Agreed, that was sweet. Wout is way more of a team guy than he gets credit for.

I half-thought he'd go for the stage win, and push his Green Jersey points over 500, then I thought "nah, he's not THAT guy"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Couple days ago, I emailed the WEDU Team

"Hello WEDUdes & WEDUdettes,

Longtime Lance fan here - I was right on the barricades at the Finish Line on the Ben Franklin Parkway when Lance won the US Pro in Philadelphia

I know Lance gave credit in one of the WEDU podcasts but I've searched and searched but can't find the episode where he named the harmonica player who does the title theme

Please remind us who that would be and if they have a Spotify/Apple Music/Bandcamp page

They didn't give me credit (prob the Philly thing), but DID answer my question on-air

https://open.spotify.com/...xKVaCITkmSnxBWFiaEUg

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Huh??? He's been touted as the ultimate teammate/domestique since last year's Tour.

I know, I’ve watched the past two Tours. He mostly gets credit for winning, not for what he does as a teammate and especially when cameras aren’t on him.

He has matured very well. I got the sense when he was dominating CX at a very young age (before MdVP crashed the party), that he was a bit dickish. It's easy to get like that at a young age when you don't yet know what losing feels like. But he seems like an all-around likable guy now. As long as you don't mind losing bike races to him.

Jumbo-Visma seems to be mostly good people, and a good place to develop.

One thing is clear; they clearly seemed like a tight knit group who was happy to work toward their goals and happy for each other's successes.

The Giro d'Italia used to award a black jersey to the rider last on GC. In some editions, there was quite a competition for that last placed spot since it came with a lot of publicity and fame. Giovanni Pinarello, the founder of Pinarello Bicycles, used the prize money he won by winning the black jersey in the 1951 Giro to start his bike company.

I was thinking of a black jersey, but many teams already have a black or dark blue kit, so it wouldn't have the same impact/stand out like it did in those days when [I'm just guessing here] the team colors were white, or red or yellow, or some combination thereof

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Ladies are taking a beating in the last few minutes

First a skid into a hot corner, then a drift off the road, and right after that ka-bam, ka-BAM!!!

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

tour de france femmes getting hard to watch with these crashes.

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Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

As with teams whose kit is predominantly yellow, if the ASO decided to award a black jersey for the last placed rider on GC, any team whose kit was black would necessarily have to change it for the Tour.

Ant's quick tutorial on how to ride in an echelon [wind from the left]

"All you need to do is go to the right hand side, slot in, go up to the hip of the rider on your left hand side, and suddenly life becomes nice & easy"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Ant failed that one.

Brutal day for FDJ. Vos on the other hand, shows how much of a killer she is. Every race, all of the time she is ready to race and win. What an absolute weapon.

Jumbo-Visma back in Yellow


Oh yeah, back in Green, too

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Its only fitting.

An update on the points standings...

https://lanternerouge.com.au/2022/07/24/dsm-and-arkea-escape-danger-while-movistar-descends-into-trouble-relegation-battle/

I really wish it would fall out of vogue to ask the winner of Le Tour if they're clean or not.

Imagine this carried over into other sports:

Messi after a WC futbol match: "so, do drugs or beat women?"
Tom Brady after a superbowl: "do drugs or beat women?"

It doesn't do cycling any good to constantly self flagellate all the time. Simply when there's an issue, deal with it harshly. If you don't have anything right now on someone, why constantly bring the shit up?

I agree 100%. In the absence of any evidence to provoke the question, it's just lazy cheap journalism. And the way cycling is singled out is frustrating. Recently my BIL was asking me about doping in the Tour de France. He's a big hockey fan, but does not have the same questions about NHL stars.

I'm not arguing for sticking our heads in the sand. It is fair to wonder what Jumbo are doing. Laporte mentioned that he spent 6 weeks at altitude in the last couple of months before the Tour. And we know that Jumbo have embraced ketones, which are still legal for the moment. Is there something else, something illegal? I don't know, but unless I have something to base it on, I'm not going to assume that Jumbo's team performance was based on anything illegal.

On Cycling News, there was an article reporting where some journalists were effectively asking Vingegaard and Van Aert, "Does JV use drugs?" At the end of the article, they pointed out comments made by Michael Rasmussen (now a journalist, with the obvious baggage from his cycling past). While he didn't suggest that everyone should bury their head in the sand and ignore the possibility of PED use these days, his reasoning why asking something like this is "a useless question" is spot on.

As Vingegaard sat down in the press room in Gramat on Saturday evening, one of the journalists before him was Michael Rasmussen, the last Dane to wear yellow at the Tour for the Dutch team. When Rasmussen first returned to the Tour in his current role in 2015, he was asked about his controversial tenure in yellow, when he repeatedly denied doping before eventually being withdrawn from the race when it emerged he had lied about his whereabouts to avoid doping controls.



“I’ve never heard any rider so far say ‘yes’ to the rolling camera while he’s racing in his active career, so it’s not really the answer that’s wrong but the question,” Rasmussen said then. “It’s a useless question.”

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vingegaard-jumbo-visma-are-totally-clean-you-have-to-trust-us/

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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.

TB: "No, I don't eat strawberries"

Kinda like

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I thought about this question after reading that article. I think a better question would be something along the lines of do they think the UCI/WADA is doing enough from a testing perspective so that no one could get a material advantage from "doping".

So, wait - Pog has his own logo now?



Like ...

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

He's rapping now as well, so he needs that on a chain of sorts too.

Anyone catch the wheelie contest this year?

Fun. Max is a good sport.