Tour de France 2025 (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

[Lanterne Rogue]

To me, the only way that could have worked was if Visma set the tempo in the peloton.
UAE were never going to do the job of keeping the breakaway within bridging range.

Thinking about it, I half wonder if an element of keeping him up there was to dissuade UAE from doing anything - they'd only bring Yates into play.

 

[T4tomo]

Surely by virtue of arriving at the finish a number of minutes ahead of the leaders, he did a bit more work than he would have had he sat in the bunch. It also makes me chuckle that on an up and down day people seem to give drafting magical powers, like Yates barely had to pedal yesterday.

what was the average speed of yesterdays stage?

 

[kaadublin]

If it’s as good as the stuff going on round here in the Alps I doubt you’ll be gloating. The French really haven’t moved on musically from Jonny Holiday.
Have you heard Toto’s Africa played by an out of tune orchestra. Now listening to disco coming from the Railway workers family holiday centre and the sound of someone putting bottles in the near by bottle bank is a better listen.

I'm happy to report that once the two national anthems were sung, and the Ode to Joy, the piped music faded into the background. And the Ambassador congratulated Ben Healy in her speech.

 

[kaadublin]

what was the average speed of yesterdays stage?

38.134 for Yates, according to PCS

 

[Blazing Saddles]

Surely by virtue of arriving at the finish a number of minutes ahead of the leaders, he did a bit more work than he would have had he sat in the bunch. It also makes me chuckle that on an up and down day people seem to give drafting magical powers, like Yates barely had to pedal yesterday.

Once the break is established, there would be little difference in effort, whether sat in the bunch, or at the rear of the breakaway.
However, getting into said breakaway would have required significantly more effort than conserving energy in the bunch.

I think we are tending to over analyse this aspect, simply because it’s supposedly Visma’s strategy re Pog.

 

[Pblakeney]

Equally isolating Pog is hardly going to achieve anything as he would just sit on the back of Visma until he does his explosive acceleration. Beyond teams grouping together so they have enough riders to box Pog in / road block him the only thing I can see isolating him is going to achieve is Visma hoping has a mechanical with the UAE team car absent.

I said as much (on BR) way back in 2020 when everybody was wondering how anyone could beat Roglic in the Visma train and I suggested that all that was needed was a strong rider to sit on the back of the train and pop up for the wins. Up popped a certain Tadej Pogacar.
I think that having a strong team is overrated*, but that is only my opinion.

*A possible exception is to help out with mechanicals but then you need an identical sized bike.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Surely by virtue of arriving at the finish a number of minutes ahead of the leaders, he did a bit more work than he would have had he sat in the bunch. It also makes me chuckle that on an up and down day people seem to give drafting magical powers, like Yates barely had to pedal yesterday.

IIRC,drafting gets increasingly beneficial from around 12mph (20kph), saving up to ~33% of the Watts being put out by the rider(s) at the front of the group.

The GC group were surging throughout most of the stage, while most breakaways I've watched tend to keep a fairly constant effort once the breakaway is established.

Yates was playing the role that Wout did for him on the final stage of the Giro, up the road ready to help from the top of the penultimate climb, but the GC group failed to catch the breakaway.

 

[mrushton]

Vinegar needs to quit wheelsucking and grow a pair. Almost as annoying as Rob Hyperbole Hatch....and I can't even turn the latter off this year.

Drives me nuts! you want to win, just go out and test him. You are the possible winner but sitting behind Pog and being a minute down isnt a great look. Go off on an attack and see if you can get a gap.

 

[T4tomo]

Drives me nuts! you want to win, just go out and test him. You are the possible winner but sitting behind Pog and being a minute down isnt a great look. Go off on an attack and see if you can get a gap.

Have we reached the high mountains yet?

No didn't think so.

I still recon Pog is the stronger, but Vin has nothing to gain by attacking Pog until they get to the Pyranees & Alps.

Simon Yates Giro win was gained by one well timed decisive attack. His capitulation in pink some year previous was in someways caused by being over aggressive on stages with little to gain.

 

[Pblakeney]

Have we reached the high mountains yet?

No didn't think so.

I still recon Pog is the stronger, but Vin has nothing to gain by attacking Pog until they get to the Pyranees & Alps.

Simon Yates Giro win was gained by one well timed decisive attack. His capitulation in pink some year previous was in someways caused by being over aggressive on stages with little to gain.

Not to mention the Yates attack was on the penultimate stage. People are being a bit premature.

 

[Lanterne Rogue]

.

*A possible exception is to help out with mechanicals but then you need an identical sized bike.

And going back to the car for drinks and food etc, which saves having to accelerate back on and likely adds up to quite a bit of saved energy over three weeks. And the psychological benefit of having a teammate. Plus being able to help you chase back on if it goes to chute. And probably quite a few other things that don't happen if you're on your own.

Let's put it another way. If isolating riders didn't add to their workload then nobody would waste energy doing it.

 

[Pross]

I said as much (on BR) way back in 2020 when everybody was wondering how anyone could beat Roglic in the Visma train and I suggested that all that was needed was a strong rider to sit on the back of the train and pop up for the wins. Up popped a certain Tadej Pogacar.
I think that having a strong team is overrated*, but that is only my opinion.

*A possible exception is to help out with mechanicals but then you need an identical sized bike.

Likewise I thought far too much was made of the 'efforts' Pog made closing down Jorgenson. All he did was slightly up his pace for a short time which also meant all the others also had to anyway so I'm not seeing how Jonas or anyone else had it any easier (very marginal drafting aside). He also forced others to do the work to close Remco when he got a gap. If VLAB want to test him they probably need to find a way to make him work harder than he'd like tomorrow before the TT on Thursday but again, Jonas still has to put in pretty much the same effort if he wants to stay on Pog's wheel so I really don't see a huge benefit of these much vaunted team tactics.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

And going back to the car for drinks and food etc, which saves having to accelerate back on and likely adds up to quite a bit of saved energy over three weeks. And the psychological benefit of having a teammate. Plus being able to help you chase back on if it goes to chute. And probably quite a few other things that don't happen if you're on your own.

Let's put it another way. If isolating riders didn't add to their workload then nobody would waste energy doing it.

And if fatigue wasn't a concern for Pog he'd have won a couple more stages and still be swanning round in yellow now. I think that irritates him hugely.

 

[T4tomo]

If VLAB want to test him they probably need to find a way to make him work harder than he'd like tomorrow on Thursday before the TT on Thursday Friday but again,

Thurs, Fri & Sat are going to be big GC shake up days
Big mountains. summit finishes, mountain TT. We are only just getting going.....

 

[phreak]

And going back to the car for drinks and food etc, which saves having to accelerate back on and likely adds up to quite a bit of saved energy over three weeks. And the psychological benefit of having a teammate. Plus being able to help you chase back on if it goes to chute. And probably quite a few other things that don't happen if you're on your own.

Let's put it another way. If isolating riders didn't add to their workload then nobody would waste energy doing it.

Surely that only really applies if said rider is isolated for a prolonged period of time? Depleted as UAE are at the moment, you'd still expect them to have someone with Pogacar up until the final climb, at which point everything bar the mechanicals and other acts of god are off the table.