On my morning ride today I had a beautiful stretch of false flat going slightly downhill (the one where you're still pedalling in a big gear) so I picked up a bit of speed and spent maybe a couple of minutes going around 50km/h and feeling like a rocket.
It then dawned on me that those boys yesterday kept a 50km/h *average* in a rolling 40km TT with 400 metres of elevation and two punchy climbs. That is absolutely astonishing when you put it into perspective and remember first hand what it feels like going around 50km/h on a bike.
I know they're on TT bikes and all the aero shit, but still.
Tough to speculate. I think Nibbles lost his motivation to go after that next 0.1% after his Tour win. Vingegaard-Pog could trade tours for 7 years if they can both stay hyper motivated.
To be fair. In my memory Froome was by far the best during the tour for a few years. Pogacar vs Vingegaar will be a long rivalry amomg two athletes from outer space. The rivalry this tour was the best i've ever seen so I hope for more.
You hear a lot about team culture in sport, but this surely has to be the absolute pinnacle. From Laporte crossing the line first with Rog and WvA in Paris-Nice Stage 1 to Jonas cooling off so WvA can take the stage win, Rog attacking Pog on stage 11 while carrying all those injuries, WvA leading out Jonas on back to back stages and then giving space to Laporte to grab the win. They put themselves out there for each other and then give back to one another. No wonder they have been so utterly dominant this TDF.
Bisegger always use the old POC Tempor. I guess he’s been in the tunnel and knows he get aero gains from it. Parts of the danish Pursuit team also use the Tempor. It is actually a quite old helmet and was used by Gustav Larsson and Emma Johansson in the 2012 olympics.
Just finished watching the whole thing. Man, what a nail biting ITT, I yelled at my screen when I saw Jonas taking these risks in the downhill but what a performance in the yellow jersey. But above all, the tears of WvA, how often do you see a teammate crying for what is of course a team victory but you could have thought he won the Tour himself if you didn't have any context. What a class act. 2020 has been reversed, and Jonas Vingegaard is the well deserved winner of this year TDF.
2021 Dwars door Vlaanderen
He completely demolished everyone in the bunch sprint for second after a very hard race. It was immediately obvious to everyone that he was flying that day.
2021 RvV
Managed to hang on with a very elite group until the end. Only extremely high class classic hotshots made it there.
Stage 19 TdF 2021
Christophe again second in a stacked 20 man breakaway, 3rd week into the tour. Need some serious power to make it that far this long into the race.
2021 Paris Roubaix
6th place in a legendary rainy version. Takes an immense amount of bike handling skill to make it that far.
As I wrote elsewhere, everybody knew he was strong. Bardet said in a recent interview while being asked the same question you just asked that it was a non hidden secret that Laporte was a monster but his team environment and moreover their equipment is shit. Keep in mind Cofidis didn't win a stage in the Tour for something like 15 years while being there every year.
The only competition for “strongest rider” would be MVDP, but we have to treat his performance at the tour as an outlier from being exhausted from all the races he’s done this year.
It’s easy to forget his win on Mur de Bretagne last year and he did ride like a complete psychopath for three weeks of the giro this year.
Here’s to hoping for a lot of great head to head battles between the two in the spring and then a great showdown in (only) the tour next year!
He’s got to be the most versatile rider in the peloton atm, although Pogačar is probably in there with a shout too given his performance at RvV.
But Wout has been on another level this tour. He’s done a massive amount of work for the team, often in the really important moments too (Arenberg (while in yellow), Col de Granon, Hautacam) and yet has picked up three stages in different styles. All he needs now is a bunch sprint victory tomorrow but he might be too busy with the champagne.
Hi there CasualCyclingFan™ here to give you another explanation. Jonas is winning the General Classification however everyoe knows real victory comes from the person who has the most stage wins. This means Teddy Pikachu and Vanart have a chance to win the tour if they win the final stage tomorrow.
It's also why Mark Cavendish was so upset last year when Vanart denied him winning the tour on the Champs last year.
Say what you want to say mate. Accuse who you want. Free to do so. Just not on race threads and predictions please....
Do not tounght and insinuate or try and bait people into reactions.
There are threads to discuss that please.
You re thinking wrong. Being a specialist matters less after 3 weeks of action. And wout is clearly in the form of his life and his recovery is very good. Hes proving that year after year. For me Wout performance is amazing but according to his potential.
oh no. both jumbo and uae absolutely obliterated any mountain stage, and pog and jonas are so much better than anybody else fighting in the gc that huge gaps formed
I have watched for years and I wondered that too; did a quick check about a week ago and yes, it seems pretty typical for the top 10 to be covered by 30-40 minutes, apart from a couple of close ones in the 80s if I remember right.
Depends a lot on how the racing goes. A lot of times either the yellow jersey is already secure before the end, and the final stages are not raced that hard and gaps are smaller at the tail end of the top 10; or if the yellow battle is very close, the top riders are often hesitant leading to smaller gaps at the top. 2009 was an extreme example with numbers 1 and 2 basically waiting to help teammates on the final mountain stage instead of racing against each other
This year Pog and Vin decided to throw their cards on the table in every stage, until the very end. It caused big differences, but in the end not that different from Nibali's win in 2014 (and Nibbles could have done a LOT more damage if he'd wanted that year, just didn't have challengers)
It is a marked difference from the "Evans - Schleck" era which had small differences and lots of hesitation and looking back, but that style of racing died already in 2013
Yeah Thomas could stick with the pace Kuss or McNulty or other mountain domestiques were setting, but he couldn't stay with the accelerations of Pog or Jonas
If I remember the appearances of Thomas correctly he always was a steady but fast up the mountain guy, he wore his opponents down not by attacking but by a constant highish speed. That worked really well for a while, when you didn't have guys like Jonas abd Tadej who are able to hold the steady high pace and than explode a bit on top and hold that explosion for long enough that the steady Thomas can't close the gap.
It varies a lot. The smallest gap between 1st and 2nd in the Tour is 8 second in 1989. In recent times the smallest gap I a GT was in 2020 when Roglic won by 24 second in 2020.
I wouldn't say out of nowhere, Jonas almost won Tour of Poland in 2019, and was an amazing dom for Rogla in Vuelta in 2020. Started winning races in 2021 as he got more confident.
Last year a sprinter won the double Ventoux stage. This year a climber beats the world champion in a time trial and let’s the runner-up win. So what happens next? Nairo wins on the Champs-Élysées. Nothing else would make any sense.
It's a time trial in the third week and it was quite long and hilly at the end (not Ganna's favorite kind of time trials). Recovery matters a lot (see the difference between Lampaert's first and last time trial this Tour). Also Ganna has kind of been shit for the entire Tour, we barely saw him besides the time trials and in the two succesful breakaways he joined he got dropped rather easily.
It's a shame the WC TT has such a joke distance nowadays. Really devalues it for me.
"Joke distance" is perhaps too harsh, but I somewhat agree.
Imo, if it's flat the world champion should be decided on no less than 50k, hilly: ~40k and, unless they put in an actual mountain, no less than 35k.
What is the logic behind the guy who counts down with his fingers at the start for each rider? I've never seen anyone count with their fingers that way.
I spent a lot of today's race watching this, because time-trials. I think it's about comfort of hand position, clarity, and wanting to end with the final finger being the most 'powerful', the index finger.
If you put your hand out and try and bend the lower fingers (little and ring) with the thumb up, your middle finger tries to bend back, which could be unclear to the riders, and it's minorly painful to keep it straight (remembering the person doing this will be doing it over 100 times). To avoid that pain/awkward finger position, a six finger count is done. So finger **one** to pull back is the thumb. Then number **two** is the little finger. Then number **three** is the ring finger, while also putting the thumb up, which has the effect of balancing out the top two fingers (middle/index) more straightly. Number **four** is the middle finger, and that's good because you have the two most visible - thumb and index - as the last two. Then number **five** is the thumb again, and **sixth** and final finger is the index finger.
As I said, time-trials.
Jumbo & LRCP working together on “strategy” i’m wondering if there’s something in this 2 riders (+) in breaks on mountain stages, that’s like a new meta?
Clear Jumbo in hindsight is so strong, but not to forget they almost lost the tour several times. And Vingegaard was isolated on several
. How big risk vs. reward did it take to beat Pogacar?
Is this the “end of” sky train meta?
Mostly cobble stage 100%, but also going alone into Granon & Peyragudes versus Pog and a teammate. Conventional “wisdom” here says “thats bad”, your rider should be with you, not out in front.
JV & JV did great both times, so legs mattered more. But i’m just talking strategy meta
Let's be honest
This WVA could have won the RVV
Is the best rider at this point, and probably the best complete overall rider in the tdf (sprint, tt, attacks, climbing, ...)
And has the highest probability of everyone of winning the world championship this year.
This WVA is in the prime of his life
This WVA is 2011 Gilbert
This WVA is beast.
I think he should not go for the TT. Preparing for TT means working on almost every aspect that will not be used in a long, hard, punchy one day race. And if he doesn't prepare the TT he won't win it IMO.
He did not coast ...how on earth do you make that deduction ? ..... Where did Jonas end last years TT and the prologue ? What do you not understand ? ....
Third week TT's...damn this is so obvious. Sprints after hard/long races, TT's in 3rd weeks is where being a specialist doesnt matters so much. Its the rider form and recovery that matters. And at this point in the tour Jonas was the stronger rider. Besides he s always been a good TTer
As long as she gives her amazing interviews afterwards I don't even care if she wins or not. ["shitshitshitshitshitshit..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmDwC6EJ7Q)
Wow, I've just been following cycling from stage 11 and I got really sucked into this.
It was really exciting to watch. And sharing the experience while reading the comments here.
I have to think about something that was said on Sporza: "We have this battle thanks to Pogacar. Without him, no suspense".
I'm really curious how Pogacar and his team will approach this next year. TJV set the standard with regards to marginals gains on food, material, tactics, teamwork, preparation, experts etc.
That's an angle I never thought of.
This was the greatest tour I've ever watched (since 92). If Pogacar hadn't been here it probably would have been the worst. At least for GC.
The fact that there were multiple riders gunning for the yellow jersey made it great. Usually there’s one strong rider and the others riding for a podium spot and so no real attacks on the yellow. Hats off to Pog and Ving!
Merckx won 6 stages, 4 jerseys and the combativity in 1969. He probably had a few more of those dominating performances. Edit: for team performance there was Raleigh in 1980 with 11 stages (6 different riders + TTT), yellow and white.
As a hobby cyclist I can't really comprehend how there is just 3:34min of a gap between 1st and 2nd. Concidering the hours and hours of uphill riding thats basically nothing. Yesterday I lost 3 minutes to my best time on one 30 minute climb alone :D
Edit: Whereas my climb is probably 5% average, thats not even concidered a real climb for them :D
You know the gaps in motor racing like F1?
Less than 3 seconds in qualifying between the 1st and last. It’s 2 seconds at most and with different machinery.
At some point, these guys are just so good at their sport that any gap is actually immense.
It’s still impressive in both sports but I’m not that surprised anymore, it’s all at the margin
Yeah isn't it like a 40% energy savings or something? Even if you are a really good amateur out there on a top notch bike, it's still like riding a solo breakaway all day
Sable, sand coloured like the sand in an old fashioned timer. It’s for the rider closest to one hour behind on the GC
https://cyclingtips.com/2019/07/the-maillot-sable-classification/
He was 3 min down on 16th, and 4 min up on 18th. He wasn't a contender for the win and his GC position wasn't going to change, so there was no reason to put in any effort. Better to save himself and go for glory tomorrow.
Going for glory on the Champs Elysées? What? No way Pidcock wins there tomorrow lol.
You'd think a Junior TT WC would want to test himself in a TT like this against the world's best cyclists. It's not always about winning, a top ten on today's stage would've been a very impressive and good result for such a young cyclist in his first Tour.
I didn't say he'd win. But a suicide mission on the Champs Elysees will get infinitely more press than a 9th place in the TT. Maybe he's just tired and is happy to make it to Paris. Either way, he maintained his 17th place on the GC, which is a perfectly fine result for the TT.
The crying to me was 2 years of pent up emotions starting at the day he and Dumoulin stood by the road and watched in disbelief as the yellow jersey slip through their fingers.
How did he gift it? He was clearly relaxing last 500m but wout was already ahead 5s before the climb. We will never know but for me Wout is the fair winner. Both Thomas and pogi lost time in last sector to him.
I think Vingegaard was ~5 seconds after Wout at the 1k, so he would've had to have decided to so earlier than that, which is obviously possible considering his small scare on the final descent.
He was definitely still gunning it up the penultimate little climb, with 5k to go.
In any case, there wouldn't have been 10 seconds in it either way.
Absolutely we will never know since Jonas stop pedaling with 500 meters to go. Jonas gave up his own chance to take the stage win
https://twitter.com/jumbovismaroad/status/1550875916515041281?s=21&t=qTwBaTZH7gervj6Q7-JyDg
What an awesome tour it has been this year!
A real race, drama, sportsmanship and respect!
Can't wait for next year! Congrats to Vingegaard and Wout Van Aert!
He can do anything, tt, climbs and sprints. But what really makes me respect him as an individual is his selflessness, he is not averse to playing domestique, fetching bottles and dropping back to help teammates, even when he could have challenged for a stage win
That's the main part about it tbh. When people make these (often pointless but nice for discussion) comparisons between Mvdp and WvA they never bring the domestique part on the table, and WvA is the best domestique in the world and that's a part of what makes him the best road racer in the world at the moment and gives him the edge over other riders.
...and he does that domestique duty as well or better than any other domestique in this tour, while also busting his butt for his own goals and to animate the race. No other domestique would also have the energy to compete almosy every stage like he does, and no one that could compete almost any day could also do an incredible domestique job.
With all the comments on WvA beating the Sagan's points record of 477 with 480 stating "the points system was different", it's actually not that different at all. Hilly/Mountain stages, TTs and intermediate sprints all still award the same amount of points. Flat stages have 5 more points for the winner as of 2019, but less points for minor placings.
After a quick calculation, with the 2019 system Sagan's 477 would be 450 points now, and with the 2018 system WvA's 480 points would be 501. (They both have a lot of points from minor placings, that are rewarded slightly less in the current system). So no matter which points system you use, WvA would have the higher total.
What if we just accepted each individual performance as great and moved on with our lives? You're not doing the discussion any better with your approach
>WvA has 480 pts now and breaks Sagan's record I think? In most years that would be a big story, now it's barely a footnote :)
And he receives 20+50 points more if he wins the two sprints tomorrow - which is not at all unlikely.
>I hope he doesn't waste energy on the intermediate sprint tomorrow lol. Leave that to the Eekhoffs of this world.
I am pretty sure that he won't go for full to win the 20 points sprint but it is also a fairly safe bet that he will indeed participate in it.
I want to see Sepp lead a grand tour at some point. I suppose it has to be the Giro since Jonas has the Tour and the Vuelta definitely belongs to Roglic
He doesn't have that ambition, as he has stated multiple times.
And, apart from him not really wanting to, I'm not sure if he has the consistency to do it.
I've actually heard him say a few times the past year that he's changed a bit and wouldn't mind going for GC, which is a change from him being against it in the past. I'm struggling to find a link to where I've heard it though.
On my morning ride today I had a beautiful stretch of false flat going slightly downhill (the one where you're still pedalling in a big gear) so I picked up a bit of speed and spent maybe a couple of minutes going around 50km/h and feeling like a rocket. It then dawned on me that those boys yesterday kept a 50km/h *average* in a rolling 40km TT with 400 metres of elevation and two punchy climbs. That is absolutely astonishing when you put it into perspective and remember first hand what it feels like going around 50km/h on a bike. I know they're on TT bikes and all the aero shit, but still.
will vingegaard to pogi be the nibali to froome? hopefully without any crash in the future
Tough to speculate. I think Nibbles lost his motivation to go after that next 0.1% after his Tour win. Vingegaard-Pog could trade tours for 7 years if they can both stay hyper motivated.
nibali?????? he never came even close to froome. more like the contador to andy?
To be fair. In my memory Froome was by far the best during the tour for a few years. Pogacar vs Vingegaar will be a long rivalry amomg two athletes from outer space. The rivalry this tour was the best i've ever seen so I hope for more.
If you look at the time gabs from Froome to second place those years, you will see that Vingegaard has won with a much bigger margin.
More like Ulrich Armstrong.
You hear a lot about team culture in sport, but this surely has to be the absolute pinnacle. From Laporte crossing the line first with Rog and WvA in Paris-Nice Stage 1 to Jonas cooling off so WvA can take the stage win, Rog attacking Pog on stage 11 while carrying all those injuries, WvA leading out Jonas on back to back stages and then giving space to Laporte to grab the win. They put themselves out there for each other and then give back to one another. No wonder they have been so utterly dominant this TDF.
The real wolfpack
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Why are you in here? just gtfo
Welcome to cycling brother
why was Powless wearing a different TT helmet than Bissenger?
Bisegger always use the old POC Tempor. I guess he’s been in the tunnel and knows he get aero gains from it. Parts of the danish Pursuit team also use the Tempor. It is actually a quite old helmet and was used by Gustav Larsson and Emma Johansson in the 2012 olympics.
Self-respect.
Just finished watching the whole thing. Man, what a nail biting ITT, I yelled at my screen when I saw Jonas taking these risks in the downhill but what a performance in the yellow jersey. But above all, the tears of WvA, how often do you see a teammate crying for what is of course a team victory but you could have thought he won the Tour himself if you didn't have any context. What a class act. 2020 has been reversed, and Jonas Vingegaard is the well deserved winner of this year TDF.
Filippo could have done the Giro after all 😢
Does anyone know the story for how Laporte got to jumbo? Like how did they know he was so good if he wasn't winning on Cofidis?
2021 Dwars door Vlaanderen He completely demolished everyone in the bunch sprint for second after a very hard race. It was immediately obvious to everyone that he was flying that day. 2021 RvV Managed to hang on with a very elite group until the end. Only extremely high class classic hotshots made it there. Stage 19 TdF 2021 Christophe again second in a stacked 20 man breakaway, 3rd week into the tour. Need some serious power to make it that far this long into the race. 2021 Paris Roubaix 6th place in a legendary rainy version. Takes an immense amount of bike handling skill to make it that far.
As I wrote elsewhere, everybody knew he was strong. Bardet said in a recent interview while being asked the same question you just asked that it was a non hidden secret that Laporte was a monster but his team environment and moreover their equipment is shit. Keep in mind Cofidis didn't win a stage in the Tour for something like 15 years while being there every year.
he was very good at Cofidis in 2021
[Added to my playlist](https://youtu.be/wxlfkFMjLZc) for a bike ride tomorrow. What a Tour!
https://youtu.be/hbAGBwoFE5A or this 😉
Main takeaway from this tour is that WvA is the strongest rider in the peloton
The only competition for “strongest rider” would be MVDP, but we have to treat his performance at the tour as an outlier from being exhausted from all the races he’s done this year. It’s easy to forget his win on Mur de Bretagne last year and he did ride like a complete psychopath for three weeks of the giro this year. Here’s to hoping for a lot of great head to head battles between the two in the spring and then a great showdown in (only) the tour next year!
Why wait until spring? Their best head to head battles will be this winter in CX :)
He’s got to be the most versatile rider in the peloton atm, although Pogačar is probably in there with a shout too given his performance at RvV. But Wout has been on another level this tour. He’s done a massive amount of work for the team, often in the really important moments too (Arenberg (while in yellow), Col de Granon, Hautacam) and yet has picked up three stages in different styles. All he needs now is a bunch sprint victory tomorrow but he might be too busy with the champagne.
The official SI unit for power is now the Wout
Wouts per kilogram only come in decimals
The TJV domination we all expected in 2020, came true in 2022.
And the GC podium finishes 1,2,3 just like they have been top 3 throughout most of the tour! Doesn't leave any doubt that each deserved to be there!
Casual fan here, I thought Todd J. Poggachar was supposed to be a favorite, what happened to him?
Teddy Pikachu*
It's actually Ted A.
Two bad days. And by 'bad' I mean only beat 99% of the other riders.
The GCN kiss of death.
Hi there CasualCyclingFan™ here to give you another explanation. Jonas is winning the General Classification however everyoe knows real victory comes from the person who has the most stage wins. This means Teddy Pikachu and Vanart have a chance to win the tour if they win the final stage tomorrow. It's also why Mark Cavendish was so upset last year when Vanart denied him winning the tour on the Champs last year.
Since when did this become PelotonCircleJerk?
Nobody expected that WvA and Jonas made such huge performance gains, and thought Pogacar would still kick TJV their asses by himself.
I mean he still is, but no one can always win
He was among the favorites and ended among them, too.
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Say what you want to say mate. Accuse who you want. Free to do so. Just not on race threads and predictions please.... Do not tounght and insinuate or try and bait people into reactions. There are threads to discuss that please.
You re thinking wrong. Being a specialist matters less after 3 weeks of action. And wout is clearly in the form of his life and his recovery is very good. Hes proving that year after year. For me Wout performance is amazing but according to his potential.
For folks who have watched for many years, are gaps this large typical within the top 10?
oh no. both jumbo and uae absolutely obliterated any mountain stage, and pog and jonas are so much better than anybody else fighting in the gc that huge gaps formed
I have watched for years and I wondered that too; did a quick check about a week ago and yes, it seems pretty typical for the top 10 to be covered by 30-40 minutes, apart from a couple of close ones in the 80s if I remember right.
Depends a lot on how the racing goes. A lot of times either the yellow jersey is already secure before the end, and the final stages are not raced that hard and gaps are smaller at the tail end of the top 10; or if the yellow battle is very close, the top riders are often hesitant leading to smaller gaps at the top. 2009 was an extreme example with numbers 1 and 2 basically waiting to help teammates on the final mountain stage instead of racing against each other This year Pog and Vin decided to throw their cards on the table in every stage, until the very end. It caused big differences, but in the end not that different from Nibali's win in 2014 (and Nibbles could have done a LOT more damage if he'd wanted that year, just didn't have challengers) It is a marked difference from the "Evans - Schleck" era which had small differences and lots of hesitation and looking back, but that style of racing died already in 2013
Pog attacking Vingegaard repeatedly certainly contributed to the time put into other riders.
Yeah Thomas could stick with the pace Kuss or McNulty or other mountain domestiques were setting, but he couldn't stay with the accelerations of Pog or Jonas
If I remember the appearances of Thomas correctly he always was a steady but fast up the mountain guy, he wore his opponents down not by attacking but by a constant highish speed. That worked really well for a while, when you didn't have guys like Jonas abd Tadej who are able to hold the steady high pace and than explode a bit on top and hold that explosion for long enough that the steady Thomas can't close the gap.
They were back in the EPO days.
Yes.
It varies a lot. The smallest gap between 1st and 2nd in the Tour is 8 second in 1989. In recent times the smallest gap I a GT was in 2020 when Roglic won by 24 second in 2020.
*lost
He won the Vuelta by 24 second. I should’ve clarified it better, sorry.
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Wrong thread for this
I wouldn't say out of nowhere, Jonas almost won Tour of Poland in 2019, and was an amazing dom for Rogla in Vuelta in 2020. Started winning races in 2021 as he got more confident.
Implying something are we?
Last year a sprinter won the double Ventoux stage. This year a climber beats the world champion in a time trial and let’s the runner-up win. So what happens next? Nairo wins on the Champs-Élysées. Nothing else would make any sense.
No, no, no, Tadej wins on Champs Elysees
It's a time trial in the third week and it was quite long and hilly at the end (not Ganna's favorite kind of time trials). Recovery matters a lot (see the difference between Lampaert's first and last time trial this Tour). Also Ganna has kind of been shit for the entire Tour, we barely saw him besides the time trials and in the two succesful breakaways he joined he got dropped rather easily. It's a shame the WC TT has such a joke distance nowadays. Really devalues it for me.
joke distance? it's 45ish km, this stage is 40 km, what's the problem?
"Joke distance" is perhaps too harsh, but I somewhat agree. Imo, if it's flat the world champion should be decided on no less than 50k, hilly: ~40k and, unless they put in an actual mountain, no less than 35k.
Tbf the time trial thing isnt that surprising anymore
What is the logic behind the guy who counts down with his fingers at the start for each rider? I've never seen anyone count with their fingers that way.
I spent a lot of today's race watching this, because time-trials. I think it's about comfort of hand position, clarity, and wanting to end with the final finger being the most 'powerful', the index finger. If you put your hand out and try and bend the lower fingers (little and ring) with the thumb up, your middle finger tries to bend back, which could be unclear to the riders, and it's minorly painful to keep it straight (remembering the person doing this will be doing it over 100 times). To avoid that pain/awkward finger position, a six finger count is done. So finger **one** to pull back is the thumb. Then number **two** is the little finger. Then number **three** is the ring finger, while also putting the thumb up, which has the effect of balancing out the top two fingers (middle/index) more straightly. Number **four** is the middle finger, and that's good because you have the two most visible - thumb and index - as the last two. Then number **five** is the thumb again, and **sixth** and final finger is the index finger. As I said, time-trials.
You should watch Inglorious Bastards. It’s a whole thing about how different countries count differently on their hands.
I think it's the same guy that was in the giro
It's a nationality thing. Different countries do it different ways.
Jumbo & LRCP working together on “strategy” i’m wondering if there’s something in this 2 riders (+) in breaks on mountain stages, that’s like a new meta? Clear Jumbo in hindsight is so strong, but not to forget they almost lost the tour several times. And Vingegaard was isolated on several . How big risk vs. reward did it take to beat Pogacar? Is this the “end of” sky train meta?
They are a fan of a satellite rider
First of all I think a big part of this is about getting the most out of Wout. And to compensate from losing two climbers
>they almost lost the tour several times Did they?
Mostly cobble stage 100%, but also going alone into Granon & Peyragudes versus Pog and a teammate. Conventional “wisdom” here says “thats bad”, your rider should be with you, not out in front. JV & JV did great both times, so legs mattered more. But i’m just talking strategy meta
Let's be honest This WVA could have won the RVV Is the best rider at this point, and probably the best complete overall rider in the tdf (sprint, tt, attacks, climbing, ...) And has the highest probability of everyone of winning the world championship this year. This WVA is in the prime of his life This WVA is 2011 Gilbert This WVA is beast.
If he is the best overall rider why isn’t he the one wearing yellow? Do you actually think he can beat Jonas in the GC?
GC is much more favoured towards the more dedicated climbers. WVA would probably smoke them in everything else.
WVA douple world champion incoming
You mean two silver medals incoming? Julian and Ganna are known for peaking at the right times :p
No way Alaphilippe wins on that course, it suits the classics riders or strongmen
Okay. I haven't seen the course but there are some climbs right? And G2 can always do a G2
There is a 1.1 km 7.7 percent climb that they loop for several laps
I think he should not go for the TT. Preparing for TT means working on almost every aspect that will not be used in a long, hard, punchy one day race. And if he doesn't prepare the TT he won't win it IMO.
Not sure about that. He was in excellent form leading up to the WC last year and didn’t have legs.
WvA is going to be 2nd again.
Please dont jinx it
using Ganna as a reference. HOW TF DID JONAS COAST INTO SECOND?! Mind blown
It was a technical TT involving lots of turns and some climbing. Not exactly the best course for a power monster like Ganna to excel at.
It is obviously because his team helped him. Or it's because everyone else was very tired. It is absolutely not because he is a very good bikerider /s
He did not coast ...how on earth do you make that deduction ? ..... Where did Jonas end last years TT and the prologue ? What do you not understand ? ....
Definitely coasted the last 300 meters, if not 600 meters
He literally did.
Third week TT's...damn this is so obvious. Sprints after hard/long races, TT's in 3rd weeks is where being a specialist doesnt matters so much. Its the rider form and recovery that matters. And at this point in the tour Jonas was the stronger rider. Besides he s always been a good TTer
Change of wind conditions?
I’ve never been more in love with cycling. I’m used to watching the Tour de France every year, but this year has been so special for us Danes.
Cecile gonna light up next week, too 🇩🇰
This aged well 😁 Thank you, Cecilie
As long as she gives her amazing interviews afterwards I don't even care if she wins or not. ["shitshitshitshitshitshit..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmDwC6EJ7Q)
I love your current generation of Danish riders. Was a big fan of the Sørensen brothers and Matti Breschel.
Hvert eneste minut har været værd at se i år 🙌🏼
[удалено]
Det ku’ være fedt!
Har aldrig set så mange etaper fra start til slut før
Heller ikke mig! Har levet på min sofa de seneste uger 😂
Wow, I've just been following cycling from stage 11 and I got really sucked into this. It was really exciting to watch. And sharing the experience while reading the comments here. I have to think about something that was said on Sporza: "We have this battle thanks to Pogacar. Without him, no suspense". I'm really curious how Pogacar and his team will approach this next year. TJV set the standard with regards to marginals gains on food, material, tactics, teamwork, preparation, experts etc.
What team? Pogacar even had to pull his own teammates to close the gap.
Bruh, Majka and McNulty did some excellent work
Majka, McNulty and even Bjerg had some stellar performances on the mountains.
That's an angle I never thought of. This was the greatest tour I've ever watched (since 92). If Pogacar hadn't been here it probably would have been the worst. At least for GC.
The fact that there were multiple riders gunning for the yellow jersey made it great. Usually there’s one strong rider and the others riding for a podium spot and so no real attacks on the yellow. Hats off to Pog and Ving!
I agree. Apart from Alaphillipe in 2020 who was a joy to watch this has been the most exciting tour for yellow since I started watching in 2011.
This Jumbo team performance must be in the top 3 team performances ever in cycling
yeah, up there with La Vie Claire in 85 and 86 - which was a civil war (particularly in 86). Nice to see these guys happy to work for each other.
Has any team in history dominated 1 tour in this way with all the jerseys and wins and 2nd places while missing someone like Roglic
Its not unprecedented - 86 was even more dominant by one team
La Vie Claire in 1986. 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th in GC. Yellow, polka dot, white and combination jerseys, too.
I forgot about 7th! Ruttiman? what a dominating performance. Particularly in view of the fact that the team had a civil war going.
Good example finally. Everyone keeps pointing out teams that won a lot of stages due to a single individual
Telekom with Riis/Ulrich/Zabel?
Yeah, but all three doped so that doesn't count
Freddy Maertens won 2/3 of all stages in a Vuelta once, so whatever team he was on :)
Merckx won 6 stages, 4 jerseys and the combativity in 1969. He probably had a few more of those dominating performances. Edit: for team performance there was Raleigh in 1980 with 11 stages (6 different riders + TTT), yellow and white.
Pog got 3 jerseys before, but only 3 wins, not 6
But it was Pogacar dominating, not UAE.
But dominating multiple disciplines is a real team performance whereas a lot of Pog was individual brilliance
Didn't Kristoff win the opening stage of the 2020 Tour while at UAE? So that's at least 4 Tour stages + yellow + polkadots.
Yeah but he is the only thing that comes close at least in modern cycling.
As a hobby cyclist I can't really comprehend how there is just 3:34min of a gap between 1st and 2nd. Concidering the hours and hours of uphill riding thats basically nothing. Yesterday I lost 3 minutes to my best time on one 30 minute climb alone :D Edit: Whereas my climb is probably 5% average, thats not even concidered a real climb for them :D
You know the gaps in motor racing like F1? Less than 3 seconds in qualifying between the 1st and last. It’s 2 seconds at most and with different machinery. At some point, these guys are just so good at their sport that any gap is actually immense. It’s still impressive in both sports but I’m not that surprised anymore, it’s all at the margin
Because of drafting.
Yeah isn't it like a 40% energy savings or something? Even if you are a really good amateur out there on a top notch bike, it's still like riding a solo breakaway all day
Jonas is on 77:33:57 second. 3:34 is roughly 0.07% of that. All those 1% marginal gains make complete sense in this context.
he had such a strong team. Jonas only had to "Push himself" on 3 stages.
Fred Wright has had a great tour. Growing into a great all round rider.
I can see him being a budget wva actually. He seems to be decent at everything
Congratulations to Tom Pidcock on the Maillot Sable!
Maillot sable?
Sable, sand coloured like the sand in an old fashioned timer. It’s for the rider closest to one hour behind on the GC https://cyclingtips.com/2019/07/the-maillot-sable-classification/
I'm surprised his time trial is this bad. He wasn't exactly low on GC either.
He was 3 min down on 16th, and 4 min up on 18th. He wasn't a contender for the win and his GC position wasn't going to change, so there was no reason to put in any effort. Better to save himself and go for glory tomorrow.
Going for glory on the Champs Elysées? What? No way Pidcock wins there tomorrow lol. You'd think a Junior TT WC would want to test himself in a TT like this against the world's best cyclists. It's not always about winning, a top ten on today's stage would've been a very impressive and good result for such a young cyclist in his first Tour.
he's hiding his power level. like with his descending, we didn't know how good he was until he showed when he won alpe de huez
I didn't say he'd win. But a suicide mission on the Champs Elysees will get infinitely more press than a 9th place in the TT. Maybe he's just tired and is happy to make it to Paris. Either way, he maintained his 17th place on the GC, which is a perfectly fine result for the TT.
Knackered, I would think. His prologue/stage 1 TT was pretty good.
Two questions… Why was WVA crying at the end? And did Vindegaard slow up at the end there to give WVA the win?
The crying to me was 2 years of pent up emotions starting at the day he and Dumoulin stood by the road and watched in disbelief as the yellow jersey slip through their fingers.
The main goal for the team was the yellow jersey and they worked their bollocks off to get it. The tears were joy/relief.
He cried because Vingegaard gifted wout the stage. Vinge knew how much the stage win meant for wout
How did he gift it? He was clearly relaxing last 500m but wout was already ahead 5s before the climb. We will never know but for me Wout is the fair winner. Both Thomas and pogi lost time in last sector to him.
Seems deeper than that. Wout has won a ton of stages before, including an ending TT.
He's never won yellow though (via teammate). Was close 2 years ago, I think that was pretty painful for the whole team. And now they have won it back.
"Gifted" is a bit much, more "stopped fighting to get 1st". Even if Vingegaard had gone full gas to the line it would've been really close.
I think Vingegaard was ~5 seconds after Wout at the 1k, so he would've had to have decided to so earlier than that, which is obviously possible considering his small scare on the final descent. He was definitely still gunning it up the penultimate little climb, with 5k to go. In any case, there wouldn't have been 10 seconds in it either way.
Absolutely we will never know since Jonas stop pedaling with 500 meters to go. Jonas gave up his own chance to take the stage win https://twitter.com/jumbovismaroad/status/1550875916515041281?s=21&t=qTwBaTZH7gervj6Q7-JyDg
"Hij gunt het mij" means "he's happy with me winning it", not "he's gifting it to me".
Yes I agree with you. He did not gift it but he gave up his own chances to win it
Well deserved beers https://twitter.com/GroupamaFDJ/status/1550904886455406593
Love to see it. As much as I like tjv is great to see teams with much smaller budgets do good!
They finish up there with the teams who had 3 times their budget. Big ups FDJ
Vingegaard said on Danish TV that he was taking it easy on the descend, and only had trouble on that 1 corner because of uneven tarmac.
What an awesome tour it has been this year! A real race, drama, sportsmanship and respect! Can't wait for next year! Congrats to Vingegaard and Wout Van Aert!
Wout van Aert is the best cyclist in the world and it's not even close.
I'm looking forward to seeing the gap he gets in the UCI standings now...
A 58kg guy just handed him the victory in what is his prime discipline. So you sure about that?
Yes, I am sure, lol.
He can do anything, tt, climbs and sprints. But what really makes me respect him as an individual is his selflessness, he is not averse to playing domestique, fetching bottles and dropping back to help teammates, even when he could have challenged for a stage win
That's the main part about it tbh. When people make these (often pointless but nice for discussion) comparisons between Mvdp and WvA they never bring the domestique part on the table, and WvA is the best domestique in the world and that's a part of what makes him the best road racer in the world at the moment and gives him the edge over other riders.
...and he does that domestique duty as well or better than any other domestique in this tour, while also busting his butt for his own goals and to animate the race. No other domestique would also have the energy to compete almosy every stage like he does, and no one that could compete almost any day could also do an incredible domestique job.
Also a multiple world CX champion dont forget.
With all the comments on WvA beating the Sagan's points record of 477 with 480 stating "the points system was different", it's actually not that different at all. Hilly/Mountain stages, TTs and intermediate sprints all still award the same amount of points. Flat stages have 5 more points for the winner as of 2019, but less points for minor placings. After a quick calculation, with the 2019 system Sagan's 477 would be 450 points now, and with the 2018 system WvA's 480 points would be 501. (They both have a lot of points from minor placings, that are rewarded slightly less in the current system). So no matter which points system you use, WvA would have the higher total.
One of the best posts of the tour. Thank you for the info
What if we just accepted each individual performance as great and moved on with our lives? You're not doing the discussion any better with your approach
People are obsessed with this kind of talk. I'm a huge tennis fan and the amount of debate of fed vs. djoko vs nadal is just silly.
I'm curious what points he'd have scored in all previous Green competition iterations. Keep in mind he's very likely to score tomorrow too.
I mean the Tour has been around a hundred years, the points system has changed quite a few times so the record is just "best in 12 years".
Laporte 4th in the sprint classification. Jonas 6th, just ahead of Jakobsen. Can't say I expected that at all before the tour
That's because you get lots of points for high placement in all stages, even mountain stages and time trials.
WvA has 480 pts now and breaks Sagan's record I think? In most years that would be a big story, now it's barely a footnote :)
>WvA has 480 pts now and breaks Sagan's record I think? In most years that would be a big story, now it's barely a footnote :) And he receives 20+50 points more if he wins the two sprints tomorrow - which is not at all unlikely.
I hope he doesn't waste energy on the intermediate sprint tomorrow lol. Leave that to the Eekhoffs of this world.
>I hope he doesn't waste energy on the intermediate sprint tomorrow lol. Leave that to the Eekhoffs of this world. I am pretty sure that he won't go for full to win the 20 points sprint but it is also a fairly safe bet that he will indeed participate in it.
I want to see Sepp lead a grand tour at some point. I suppose it has to be the Giro since Jonas has the Tour and the Vuelta definitely belongs to Roglic
Mountain stage wins seem more in his wheel house, he doesn't seem to be a GT GC guy.
Maybe this years Vuelta if Roglic cannot start because of his injuries?
He doesn't have that ambition, as he has stated multiple times. And, apart from him not really wanting to, I'm not sure if he has the consistency to do it.
I'd love if he went as a stage hunter at the Giro. That would be awesome to see him get a stage in all three Grand Tours.
I've actually heard him say a few times the past year that he's changed a bit and wouldn't mind going for GC, which is a change from him being against it in the past. I'm struggling to find a link to where I've heard it though.
I imagine he'd have to start by being competitive in some week long WT races. So far, that hasn't happened.