Vive la Revolutions: Tour de France 2018

<3 Dan Martin

What a finish! Dan Martin gets stronger every year

kind of a boring stage, tbh

is anyone listening to The Move, lance armstrong's podcast? as much as i personally dislike him, i gotta say that his race analysis and insight into the workings of the peloton is pretty engrossing. i'm kind of a sucker for inside baseball when it comes to bike racing, so much more interesting than straight play by play

Ha i just had that conversation. That the guy is a true villain and bad person, not merely by cheating but by how he treated everyone he interacted with, is indisputable. I was not a fan past 01. Nonetheless, his actual analysis is good, and sadly his conversational charisma is pretty real for me. I almost like watching that jerk at this point and it pisses me off.

totally -- i have to wonder a little bit about how the young guys in the peloton who he shouts out every now and then (ie lawson) feel about the association

hmm, i might check it out & add to my listening queue.

I mean, he knows the subject, and he's now the old man (relatively) trying to show he still has skin in the game. But that said I'm content to let him ramble without me.

Yeah today was sleepy, but the scenery was nice, the odd quarry aside. But the cobbles await...

I am really worried about Roubaix, as far as its effect on the group. 15 sections is SO extreme.

I think there's gonna be carnage

yeah there can’t not be

Quite finish that one! Grunewagen is so yoked it’s no wonder he finishes the way he does. Hats off.
Greipel and Gaviria declassified to 92nd and 93rd place for headbutting shenanigans. Apparently Greipel’s incident happened in the last km against Arndt, not to do with Gaviria: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour-de-france-greipel-gaviria-relegated-in-separate-incidents-during-sprint-in-amiens/

Sagan & Dekenkolb get 2nd and 3rd

Kittel not happy:

The peloton in general appeared agitated today, Kittel among them. He’s typically measured and humble but when your day starts with a boss publicly slamming your work ethic, your men are held-up in a crash and the team is managing divided goals with zip on the board ... shit one. https://t.co/D4FKLpElul

— Sophie Smith (@SophieSmith86) July 14, 2018

#TDF2018 Unfortunately @tonymartin85 won‘t start tomorrow in stage 9. A spinal fracture (vertebral compression fracture) makes it impossible to continue @LeTour. Speedy recovery, #panzerwagen! #raceasafamily

— Team KATUSHA ALPECIN (@katushacycling) July 14, 2018

Katusha’s director came for Kittel publicly in l’equipe soooooo that bus prob sucks a ton right now

Stinging line by Katusha DS Konyshev on Kittel in @lequipe: "We're paying him a lot but he's only interested in himself. Before the Cholet TTT, he played with his phone during the briefing to make me realise I didn't have his attention" #TDF2018

— Peter Cossins (@petercossins) July 14, 2018

Wow what a mess. Just saw the finish.

I did listen to that Lance TDF podcast & he said the finish was so narrow with tight corners that the finishers would be lucky to have even 1 leadout, let alone 2. So it played out kinda that way & became the free for all we saw. And possibly why Sagan jumped early. I guess he still has that tendency at times.

that being said, idk if i can hang with lance’s podcast. the sound of his voice just triggers me to what an on-the-record confirmed dickbag he has been. and it has such a heyyyy morning “radio” show vibe.

i did lol when he deliberately pronounced Chatres as SHART

I listened to the lance and didn’t think it was that good plus him and his cohost are pretty annoying. unsubscribe

oh god is Craddock really going to ride across 22km of cobbles today

that will be brutal. don't envy him

already claimed the first victim

greenpath’s bike looked split in two :O

crashy

what the hell is going on

amazing stage. talk about a jour sans for bardet

yeah that was really something

christ on a bike that was rough
i think this pic sums it up nicely

War hart heute. #TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/ePesRfHi4Q

— Moritz Cassalette (@MCassalette) July 15, 2018

And how about this for a photo: Oliver Naesen coming right over the top of Rafal Majka 🙈🙈🙈

Pic of the day!
Hope you're OK @majkaformal https://t.co/8vSinYa0Ow

— Oliver naesen (@OliverNaesen) July 15, 2018

Until now I had really processed how nuts the second and third weeks are. There’s only one more sprint stage other than the champs élysées. A couple of barrodeur rollers but no real respite.

Despite the early finish I still fell asleep with 20kms to go. Crazy stage.

Yeah the mountains will be a pain train from the off. I can’t imagine going through today & then hitting week 2 with *a* rest day

Just caught up with today's stage, good god almighty. But yeah, well deserved for Degenkolb. Phew.

bike racing!!!

Suggestion for some good rest-day listening: journalist/author William Fotheringham in convo with Cycling Weekly on the 20th anniversary of the Festina Affair. Good stuff!!

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-93r7s-95058e

Just caught up with the highlights. The helmet filth stencils on rider’s stubbly heads are quite something.

classy ride from DVA

Solid stage all around. Alaphilippe in excelsis for sure.

Ok stage, alaphillipe was very much in character, nibbles comment about wind and team sky going very postal matched perfectly to the lack of action from fave group.

Commenter on twitter noted 8 y/o basso quote about when the lieutenants pull 420 watts for huge periods, no one can do anything meaningful in getting clear.

Sky, as ever, have enough money to have domestiques that would be leaders in lesser teams. Geraint Thomas is a case in point, I reckon he’s the equal of Porte at the least. The Yates brothers avoiding sky was a smart move, easy to get complacent pulling in 150k euros a year or whatever sky domesiques get.

Alaphillippe, damn son. Joyous effort, he is a delight to watch. And VanAvemaet! Way to hold onto the yellow, dude. Amazing effort. Love seeing BMC pulling it out any way they can in spite of everything.
Bummed about Uran timeloss :(

Crazy short stage has electrified the action some but even though Sky is chillin back 3 mins on last climb they have SIX riders there.

Nieve’s pedaling style at 6.5km left is fucking beautiful. Id enjoy seeing dumoulin get to him, but nieve looks SOOO nice.

nice finish

Just caught the end of that passing through Hong Kong. That was pretty amazing. Thomas may have more time on Froome than Froome could take back on the TT, but I’m also not sure Froome can attack Thomas unless he is chasing down someone close on GC or Thomas cracks.

Interesting times.

Thomas finally kicked his bilharzia. Good for him.

— Cyclocosm.com (@Cyclocosm) July 18, 2018

Ha when i saw thomas get to dumoulin so fast, i was like, man, nieve is about to get hit by a missile. I was surprised he paused with dumoulin a little.

i like how Wiggins has come back to haunt Froome in the form of Thomas.

the dominance of Sky is very very frustrating though, and bad for cycling. Before this Tour I thought Movistar could challenge them.. but alas. Not even close. Quintana will be happy if he finishes top 5 in this Tour, or so it seems.

Why is Sky so dominant (is it just money?), and why can't other teams compete? Isn't this just about having the right training schedule? Is there a stat on how much each team member gets paid on all teams?

mostly money

as ed said upthread, sky has domestiques that would be team leaders elsewhere but the pay at sky is good, as is (i hear) the benefits (like not medical bens but top quality training / nutrition / mechanics / etc)

I mean, former rainbow kwiatkowski is an _embarrassingly_ big talent as just one of your climbing leadouts. Such a complete racer. Not only winning worlds, but classics and monuments i mean hes outsprinted sagan at e3 and msr aside from dumping him into siena, which u could at least expect.

somehow had not unsubscribed from the lance thing and found myself listening to their stage 10 episode. he is a TOTAL fanny, and seems utterly unrepentant to boot ("I mean, according to wikipedia, I've never won a stage of the tour")

I was sure he'd at least displayed some contrition in the past but he's acting like he's been robbed on this thing, not like he was the one doing the robbing

the finish of la course was unsane

Not attacking the leaders on the last stage is dumb. They should race every day or just end the race today. People complain about the radios and meter watchers ruining the Tour, but it’s tradition of not attacking on the last day is ok? It’s idiocy. Race everyday.

That's kind of a naive view, but the "inside baseball" reality is two-fold:

1) grand tour GC contenders are (physiologically) the kind of rider who excels at climbing up long, steep gradients (ie, not flatlanders). The type of rider who can attack on the flat final ride into Paris + along the Champs + successfully hold off the pack are a completely breed/build (see the spring classics).

2) the teams that are seeking a victory on the final stage (which is by pure definition an absolute sprinter's stage), can easily control any breakaway attempts as there are extremely long straightaways and virtually no places to get out of sight. Those teams are trying to secure a stage victory as directed by their team Director, it's not an ego-driven stage like you'll see in the Alps/Pyrenees.

"kind of rider who excels at climbing up long, steep gradients"

ha, no. they (esp sky) are taking giant 185cm+ track watt machines, then skeletoning them so they can ride mostly steady state up long climbs (i do think froome is interesting in his ability to really burst, but he never lets off, he holds that crazy wattage to his finish). i do think this style of guy WERE more tt-rouleur flatlanders, but if you skin them out, it's just watts/kg.

the "classic" gc climbers- dudes who were super scrawny and light who got change pace and rip it on super steeps are gone from gc. Contador was basically this style. pantani too.

you saw this movement to straight power starting with wattage cottage indurain, but the model post-EPO is different. instead of adding pure watts with mega doses of EPO, they add little with microdosing, but get extreme w/kg by slashing fattie trackies (who are still legit great talents in watts) down to what you see, wind em up, let em go.

there is a reason the top 4 are now ALL tt guys, the model is complete.

look i know this looks like infowars bs, but looking across the field at riding and body styles, this is the best overall fit. i've really given up caring too hard about meds and measure "legitness" more on style points.

i want a thread "2018- 'Legitness' is the new 'authenticity'."

sorry, your point that "guy who excels climbing up long steeps" is exactly right, tho. but traditionally those guys were born out of a class of "climbers," and that's not the roots of the current lot. i've not scrutinized dumoulin's palmares, but he def styles more as having been a tt wattage factory than a climber kid.

An acquaintance of mine (retired domestic pro) got dropped on a 15 minute climb at the Tour of California and Froome was with him in the grupetto. Froome was perhaps 4-5kg more than he weighs now but still, this may or may have been after his miracle recovery from whatever plagued him earlier in his career that coincided with his ascent to GC contender.

TdF is considerably the "easiest" of the Grand Tours, which is why you'll see more of the 70kg guys contending.

sidebar: I am not a fan of Sky but I love seeing G win the yellow. He’s been a favorite since I started watching the Tour. it’s cool to see the support from fellow riders too.

Nice words from Cav

If you’re lucky enough to call him a friend, there’s someone there that’ll always have your back. Not one person that knows @GeraintThomas86 doesn’t know how much he deserves this. His loyalty & work ethic is something to aspire to in life, not just cycling. So proud of you mate. pic.twitter.com/VuWf1wwipa

— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) July 28, 2018

Holy shit, G man has done it. Hot dogs for tea boys 👌🏻

— Luke Rowe (@LukeRowe1990) July 28, 2018

Test 1 for hunt3r legitness: dont be an asshole. thomas seems cool enough i guess.

Xp

jersey al yeah my understanding of road styles and grades is exactly the same. a toc 15 climb is almost not a climb by gt standards- it may or may not be steeper depending on which climb in cali it is, but those guys in season are fit enough to go way superthreshold for almost half of that time usually and recover under load.

froome is interesting- ive said it round here before i know, but his emergence EXTREMELY abruptly vs cobo at vuelta 2011 was WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE level amazing shit.

welp, final day ( no sprint spoilers, i’m watching live)

i like this stage when they all chat together & relax. will be sad to see them go

https://i.imgur.com/lyV8REY.jpg

Lol @ Thomas’s podium speech trying to remember all his teammates, Dumoulin had to remind him of Kwiatkowski 😂

probly not the best thread to post this, but this interview of this past tdf participant/temporary champ is a good human/racing interest story. Landis is a weird hybrid of traits imo. So weird that i find i can't easily and quickly draft a consistent response or comment. For now i'll write "here's an ok, non-asshole person who made some _incredibly_ bad/weak/asshole-y moves in a situation that would test the living fuck out of anyone, but he seems to have reserved his core humanity. which should never be assumed as an outcome." landis and kimmage are a match made in hell amirite.

https://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling/paul-kimmage-talks-to-floyd-landis-he-won-the-tour-de-france-then-lost-it-for-doping-and-it-almost-cost-him-his-life-37164135.html

Post Tour feels <3

From Instagram earlier today:
https://i.imgur.com/M7QB6zO.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/LvPoQIV.jpg

miss u Spartacus

<3

Aw <3

this cover of kraftwerk got to me 2 weeks too late, but i still like how it goes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfVI2nVxo5k

and of course it's 3 years old, but it's a new cover to me.