Tour de France 2025 (CONTAINS SPOILERS!)

[wakemalcolm]

I can, still, remember Richard Keys (and his hairy forearms) presenting the daily highlights show in 1986. ITV raised the bar in 2002; and now -after 39 years - Le Grand Boucle is disappearing behind a paywall.
Sad times.

He appeared to be sat in reception of the Channel 4 offices. Did he have a side kick or was he just a conduit to hand over to Phil?

 

[Mo1959]

End of the itv and Ch4 era today, Gary Imlach & co on for one last time live from 1500 BST. 😥

It’ll be the last time watching live cycling for me unless TNT see sense and reduce the ridiculous cost of a subscription.

At least it’ll stop me from sitting on my bum watching telly when I could be outdoors getting some exercise instead.

 

[wakemalcolm]

It’ll be the last time watching live cycling for me unless TNT see sense and reduce the ridiculous cost of a subscription.

At least it’ll stop me from sitting on my bum watching telly when I could be outdoors getting some exercise instead.

Heard you were watching a hookey feed yesterday, Mo.
Welcome to the dark side.

 

[wakemalcolm]

He appeared to be sat in reception of the Channel 4 offices. Did he have a side kick or was he just a conduit to hand over to Phil?

Corrections corner: Nick Owen was the first presenter on C4.

 

[Mike_P]

It’ll be the last time watching live cycling for me unless TNT see sense and reduce the ridiculous cost of a subscription.

At least it’ll stop me from sitting on my bum watching telly when I could be outdoors getting some exercise instead.

There will still be some free live racing on the BBC (iPlayer no doubt) and Youtube such as the British Cycling channel.

 

[Mo1959]

Heard you were watching a hookey feed yesterday, Mo.
Welcome to the dark side.

Sadly it cut out after a while and I can’t be bothered with VPNs, etc to try and get something else. Although I’ve really enjoyed it, I can live without it.

 

[Evil_Breakfast]

He appeared to be sat in reception of the Channel 4 offices. Did he have a side kick or was he just a conduit to hand over to Phil?

I remember that! A long-ish space/room with net drapes, you could see pedestrians going about their business.

 

[DeadCalm]

They will give it to the random Frenchman. It should be called the Thomas de Gendt award, not combativity.

Despite there being a compelling case for Jegat whose epic, almost tragi-comic efforts of to steal into the top 10 launching doomed attack after doomed attack were sadly almost totally ignored by the English speaking media, it has gone to Ben Healy.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Not sure it's going to be that sort of race now they've added the Montmartre. Nobody really knows what to expect, or even if there will be a Champagne and smiles for the camera start.

Rumours of a possible race neutralisation (GC times freeze) if it rains though - those cobbles would be an ice rink



😱 That is no way to talk about your mother! Wash your mouth out!

They still have either 3 or 4 laps of the Champs before they head off to Montmatre, so can still give a rider the honour of leading onto the Champs

 

[rich p]

Ed

I miss those hairy scabs!

Quinn Simmons?

 

[DeadCalm]

As for the rest of the team being too fatigued to drop Pog (@DeadCalm's point you were replying to), they've never been trying to drop Pog, they've been trying to drop UAE teammates, and they've succeeded almost every time they've tried. After that it's all up to Jonas.

I honestly don't see that much they could have done different, other than the Hautacam stage. Maybe not bring Wout in the first place, who's looked cooked by the Giro. Vingegaard is the only rider in the world that has a chance of dropping Pog, and he needs to be flying and Pog on a bad that for that to happen. They've tried to engineer that all race and yes, they're knackered as well, that's the price. The fact that Pog's ridden conservatively, has turned up his nose at potential stage wins and is showing signs of a lot of fatigue now suggests they've done alright without being able to finish the job. Meanwhile a load of people who've claimed they don't understand Visma's tactics (despite being the same strat they've employed before) are all asking "what's up with Pog, does he have a cold, is he ill and hiding it?" while Pog's standing there saying "I wanna get this over and go home, it's been a tough Tour with people attacking me from all sides". I mean he's literally telling them directly why he's knackered and moody and not enjoying it, but there must be some mystery illness or something because there's no other reason they can see...

I think some of the criticism of Visma's tactics has been way over the top. I've seen them described as "idiotic" and "knuckleheaded" which I don't think is fair*. As you say, they were pretty much the same as worked in 22 and 23, after all. However, I think that there are some important differences between those years and this that mean those tactics were sub-optimal for this year. In particular, in my view, the strategy of sending satellite riders up the road was not working and should have been abandoned. There were a number of issues with that strategy.

1. This was an unusually brutal edition of the race. Getting into breakaways took huge amounts of energy. UAE were strong enough to keep most of the breaks reasonably close meaning that the satellite riders were expending lots of energy trying to stay away.

2. UAE are stronger than they were in 22 and 23 but were a man down once Almeida crashed out. As you say, Visma did manage to isolate Pogacar on occasion but invariably ran out of riders to push on (because they had men up the road) allowing the UAE domestiques to return.

3. In any event, to be of any use, Vingegaard would need to get to a satellite rider with a gap to Pogacar. That just never looked likely to happen, certainly with the way that Jonas was attacking. Jonas doesn't have the explosiveness to burst away from Pogacar without a team mate double tagging him (22) or Pogacar being a little undercooked (23). The best chance (slim, but the best chance) of cracking Pogacar would have been long, sustained efforts from the bottom of the climbs but when push came to shove, they didn't have the riders there to sustain the pace.

In my view, they'd have been better keeping WVA, Jorgensen and Campanaerts for a Team Sky style train.


*Jorgensen joining O' Connor and Rubio excepted

 

[kaadublin]

I can, still, remember Richard Keys (and his hairy forearms) presenting the daily highlights show in 1986. ITV raised the bar in 2002; and now -after 39 years - Le Grand Boucle is disappearing behind a paywall.
Sad times.

That was my introduction to the Tour many years ago. It is definitely the end of an era.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

I think some of the criticism of Visma's tactics has been way over the top. I've seen them described as "idiotic" and "knuckleheaded" which I don't think is fair*. As you say, they were pretty much the same as worked in 22 and 23, after all. However, I think that there are some important differences between those years and this that mean those tactics were sub-optimal for this year. In particular, in my view, the strategy of sending satellite riders up the road was not working and should have been abandoned. There were a number of issues with that strategy.

1. This was an unusually brutal edition of the race. Getting into breakaways took huge amounts of energy. UAE were strong enough to keep most of the breaks reasonably close meaning that the satellite riders were expending lots of energy trying to stay away.

2. UAE are stronger than they were in 22 and 23 but were a man down once Almeida crashed out. As you say, Visma did manage to isolate Pogacar on occasion but invariably ran out of riders to push on (because they had men up the road) allowing the UAE domestiques to return.

3. In any event, to be of any use, Vingegaard would need to get to a satellite rider with a gap to Pogacar. That just never looked likely to happen, certainly with the way that Jonas was attacking. Jonas doesn't have the explosiveness to burst away from Pogacar without a team mate double tagging him (22) or Pogacar being a little undercooked (23). The best chance (slim, but the best chance) of cracking Pogacar would have been long, sustained efforts from the bottom of the climbs but when push came to shove, they didn't have the riders there to sustain the pace.

In my view, they'd have been better keeping WVA, Jorgensen and Campanaerts for a Team Sky style train.


*Jorgensen joining O' Connor and Rubio excepted

I think the problem with the long sustained effort with a train is that they're climbing so fast now that the benefit of sitting behind a couple of riders is no longer marginal. When Pog and Vingegaard can do 20km/h up HC climbs solo what will you need from your train, 25km/h? More? It's going to be really tough to shake Pog out like that.

Ignoring the fact that Jonas was on a bad day, Pog's time up the Hautacam showed the level he'd have to be - Pog was about 1:30 faster than Vingegaard in '22 (obviously different races, contexts, conditions etc). Now I think Vingegaard was probably close to that level this year when on his better days, but it's clear he's going to need a big slice of luck to get the better of Pog even on the territory where he used to have an advantage.

At the end of the day, Pog is just a stronger rider than Vingegaard, even on ground where Vingegaard used to be marginally better. There's no easy way around that, I think Pog's literally unbeatable unless he has a bad day.

 

[mididoctors]

Will G get the honour of rolling into Paris first, as a former winner on his last visit to the Champs?

No he will just drift out the back unnoticed

 

[mididoctors]

Jorgensen under performed ..... Hard to see any tactics working without him firing on more cylinders