Tour de France 2025 (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

[No Ta Doctor]

1400 BST starts on ITV4, bit annoying if the cross tailwind splits things up on the pancake lead-in.

Just follow the thread, me and @mididoctors will surely keep you up to date............

Psssst, mididocs, follow my lead and we'll wind him up with echelons klaxon and split times!

 

[Animo]

I cant see the ITV highlights having much more than a 30 second intro, quick shot of the Inter sprint and then starting coverage around Bedoin or maybe the turn off into the forest...

Either that or there will be several lengthy and dull features from Friebe and Rendall about the history of the Tour while we all sit screaming at the TV for them to get back to the action.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

How the heck do you catch pneumonia during Tour?

Some riders racing while infected?

 

[Dogtrousers]

How the heck do you catch pneumonia during Tour?

Some riders racing while infected?

They are strange beasts these pro riders. They can laugh off a crash that would have any normal person off the bike for a month but they are super sensitive to infection. I doubt any of them could survive the 0834 from Catford to Charing Cross

 

[stage hunter]

MvdP out of the Tour with pneumonia.
That'll hurt as it is 60 years since his grandad won on Ventoux

Blimey. That can have long term implications. Hope he is allowed to recover properly- I suspect we wont see him much before the CX season.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

For fans of the old BR thread "What's Arthur [Vichot] seen?", Guillaume Martin is doing a decent impression here.

I believe the translation into normal language* is:
"It's not just Tadej who wants victory today, there are a number of riders who want it."

*Copyright Mididoctors's Gascon translation app

 

[Dorset Boy]

Oh I actually think a lot of it is genuine.

The podcast Pollitt was on where he talked about a blacklist on the fridge - riders that wouldn't be allowed to win/get in a break. Pretty clear that Van Aert and Jorgenson especially are on it. I'm told Eenkhoorn confirmed he talked to Van Aert about it on Avondetappe (Dutch TV). When Jonas (and every other GC rider) is caught behind he has the DS very publicly tell him to slow it, and he does a bit of arm waving in the full knowledge the race for the break is on, then carries on chasing Jorgenson down so the break takes ages to get away - and with Wellens in it! Then he does the "weird Visma tactics, Jonas should be pissed off" interview just to try and cause some Visma tension and have Jonas answering soap-opera questions on the rest day. Van Aert is right that Pog could have just sat up and dropped back and the problem was solved immediately - the break would have gone away with no dangerous GC riders in it and everyone could chill.

Incidentally, before the break split up Wellens didn't take a pull - sat there saying he had Pog behind him, then attacks. Some might say that's canny racing, others might be a bit put out by it. I'm not sure it won him a lot of friends.

So at the end of the day, Pog got his teammate into a break that he won from after doing little work, protected his teammate by not letting Visma get Jorgenson into the break, kept Jonas chasing to get back and sowed the seeds of another Visma tactics/team cohesion media shitstorm but still gets to come out of it with everyone sniffing his @rse and saying it smells of roses

Take your VLAB glasses off.
Pretty sure Wout was in the break, and possibly another VLAB.
The pace of the yellow jersey group slowed considerably once the message that Jonas had fallen off came through. They're not going to stop, and Jonas had quite a big time gap to close down, but JV was hardly put into the red to do it.
Perhaps if Jorgensen hadn't been a massive tool trying to stop UAE riders getting fed he might be allowed up the road too.

 

[T4tomo]

They are strange beasts these pro riders. They can laugh off a crash that would have any normal person off the bike for a month but they are super sensitive to infection. I doubt any of them could survive the 0834 from Catford to Charing Cross

👍
Folding bikes only at that time of day too!

 

[Dorset Boy]

They are strange beasts these pro riders. They can laugh off a crash that would have any normal person off the bike for a month but they are super sensitive to infection. I doubt any of them could survive the 0834 from Catford to Charing Cross

Not really a surprise given how they push themselves and the impact that has on their immune systems.

 

[mididoctors]

MvdP DNS

 

[mididoctors]

Carrying a cold into damp.mountain stages ,... If you have a cold don't ride over the tourmalet in a damp fog.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Take your VLAB glasses off.
Pretty sure Wout was in the break, and possibly another VLAB.
The pace of the yellow jersey group slowed considerably once the message that Jonas had fallen off came through. They're not going to stop, and Jonas had quite a big time gap to close down, but JV was hardly put into the red to do it.
Perhaps if Jorgensen hadn't been a massive tool trying to stop UAE riders getting fed he might be allowed up the road too.

You've not really argued with much I wrote there, you've simply tried to justify it. Yes Van Aert was eventually allowed up the road, but only with a UAE rider to mark him and not do any work, and without Jorgenson as second option. Campenaerts was also there but his role would have been to help Van Aert if things had gone to plan.

If the speed at the front had dropped significantly then they'd have closed a minute's gap quickly. They didn't. Jonas didn't have to use much more than any other day, but he did close the hundred meters alone, after Yates, Affini and Kuss had done loads of work.

If Jorgenson has a habit of preventing UAE getting feeds then you'll be able to show me more than a single example of it, yeah? I mean, it's not like they show every minute of every stage to millions of people who are always on the lookout for things like that and will have trawled the footage trying to find one. And I've still not seen any real evidence that it was deliberate rather than just stupid.

If you'd take your own Pog tinted spectacles off you'd recognise the staged theatre of UAE's radio call to slow down while Pog controlled Jorgenson and kept the break from going.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Carrying a cold into damp.mountain stages ,... If you have a cold don't ride over the tourmalet in a damp fog.

Not when half of that fog is the exhalation of thousands of spectators.

 

[Blazing Saddles]

I have to agree with DB. The commentators were at pains to point out that Pogacâr did what he could, but couldn’t control such a big group of breakaway hopefuls who were never going to sit up and wait for the peloton to suck them up.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

For the URGENT ATTENION of @N0bodyOfTheGoat :

ECHELONS!!!! ECHELONS!!!! SOUND THE KLAXON!!!!

For everybody else, don't worry, we're still in the neutral zone