What did they say? Do they think he’s the favourite?
They were very much talking up his chances of winning the race overall. Everything you can think of they said. The curse nearly struck with him having a mechanical at the back end of the race. Fortunately it was within 3km to the finish otherwise he would have lost well over 1 minute.
Almeida pulling out with COVID is a bit concerning given how closely he raced with the top 3, hopefully it doesn’t spread to them as well. It explains why he lost so much time the other night on a stage he should’ve been finishing comfortably.
Amazing stuff from Hindley and Bora. That jump scare when Kamna suddenly comes into frame while Hindley is still attacking 
. Like, where the fuck did you come from? Oh yeah… oh SHIT… hehe. Carapaz could really have done with having Richie Porte with him at the end there.
So Hindley has a gap of 1:25. He clearly emptied the tank today so hopefully he recovers well enough to hang on tomorrow.
That should be more than enough. Only a mechanical, illness or a fall can stop him now. Carapaz isn’t a 1.30min better time-trialler than Hindley and, given the way he faded yesterday, the uphill layout will not favour him.
I thought Bora stuffed it up the other day when they were setting the pace when they didn’t need to, reinforced when they sat up in the middle of nowhere. They really should have left it to INEOS to protect the jersey or Bahrain because Landa needed to make up time. When Richie abandoned they missed another chance to shift the workload back onto INEOS to further weaken them.
I guess they saw that INEOS were already weakening and just wanted to drive a nail because INEOS really struggled to protect Carapaz last night.
Only got four out of ten, with none in the correct position hehe. And most tellingly, missing the Aussie winner, goddammit! You were right @eddie 
Tour de France starts tonight.
Unless illness or a crash takes them out, I expect the top 3 to be made up of Pog, Rog & Vingegaard. The only rider I see that may be able to break that up is Aleksandr Vlasov who has been in brilliant form this season.
Of the Aussies going for GC, Ben O’Connor and Jack Haig both come in with good form, I just can’t see them finishing top 5 unless there’s a couple of withdrawals. They will both be comfortably inside the top 10 though.
As for the Green jersey it’s hard to see anyone other than Van Der Poel or Van Aert winning it. Caleb Ewan & Fabio Jakobsen may pick up a couple of flat stages but the other 2 will pick up points the other 2 won’t in the harder stages.
Michael Matthews could be an outside shot if he is sent down the road to contest the intermediate sprints. This is possible because Bike-Exchange Jayco also have Groenewegen who will contest the bunched sprints.
I think Nairo Quintana is a good shout for KOM. He’s been really good this year but I think he’s going to lose a fair chunk of time on stage 5 over the cobbles. This will give him the freedom to go for the polka dots.
Quinn Simmons is my outsider for this. Trek Segafredo don’t have a GC contender, they’ll be chasing stages with Mads Pedersen instead, which means Simmons will have the freedom to go into the breaks in the mountains. He did this 3 times at the Tour de Suisse which was enough to get him the jersey there. He also won it at Tirreno Adriatico where he was in 2 breakaways.
- Pogacar
- Roglic
- Vingegaard
- Vlasov
- Martinez
- O’Connor
- Haig
- Bardet
- Thomas
- Gaudu
Green: Van Aert
KOM: Quintana
White: Pogacar
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So the TDF being back has got me wanting to get back into following pro cycling year round. I can’t stay up and watch every race like I used to do as a student, so what do you guys use to stay on top of the sport? I see GCN’s streaming service has a huge selection of races but I’m realistically not going to be able to watch full replays of all those races. Any good sources for highlights (esp. extended highlights like SBS does)?
SBS On Demand has a lot of content. They show most of the ASO races live in some form on SBS/SBS On Demand and have the highlights packages up fairly quickly.
If a race isn’t being shown on SBS/SBS On Demand I use Cycling Today/Cycling Stream. They usually put up the GCN stream but it can be glitchy at times.
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Having to wake up early for work now means no more watching each stage live long into the night. Is it still as enjoyable sitting down in the afternoon to watch the replay of the night before?
It’s not bad, and this year SBS on Demand has a one hour highlights package and a two-hour replay, as well as the full stage, available from first thing in the morning. Or there’s the afternoon (5.30pm I think) show, which I haven’t watched this year but in previous years was a bit better produced than the morning version.
Don’t go onto PCS or any cycling sites and you’ll be fine unless an Aussie wins a stage.
If you come across a spoiler then you’ve done well.
Ah amazing, that’s really helpful thanks. I used to have all these sites bookmarked years ago but have lost these resources.
Pogacar is only 23.
He’s going to set records that we will never see broken. Even if he gets caught here, Jumbo Visma have gone all in and cooked themselves for the rest of this week.
Scary to think how good he can become.
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Simon Clarke!!!
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That was a crazy performance last night. I couldn’t believe when he got onto the front of the pack and started to gap classics specialists. Not a huge time gain in the end but it’s clear that no one else is on his level.
Pogacar getting on the front in the white jersey gave me real Cadel Evans at the 2010 Giro vibes, winning that stage on dirt roads in the World Champion jersey.
Poor Bling got swamped by Rog’s early jump. He had a good sprint in his legs but he was no chance starting from 5 lengths back. Damn
Is a bit unfortunate for him that he’s around in an era when we’ve got Alaphilippe, Van Aert, Van der Poel, Pogacar and Sagan (although he’s not at that level anymore) who all favour the same kind of finish.
He really should have more wind on his palmares but it’s a bit hard when you’re constantly coming up against legends of the sport.
Just look at how many 2nd place finishes Van Aert has!
Pogacar is a freak though. Not only does he have immense talent, his ability to read a race for someone so young is second to none. The way he stuck with Van Aert early on when there were echelons but then let him go up the road with Simmons and Fuglsang was brilliant. And he’s pretty much doing it all by himself as his team can’t keep up with him!
2 abandons sure to COVID prior to today’s start.
It could be a bit of an issue as both riders, Vegard Stake Laengan & Geoffrey Bouchard, have been towards the front a fair bit.
I managed to come 7th overall on yesterday’s stage in the Velogames Fantasy TdF.
I had the riders that finished top 3, 6th & 7th. Buggered if I know how to come 1st!