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StarkingBarfish
Jun 25, 2006

Novus Ordo Seclorum
Gonna be an interesting interview

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Loving Africa Chaps
Dec 3, 2007


We had not left it yet, but when I would wake in the night, I would lie, listening, homesick for it already.

lol philipsen might have had that if he'd not dived across the road to box cav in

peanut-
Feb 17, 2004
Fun Shoe
Doesn't matter, he had his assigned role in the Belge conspiracy.

Smirr
Jun 28, 2012

They should hurry up with this retrospective and get Cav on the horn while he's still hot

Dead Nerve
Mar 27, 2007

Fun tour even without the story book ending.

Smirr
Jun 28, 2012

I think there was one short moment where you could definitely see Cav weighing the pros and cons of just shoulder-checking Philipsen off Wout's wheel and then remembering "oh right, green jersey"

Angryhead
Apr 4, 2009

Don't call my name
Don't call my name
Alejandro




https://twitter.com/outofcycling/status/1416810217623465984?s=21

StarkingBarfish
Jun 25, 2006

Novus Ordo Seclorum

lmao

Smirr
Jun 28, 2012


hahaha

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

incredible

StarkingBarfish
Jun 25, 2006

Novus Ordo Seclorum
https://twitter.com/RacingGardener/status/1416686857274933249/photo/1

StarkingBarfish
Jun 25, 2006

Novus Ordo Seclorum
holy poo poo the ITV commentators 'Tadej Pogacar the only man on the podium failing to produce a child, presumably having failed to produce a child. Back after the break.'

Smirr
Jun 28, 2012

StarkingBarfish posted:

holy poo poo the ITV commentators 'Tadej Pogacar the only man on the podium failing to produce a child, presumably having failed to produce a child. Back after the break.'

lmao he's 22. I'm surprised Vingegaard already has one tbh

Weembles
Apr 19, 2004

Smirr posted:

lmao he's 22. I'm surprised Vingegaard already has one tbh

Vengabus might be the nicest guy in the world for all I know, but he comes off as odd to me.

He has that kind of face that just screams "You know Mr. Bond, we are very much alike, you and I..."

Withnail
Feb 11, 2004

peanut- posted:

So Wout won a double ascent of Mont Ventoux, a flat time trial, and the Champs Elysees bunch sprint in one Tour lmao

https://i.imgur.com/HJK97Gn.mp4

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.
2nd fastest tour ever.

Averaged 41.16 kph over the race. Ridiculously hard.

Jean-Paul Shartre
Jan 16, 2015

this sentence no verb


serious gaylord posted:

2nd fastest tour ever.

Averaged 41.16 kph over the race. Ridiculously hard.

I wonder how much of that is that the median pace has actually gone up versus all of the semi-flat/transition days being rode actually at race pace shortening the long tail of the distribution?

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
The race really did seem less controlled which leads to high pace. Usually you get a few sprint days with a classic "4x4" weak break and languid chase, and break stages won by like 20 minutes, and we had very few this year and more chaotic uncontrolled stages.

peanut-
Feb 17, 2004
Fun Shoe
I feel like UAE's refusal to control the first 80k of every stage sped up the race and ended up being a super effective tactic.

The peloton looked completely shellshocked by the time things settled down most days, and the breaks ended up being composed of just whoever survived the war of attrition.

It probably really disrupted the ability of Ineos or Jumbo to try any creative team tactics too.

BlankSystemDaemon
Mar 13, 2009



peanut- posted:

So Wout won a double ascent of Mont Ventoux, a flat time trial, and the Champs Elysees bunch sprint in one Tour lmao
Those must be some pretty good ones, huh.

Weembles posted:

Vengabus might be the nicest guy in the world for all I know, but he comes off as odd to me.

He has that kind of face that just screams "You know Mr. Bond, we are very much alike, you and I..."
He's incredibly down to earth.

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.

JohnCompany posted:

I wonder how much of that is that the median pace has actually gone up versus all of the semi-flat/transition days being rode actually at race pace shortening the long tail of the distribution?

I think I can only remember one stage which was obviously 'gently caress you we're tired' which was stage 19.

With all the crashes and massive time gaps from the first week I think a lot of teams just plain abandoned the GC and went for stages much earlier than they normally would.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
I believe in terms of climbing KMs the route was easier than quite a few of the last years routes, too.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

serious gaylord posted:

I think I can only remember one stage which was obviously 'gently caress you we're tired' which was stage 19.

With all the crashes and massive time gaps from the first week I think a lot of teams just plain abandoned the GC and went for stages much earlier than they normally would.

I remember really thinking we were in for a weird one on stage 6 to Chatouroux, which was a perfect stage for a languid chase behind a weak break. Instead some big names immediately tried to force a strong split on a flat day.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Everyone was already hosed up.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
An underrated factor is that Lotto was the closest thing the peloton had to a dedicated sprint team (even QS had some climbers) and Ewan immediately crashed, meaning the big team of roleurs who would ordinarily be controlling sprint stages were instead attacking.

Bahrain also lost their GC guy early and had another team of powerful riders who were immediately sent on attacking, stage hunting duties.

Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jul 18, 2021

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.

Feels Villeneuve posted:

I remember really thinking we were in for a weird one on stage 6 to Chatouroux, which was a perfect stage for a languid chase behind a weak break. Instead some big names immediately tried to force a strong split on a flat day.

Yeah, there weren't very many days with 3 or 4 guys up the road either. Every break was a war of attrition and a biggish group always got away.

Outside of Ineos and UAE, I'm pretty sure every team tried to put someone up the road every day.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.

serious gaylord posted:

Yeah, there weren't very many days with 3 or 4 guys up the road either. Every break was a war of attrition and a biggish group always got away.

Outside of Ineos and UAE, I'm pretty sure every team tried to put someone up the road every day.

I wonder if anyone will ever try this as a GC tactic again. Imagine stage 7 with like, an actual GC contender and not VDP in yellow lol

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.

Feels Villeneuve posted:

I wonder if anyone will ever try this as a GC tactic again. Imagine stage 7 with like, an actual GC contender and not VDP in yellow lol

You'd need your GC guy to be able to absolutely monster everyone though. UAE could get away with it because Pog would chase down dangerous riders himself. If you think back to that stage at the Vuelta where Contador and Quintana got away from Froome and just murdered his team because Froome wasn't able to close it down himself.

Loving Africa Chaps
Dec 3, 2007


We had not left it yet, but when I would wake in the night, I would lie, listening, homesick for it already.

Curious who people think had a good and bad tour

Good:
UAE (obvs)
- lots of chat (including from me) about how they had a poor team but they managed to have other teams do a lot of the pacing and often Formolo was the only domestique left when the group's started thinning
Jumbo
- despite being probably the worst affected by crashes they actually did fantastic with a second place for their backup and 4 stage wins
AG2R
- Ben O'Connor looks a fantastic signing and they got a superb stage win. Top 5 placing for a French team is great for the sport plus they have the nicest kit.
Alpecin-Fenix
- fantastic first week though I think it's weird they persisted with philipsen rather than merlier for sprints, perhaps that's because the latter is going to quick step next year
DQS
- can't argue with 5 stage wins but you've got to feel they'll have hoped for a little more from Lou Lou.

Bad:
EF
- Uran barely scraped the top 10 and they got nothing from the breaks. Lachlan got them a ton of publicity and I love they do stuff like that but overall it's a pretty poor return for the team. I thought they'd done really well in the first week popping up to the front at key moments to stay out of trouble but couldn't do anything with it.
Grupama-FDJ
- Demare took 4 months off to prepare for the tour and then was no where in the sprints before missing the time cut. Kung might have got a stage win but that wouldn't have papered over the giant hole in their goals for this edition
ISN
- absolutely loving no where. Controlled the break occasionally for a past it sprinter and Mike woods doomed attempt at the polka dot jersey. He's a fantastic rider but is never going to do well on multiple high mountain stages. For all the money they have behind them it's actually a paper thin squad.
Ineos
- difficult to say they had a bad tour with a podium but they brought 4 GC contenders to the tour and carapaz was often on his own. The amount of crashes Thomas and Porte are involved in is beyond a joke now.

Project M.A.M.I.L.
Apr 30, 2007

Older, balder, fatter...
It made me so happy to see Thomas suck this tour.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
I think Movistar got two podiums and gently caress all else. Mas seems like a reliable engine but he's not running with the horses.

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
Bring on the Vuelta, Giro Lombardia and Paris Roubaix!

Lyndon LaRouche
Sep 5, 2006

by Azathoth

algebra testes posted:

Bring on the Vuelta, Giro Lombardia and Paris Roubaix!

Not feeling confident the Olympic road race even gonna happen eh? :roflolmao:

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy

paperwind posted:

Not feeling confident the Olympic road race even gonna happen eh? :roflolmao:

I would almost doxx it but I have lost every Doxx I have made.

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.

paperwind posted:

Not feeling confident the Olympic road race even gonna happen eh? :roflolmao:

Dani Martinez has already tested positive so is out of the race and its still 2 weeks away. At the rate the Rona is running through olympic village I doubt there will be a games never mind the road race.

Feels Villeneuve
Oct 7, 2007

Setter is Better.
Wow Pogacar put such a beating into Ineos that Brailsford is now dying of bike AIDS. Owned???


https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/brailsford-reveals-health-issues-could-spell-the-end-of-his-ineos-grenadiers-reign/

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.
This is a very good article

quote:

Busy with other jobs, a young “man in blue” – dressed like all the employees of Doublet – sounds a warning to them from behind his hood: “Boys, you’re gonna see a lot of cocks.” Indeed they are; as the van begins its descent, the penis in all its myriad forms springs up as far as the eye can see. Every hundred metres or so, sometimes flying in formation, there are male genitalia; phalluses, cocks, willies, schlongs. For each one, the Eraser Men hop out in the middle of the road and grab their paint pots.

https://www.rouleur.cc/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/the-eraser-men?fbclid=IwAR2aE_I_R9zqPujrA13ejpdRSwPKS_8kKEGF7LnodAiEUYnjyr-B4LxnRJs

moctopus
Nov 28, 2005

Leave the dicks!

Heliosicle
May 16, 2013

Arigato, Racists.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2315716-we-hadden-geluk-de-tourmalet-stond-vol-met-tourpiemels

The painters should diversify into other genitalia to give the eraser men a more artistic challenge, they've got the owls down

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Literally Lewis Hamilton
Feb 22, 2005




This rules. What a job.

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