Thursday 17: 13:10β13:25 β 17:30β18:00
The first true mountain passes today.
The start is not as flat as often: they will use the hills of Gers instead of going along the valleys as the Tour de France always does. But just a bit: they will ride exclusively on the highway π, so, long flat sections will still be present and the climbs will be smoother than on secondary roads; especially smooth as those hills are like factory roofs, and when going from East to West you always get the easy side.
Beside the top 2 favourites, we've witnessed today many unexpected weaknesses by climbers as soon as the slopes of the first pass began. Many of them somewhat recovered later, but still...
edit: wait, wait, wait: how did Raul Garcia Pierna (πͺπΈ ArkΓ©a) manage to end up in 12^th^ position (before G.Martinπ«π·, JorgensonπΊπΈ and various climbers, in a bad day or not)? π This seems to mean that basically only 10 riders from the peloton climbed better than him! On the Tour of Occitanie with a much weaker startlist, he was leading the GC before the first mountain stage but finished that stage after 80 riders and half an hour behind the winner... Perhaps there is a mistake in PCS classification?
They change drug testing recently?
It may be a bit like when Chiapucci started to outclinb everyone in the mid 90s, he was so overweight (for a pro cyclist) that we should have caught on.
Could you rephrase, please? (Sorry, it's just that I don't quite get what you mean.)
It's not important π just a bad take