The Official Lanterne Rouge Thread 2025 [spoilers]

[matticus]

Here on the rest day, I think it's probably a good point to take a minute to reflect on the position and time gaps here.

pfft. I tuned in for a highlights package.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I think this thread is a great contribution to the sport

It is terrible that the main channels spend so little time concentrating on the jerseys pooteling along at the front
and totally fail to focus on the great efforts made at the back to convince the DS's that they really can't do any more today

Thanks to all for keeping this Great Race alive and - well not kicking- rather sauntering along peacefully

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

pfft. I tuned in for a highlights package.

I believe that was covered by the bikini bottoms yesterday

 

[matticus]

I believe that was covered by the bikini bottoms yesterday

I only understand one-post-in-five on this thread. (on a good day).

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

I only understand one-post-in-five on this thread. (on a good day).

Imagine the danger we'd be in if I stopped doing this and actually went outside though

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I believe that was covered by the bikini bottoms yesterday

That's my natural colour, not highlights at all.

 

[Pross]

Here on the rest day, I think it's probably a good point to take a minute to reflect on the position and time gaps here.
We have no fewer than six contenders within 5 minutes of the bottom spot, and the bottom ten are all within 10 and half minutes or so, the bottom twenty inside 15ish minutes.

This is unprecedentedly close. By this point we would normally expect to see ten minutes separating the bottom four or five, and often even between last and second last. This might not be settled until Paris.

One for the ages

 

[Pinno718]

Oh no; we've lost Pross. He's got the dreaded Hatch syndrome.

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

Onwards to what French TV was calling stage siezed. DW40'll sort that, fellas. Buoyed by an ideal profile for the lanterne - a pan flat race across the flat followed by a single climb on which to throw away oodles of lovely time, nobody oodled better than Thomas Gachignard to bookend the stage with French winners on the Tour's most famous mountain.

As with any winner on Ventoux, Gachignard's success required him to turn himself inside out, and to listen to the lad himself that's apparently what he's been doing from both ends over the last 24 hours. Turns out the incredible speed today was just everybody trying to get away from him...

You might expect this sort of performance to send Gachignard up the rankings, but in fact his 100km solo break brought him a mere 11 places as the wily LR regulars paced themselves cleverly to the expected cut off. No wonder TV showed the poor chap in tears.

Elsewhere this most unpredictable of contests saw Meeus maintain his lead, but Consonni rode carefully to move into second and Fabian Lienhard now rounds out the podium. Fodorov looks to be coming back into form in fourth, but Edward Theuns will be kicking himself. You can't make mistakes like that at this level.

I'll let my Little Alex Horne provide the usual, and let's see what tomorrow brings in the greatest race of all.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Apologies for the delay, I got caught up writing a short story about a magician's assistant who saws their magician in half. No idea where the idea came from, but the basic theme is that the magician deserved it and the assistant gets away with it. Not sure how the assistant actually manages that yet, for some reason I was more focused on how to set the whole story in a naval museum.

Anyway, for those of you whose thumbs are too fat to type the URL for PCS and whose entire internet experience now consists of pressing F5 on this page, here are the results

On the stage we saw an impressive long range attack by Thomas Gachignard, closely preceded by the slow sprints of Arnaud Démare and Dylan Groenewegen. Pointe de chaussure* to all

In the GC, Démare's second place on the stage sees him drop into the bottom ten again. I think he's been in the bottom ten before at any rate. Pretty much everyone else has. Démare's success was at the cost of Luka Mezgec. Luka doesn't live on the second floor, in fact he doesn't appear to know which floor he lives on. I think he might have passed out in the elevator because he's up and down the whole time. Somebody should probably check. The Ballerini-Consonni Continuum rolled in together again, and one of them is lower on the GC than the other, but like Schrödinger's cat, I can't tell you which or I'll have to kill you, so don't ask, alright?

Hats cover the TOP of the head, right? That's not appropriate here.

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

Still wide open this, isn't it? 9 riders still within ten minutes, just over five minutes holds the top five. Still everything to play for.

 

[Pblakeney]

A lot of familiar names on the board now we are getting closer to the finale.
Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I'll just leave this here... They're doing their best!

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

I'll just leave this here... They're doing their best!

View attachment 781075

Terrible effort, that. If they're trying to help him they need to be holding it across the road.

 

[Pross]

Poor by Meeus today, got stuck in a very small group at the wrong end of the race but luckily as it happened in the final km he didn't lose any serious ground and possibly avoided any damage at all. Very lucky to have that rule enforced.