Tour de France 2025 (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

[Beebo]

Lidl to put Quinn in the break ?

He does seem to have been in quite a few breaks so far, or is he just getting a lot of air time.
Maybe it’s the Keith Lemon hair and awful jersey.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Sure but then Pog would be giving up the lead to Jorgensen which would indicate that he has blown. In which case Vingegaard jumps and drops him too. VLAB have a one-two. All hypothetical at this stage.

There's a lot of ways it could all play out. UAE no longer have a secondary GC rider to counter the 1-2 threat with their own. Jorgenson would be zero threat to Pog if it were just the two of them, but he can't really let him get a GC lead while he still has to keep Vingegaard behind him. But it's unlikely to come to that anyway, as Pog won't let him up the road to get the lead in case Jonas can use him for an attack. We saw he also chased Kuss down, didn't he (who has no GC potential now, he's miles back)? The TT will also straighten a lot out and I suspect any GC role for Jorgenson is gone after that.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

He does seem to have been in quite a few breaks so far, or is he just getting a lot of air time.
Maybe it’s the Keith Lemon hair and awful jersey.

He seems to be very good at getting into breaks, less good at finishing them. Stage 10 Trek kept telling him to pace himself and not do too much work, but he didn't seem to listen and eventually attacked and blew himself up.

 

[Pross]

There was definitely some confusion and error, because stage 4 isn't Laval, it's Rouen. And Laval did have a 5km - I remember this mix up at the time.



No problem then, the fight for position just starts a bit earlier, as the fight to get into the left lane
They honestly need to take the island out (and they probably have) or someone will end up getting sued.

Better to do it on a straight section than actually going into the bend though, you can filter them down over a longer distance

 

[Pross]

Sure but then Pog would be giving up the lead to Jorgensen which would indicate that he has blown. In which case Vingegaard jumps and drops him too. VLAB have a one-two. All hypothetical at this stage.

Not really. If Jorgensen goes up the road as a planned move to force Pog to chase and Pog doesn't bother as he doesn't really see Jorgensen as a long term threat Jorgensen becomes a threat to Jonas (and others) before Pog. I can't see a situation where Jorgensen gets a race winning lead so why waste energy on him? Are Remco and the rest going to let him ride away? He's one minute less of a threat to Pog than he is to all the others.

 

[Pblakeney]

Not really. If Jorgensen goes up the road as a planned move to force Pog to chase and Pog doesn't bother as he doesn't really see Jorgensen as a long term threat Jorgensen becomes a threat to Jonas (and others) before Pog. I can't see a situation where Jorgensen gets a race winning lead so why waste energy on him? Are Remco and the rest going to let him ride away? He's one minute less of a threat to Pog than he is to all the others.

Time will tell. Only thing I know for sure is that he keeps attacking Pog, and Pog keeps following, and Vingegaard keeps with Pog.
That tires Vingegaard's legs as much as it does Pog's. Time will tell.

 

[TakeTheHighRoad]

There's a lot of ways it could all play out. UAE no longer have a secondary GC rider to counter the 1-2 threat with their own. Jorgenson would be zero threat to Pog if it were just the two of them, but he can't really let him get a GC lead while he still has to keep Vingegaard behind him. But it's unlikely to come to that anyway, as Pog won't let him up the road to get the lead in case Jonas can use him for an attack. We saw he also chased Kuss down, didn't he (who has no GC potential now, he's miles back)? The TT will also straighten a lot out and I suspect any GC role for Jorgenson is gone after that.

He only chased Jorg down on Stage 10, he let Kuss go

He also randomly let Remco go slightly, but then chased him down (or forced others to chase him down, the footage was unclear)

 

[No Ta Doctor]

He only chased Jorg down on Stage 10, he let Kuss go

He also randomly let Remco go slightly, but then chased him down (or forced others to chase him down, the footage was unclear)

Yeah, I remember now - Kuss sat up because someone else - Vauquelin? - came with him

Time will tell. Only thing I know for sure is that he keeps attacking Pog, and Pog keeps following, and Vingegaard keeps with Pog.
That tires Vingegaard's legs as much as it does Pog's. Time will tell.

It doesn't though, does it? That's why riders have teams to do this chasing and closing for them. When Visma ambushed Pog that first time with Roglic and Vingegaard it was Pog that got cooked, not Jonas. It was fantastic team tactics, not Vingegaards legs getting tired because he had to follow Pog when he closed Roglic's attacks.

 

[rich p]

The Jorgenson (possible) manoeuvre/strategy would only work in bigger mountain stages, a la Roglic and Vinny,a few years back on the Granon?

And then only if Pog thinks Jorgenson as serious a threat as he did Roglic.

 

[Adam4868]

So many what ifs....🤣
What other tactic do Visma have other than chipping away hoping to find a weakness in UAE and more importantly Pog....to be fair they're the only team that seems to be trying so far,and as far as I can see they haven't found one.Im hoping Rogla has been pacing himself and got something to offer ?
So far I think Pogs held himself back a little..but I'm sure we'll have a better idea by weekend.

 

[Adam4868]

The Jorgenson (possible) manoeuvre/strategy would only work in bigger mountain stages, a la Roglic and Vinny,a few years back on the Granon?

And then only if Pog thinks Jorgenson as serious a threat as he did Roglic.

Pog seems a level up since 2022....a good couple of levels !

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I did wonder why Vin didn't have a dig when Pog stopped his surge on Monday.

But someone suggested it would be a big effort for little gain, because Pog ought to be able to keep up.

However, Vin is so far keeping with Pog's surges, surely it's worth trying his own surge attack on a short rampy climb at least once?

Everyone is saying Vin's best chance is in the big mountains, but just like Vin has improved his surge defence of short rampy climbs, Pog is surely going to have trained to improve his big mountain threshold numbers.

I fear Vin's best chance is an extreme heat day in the big mountains.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

The Jorgenson (possible) manoeuvre/strategy would only work in bigger mountain stages, a la Roglic and Vinny,a few years back on the Granon?

And then only if Pog thinks Jorgenson as serious a threat as he did Roglic.

Not quite. Firstly, if he chases on smaller days then it's the attritional approach that might wear him down a little, but secondly, while I don't think Pog needs to fear Jorgenson at all, he won't want him up the road if Jonas launches something and can use him there. So he won't be allowed up the road.

Anyway, aren't all the mountain stages huge now?

 

[Adam4868]

Not quite. Firstly, if he chases on smaller days then it's the attritional approach that might wear him down a little, but secondly, while I don't think Pog needs to fear Jorgenson at all, he won't want him up the road if Jonas launches something and can use him there. So he won't be allowed up the road.

Anyway, aren't all the mountain stages huge now?

Team evil hate Jorgenson right 🤣
He's not going anywhere......

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I did wonder why Vin didn't have a dig when Pog stopped his surge on Monday.

But someone suggested it would be a big effort for little gain, because Pog ought to be able to keep up.

However, Vin is so far keeping with Pog's surges, surely it's worth trying his own surge attack at least once?

Everyone is saying Vin's best chance is in the big mountains, but just like Vin has improved his surge defence of short rampy climbs, Pog is surely going to have trained to improve his big mountain threshold numbers.

On stage ten the climb wasn't really long or steep enough to make a difference - at the speed they're going during an attack there's a few % points to be gained by being in the wheel. It was also far more Pog territory than Jonas, so would have been risky to try anything there. Åart of Visma's aggressive riding in the first ten days was to limit the bonus seconds / small gaps that Pog has often got on this sort of terrain.

We'll find out a lot more soon, but Pog's new seated attacks (longer duration, lower max power) worked well for him in Dauphine, while it looks like Vingegaard can hold the wheel for the punchier attacks. Hopefully Jonas has closed the gap from the Dauphine as it might otherwise be race over soon. So far they've mainly been measuring each other, so I'm sure the data nerds will be analysing the results to see what might work in the mountains.