The Tour de France starts tomorrow (Saturday). I don’t really follow professional cycling, but I enjoy reading updates and analysis in the annual TdF thread from the knowledgeable posters here. So I’m hoping if I start it, it will encourage some participation.
I will be interested to see if they can get a better handle on climate protesters this year, if the unrest in Paris bleeds into this at all, and if the recent death of rider Gino Mäder in the Tour de Suisse causes any change in rider behavior or protections on the course.
I still need to pick someone to root for, but hopefully someone can point me toward the worthy contenders.
I believe the entire thing is being broadcast on Netflix. Or so my mom told me today.
There are only two riders who can really contest the overall win, barring any DNF mishaps - Tadej Pogacar (Pog) and Jonas Vingegaard. They are very closely matched - Pog is the greatest talent since Merckx, a magical, charismatic rider who can do almost everything on a bike. Vingegaard is not in the same league allround but is an exceptional grand tour specialist. He also has a much stronger team with some absolute killers riding for him - this is critical in grand tour racing. Pog is also coming off a broken wrist, although it was several weeks back.
Everyone likes Pog so maybe root for Jonas to even up the scales 
Of course there is so much more than the general classification going on in the Tour - the green jersey race looks very good this year, Mark Cavendish is racing in likely his last ever Tour attempting to break the all time record of stage wins (long shot, but certainly possible) every stage is a race with its own story etc etc.
Stage one will be furiously contested by the classics riders as it is a chance to wear the yellow jersey before the GC guys take charge - should be a great spectacle. It’s a rolling stage with some tough short climbs and a particularly sharp one towards the end - one for the puncheurs. Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel are two giants of Belgian / Dutch cycling who excel at this sort of stage but plenty of others will be contesting. Pog himself could win this - you don’t often see the GC favs throwing down on day one, they like to keep their powder dry, but the stage is perfect for Pog and he likes to put on a show. We’ll see!
Stage 1 is on NBC tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. (Eastern) . Looks like most of the stages to follow will be on USA.
Hard to see anyone but Pog or Jonas winning the race. Jai Hindley? Richard Carapaz? Enrique Mas? Only if Pog and Jonas take each other out in a crash on a descent or something.
Stage 1 is wild. I can’t remember the last time the Tour opened like this. Except it’s way harder in terms of climbing than any classic besides Il Lombardia. The final climb 10km from the finish, Cote de Pike, is officially 2km @ 10% but actually the first k is 6% and the second k is solid 13%. That’s crazy hard. That’s harder than the Mur de Huy (1.3km 9.3%), the traditional finish of La Fleche Wallonne. Now it’s a little different than Fleche Wallonne because there’s 10km mostly descending after the climb albeit with a kick back up at the end instead of finishing at the top, but going over the top with a gap will be very hard to bring back. Most of the classics guys like MvdP and WvA don’t even go to FW because they have no hope of hanging in on the Mur. That race is won by guys like Julian Alaphilippe (3 times) and Alejandro Valverde (5 times). Fun fact, Pogi won La Fleche Wallonne this year. I’d say he’s the favourite for this, though Alaphilippe looked in pretty good form in the Criterium du Dauphine, winning a stage, so he’s a possibility. I don’t think van der Poel or van Aert can hang with the pure puncheurs on that climb, though there’s an outside chance they could come back on the descent and then win the short uphill sprint. But if the stage doesn’t go to Pogi or Alaphilippe, I’d bet on someone like Dylan Teuns or Mike Woods before the cobbled classics guys. Actually now that I think about it, Tom Pidcock could very well win this stage. Punchy climber, crazy good descending skills. Tom Pidcock - Top 5 WOW moments - YouTube
I’m also exited about this years TdF.
The first etappe looks to be huge. The GC looks to be tied up between Pogacar and Vingegaard, but the first stage looks like a free for all. I like MvP for the win , but that is far from uncontested. WvA, Yates, Alaphilipe, Pidcock, Pogacar, Benoot, van Baarle… the list of serious contenders for ettape 1 is huge. A lot of them have something to prove this season. This looks like a spring classic with all the players.
Brutal. Enrique Mas and Richard Carapaz go down on the descent of the second-last climb and it looks like Mas won’t continue. Carapaz got back on his bike but looks to have a significant knee issue and will lose minutes at best.
These guys weren’t going to win, but were going to fight for top 5 or even podium. It’s a cruel sport.
Question:
Do people want comments on the race as it occurs blurred with spoiler tags? I realize a lot of people watch it time-shifted, as indeed do I on work days. Not sure what the best solution is.
There is no sane delay.
It is breaking news, for people watching time shifted— do not read this thread.
It would be awkward to have a discussion about a real time battle with spoiler tags.
Agreed, if I don’t want spoilers, I’ll wait to read it.
Really enjoying to commentary so far, thank you.
Your mom is probably referring to last years documentary done by Netflix. Based on 2022 season I think? Similar to the one on Formula 1 I just started watching it.
Thomas Pidcock is quite the descender…jeez.
So, I’ve been pondering the Stage 1 outcome a bit.
First, I was mostly right that the Cote de Pike would be too tough for the classics guys if the GC guys attacked each other.The only one who was close to the leaders going over the top was Wout van Aert, who managed to get back to the lead group. A bunch of the other guys who’d been mentioned for the stage - van der Poel, Alaphilippe, Dylan Teuns, Pidcock - were in the next group. That Wout made the first group has got to make Jumbo Visma happy, because if he’s on form like he was last year he’s worth three regular domestiques.
Second, I found it a bit curious that Wout didn’t participate in Jumbo’s chase of the Yates twins. They just rode with Kuss and Kelderman, who on paper are never going to bring Simon and Adam back which was indeed the outcome. Maybe Wout was so gassed from the hill that he couldn’t contribute? Or maybe Jumbo were happy to let Yates & Yates up the road to take bonus seconds away from Pog, who was always going to beat Jonas in a sprint?
Third, it looks to me like UAE intend to use Adam Yates as a co-leader with Pogacar, kind of like how Jumbo used Roglic and Vingegaard last year. Usually when either of the Yates boys ride for GC in a grand tour their race comes undone dramatically at some point (see: Simon at the 2018 Giro d’Italia, going from race leader to losing 40 minutes on Stage 19), and no one really thinks Adam is likely to win this race. But he’s good enough that you have to take him seriously. If he attacks in the mountains, you can’t just let him ride away from the bunch, because if you give him 2-3 minutes he is absolutely a threat to hang onto that lead. All the more so if you spot him a 20s headstart, which he’s just taken with the Stage 1 win. I think Jonas thinks he can drop Yates in the high mountains and he’s not a terribly serious threat, and I think he’s probably right, but as long as Yates is near the top of the GC he’s a tactical complication for Jumbo and a potential advantage for Pogacar.
On to Stage 2, which is likely to feature a larger bunch sprint, albeit still without the actual sprinters, because the Cat 2 climb (8km @ 5.3%) 16km from the finish is likely to see most of them off the back even though it’s not as hard as today’s obstacles were. Maaaybe Bini Grmay can make it? Otherwise hard to bet against Wout taking the stage.
It was indeed WvA’s stage to loose.
And he did.
They couldn’t organize a decent lead-out with 4! Teammembers. I love the riders of TJV but the team really sucks. How can you do so much work to get in a winning position and then just drop the ball completely?
That was heroic from Lafay - 1k off the front and he actually brought it home, which rarely happens.
Hesitation is defeat. See it all the time in reduced sprints, but to jump such a big strong group was great opportunistic riding.
It was absolutely fantastically done by Lafay.
Finding the confidence to attack such a group, yellow jersey, green jersey, Pogacar, WvA, Vindegaard… ah fuck it; I’m going.
And then having the legs to actually succeed…
Awesome.
Lafay’s timing was impeccable. Jumbo had just shut down a couple other attacks and the pace had eased off. He almost instantly had a winning gap. Bit of a muff by Jumbo Visma, but there were enough potential attackers in that front group that controlling everything was a lot easier said than done. And if they had managed to shut down Lafay, most likely Bettiol, Ciccone, or Teuns would have launched a flyer.
Anyways, pretty happy for Lafay breaking the Cofidis drought. 15 years since their last stage win, which is pretty crazy considering they almost always bring a team aimed at stage hunting and sprints.
Wonderful first and second stages (except for the bad luck for Carapaz and Mas, that’s tragic on a first stage). I’m quite bored of the usual prologue of a 6-7 km time trial, so a first stage with the profile of a spring classic was a nice change. Today’s stage was equally exciting. And the Basques are the best cycling fans of all.
ETA: good effort by Powless today, courageously breaking away to win mountain points three times and defend his polka jersey.
Excelent showing by Alpecin-Deceuninck.
I dunno, Philipsen’s deviation that almost put van Aert into the barriers was worthy of relegation, and based on the length of time it took for the victory to be confirmed some of the race jury needed to be convinced not to issue a DQ. That said, aside from the deviation the their sprint train did perform flawlessly.
What a messy finish! The sprinters never really got organized. Hope everyone is OK.