So is Carapaz finally into 3rd?
No, should still be a second down on Vingegaard for 3rd. Only thing in the GC today is that Guillarme Martin’s stay in 2nd place was proven as short as he feared it might be.
Well. Enjoy your rest day, everybody.
Did these guys over-caffeinate this morning? They’re all attacky.
TotalEnergie’s kit is uglier than AG2R’s brown shorts.
Much as I love the tour, stages like yesterday bore the hell out of me. It can’t be the case that the top 10 riders whose name isn’t Pogacar have decided they aren’t going to race anymore, right?
I’m confused why you’re confused. It was a medium mountain stage with a flat finish 40km past the peak of the last major climb. It was never a stage where there’d be gaps on the GC. And, coming before the two biggest stages in the Pyrenees with mountiantop finishes, everyone with GC interests was keeping their powder dry.
Now if they don’t race today and tomorrow, then you’ll have something to complain about.
I got all excited when Pog began to respond to attacks early, and to riders who were not a threat. I guess he was feeling randy, or something. Then nothing happened.
Right. I’m putting them on notice. 
Did you notice how happy Pogacar looked when he could finally go all out up the Portet? Like a puppy 
I heard the commentators say yesterday that some teams still had all 8 riders. Didn’t it used to be 9?
Wow. Now that was exciting racing.
Yes, it did used to be 9.
Called Carapaz was bluffing at 3km to go, and sure enough he attacks a bit later.
I think he knew he was on the edge and had only one attack in him. Honestly, I don’t think he stood a chance in beating Pogacar. He might have got one over on Jonas V. But in the end, I think that’s what the result would have been regardless.
I hope he didn’t leave everything on the mountain today. Tomorrow is going to be another hard day.
When did it change, and why?
Are there still the same number of teams?
In 2018:
There are usually 20-22 teams in the TdF.
Thanks for the link.
Interesting article. It says the change was made in the interest of rider safety. I wonder if it’s had the desired effect. Even with eight-man teams, there have been some huge crashes in the current Tour.
They said it was rider safety, but it was also at least a little bit to make it harder for teams like Sky to show up with ridiculously dominant trains.
And has that worked?
It seems to me it would be easier now to find 8 great riders to beat the other teams’ 8 riders than it used to be with 9.
Well, on paper, Ineos had the dominant team this year. It hasn’t turned out that way and in fact Ineos hasn’t won a single stage thus far and are unlikely to do so for the remainder of the tour. A huge sponsor and budget helps, but there are variables that you can’t mitigate in a given tour.
Well, with only 8 riders a team has less room to be dominant on all terrains. If you have your leader and a killer mountain domestique train, you’re going to be weaker in crosswinds on the flats. If you have enough guys to drill it on the flat to keep breaks in check, you’re going to be weaker in the mountains.
Teams that aren’t Sky/Ineos or Jumbo Visma, on the other hand, can focus on one or the other aspect and get the upper hand on that terrain, and while obviously this leaves their leader exposed on the other, well, it makes for more exciting racing if the various contestants are trying to exploit differing strengths and weaknesses.
That said, the change hasn’t had that much impact on either the stated goal of rider safety or the between the lines goal of weakening superteam dominance.