Bike change madness!

what is bettiol doing? There may be a good reason for it, but I don't understand it. They can win the stage and potentially even take yellow and he is closing down the gap.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

Jumbo is not having a good day!

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

Hammer down

do Hirschi, Soler & McNulty not have it to be up there to help Pogacar (who seems to be quite capable on his own)

and now Bettiol is riding down Powless ?

guess McNulty was there until a slip into the cornfield

What a disaster. Not even sure disaster is even accurate at describing how bad this has gone...

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Not great, but lets say it's 1 minute and 2 minute to JV's leaders. Pog's team has been no where to be seen, does this not make the rest of the Tour much more interesting as both guys will be able to throw haymakers at Pog the rest of the way? Roglic has no interest in a podium.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

It is time to retire Phil Liggett. Mis-identifying everyone, stumbling through sentences, confusing riders for their fathers, referring to everyone as the next Merckx. He's been the voice of cycling as long as I've followed the sport but he is making the coverage worse.

SPOILER, that's a record even for Phil - announcing four separate winners of the stage. SMH.

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Wout flapped his wings to save the race for Vingegaard. Feel bad for Roglic, but hiearchy officially sorted.

That was a very expensive 13 seconds for Pog, however he definitely made JV burn a ton of matches getting that gap down. Will be very interesting to see who pays most for today's chaotic efforts.

ETA-probably works a bit more in Pog's favor the next few days since he didn't take Yellow. Could also help the Green jersey competition a bit as even WvA has to get tired after today's efforts while the rest of the "contenders" were off the back relatively early.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

He should have retired a few years ago.

What a stage. Remember the days when they spiced up the first week of the Tour with a TTT, whoever came up with the idea to have these cobbled stages should be awarded France's highest honors.

I feel like with no team around him, pushing off the front was the right call. You take out the variable of someone crashing in front of you and give yourself a gap should you have a mechanical. Plus you add the extra stress of the other GC contenders with wondering how much time they'll lose. In the end it was 13 sounds, but there could have just as easily been a big crash in the field that could have taken out some of the GC guys or slowed them down.

Fess up, who else thought Powless was good as gone?

Very unfortunate for him. Such a clever attack. Perhaps should have done it just a bit closer to the finish (say at 900 m to go), as no one would want to burn matches then. I was so ready for my "he did the Spackler/ Freire" post, but EBH had to play the spoiler; ugh...

Clarke gave a good interview and basically said as much about praying someone else would pick up the slack.

Otoh, great to see vd Horn battle it out with Clarke. Too bad one of them had to lose that sprint. Vd Horn was definitely overgeared though, but put up such a fight. Oh well.

HA! I thought he had it. Glad to see SC take it considering he was unsigned at the beginning of the year and has ridden 7 Tours, never winning a stage.

This stage definitely gave me the itch to start planning a trip to France. It's been way too long.

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

I Powless timed it well and did the right thing, just didn't work. If you want to get in a flat cobbled break, pick Bo Hag to go with you. His legendary raw power came to the fore. He and Taco rode that perfectly and he reeled in Powless like a tired tuna.

Taco! Really wanted him to get it.

As for Bettiol, looked like pure doucheyness. Maybe bc Cort and Powless didn't sit back and ride for him? He's been dining out on the Flanders win for a while now it seems. Who knows though. But he was drilling it, not just taking his pull. Not good.

The video production of the TdF is superb.

Someone on the JV team said it was "them against Pogacar". I think that's right and it is far from over.

Yes, that was from Jonas when asked if he or Primosz or even Wout was Team Leader

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

Idk, it's not bad to have two guys up the road either. Just sit near the front like T-Pog was. Which he was amazingly cool today, was even bunny-hopping bigger cobbles like he'd been doing P-R his whole life.

We got our answer about MdVP from MdVP himself: crap legs the entire tour. He's got to be careful to avoid the Marianne Vos over-racing syndrome. Two Grand Tours after a classics season seems a bit much....

T-Rex Pog destroys all GC comers across French countryside. Dude finds increasingly dominant ways to impress.

With hindsight available, what do you think Cort would prefer:

1. Having those days off the front in Denmark and holding the Polka Dot jersey or
2. Having more in the legs today to fight for that stage win?

He would have had to have been a favorite for the win out of that group if he was there with the legs. Powless does his attack from 1k out forcing BH to close him down then Cort, who has a good kick off hard stages (typically more climbing), is fighting with Taco and Clarke for the win.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

I think he picked 3). Take some monster pulls so Powless has a shot at yellow and/or stage win. Powless just missed both, but I think Cort was all-in for Powless. The brutal part to watch was Cort continuing to ride hard after getting dropped. I assume that EF is so desparate for UCI points, he was told to ride. And he made it in ahead of Stuyven/Pogacar, which was cool.

He'd get the "best teammate of the day" award if not for WvA bailing out not just his own team but basically every GC favorite out of going into a massive hole to Pogacar.

Roglic is a beast for popping in his dislocated shoulder by himself.

I'm going with Magnus as rider of the Tour so far, even above Wout.

He has been balls to the wall every day. Having a blast. At some point he is going to lose the Polka Dot, and then will still be driving breaks and trying for his stage. He will be most combative in Paris.

Back to Pog. There was one secteur where he dove into the side gutter and kept on going. And then that acceleration to get onto Stuyven's wheel was nuts. He was the only one from a strong group of hitters.

ETA: Honorable mention. Howz about Nairo-man killing it today??

So many aspects to the stage. This one lived up to the hype without even requiring that many cobbled sectors.

Nairoman Boonen.

trail wrote:

Roglic is a beast for popping in his dislocated shoulder by himself.

Ouch.


"I couldn’t put [my shoulder] back in on the road so I needed to sit on the chair of spectator and put it back in."

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/primoz-roglics-tour-de-france-challenge-severely-dented-by-cobbles-crash/

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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.

By finishing in the front, Cort moved up 24 spots and is now 26 minutes ahead of current LR, Anthony Turgis

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