The Official Lanterne Rouge Thread 2025 [spoilers]

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No Ta Doctor

Senior Member
Just for info, Skjelmose might be looking to get a Lanterne result tomorrow as he's decided to drop out of GC. He's 7 minutes back and wants to target the polkadots, but will probably need to convince the other minor GC players looking for top tens that he's seriously out of it.
 

No Ta Doctor

Senior Member
Well, after an epic "flat stage for the sprinters..." there's only one real story in the Lanterne Rouge standings. Huge groups came in together, effectively neutralising the stage for most, but Astana's podium placed Consoni Ballerini absolutely blew up, his tactic of getting in the early break and then slipping back through the pack when caught failing miserably as the break stayed away. His tenth place, only 1:11 after the first to cross the line has completely destroyed any hope of a placing.

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There was some movement in the bottom placings other than Davide shooting upwards and exploding like an Elon Musk rocket
Durbo accidentally fired his turbo and rose out of the bottom ten, Fedorov salvaged something for Astana by dropping into the bottom placings and Silvan Dilly-Dallier also managed to make the bottom ten.

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Edit: Apologies to Simone Consonni for: a) spelling his name wrong, b) alleging he rides for Astana, c) mixing him up with his compatriot Ballerini
 
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No Ta Doctor

Senior Member
So to stage 12, where 170 riders attempted to make a break for the Lanterne with varying levels of success. Pogacar was the big loser, unable to prevent the entire field taking a minimum of 2'12" on him.

Time gaps were difficult to come by at the important end of the race, with l'autobus coming in with over 40 minutes advantage on the day's fastest time. Nevertheless the inventive Bryan Coquard managed to find an additional 4 minutes by the novel method of breaking two fingers attempting to take a musette. Luka Mezgec came in with him, no doubt asking how he'd managed to pull off such an impressive and potentially prize-winning feat.

Astana's Ballerini came in with Lidl-Trek's Consonni. I'm assuming they were furiously discussing how they'd been mixed up on an internet forum Lanterne Rouge thread the day before.

Cees Bol ceased, withdrawing from the race before the start.

"For those of you following the race that really matters on two tin cans connected by a bit of string, here's the rankings for today's stage:"

The bottom 11 on the top of the Hautacam

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Not much movement in the placings, Guillaume was Bovine enough to slip down into the places that matter, at the expense of Sylvan Dillier who forgot to Dallier.

Jordi Meeus made down time on Matteo Vercher and dive-frogged Van Sintmaartensdijk, closing the gap to the bottom by over five minutes.

The bottom ten overall

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Lanterne Rogue

Lanterne Rogue

Well-Known Member
And so to another individual time trial, where the main suspense was whether the cut off was lenient enough given that the podium was almost certainly Pogacar followed by daylight, the start of that stupid Visma helmet, the middle of that stupid Visma helmet, the three extensions in the middle of the Visma helmet built in contravention of planning regulations, and finally somewhere underneath it all Vingegaard himself. It's even worse in the national colours, looking like something more suitable for serving in an Australian Beef Wellington. Australia - where even the food wants you dead (and the tourist agency can have that for free).

ANYWAY, at the other end Vercher's climb to Peyragudes was always going to be burdened by the weight of the nation (which certainly beats the weight of a bike chain dropped subtly down the seat tube in effectiveness). Vercher wisely declined to risk being caught Hors Dali (lit. "Melted like one of those clocks") and finished safely by securely outside the top ten.

Stage honours were taken by Mezgec after a brave piece of soft pedaling, None-more-merle and Elmo's reindeer rounded out the stage podium. Absolutely bugger all happened in the standings as a result - oddly my fault for realising the hotel had a) aircon, b) beer and c) French TV wetting themselves over Kevin Vauquelin, who annoys me for no other reason than his surname sounds a bit like Voeckler to this non-francophone and I'm absolutely done with that crap...

Onwards and (checks parcours) upwards! And downwards! And upwa- you get the idea...
 

No Ta Doctor

Senior Member
"For those of you following the Tour in Linear C: for the love of god could you please give us a bloody clue?"
Otherwise
"For those of you following the race on a ZX Spectrum in a hipster cafe in Prague, here's the most important news of the day..."

The stage, a brave ride from Luka who descended from where he lives on the 2nd floor
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The underall - absolutely no change in position, someone with more patience than me might to work out if anyone has made progress:

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