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2022 Tour de Francis


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1 hour ago, Whitewater Horn said:

Wout van Merckx. What a ludicrous sight to see the green jersey flying up the Hautacam in the lead for so long. 

At one point you had a guy who locked up the green jersey about to win the polka dots while dropping one of the worlds best climbers on Hautacam. L o l

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Pretty wild having a simultaneous double squeeze play from cars and motorbikes.  Pretty sure I heard, "Dammit Chloe!" out of Jack Bauer.

Loved seeing JV grab the yellow, but thought for sure TP would soon grab it back.  Then after JV kept holding it and making this a good race, unexpectedly I started rooting for TP to win it back for Paris.  But that sportsmanship move today by JV changed that.  

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7 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

Yes. FIrst Vingegaard had a small slip. Then Pogacar took a bad line that led to him going into a ditch.

Did a Spandelles and Aubisque double years ago, from the opposite direction today. Spandelles was supposed to be the easy warm up with a 5.5% avg gradient. What that ended up with was a km of 3% then 9, then 18, then 5, then 7, then 2, then a ramp of 25… brutal. This was before they paved it so naturally all the steep stuff was broken road and quasi gravel. A glorified farmer’s back road to nowhere - my kind of ride but I had nothing for the Aubisque. Other than that, the main hazard were flocks of sheep on the road.

I can’t say how hard the second half of Hautacam is. The first half is hard enough and then you pass through a little village with schoolchildren cheering you from flower-draped windows of centuries-old farmhouses. Then reality hits hard. As you climb you get these little signposts that tell you what the next kilometer’s gradient is - utterly demoralizing, but a beautiful climb.

Love the Pyrenees. Will wait for the end of the Tour to threadshit my B&B recommendations in this valley. 

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On 7/19/2022 at 11:00 AM, Captain Ron said:
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Not sure how I got all these fucking quote boxes on here and I couldn’t find a way to get rid of them, so I’ll just post here.  I think this tour is a good learning experience for Pogacar.  I’m convinced he and UAE fucked it all up, but he’s still the best talent out there and I’ll bet he will lose a few lbs and come back next year and take an all business approach.  Hopefully we can see a fully healthy matchup with Pogacar, Vingegaard, and Bernal. My money is on Pog.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Horn Dogg said:

 

 

Agreed. I don’t think he’s getting much tactical advice from his team car, or he’s ignoring it. This will cool his jets a bit and make him a little more tactical. Maybe. At least he’ll never underestimate Vingegaard again. 
 

For those of you who like graphs and data : https://lanternerouge.com.au/2022/07/21/vingegaard-does-the-fastest-hautacam-since-armstrong/

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5 hours ago, Txzen said:

Agreed. I don’t think he’s getting much tactical advice from his team car, or he’s ignoring it. This will cool his jets a bit and make him a little more tactical. Maybe. At least he’ll never underestimate Vingegaard again. 
 

For those of you who like graphs and data : https://lanternerouge.com.au/2022/07/21/vingegaard-does-the-fastest-hautacam-since-armstrong/

3 decades of difference and w/kg still rules the roost.  Relationship to time elapsed still a monotonic function.  2.5 decades of "tech improvements" on armstrong and leblanc is still not enough to overcome their 0.10-0.20 higher specific power output

image.psd.png

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Lance made the point a day or two ago on his podacst that the Hautecam time records are meaningless not only because the weather conditions vary so much from year to year but primarily because where they race too is different each time i.e. the finish is at different places on the top of the mountain.  That is what he said.

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1 hour ago, mdmost said:

This stage is just Paris porn for me. 

Totally. One of the great cities of the world. I have so many great memories of living in Europe in my early 20s, and Paris was among our favorite stomping grounds to make memories as a young Americans (and others) seeing the world. I love going back as often as I can, and the next time taking my soon to be college aged kids to show them Europe, but especially Paris. It never gets old. 

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3 minutes ago, Whitewater Horn said:

Totally. One of the great cities of the world. I have so many great memories of living in Europe in my early 20s, and Paris was among our favorite stomping grounds to make memories as a young Americans (and others) seeing the world. I love going back as often as I can, and the next time taking my soon to be college aged kids to show them Europe, but especially Paris. It never gets old. 

Goosebumps every time the plane fly over the Champs.  

On a personal note, the Tour ending means school is about to start back up.  But, so is football!

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I have to admit, watching the Women's TDF makes me wonder about some of these women and if they should be riding as a pros? There was another huge crash today that was a huge head scratchier. And given the frequency of the crashes, I just wonder if there aren't a good number of "pro" cyclist that shouldn't be yet.

The injuries from this one were pretty gnarly. You could tell that one of the ladies took a cog (or even cassette) to the arm. One of the feeds is tapped into the race radios, it's pretty cool.

But as far as some of the amateur shit you can see was this rider taking a wrong turn near the finish, WTF?!?!

 

 

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On 7/28/2022 at 4:14 PM, Captain Ron said:

I have to admit, watching the Women's TDF makes me wonder about some of these women and if they should be riding as a pros? There was another huge crash today that was a huge head scratchier. And given the frequency of the crashes, I just wonder if there aren't a good number of "pro" cyclist that shouldn't be yet.

The injuries from this one were pretty gnarly. You could tell that one of the ladies took a cog (or even cassette) to the arm. One of the feeds is tapped into the race radios, it's pretty cool.

But as far as some of the amateur shit you can see was this rider taking a wrong turn near the finish, WTF?!?!

 

 

Reminds me of the Formula W crash at Spa a few years ago. 

 

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I'm not sure what category I would put Wout in, but I guess sprinter is as good as any.   I think Wout could be a GC guy if he had team support.  My totally casual and uninformed opinion is that he wins the Sprints/Green Jersey on stages that the true Sprinters suffer on.  He's the best sprinter out of the guys that can actually go up hill without imploding.

Want to see what Kuss can do this year.  Dude has a motor and now he's more experienced.

 

Don't really care about Vingegaard, he's up there in the most punchable face category.

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He's still young and resilient, but I really don't think Pogačar is going to be a serious contender this year.  I think that crash where he hurt his wrist derailed his training.  He was in good form before that, so who knows, but if I'm betting, but money is going on someone else, Vingegaard until proven otherwise.   

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Just a casual chiming in (follow UCI World Cup stuff but not so much road or track cycling cuz I hate the "team" or "pack" aspect of it) with a question:

Why isn't MvdP considered a GC threat? Dude is a beast on gravel and dirt so I figured that should translate to road, as well. But I'm asking out of pure ignorance cuz I didn't even know he'd switched to grand tours until seeing him in that reddit spreadsheet that G650 linked.

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19 hours ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Just a casual chiming in (follow UCI World Cup stuff but not so much road or track cycling cuz I hate the "team" or "pack" aspect of it) with a question:

Why isn't MvdP considered a GC threat? Dude is a beast on gravel and dirt so I figured that should translate to road, as well. But I'm asking out of pure ignorance cuz I didn't even know he'd switched to grand tours until seeing him in that reddit spreadsheet that G650 linked.

He doesn't really have the build to survive in the high mountains. That said nothing is impossible, he could have a decent GC result. But he is breakaway stage hunter in most GTs. He has worn yellow before though.

 

 

Also, very important information

 

 

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He's still young and resilient, but I really don't think Pogačar is going to be a serious contender this year.  I think that crash where he hurt his wrist derailed his training.  He was in good form before that, so who knows, but if I'm betting, but money is going on someone else, Vingegaard until proven otherwise.   

Remains to be seen how much he was affected. I think he is a bit better overall than VG. I think he made a tactical mistake in stage 11 last year which may have cost him the race. He kept trying to counter all the Jumbo Visma attacks instead of focusing on PG. That plus losing 4 teammates by the end of the tour. Jumbo Visma wore him out. Not sure how the teams compare this year.
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35 minutes ago, TexPx said:


Remains to be seen how much he was affected. I think he is a bit better overall than VG. I think he made a tactical mistake in stage 11 last year which may have cost him the race. He kept trying to counter all the Jumbo Visma attacks instead of focusing on PG. That plus losing 4 teammates by the end of the tour. Jumbo Visma wore him out. Not sure how the teams compare this year.

Eh, Vinegaard was clearly better in the high mountains, wasn't super close. That said, I think Pog could have ridden the race overall better and been able to maybe win.

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1 hour ago, TexPx said:


Remains to be seen how much he was affected. I think he is a bit better overall than VG. I think he made a tactical mistake in stage 11 last year which may have cost him the race. He kept trying to counter all the Jumbo Visma attacks instead of focusing on PG. That plus losing 4 teammates by the end of the tour. Jumbo Visma wore him out. Not sure how the teams compare this year.

I agree that we will have to see what Pogačar's form is before discounting him as a contender.  I just have a feeling that it won't be where it needs to be.  Also while Emirates definitely has some talent and depth, I don't think they are quite at Jumbo's level, which means Pogačar has to do more work than Vingegaard.  That was part of the issue last year.  I could be wrong, and one crash or illness could easily tilt the scales.  I'm looking forward to seeing it play out, regardless.  

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On 6/29/2023 at 11:48 AM, G650 said:

Eh, Vinegaard was clearly better in the high mountains, wasn't super close. That said, I think Pog could have ridden the race overall better and been able to maybe win.

I think Vinegaard caught Pog on a bad day and punished him.   Jumbo was the better team and carried Vinegaard. IMO

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