Men's Road Cycling UCI World Tour 2023 (Tour de France)

[nenad 452]

9 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

I think the sarcasm was obvious

 

And understandable. 

I mean, I literally put it in quotes 

[NMQ 243]

What a beatdown. The tour is over if nothing crazy happens. I wonder if UAE throws the towel and puts the effort on securing Yates in the podium.

[Federer91 3,039]

That was really disappointing from Pogacar 

[heywoodu 16,060]

2 hours ago, NMQ said:

What a beatdown. The tour is over if nothing crazy happens. I wonder if UAE throws the towel and puts the effort on securing Yates in the podium.

At least Pogacar is someone who attacks if necessary, so today might actually have increased the chance to see something interesting in the last days.

[heywoodu 16,060]

2 hours ago, Federer91 said:

That was really disappointing from Pogacar 

It wasn't, at all. Pogacar completely humiliated everyone, except for Vingegaard, who had an outright inhuman performance. Van Aert is one of the best time trial riders in the world and is in good shape on the climbs as well, yet he ends up well over a minute behind Pogacar.

 

Pogacar's main mistake seems to have been the bike change, but other than that, he had an excellent ride. There was just someone else who threw down a ride we will still remember - one way or another - in 25 years from now.

 

Van Aert, Bilbao, Yates averaged high 37 km/h today, Pogacar broke 39....then comes Vingegaard with well over 41 km/h on a stage like this. Arguably a more incredible ride than Landis in 2006.

Edited July 18, 2023 by heywoodu

[phelps 8,337]

17 hours ago, heywoodu said:

I think the sarcasm was obvious

 

And understandable. 

yeah, just look at our doping bans thread...

 

p.s. did you read about  Tobi Amusan, the last shame of WA?

 

I lost my hope quite some time ago...

[phelps 8,337]

13 hours ago, heywoodu said:

At least Pogacar is someone who attacks if necessary, so today might actually have increased the chance to see something interesting in the last days.

but if today he puts in play a Landis/Chiappucci style effort, how many people would actually trust him?

 

by the way, yesterday's show by Vingegaard, it's difficult to think of it in terms of traditional physical doping...he did something that no "medicine" can suddenly allow.

 

if there's something wrong (and I sincerely hope there's not), it must be some kind of technical trick, rather (and the fact that he's the only one that didn't change bike through the whole course just feeds the suspect)

[heywoodu 16,060]

55 minutes ago, phelps said:

if there's something wrong (and I sincerely hope there's not), it must be some kind of technical trick, rather (and the fact that he's the only one that didn't change bike through the whole course just feeds the suspect)

Huh? Pogacar and Gaudu were basically the only ones of the top riders who did change bikes.

 

There is a ton to unpack about Vingegaard's performance yesterday, but not changing the bike is basically the only normal thing of the entire ride  

 

Spoiler

And like I said, I still enjoyed it anyway. First because it was hilarious, and second because whatever else, Vingegaard's cornering technique - surprisingly - was absolutely beautiful to watch. I've never seen Vingegaard ride any good corner in his life basically, and yesterday it was like he had already done the course 500 times and knew every single meter. He took some of the chicanes quicker than an F1 car  

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by heywoodu

[heywoodu 16,060]

Cute to see arguably the most anonymous few teams in the Tour - TotalEnergies, Arkea, Alpecin and Lotto Dstny - give it a try today, but yeah, the Pro Cycling Manager ride of Jumbo and UAE is making short work of the undoubtedly well-meaning riders of those teams  

 

Tiesj Benoot of all places dropping like 70% of the peloton on a 1st category climb  

Edited July 19, 2023 by heywoodu

[frantic13poland 55]

Stage 17