Tour De France 2021
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@chris-b said in Tour De France 2021:
Pogacar wins the time trial by 19 seconds over Stefan Kung and has a pretty solid grip on things compared to his main rivals.
Van Aert was 30 second down in the TT and I'm not sure he yet counts as a main rival.
Roglic lost another 44 seconds, Alaphilippe 1 minute 11 seconds, Thomas 1:18, and Carapaz 1.44.
Van der Poel still has the yellow jersey - just - but Carapaz is 1.36 down on Pogacar, with Roglic a further 4 seconds back and Thomas 6 seconds behind Roglic.
Carapaz the big loser there. Just got himself up the board to look like the man Ineos would get behind but dropped right back. Roglic now has the option of attaching himself behind Ineos if he needs to give his team a rest.
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Great to see Cavendish do it again.
With that lead out he really could win a few this year which would be ace
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What’s the view on Pog (and Rog) riding clean? I’m not naive enough to think that doping has been completely eradicated from the peloton, but from other sites I’ve looked at, there’s a school of thought that Pog is definitely on the gear; the Slovenian doping controls are quite lax. Now this view is not backed up by any real evidence that I can find. Would be sad if it’s proven to be the case as I quite like the way they ride.
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@scribe Hard to know.
It's certainly a golden age for Slovenian cycling.
One thing I've liked about cycling in the past few years is that (mainly) pretty much everyone has shown some substantial weakness somewhere in a Grand Tour. E.g. Bernal in the Giro. Roglic last night.
When you see guys showing no weaknesses, winning the time trials and burning off the best climbers it seems too good to be true and probably is.
Very interesting stage last night. Pogacar has given Van der Poel and Van Aert a substantial head start now. Thomas and Carapaz 5+ minutes back.
The brief article I read was attributing Roglic's failure to his crash a couple of days ago. Probably right, since there wasn't much on the day that should have cracked him otherwise (heat?). Anyway, he is cooked and you'd imagine TJV will be all in behind Van Aert now.
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Leaderboard looks quite spread for week 1.
It’s not like the top five have hammered themselves to get some early promotion either.
I guess that week 2 will see teams show their hands a bit.
Ineos strategy seems to be to control the peloton (what a surprise) and pounce on any weaknesses shown by contenders like they did with Rog last night. Pick them off one by one. -
@sparky said in Tour De France 2021:
Le Tour reaches the Alps this weekend. 🔥
I like the idea of these downhill finishes after the climbs.
We’ll see how it works tonight.
Tomorrow’s finish is at Tignes. Not overly steep but the elevation/altitude is pretty hard if he are gasping.Wednesday twice up Ventoux. That could get fun.
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@sparky Yeah - despite that there's a long way to go - it's all over bar the shouting if Pog remains on his bike.
Carapaz and maybe Gaudu the only genuine GC contenders within a Bulls roar of Pogacar.
Van Aert can't live with him in the mountains and has no avenue back in the Time Trials.
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@gt12 said in Tour De France 2021:
@tewaio said in Tour De France 2021:
Occam's Razor = he's on the gear, sadly
The way he just rode away from Carapaz was mad.
Given the weaknesses of everyone else, I’d be shocked if he doesn’t have the best ‘help’
He nonchalantly rode away from the other GC contenders again today, looking super fresh. It was like he was bored and wanted to just play a bit with them. Man, I hope he’s not juiced but it doesn’t look good when everyone else is suffering.
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He was 10 seconds faster than Schlecks and Contador did with perfect dry conditions, and Pogacar in the wet would have had worse traction. He's even more formidable than the numbers show...
This article covers a lot but doesn't mention traction, but it does say there is less adhesion in the wet (of course), taking the view that that speeds a cyclist up due to less rolling resistance.
Are you faster when it rains?
There are plenty of sensible reasons to avoid riding when the forecast says rain. It’s treacherous, can be just a
