I hope there is no GC plan for Ciccone -- he's only 24 and rode Giro pretty hard already.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

You are correct.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

moviestar could be a home for Fuglsang if Astana doesn't resign him.

Yeah, Movistar needs somebody to replace Quintana for GC. I thought today would be the perfect place for him to attack up the really nasty grade at the end and get a few seconds back from their horrendous TTT, but he just seems so defensive. Also thought that maybe he would bridge to Landa and then go, but he just sat in. I think Quintana’s days as a podium contender are over.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Man, Tejay takes a beating. Even the Aussie commentators. He was never going to be GC in this. He gets popped on about 20% with 5k left and 30 left in the front group and its big news about how disappointing it is. Not really, but getting second at Dauphine I guess led to renewed expectations but he's never been able to ride the steep grades. Just hope he can help Rigo later, per the plan. Sit and watch who comes in at 30 minutes down. That climb was brutal.

Wellens, De Ghent, bad assers.

Dan Martin is as tough as anyone. My man Enrico Mas Por Favor had a good day. G Bennet, yes. The LFF is a warrior. Jakob F hanging tough. Pinot, great ride. Really glad Theuns got the stage. Ciccone just dicks around so much and plays games. Great rider though.

Well they certainly didn't educate anyone when it was the Paul and Phil show. Those two couldn't read a race for shit, nor did they much understand tactics or technical things.
Robbie McEwen and Matt Keenan are amazing.
So sad Americans have to deal with the crap you're served by NBC.

Tomorrow should be a day where the sprinting teams control all the action. Saturday looks like it has potential to be a great stage. Not really for the GC, but just overall action.

Yes! Listening to Bob trying to bridge the gap verbally is quite a treat. He knows he's the luckiest man from his generation to be in that booth with Phil. Maybe Phil is chuckling inside too.

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

Ciccione does dick around too much, bit of a Valverde unless it's going up hill. Was glad to see Teuns put it on him. He should be able to hold it tomorrow but with an :08 intermediate time bonus and only a :06 lead, that dicking around might come back to bite him Saturday.

They might think Americans want cheerleaders for announcers and a travelogue. They do work at selling what we see as the most wonderful event of our life time. Is this a holdover from the Armstrong years?

It's good to hear of McEwen and Keenan. Maybe we can suggest to NBC that they go with those two when Phil retires.

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

Don't know if I would wish that on Fuglsang.

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

Quite unfair to Tejay as he nor the team had GC talk about him. It's like beating a dead horse. What's the point of talking him down as many riders sucked today?

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

That formula, and that the tour really doesn’t start for them until next week. They really should be buying dinner tonight for the Movistar team, time gap was getting serious, sort of a head scratcher when Movistar went to try and pull in the break.

G has one hell of a punch in top of his aerobic strength. He is taller than the small climbers and also not as rail thin as Froome (or Bardet) but he still kicked away from the 60kg guys on that ramp.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Columbians seem to thrive on all or nothing riding. The modern era stifles that, and Quintana in particular seems to have lost his confidence years ago, sitting in to avoid attacking and losing significant time.

I didn't understand Movistar's tactics today - shell everybody out of the back in the run in to the last climb, only to implode on the lower slopes. Why didn't they share the workload and then use their numerical advantage to repeatedly attack, especially as Poels pulled the pin early. The non-Ineos riders are going to have to work together to repeatedly attack Ineos and try to break free with a small group, otherwise the Ineos/Sky grind to the top at optimum wattage will win yet again.

Yeah, I assumed that they were trying to grind down Ineos and then launch Quintana once it was just Thomas and Bernal, but instead it was Landa taking a flyer.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

What was also interesting was when Alaphilippe attacked at the end, it seemed it was to try and save yellow. But then he kept looking back to see what kind of gap he had to everyone else. Was that move actually to try and gain more time over the GC contenders? Everybody keeps saying once the real climbing starts he'll be dropped, but speculation was that would start today. Yet he not only didn't get dropped, but had a massive acceleration in him at the end.

Yeah, huge props to Alaphilippe for sure. That was a really aggressive move at the end. I tend to think it was to mainly save yellow, but at the end of the day he was only beaten today by 2 GC contenders (Thomas and Pinot), and then only at the very end with 20%+ gradient. I'd really love to see a Frenchman win the tour...let's see what he has for the other mountain stages.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Letting Skyneous dictate the tempo for oh, the last 6 years or so, hasn’t really worked out for anyone else. So they either wanted to test everyone’s legs —esp Thomas after getting gapped the other day—or are going to race more aggressively.

I got into watching soccer about a decade ago, having never played. I've watched a shit ton of soccer over the last decade, mostly EPL. Somehow I acquired what I think is a pretty decent understanding of the game, simply from listening to knowledgeable commentators without any need for it to be taught to me explicitly because English commentators assume their audience knows the game.

You bring up a very good point I hadn't considered. That ain't going to happen with Phil. I don't understand how he can be so clueless after all these years. They need to get Eurosport type commentators if they want to educate their viewing audience by osmosis. Even Bob doesn't seem very knowledgeable compared to Sean Kelly or Magnus Backstedt, those guys are great.

The way I read the stage...

Ineos are saving their troops. The saw Ciccone and Teuns in the break and basically played chicken with Astana and Movistar. Basically saying..."heck...with Bernal and Thomas, we don't care if we gift wrap Ciccone and Teuns 6 minutes in the GC...we can still beat them by the end of week 3. We're not going to chase." Movistar gave in because their GC riders (Landa, Quintana, and Valverde) are realistically just shooting for the podium, and not the overall win. So gift wrapping Ciccone and Teuns 6 minutes would be extremely dangerous to their podium or top 5 hopes.

As far as the work Movistar did...again, I don't think they were trying to soften up the GC today as they were just managing the gap to the break. The fact that there were about 30 riders still there with 1.5 km to go tells you that it was not full gas leading in. Which in turn means that LFF (aka Alaphilippe) likely had enough at the end of the stage to use his 2-3 minute pop. As did Thomas who has proven to have a good late kick. But once the tour turns to the high mountains...with multiple 30-60 minute climbs, LFF is not going to be able to hang.

This was an incredibly hard finish. An entertaining mountain stage. But it's not a true "GC mountain stage." All of the climbs today were only 4-11 km in length. The GC will really sort out on the mountain stages where there are multiple 10-30 km climbs and you'll see GC riders dropping off one at a time.

Yeah, don't necessarily disagree with any of that analysis. I think the next mountain stage in the Pyrenees will be very interesting.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Seems a good analysis.

Also pointing to relatively slow pacing: after Piti was done and Kwia took over, Piti returned to the front for a moment -- perhaps, it seemed to me, to have a word with Ineos about the pacing.

Perhaps another reason to keep the train in the station: given the extreme steepness of the last km, reasonably intelligent riders (aka not Landa) were not going to attack early on the climb.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Word. Nothing is as hard as the Pyrenees.

Saw that. He had a little grin with Kwiat then pulled up. Landa…..talented but lots of better teammates out there.