Wout was pulling like a freight train out there. Glad he is getting his due as being behind MVP all this year he needs a few attaboys.

George was killing it today. I hope he has his issues behind him. He looked great.

MVDP gets his accolades and rightly so, but van Aert is a monster in his own right. As a big engine and TT star i think he is better than the former.

For sure. Wout’s domination at the Dauphiné followed by winning Belgian TT championship shows his class. He’s a beast, and fact that he was selected for TdF squad shows how quickly he’s turning into an elite WT rider.

Glad to hear this. He's one of my favorite riders.


Matt White said pretty much this after.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

van Aert and Teunissen should be yellow-jersey trolling MdVP on Instagram.

So far, we've have an upset on day 1 with Sagan losing. Yet, his team was very wise to go for the intermediate sprint. With the finish and intermediate sprint points, Sagan has already created some cushion between him and his main rivals. What a twist it would be if Mike Teunissen became the "points/sprint" for Jumbo if Dylan is hurt and off form now.

On day 2, Jumbo surprised once again. Much to the happiness of those tired of seeing Sky/Ineos dominate. Did sitting there in hot seat on TV throughout the race add any stress that they would rather not have endured?

While I like the concept of a TTT as a race, over a distance of 1 -2 hours, I'm not a fan of having one in a Grand Tour. When during a three week race do you do a TTT that doesn't damage the "goods"/GC riders? At the end?

Now some GC riders are damaged goods and their options are limited. The GC losers yesterday have to attack and the rest just have to match them and do no better than them.

I can see ITT serving the GC riders good at TT. I can see mountains serving GC riders good at mountains. TTT takes away from the individual competition that we want to enjoy in the GC. Spare me the TTT in Grand Tours. Bring them back in the WC.

So other than the race already being screwed up by the TTT, I'll anticipate crashes to take out more riders that I want to see do well or future crashes to others will give hope to those behind in the GC. Especially hate those crashes due to poor course design/officials.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Wellens riding aggro. Love it. He's got the polka dotty.

Bora is beastly. Oss's ponytail is not aero.

The LFF, Woodsy hanging up front too. It's perfect for them. Sagan is looking smoooooth.
I'm a Wanty fanboy. They're always in the break, even if they're left wantying.

TTT win is a cool bonus, and for everyone else- just don't suck TOO bad and your guy should be fine, with a lot of company.

wow.....LFF going all Phil Gil on everyone...……

They need to drug test this guy a little more

He’s a madman—his descent through town was nuts.

They said on NBC that Alaphilippe rode the last 30k 3 times in the last month. Well done.

Today was incredible! Congrats to Alaphillipe for another victory. He showed more guts today than many GC riders in the last five years.

What is Alaphillipe going to do now? Yellow could be out the question. Green is not out of the question. Polka is not out of the question.

His teammate, Mas did well today as a GC contender. Team Ineos has two GC riders who could win/podium and a team designed to win the yellow jersey. So I think Alaphillipe will see how the race develops before going for green or polka.

Astana seems to have gotten the memo to ride together at the front. It was interesting that NBC showed Armstrong / Hincapie discussing Fuglsang's fall and impact to his TdeF.

EF Education needs to get that memo to ride together because it often looked like they were apart. Some were back by today's crash. They have a good team, so why don't they ride like a team. Tejay needs to stop doing his segment from the massage table as armpit hair is not a good look, though he seems more relaxed this year lol

Sagan is going to have his hands full this year winning the green jersey. I hope he does, especially since Cav cost him one. Saw that Cav was riding with someone more his speed and size in a nice segment today. Cav is still under the curse for his director sportif getting Sagan booted from the TdeF, costing Sagan a green jersey that year.

Bob Roll and Phil actually have good chemistry. Phil seems back on top of his game and may feel like he really has be sharp to look out for and help Bob. As soon as next year's TdeF route is announced, someone needs to do some homework beforehand.

Christian VdeV and Chris Horner are excellent. It's as if they take pulls with an even deeper analysis of each move. Incredibly good combination.

Happy for the TdeF so far. Keep it coming.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Sounded like he played it perfectly with climbs, tailwind section and long run in that was almost impossible to chase on. Plus it looked like Ineos was the only organized team at front and really not that interested in chasing. Smart riding.

Personally I like it when every team gets a W. Keeps sponsors happy and hopefully in the sport.

Best tdf stage in a while. Great attack. This is an examplw of what most stages should be like - not a bore fest looking at your power meter on a climb and waiting for the last k to attack and gain 10sec.

Yeah, could be that I'm easy to please, but I'm enjoying the NBC Sports coverage so far. Bob Roll is OK (not better than Sherwen, but OK), and Horner tosses out some good stuff.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I've been watching Eurosport streams for years and somehow they manage to find commentators that are good who have to talk for probably literally hours since they don't have all the cut away produced pieces and a small fraction of the commercials.

If it wasn't for DVRing and fast-forwarding through the commercials and most of the pieces I don't think I would even watch the NBC coverage.

Phil and Bob probably talk for about a couple of minutes at a time and a lot of it is just the lead in to something else, then commercial, then the boys in the studio, then commercial, then checking in with Steve Perino, etc. Drives me nuts.

Different strokes for different folks. If I could find a Eurosport stream that wasn't geo-restricted I'd watch that.

that freaked me out....super tuck through turns down that alley of a road?.....brilliant attack

You are right about NBC. I record their broadcast to skip the commercials, etc.. Don't think I could take the same commercials over and over for three weeks. Have not tried their extra shows after the day's race.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

I go with the commercial free feed online and its 2 Brit announcers, I forget who. They're good. I guess Bobke and Phil are on the commercial feed? I do see the prerace stuff with Former Doper Very Good Hair Guy and Former Doper Bald Guy. It's not bad......

Speaking of good hair, Sagan and Ala look like they got lost en route to TdF and ended up at a Vanilla Ice concert in Miami. They're both currently sporting sweet shirts but could us an update to (hair)style game.

There is a lot of rehab going on with former dopers on NBC (though Horner was never charged). Wonder how European former dopers are treated. And for NBC to broadcast Lance and Hincapie analysis while neither of them can even go near a race. Well I guess they can't take back their doping. Guess we get to live on with them

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Most people here understood what was happening in the peloton during that era and even though they didn't condone it per se it never escalated to the shit show of outrage that happened in the USA. There was really no rehabilitation necessary. At least that's my view from the UK. I was at uni in the USA during the fall of Lance and there was a totally different social dynamic occurring in that country with him. Very interesting to see.

Pretty sure you are referring to the Aussie duo of Keenan and McEwen. I've listened to them a few times when travelling. Pretty good.

How about Bernal being awarded 5 seconds over Thomas? That was generous. It looked to me as though Thomas sat up and came in a bike length behind. I could see maybe 1 second, but 5 was just a bit odd.

Not sure I agree (I'm in UK also). In cycling we don't really have anybody to compare to the US Postal guys in terms of high profile and successful riders who were caught doping, closest is David Millar who is very much rehabilitated but who also arguably has done a lot to earn that rehabilitation and still has his fair share of haters. But in sports like athletics where we have had high profile dopers (e.g. Linford Christie, Dwain Chambers) there's been very little rehabilitation, they're pretty much ostracised and no longer visible in the sport. Would like to think the same would happen if we had a high profile doping cyclist.

In continental Europe it seems to very much vary by country and rider. The French and Germans took a pretty dim view of doping (or at least the EPO era of doping, the French were more OK with the less sophisticated doping methods that were in use when French riders were still winning GTs...), the Spanish and Italians seem to be more relaxed about it.