ice vests look like they’d be great for between summer bouldering attempts), etc. the fastest climbs were still some distance behind the ‘bad times’, so I have some hope.

[crzylgs]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

Despite all advances in tech, training, nutrition, staying cool (these ice vests look like they’d be great for between summer bouldering attempts), etc. the fastest climbs were still some distance behind the ‘bad times’, so I have some hope.

I'm not a cyclist myself and really only follow Le Tour (occasionally also follow the other grand tours but it varies) but do listen to a couple of cycle podcasts each year while Le Tour is running. What Teesub said nicely explains my understanding of it also. By doing some simple napkin maths anyone can time sections of routes and figure out the watts / KG effort. Non of the figures this year seemed to raise any eyebrows from people in the know.

The really obvious phenomenon from the 'bad times' was when a rider would have a terrible day smash a couple blood bags for dinner (yum!) then come back the following day and solo an entire Alp / Pyrenees stage to victory. Nothing even close to that this year. Pog+Vin were really closely matched. Pog had one slightly bad day, got his tactics wrong chasing down Roglic without any help from his team and maybe didn't fuel well enough. Great sportsmanship though. Love that he rode off the front of the peloton today when Ineos briefly attacked just for the lolz and was beaming on the podium with the White jersey presentation.

[Muenchener]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

I was listening to the Real Science of Sport podcast today. They've been cycling performance sceptics for years, but they're now saying current top (bike!) climbing performances are consistently near the upper limit of the plausible, but nowhere near Pantani-era fantasy land

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cycling-special-the-science-of-cadence-van-der/id1461719225?i=1000557499846

[User deactivated.]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

Despite all advances in tech, training, nutrition, staying cool (these ice vests look like they’d be great for between summer bouldering attempts), etc. the fastest climbs were still some distance behind the ‘bad times’, so I have some hope.

I'm not a cyclist myself and really only follow Le Tour (occasionally also follow the other grand tours but it varies) but do listen to a couple of cycle podcasts each year while Le Tour is running. What Teesub said nicely explains my understanding of it also. By doing some simple napkin maths anyone can time sections of routes and figure out the watts / KG effort. Non of the figures this year seemed to raise any eyebrows from people in the know.

The really obvious phenomenon from the 'bad times' was when a rider would have a terrible day smash a couple blood bags for dinner (yum!) then come back the following day and solo an entire Alp / Pyrenees stage to victory. Nothing even close to that this year. Pog+Vin were really closely matched. Pog had one slightly bad day, got his tactics wrong chasing down Roglic without any help from his team and maybe didn't fuel well enough. Great sportsmanship though. Love that he rode off the front of the peloton today when Ineos briefly attacked just for the lolz and was beaming on the podium with the White jersey presentation.

Seems like the way to go is to dope then stay within the W/Kg threshold that avoids suspicion and narrowly beat your opponent, cruising to victory!

(I seem to have lost access to smileys to indicate that this is tongue in cheek)

[steveri]

Great edition of the Tour for me. Though Jumbo WERE pretty dominant, there was enough going on for it not to be a procession. Sky were slightly too strong in the olden days and it made for some defensive riding. Interesting that the final time trial was in podium order for 1,2,3 ...apart from the unclassifiable Van Aert.

[Paul B]

If people want to get geeky there are some interesting W/kg charts here:
https://mobile.twitter.com/cyclinggraphs

The numbers don't look totally crazy compared to the Coggan table (although I'm way outside of my comfort zone looking at this stuff in detail). Perhaps someone who knows this stuff a little better can comment?

This one perhaps gives some context:
https://twitter.com/CyclingGraphs/status/1550043829654507520?s=20&t=JnL5U-Kt-caAgVY6WInMlQ

[sdm]

"on another level" and TdF in the same sentence always give me pause for scepticism. How are the top guys comparing to the theoretical max human level these days? Any "superhuman" efforts?

I was listening to the Real Science of Sport podcast today. They've been cycling performance sceptics for years, but they're now saying current top (bike!) climbing performances are consistently near the upper limit of the plausible, but nowhere near Pantani-era fantasy land

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cycling-special-the-science-of-cadence-van-der/id1461719225?i=1000557499846

I'm no expert but I recall a previous episode of the RSoS podcast where they were much less positive about the possibility of the peloton being clean.

It was an episode on cycling & running performances post covid. I'm guessing it was from 2021 or maybe late 2020.

IIRC, the conclusions were:
- Running performances have improved by more than can be explained by shoe technology improvements. Part of this might be able to be explained by the non-uniform boost of the new shoes. But that doesn't go far enough unless the shoes are a lot more effective for some athletes than the manufacturers have claimed.
- Cycling individual times, power outputs etc don't look outrageous but the consistency looks very dubious. We now have GC riders out competing the specialists on stages where the specialists would previously have won. Being able to do this day after day on a grand tour looks suspicious.

They also looked at Pogacar's development as a young athlete pointing out some aspects where he has always been an outlier, possibly giving hope that all could be above board.

Apologies if any of this is from the episode you linked to, I haven't relistened to it.

[Muenchener]

Great edition of the Tour for me. Though Jumbo WERE pretty dominant, there was enough going on for it not to be a procession.

I did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestique

[Muenchener]

- Cycling individual times, power outputs etc don't look outrageous but the consistency looks very dubious. We now have GC riders out competing the specialists on stages where the specialists would previously have won. Being able to do this day after day on a grand tour looks suspicious.

They also looked at Pogacar's development as a young athlete pointing out some aspects where he has always been an outlier, possibly giving hope that all could be above board.

Apologies if any of this is from the episode you linked to, I haven't relistened to it.

The consistency thing was mentioned, but the episode was mostly about Van der Poel's numbers from Flanders. In which context they did mention Pogacar's second place, and how unusual it is since the days of Merckx for a TdF GC rider to also be a contender in one day classics.

Body types becoming more specialised to different event types is in itself hardly surprising in any sport as it advances towards the limits of human capability. Otoh - entirely justified clouds of suspicious over cycling notwithstanding - we as climbers can't really turn round and say a once in a generation freak super talent (from Slovenia!) isn't plausible.

[Snoops]

Great edition of the Tour for me. Though Jumbo WERE pretty dominant, there was enough going on for it not to be a procession.

I did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestique

I thought he’d been found to have 2 fractured vertebrae since

[Muenchener]

I did wonder how much Roglic's withdrawal was down to really being unable to continue, versus lack of motivation to continue in a team role as senior domestique

I thought he’d been found to have 2 fractured vertebrae since

Ah. Fair enough, hand't seen that

[andy popp]

As an honorary Dane I'm obviously now totally invested in Vingegaard ... but basically still clueless about the Tour. But he seems to be looking strong.

[lukeyboy]

As an honorary Dane I'm obviously now totally invested in Vingegaard ... but basically still clueless about the Tour. But he seems to be looking strong.

He looks like the man to beat doesn't he, especially with someone like Sep Kuss to support in the high mountains.

Jai Hindley looks very exciting too, though I suspect he won't find himself being allowed into a breakaway or on anyone's wheel from now on!

[sxrxg]

Brilliant stage yesterday and amazing that Hindley managed to sneak unoticed into the chaotic break formation.

Pog will try something i'm sure but i'm not sure after his early season injury he has the legs this year for the high mountains and long climbs where Jonas looks to be dominant.

Hindley won the Giro last year and took a 4th in the Dauphine earlier in the year so has decent form, also the Bora team have some good support riders with Buchmann, Konrad, Jungels, Politt as mountain helpers and Van Poppel, Haller to do the work on the flat and rolling terrain. Even though Jumbo are the dominant team and Jonas looks to be the class of the field Hindley has 47 seconds and now only has to follow the wheels, i'm hopeful that he can put up a good fight and make the race intresting for the full three weeks as it has been a great start to the tour.

Finally i'm really hopeful Cav can get one more victory, he looks to have decent legs in the first two sprints. First sprint wasn't really great for him being uphill and quite technical. The sprint on the race track was chaotic and he got blocked just as he was opening his sprint and then had no chance from that point onwards. Think he will be confident though as the race moves into the later stages and the mountains have sapped the energy from some of the others...