heywoodu

Sunweb tactics, lol.

Let's be fair and realistic, Pogacar is only 21 now and already last year finished 3rd in the Vuelta. UAE gave him the chance basically from the very beginning of his very first Grand Tour (and rightly so), it's really not like he missed any chances because of Aru being in the way And yeah, has-beens like Marcato and a De La Cruz without the QuickStep-bonus aren't going to be of much help, but so far I'd say he is perfectly capable of handling himself on his own, Pogacar is a rare talent.

The one Bond movie I saw was way too much of a generic boring action movie to be interested in watching any more.

I might have missed a few days, today I have good hope for good points with Cavagna, Schachmann and Martinez all in the breakaway

Abandon Mollema after taking a tumble into the bushes and being stretchered into the ambulance.

It won't ever be less, since there are simply more and more famous people and so more and more famous people die. I had never heard of half these people by the way, including Diana Rigg (and yes, I've seen Game of Thrones entirely, twice).

Yep

[hide] Tour De France - Week 2 - Stage 10-15 Stage Top 3 Riders Île D'Oléron - Île De Ré Stage 10 September, 8th 1st: 2nd: 3rd: Caleb Ewan Oliver Naesen Wout Van Aert Bryan Coquard Hugo Hofstetter André Greipel Sam Bennett Sonny Colbrelli Elia Viviani Cees Bol Alexander Kristoff Peter Sagan Pick a Non-listed Rider Châtelaillon - Poitiers Stage 11 September, 9th 1st: 2nd: 3rd: Caleb Ewan Wout Van Aert Bryan Coquard Hugo Hofstetter Sam Bennett Niccolò Bonifazio Elia Viviani Cees Bol Alexander Kristoff Peter Sagan Pick a Non-listed Rider Chauvigny - Sar. Corréze Stage 12 September, 10th 1st: 2nd: 3rd: Tiesj Bennot Thomas De Gendt Oliver Naesen Greg Van Avermaet Soren Kragh Andersen Kasper Asgreen Julian Alaphilippe Rémi Cavagna Benoît Cosnefroy Alessandro De Marchi Matteo Trentin Matej Mohoric Pick a Non-listed Rider Châtel-Guyon - Puy Mary Stage 13 September, 11th 1st: Alexey Lutsenko 2nd: Mikel Nieve 3rd: Dani Martinez Egan Bernal Miguel Ángel López Nairo Quintana Rigoberto Uran Julian Alaphilippe Romain Bardet Guilaume Martin Emanuel Buchmann Adam Yates Tom Dumoulin Primoz Roglic Tadej Pogacar Mikel Landa Enric Mas Pick a Non-listed Rider Clermont-Ferrand - Lyon Stage 14 September, 12th 1st: Rémi Cavagna 2nd: Thomas de Gendt 3rd: Maximilian Schachmann Tiesj Bennot Jasper Stuyven Greg Van Avermaet Soren Kragh Andersen Mads Pedersen Julian Alaphilippe Rémi Cavagna Alberto Bettiol Davide Formolo Alexey Lutsenko Peter Sagan Matej Mohoric Pick a Non-listed Rider Lyon - Grand Colombier Stage 15 September, 13th 1st: Primoz Roglic 2nd: Tadej Pogacar 3rd: Egan Bernal Egan Bernal Miguel Ángel López Daniel Felipe Martínez Nairo Quintana Romain Bardet Guilaume Martin Emanuel Buchmann Adam Yates Tom Dumoulin Mikel Landa Primoz Roglic Tadej Pogacar Pick a Non-listed Rider [/hide]

What's going on this time with the server(s)?

Hopefully Hirschi can finish off the solo today

Alaphilippe attacks right when Sagan lets the group go.

Sagan in perfect shape would be unbeatable here, although he really needs to have very strong legs to survive the last categorized climb - it might be a tad too long for him. Also, years ago this would have been the perfect stage for a 20+ rider breakaway taking 20 minutes or so and the peloton taking a rest day

As of today, the BDO is officially history. Obviously it already was for quite a while, but it's last struggles by a desperate and ever-angry Des Jacklin have now come to an end: it's over, great job by Jacklin and his clan to destroy the whole thing, they get what they deserve

About that: today they pass through the town where France's most popular rider ever, Raymond Poulidor, lived. Sadly this is basically the first Tour since his active career where Poupou won't be present, since he died aged 83 in November

There can be long stages that are not totally flat (like today, for example) It's 200+ and the course has tons of potential. And even though I complain about boring, long, flat stages, there should be one or two of them in it, it's not a Grand Tour without

So today, 218km. Never has the longest stage of a Tour de France be this short, it's also the only 200+ kilometer stage. Kind of ridiculous, wait another 10 years and the longest stage will probably be a junior length 140km or something.

Visited the south of the country yesterday and today, the city of Maastricht and some surroundings. So much history in Maastricht, I love seeing a basilica/church they started building around the year 1000...awesome to think a thousand years ago people were building what's still standing strong today. Impressive little walk inside as well, almost every item makes me wonder what history there is connected to it and which things it has 'seen'. Also visited the Margraten cemetery, an American war cemetery with a little over 8000 graves. I've already seen the one in Colleville in France, which due to being right next to Normandy Beach has of course the most impressive view of all war cemeteries, but still it is incredibly impressive to walk around the thousands of crosses and graves. I still want to visit a German war cemetery in the Netherlands, with more than double the number of dead buried there. It's not American though, so it's much less of a 'patriottic show', which makes it all the more intriguing for me to see.

We visited former Camp Amersfoort* last week, where in the woods there's the ruins/foundation of a former 'body house' - people who died due to disease, hunger and so on were thrown in there until some family or something picked them up or they were just dumped in a mass grave. It's mostly the foundations, with a few layers of bricks still standing, and on top of almost every single brick there were a few of these stones as well. Just placed on the bricks, this reminded me of that. *not really a concentration camp, but a camp where people were gathered to be sent to Germany or - in case of resistance fighters - to be executed, it was known specifically for the brutal treatment by guards, more so than the German concentration/destruction camps

No, Sagan should not have headbutted another rider. He was lucky it was Van Aert, someone with (just like Sagan) above-average skills on a bike, with a lot of other riders it'd have ended up with half the peloton on the road. It doesn't make Van Aert behaving like a little bitch after the finish any better, but that has nothing to do with Sagan having the dangerous move, way more than Van Aert's (also not great) move. Headbutt leading to only a minor penalty, Sagan has nothing to complain about today. Same thing in 2017 by the way, when he gave Cavendish a lesson in what Cavendish did himself in the 2016 Olympics. Cavendish not being DQ'ed there was more unfair than Sagan being DQ'ed in 2017.

Who said it's rigged in favor of Sagan? It's not rigged in favor of any one specific cyclist, thinking it is is just a huge overestimation of how important that one cyclist is For years and years it was perfect for a rider like Sagan. Not because it was rigged, but because of all sprinters, he was by far the one who survived the mountains the easiest, making it relatively easy to make up the points he lost due to a small lack of raw speed. It's no surprise or unfair situation or anything that Bennett is in the green now, he fully deserves is and at this moment, Sagan is simply not good enough. Which is not an attack on Sagan, it's nothing to be ashamed about if you've dominated for years and one year just don't have that extra bit of power and shape.

He was mad towards Van Aert, who slightly blocked him, followed by Sagan headbutting him. It's really not that complicated, headbutts have been penalized plenty of times before. Didn't hear all this "it's always against rider X!!" nonsense then.

Sagan has been put back to the last place in the peloton. Mild punishment, seems fair enough, DQ would have been nonsense. Nothing too special after all, on to tomorrow

No protest, for what it's worth. Sagan went looking for another fight at the team bus after the finish apparently, but they managed to calm it down.

Happy to see that (the last part), the more the merrier and now we've had 4 guys within half a wheel, which is pretty cool

Years of riggage, lol. Always against the always innocent Sagan!