Deschanel2017

Pyrénées are Evenepoel's kryptonite.

I don't know but he was unwell yesterday already.

Cras and Evenepoel out, sitting in a car.

Skjelmose out, riding into a traffic sign.

Will Schmidt make it? He was struggling to keep wheels on the flat.

I suppose so. The way I see it, there should be a large and long breakaway today, so anyway sprinters wishing to score points would need to get into the breakaway (and with the long flat start, they have it comparatively easy).

Well, we already got the first part wrong 😂

No one managed to break away on the flat. They were a number of attempts, but almost everyone seemed powerless compared to the previous breakaway days.

I don't think so, but we shall see in a few hours 😀

I suppose so. The way I see it, there should be a large and long breakaway today, so anyway sprinters wishing to score points would need to get into the breakaway (and with the long flat start, they have it comparatively easy).

GG gaps are such that even guys ranked 10^th^ in the general classification (14 minutes behind) might already be allowed to join the breakaway and win the stage. 12^th^ is 20 minutes behind. Even Johannessen, ranked 8^th^ is more than 10 minutes behind the leader (but only 3 minutes behind the podium, though).

Evenepoel took a TT bike but basically never used the areobars. That's the worst possible idea: carrying those things for nothing, and spending all the time on the shitty lower bar that is only meant to be used less than 10% of the time.

Good performance by Roglitch. I am just a bit disappointed that he didn't show up wearing a floral speedo.

If Visma changes tactics from now on, it can be interesting for breakaways, as without Visma's accelerations, only UAE would be available to lead a chase and is also relatively weak (as a team). Well, “interesting” on stages which have not been marked by Pogatchar, where the UAE team will concentrate its efforts...

About Evenepoel, it is a pity that other GC contenders do not bury him when they have a chance. They should know that he can be knocked out and throw the towel when he is on the ropes, but if on the contrary you give him a rest at this moment, he will come back.

It's a good thing for future breakaway candidates that Evenepoel managed to limit the damage and stay on the podium, not giving up on GC 😅

Coquard made it in time! He managed to break one finger of his right hand, while catching a bag before mid-course... No idea how one can hold the bar in climbs, or brake in descent like that...

Lenny Martinez lost the mountain jersey because he didn't contest the uncontested 4^th^ category of the day... (the point was taken by his teammate so that no one else could get it, but the calculation was bad).

Could you rephrase, please? (Sorry, it's just that I don't quite get what you mean.)

After a bit of thinking, I reckon that it is more a case of having a grand maximum of 15 riders interested in GC and trying their best. So someone who isn't a strong rider but gives his best on a good day can relatively easily get in the top-20, sometimes top-15 when several GC riders are unwell and you had a little bit of advance thanks to a breakaway.

The same happened on the first Time Trial. There were like, what... only 20, 25 riders actually giving their best. Many openly declared it was a rest day for them...

It's starting to make me question what the point of a Grand Tour like the Tour of France is becoming, when we have a vast majority, perhaps up to 170 riders (!), which doesn't give a damn about making the best result.

It used to be that at least young riders / first-time participants would try to do their best at GC, but I am not sure that it is very common any more. Even the new guys seem to just do their semi-skilled worker task as assigned by the boss in order to get their big pay check, and no more (they might even get punished if they do more, in a few teams). When I hear more and more often from people who went to see the race on the roadside that "hey, it was cool to see XXX climbing this hard climb in wheelie, he looked fine" about riders who were dropped earlier in the race, I feel that the spirit of GTs has been turned into a joke. Until, say, 25 years ago (random number of years), the last riders really struggled, they certainly weren't going to do wheelies, they were dropped because they were weaker and exhausted. They we got the top-teams trains, with riders specialised into working hard for 20 mn and then relaxing until the finish line; and now it is general.

If it keeps deteriorating this way, some sort of a reform will become necessary. Starting with reducing delays. What does a GT mean, where is the endurance, where is the attrition, when a majority of riders only actively ride 40 km every 3^rd^ day and consider the rest as a... rest?

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 (🇪🇸 Arkéa) manage to end up in 12^th^ position (before G.Martin🇫🇷, Jorgenson🇺🇸 and various climbers, in a bad day or not)? 👀 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?