...says the guy who’s obviously never lugged his skis up the hill - over and over and over again.

Yeah, for sure, it was nice to see Nairo right in the action. I hope his knee that he hurt in the car accident while training in Colombia is feeling good after his Dauphine pull out. We'll know when we get to some steeper mountains. Other than Roglic's final surge today he seemed to be able to react to everything, and with the ITT having the 7km of Planche de Belle Filles in 2.5 weeks, his ITT time lossed will only be the first 20km but for the rest he should be able to not lose any time and gain time back on some rivals.

On the lighter front, my son ran rec track with Neilson Powless many years ago.

Great family and he seems to have turned out ok.

Well physiologically Alaphillipe probably has more explosive power in most situations. It's just that he'd been above FTP just getting to the point where the sprint started so his maximal available power at that point was lower than Roglic's.

And Jumbo-Visma at the Dauphine and now at the TdF seem to know this. When there's a mountain-top time bonus on the line they burn everyone's reserve down and let Roglic put in a little 10-second effort to sweep up the bonus. Quite a luxury.

I mentioned this previously, but Roglic has the fast twitch of a ski jumper. This is ultimate fast twitch. His 10second power anaerobic (no oxygen fuelled) is probably pretty high as long as he can access it and he probably has a higher watts per kilo FTP than Alaphilippe. So yes, he rides a lower percent of his watts per kilo and can then access his fast twitch at the end of the day. By the way, in the final km when almost everyone was standing, Bernal was sitting down....I don't recall that being his climbing style from previous races....is that the back issue and sitting being easier? Tom Doumoulin also looked like he was hanging on for dear life in the main group. Not as good as end of Dauphine!

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I am bummed because I am (unrealistically no doubt) hoping for a crazy tour where the climbers are going to hammer each other at every mountain stage leaving the peloton in their dust while the last man standing wins the race. Instead it seems we have sprint finishes on flat stages for the sprinters and sprint finishes on mountain stages for the climbers. I really hope what happened on this first mountain finish isn't what we are going to see for the rest of the TdF.

To my eyes, Alaphilippe is excellent at recovery. Can punch several times if you give him the chance to get below threshold for a short while. Primoz is excellent at punching while in the red, also very good at not going deep into the red.

....and then does the TdF get won on the Planche des Belles Filles by the climber who can TT the best who then does the "climber sprint" at the top of that climb, of the TTer who can TT like a maniac and virtually climb drafting the best climbers (ex Tom Doumoulin today). Remember in 2018 Tom D out TT'd Roglic who dropped to 4th place (and lost his podium) to Froome in the final TT. Planche de Belles Filles is still 2.5 weeks away.

With less training in the legs due to Covid19, either some riders will come into good form on week 3 and be less burnt out, or because they had so little racing in the legs before, they are not used to it and will be shredded....its probably like your ultraman buddies who have a great second training block after a disasterous first one. I personally think the best racing this year will be at the Giro....enough riding and racing before hand to then back off a bit and do a final build before Giro. Guys like Nibali and Thomas will be on fire...and by the Vuelta everyone but Froome will be burnt out LOL

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Yep,I would love the ITT at the end of the three weeks to be the epic ending to a crazy tour with guys making up or losing huge margins as the GC contenders throw it all at a last ditch effort for the podium..
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I will be on the first part of my month long ride during the last week of the TdF and have picked out specific towns and booked motels so I can watch the key stages near the end.Ride all day and watch the TdF at night sounds like fun to me.
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Lord knows how I am going to be able to follow the Giro in the Queensland outback in October.

Well it was the JV dauphine tactics, so pretty easy to see that one coming. It Will take longer Climbs to Shake off Alaphilippe (and maybe Roglic for that matter). Dumoulin did look suprisingly weak though

I wonder if Dumoulin's "other" knee (the one he crashed on a few days ago) was bothering him more than he is willing to let on. And for that matter Bernal's back. He did not stand up at all when everyone else was and was riding the steepest part where there were surges with a closed up hip angle, when others were standing and opening up hip angle to generate a bit more power.

Can someone explain the team classification standings? I see EF are the leaders, but I can't figure out the math that puts them ahead of Jumbo Visma.

Damn GCN... In my pre-coffee IG scroll I saw they said Andre Greipel won stage 5 and I was like "wow that must have been a fast stage" and almost didn't turn the feed on, but thought maybe I'd replay the end only to find the live race and that GCN did say, he won stage 5 in 2015!

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

Don’t Think it’s the knee, he was very disappointed with himself after the stage - he actually Got dropped But came back in the end.
If someone else But Bernal has some sort of ambition in this race, they’d better attack earlier on the next uphill finish. If Dumoulin is getting better, they’ll shoot themselves in the foot if they Don’t drop him 10 seconds here and there Didnt see the Vuelta last year, But so far after the restart roglic isnt taking much time when he’s stronger, basically just a sprint. Looks a little like the way he lost the Giro last year (and Yates the year before that). My point is, even if roglic goes Down hard during the 3rd week, if Dumoulin is on the way up, the others Will be crushed in the time trial. Better get ridning Dumoulin while they Can and deal with roglic later on, even if it means losing 10-20 seconds to other podium contenders. Realistictly on Bernal and Roglic are contenders for the win, Dark horses being Dumoulin and Quintana. I would include Pinot, But he has a habit of making things harder for himself (I seriously doubt We’ll See a French winner in a very long time)

I guess my rough question is how much time all these guys need on Dumoulin before the Planche des Belles Filles TT to win the TdF. He is going to outride them big time on the flat/rollers for 30km and then there is 6km or so of uphill where he will likely match the best climbers for climbing time (no one surges on an uphill TT leg like in normal road stage).

I'll put money down right now that Dumoulin's Planche des Belles Filles climbing split is no more than 10 seconds slower than the top climber guys....so that leaves the rest of the TT for him to overcome any time losses during the next 2.5 weeks. Let's see. But he has to hang in the next few weeks. My feeling is if he is 90 seconds down, he has a chance to win on everyone but Roglic.

Depends on Roglic’ form at that point. He has a habit of disappointing a bit under pressure, still he might be 2nd or 3rd on 90%
If roglic is on the way Down and Dumoulin is peaking on the TT, if I we’re roglic and 90 secs in front of Dumoulin, i’d be seriously concerned

From: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...n_the_Tour_de_France

As of 2011, the team classification is calculated by adding the times of the three best riders of each team per stage; time bonuses and penalties are ignored. In a team time trial, the team gets the time of the fifth rider of that team to cross the finish, or the last rider if there are fewer than five left for the team. If a team has fewer than three cyclists remaining, it is removed from this classification.

If you look at this objectively, Dumoulin should be Jumbo's backup plan but do nothing special to help Roglic win stage bonus seconds. If anything Dumoulin needs the likes of Bernal, Quintana, Pinot, Bardet and many more to take the stage bonus seconds and not Roglic!

Let's see how Roglic and Dumoulin make out on Stage 6


On a normal year, I would say this climb favours Bardet.....hammer the steepest part to the first summit, attack the downhill and recover and push on to the finish. But I think Yates should be able to keep the yellow jersey

We need flobikes to cover your bike tour and send us updates. It may be more interesting than these guys sitting for 2 more weeks keeping the pace high enough so that no climbers can really attack and make good gaps and then counting on the TT.

Maybe the most exciting thing will be the UCI handing out penalties willy nilly and flipping the GC constantly via that mechanism instead of the riding on the road :-)

I thought they eliminated Podium Hostess for this years tour. But I swear I just saw one at the end of stage six with aw Podium Host on the other side.

Hey all! Long-time listener, first-time caller. I started doing some updates and analysis on the TPC Blog for this year's Tour, mixing in a healthy amount of vintage history (can't resist!). My take: So far Jumbo-Visma has been looking strong... too strong! Bernal hasn't been perfect, but maybe he doesn't need to be until the third week.

https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/news/musette-musings-your-guide-to-the-2020-tour-de-france


Let me know what you think, thanks!

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Spencer Powlison
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Content guy at The Pro's Closet

All the talk about Dumoulin seems to miss one key detail... he's working for Roglic. If he takes the tough pulls to help Roglic put time into other GC contenders, will he actually have legs left for the ITT? That might be why he looks "weak" already.

Cycling weekly has an article on Jumbo Visma using off brand wheels and other parts...how can it be that in todays world of bike tech they can not hit the 6.8kg limit??? to quote:"t’s a matter of grams; the WS+ are approximately 10 grams lighter than the C24s but are substantially lighter than the Dura-Ace C40 wheels that Jumbo-Visma has ridden in previous races. " really 10 g?

That is a fair point. But in theory he was doing a bit of the same at Dauphine so it could just be "not enough racing" in the legs to bounce back + 2 years older when he was 2nd at the Giro and TdF. But he's still reasonably young enough at 29 that his recovery should not be impacted like a mid 30's rider 2 years older