I recall a similar incident with Cavendish. Barging and headbutting a rider who was holding his own line. If I recall correctly, I think Cavendish paid the price by falling because he rolled the tire off the rim with that stupid maneuver. He’s a bit of a brat and gets himself into jams as often as not.
As for today, I think Richie Porte is about the only one who can seriously challenge Chris Froome. Trouble is, Sky has much more depth than BMC as far as supporting climbers so Richie will have his work cut out for him.
I just don’t get why people have all this faith in Richie Porte. He was pretty good in the Dauphine, but so have a lot of people over the years. One week is a lot different than 3. I don’t know, good on him if he wins, I just don’t see it. Dan Martin, either. We shall see re. Simon Yates.
Good stage today. I’m an Aru fan and he clearly has the explosiveness and inclination to attack like Contador use to be able to do. Froome can say what he likes, any time you lose 20 seconds (plus bonus) to a rival, it’s a problem.
Roman Bardet was never an explosive rider so he will really move up the GC when you get the longer sustained mountains, plus he has real skill descending, which is often overlooked. He’s no Nibali, but he’s pretty darn good. I thiought he was fine today, he wasn’t really dropped, he just didn’t have the burst at the end. I don’t think he will win the tour, but I’m still confident he will be near the podium when all is said and done.
Sprint Stage tomorrow. It seems we have Matthews, Demare, and Kittel in pretty good form.
I think it’s because when he was on Sky, Richie practically pulled Froome up the mountain on a couple of stages. Now, maybe it’s because he had great days while Froome was having bad days. But he is one of the best climbers in the business and he’s consistent.
So that’s why I think Porte stands a better chance than anyone to spar on climbs with Froome.
But yeah, today, Aru had the best legs of the entire field. Great ride and a well earned stage.
My wife was quite confused that I listened to it as I’ve ranted about Lance as long as I’ve known her and she thinks I’ve hated him since 99 or so.
That is sort of true. I hated 2 things:
USPS and Discovery (and to a lesser extent T Mobil, I guess) were such strong teams, it made the tour boring for 7 years. Nobody else stood a chance; they had complete control over the Peleton. Boring stuff, and I hated it and I associated that with Lance. A little bit of that goes on with Sky now. It’s why I hope Aru is a real threat. Or Porte.
I hated the ‘Lance was clean in a world of dopers’ narrative. All the information was out there for over a decade before he came clean and everyone just stuck their head in the sand (including Trek and I own a lot of money’s worth of there bikes, I’m biased, but they are the best). It drove me batty.
Once he came clean I was finally able to metaphorically exhale. He has paid enough of a price, and more than most from his era so the two of us are good in my eyes.
Long story short, dude knows tons about cycling and clearly loves the sport so yes, listen to his podcast! I’m not super jazzed re his cohost, but he is fine.
That was a complete over reaction kicking Sagan out of the tour. They have a perfectly good intermediate penalty of placing him last on the stage. I have seen much much worse get a lesser penalty. Sagan is the most entertaining rider these days. The dude can win any type of stage and never has any team support.
DQ may have been a bit harsh but watching on slow-mo overhead and from in front, I think Sagan’s conduct was very poor. I’ve heard people saying Cav went for a gap that wasn’t there. That’s bullshit. What gap did he not have? Demare had a gap (he won the frickin’ stage) and Cavendish was on his wheel. How could he not have had a gap?
Watch this overhead. Go frame by frame from about 2 to 4 seconds. Cav has Demare’s wheel. He has a clear line ahead on Demare’s wheel, and he barely changes line (he changes very slightly to the right, but that’s away from Sagan, so you can’t complain about that).
Then Sagan sees Demare coming through hard and thinks (no doubt) that he wanted a piece of that wheel and he just goes for it, and just plain smashes Cav off Demare’s wheel into the barriers. He just whomps in from the left, ice hockey style.
Sagan either knew Cav was there and just though he could bump him off (in which case he deserves everything he got) or he was utterly reckless as to whether anyone was on Demare’s wheel. He did the cardinal sin of both (a) changing his line and (b) not looking where he was changing it too. What were the chances that someone would be on Demare’s wheel? 80%? 90%? Why wouldn’t someone be on Demare’s wheel?
Sagan saying “gee I didn’t know anyone was on his wheel” isn’t good enough. To do what he did, he should have checked whether he could change his line before he did so.
In law, recklessness is when you don’t know for a fact that your actions will cause an outcome, but you do know that there is a huge risk your actions will cause a certain outcome but do it anyway. Recklessness is viewed as being only one small step down from intentional.
Clearly it’s all a matter of judgment as to whether Sagan should have been DQ’d. But to me, Cav was “DQ’d” by Sagan but good. And I’m not sure, given what Sagan did (deliberately or recklessly) why he should still be in the race when Cav is not.
Basically because - the fortuitous vagaries of bike racing aside - it’s all about who can put time into their rivals in TT’s and who can drop who on the mountain top finish stages. And Porte has done both to Froome this year on occasion.
I agree that Porte’s chances are a long, long way from clear but I think there were sound reasons to think his chances of the overall were quite good. Since he has now (a) blown the opening TT, and (b) failed to shake off Froome on yesterday’s climb, I would say Porte is now an outside chance at very best.
The Time Trial thing is true, but this year there is less emphasis on that. Trouble is that Porte might be decent but Froome is great at it so he still needs the ability to put time into him in the mountains. I might be totally wrong, but he always struck me as an almost great climber and those guys always worry me. Good enough to hang, but not really top of the heap. I never bet on those guys.
Like I’ve said (I think), I have nothing against him and I’m more than happy to have him prove me totally wrong, just not who I’d gamble on. The more guys we have up for the GC, the happier I am!
Quite a nice story away from the road today - ITV4 announced that the legendary TdF rider Philippa York will be joining their commentary team.
Philippa who? you might say - full report here:
Great to see that she feels the time is right to step back into the cycling public eye. Don’t know how widely ITV4’s coverage is disseminated, but it’s top drawer IMHO - David Millar / Ned Boulting and Garry Imlach / Chris Boardman. Adding a genuine KOM voice should be good.