2019 Tour de France: Spoilers!

[Si]

...as for Alaphillipe, maybe we saw the double edged sword of being in yellow: in the TT the jersey was pushing him along, today it was adding weight to his bike.

[reohn2]

Hi,
Virenque was the one I thought was superman.
On a TT I remember thinking how can he stand climbing for so long, no one else could.

The Festina drug tour proved why.

TBF to Virenque et al. their major crime (in the eyes of the tour) was getting caught rather than doping. So many of the other riders/teams in that tour were also doping just as much as Festina, thus I still regard Virenque as a great rider given that the widespread use made it a fairly level playing field. Of course the way that he behaved after was not great.

The fact that Festina employ him as an ex procyclist advertising guru says little for Festina's present day standards,given the past drugs in cycling history,not mention their involvement it both then and now in the form of Virenque.
I wonder if my standards are too high for Festina

[reohn2]

...as for Alaphillipe, maybe we saw the double edged sword of being in yellow: in the TT the jersey was pushing him along, today it was adding weight to his bike.

IMO he was his own worst enemy today.

[Brucey]

another brilliant win for Simon Yates!

Meantime behind, not everyone who had a bad day yesterday had a bad day today. Pinot had another good day, and must surely be thinking that had it not been for the crosswinds a few days ago, he would be close to or in yellow now.

G made a bit of time back on Alaphillipe and perhaps tellingly he said he didn't attack any earlier than he did because he risked dragging Ala back to Bernal. I think he could have taken more time if he'd wanted to, and had the legs for it. Notably the two riders with him were so knackered they couldn't sprint for the line, it was all they could do to hold his wheel.


G lies just over a minute and a half behind Ala, who looked pretty tired today. However there are a further four riders within 40 seconds of G. Most probably, barring big surprises, the winner will come from those six riders. Lots of other riders lost another couple of minutes on GC today, further hammering in the coffin nails of their GC aspirations.

Rest day tomorrow, then an almost flat stage that is a big loop around Nimes the day after; it looks like one for the sprinters. This means the GC race doesn't really resume until Wednesday. No more really big climbs until Thursday, then more climbing on Friday and Saturday before the finale in Paris. So six stages left, of which three are liable to be significant GC days. All to play for; maybe Marc Madiot was right....

[edit; I predict that if Pinot wins another stage, Marc Madiot will go berserk. If Pinot is in danger of taking the yellow jersey, Madiot may well actually explode in a frenzy of overexcitement.]

cheers

[Mike Sales]

The Festina drug tour proved why.

TBF to Virenque et al. their major crime (in the eyes of the tour) was getting caught rather than doping. So many of the other riders/teams in that tour were also doping just as much as Festina, thus I still regard Virenque as a great rider given that the widespread use made it a fairly level playing field. Of course the way that he behaved after was not great.

The fact that Festina employ him as an ex procyclist advertising guru says little for Festina's present day standards,given the past drugs in cycling history,not mention their involvement it both then and now in the form of Virenque.
I wonder if my standards are too high for Festina

I hope I remember this story correctly. Maybe someone can correct my mistakes.
It comes from Willy Voet's book, Breaking the Chain He was the soigneur at the heart of the Festina Affair'
Virenque heard of dope others were using and demanded some from Voet. "Pot Belge?"
Voet was of the opinion that Virenque's standard charge was quite correct for him so he gave Virenque a placebo. After the race Virenque came back full of enthusiasm for his new dope.

[Mike Sales]

The Festina drug tour proved why.

TBF to Virenque et al. their major crime (in the eyes of the tour) was getting caught rather than doping. So many of the other riders/teams in that tour were also doping just as much as Festina, thus I still regard Virenque as a great rider given that the widespread use made it a fairly level playing field. Of course the way that he behaved after was not great.

The fact that Festina employ him as an ex procyclist advertising guru says little for Festina's present day standards,given the past drugs in cycling history,not mention their involvement it both then and now in the form of Virenque.
I wonder if my standards are too high for Festina

I hope I remember this story correctly. Maybe someone can correct my mistakes.
It comes from Willy Voet's book, Breaking the Chain He was the soigneur at the heart of the Festina Affair'
Virenque heard of dope others were using and demanded some from Voet. "Pot Belge?"
Voet was of the opinion that Virenque's standard charge was quite correct for him so he gave Virenque a placebo. After the race Virenque came back full of enthusiasm for his new dope.

[Cyril Haearn]

A placebo, homeopathy does work! How many others paid many thousands for placebos?

[Mike Sales]

Well, I'm of the view that the tour is a lot cleaner now than it was say 10 + years ago. And I think the data backs this up. That said, we can never be sure.

Cycling and doping have ridden together for at least a century.
We have been promised before that it has been cleaned up, as after the Festina affair.
I hope you are right, it is my impression too, but I'm sure you can understand a certain suspension of belief.

I guess we will have to wait and see. On the one hand I don't think it's a strong lineup this year (no froome, dumoulin) some of the other contenders now past their best and Thomas is undercooked from partying for 6 straight months after winning.

In the past we have had to wait quite a time before finding out.

[tony_mm]

S. Yates didn’t seem to have suffered at all today! Wow!

Just don’t understand why he just aim for stage victories and not for the GC.

[Brucey]

S. Yates didn’t seem to have suffered at all today! Wow!

Just don’t understand why he just aim for stage victories and not for the GC.

Realistically he has a much better chance of winning the Vuelta than the TdF, even moreso if he doesn't turn himself inside out every single day in the TdF. It was always his plan to help his brother's TdF GC race (presumably in some quid pro quo) and to ride for stage wins as the opportunity arose; after all he lost time, early on, apparently needlessly (eg over three minutes in the TTT). You can disagree with the strategy but one has to admit that he has executed it brilliantly. Since his brother's GC hopes have pretty well evaporated, he has presumably been given a more or less free hand to go for stage wins.

cheers

[Spinners]

One of the best TdF weekends ever for us armchair fans. I'm more encouraged for G's chances now and reckon that the rest day and tomorrow's generally flat stage will help with his overall conditioning vis à vis his rivals.

Can't wait!

[reohn2]

S. Yates didn’t seem to have suffered at all today! Wow!

Just don’t understand why he just aim for stage victories and not for the GC.

Realistically he has a much better chance of winning the Vuelta than the TdF, even moreso if he doesn't turn himself inside out every single day in the TdF. It was always his plan to help his brother's TdF GC race (presumably in some quid pro quo) and to ride for stage wins as the opportunity arose; after all he lost time, early on, apparently needlessly (eg over three minutes in the TTT). You can disagree with the strategy but one has to admit that he has executed it brilliantly. Since his brother's GC hopes have pretty well evaporated, he has presumably been given a more or less free hand to go for stage wins.

cheers

+1,he's played a blinder as they say

[Postboxer]

Perhaps Team Ineos have planned to peak for the last week, they haven't looked that good so far, usually they're dropping other domestiques and GC contenders as a team, before they're down to just their team leaders. They appear like they may have been sharing the load the last week, so maybe they'll have a full fresh team this week. I did wonder whether the new jerseys were a factor, but the old Team Sky ones were black. If overheating was the reason for switching to white, I don't think they would have accepted a dark purple as a replacement. QI reckoned the colour you wear makes no difference to how hot you get anyway. Hate rest days, can't they have a 1km time trial or something

Perhaps Pinot will have tried too hard, given he thought his chances were over, so maybe he won't look as impressive this week.

[Mike Sales]

S. Yates didn’t seem to have suffered at all today! Wow!

Just don’t understand why he just aim for stage victories and not for the GC.

For me the most exhilarating moment in road racing is the climber jumping away in attack. That acceleration which gains a hundred metres in a moment is thrilling. I remember Rob Millar in his pomp.
I wish I could do that!

[tony_mm]

The good thing is that Alaphilippe is really creating problems to the Sky/ Ineos tactics as Brailsford said in his interview!

Great to see that!

And that's racing! Don't always follow the winner's tactic but look for something different!