Vive la Revolutions: Tour de France 2018

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

https://youtu.be/VkbyFDrF9kM

Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig post stage interview yesterday i think is really really sweet.

amazing. good on her

woman's cycling is so, so good and gets such a raw deal

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

Heh. Just seen it (was out cycling all day). I reckon Thomas attacked so early to make sure he went before Froome did. Similarly, I think that's why he attacked again just before Froome bridged across to him and Dumoulin.

tomorrow will be fun

That it will. But yeah I'm getting kinda bored with all these other Sky riders, however great they are, being "Hi we're just this glomp at the front of the peloton who don't seem to have any fun and to hell with you if you don't want to see anything interesting happening. Thanks for the cash, fuck you." (Not that the rest of the field are genteel souls doing it for the charity and fun of it but jeez.)

ok i did listen to armstrong now, and the bit at 7 mins, when he talks about teams that can paceline an hc climb and DESTROY, and then mocks hincapie for his objections during the times it was postal doing them, is actually a-hole bro done in good form by armstrong, sorry all. hincapie ultimately peacing on a climbing paceline is classic to think of and i can only imagine bruyneel spitting in hincapie's dinner.

Not going to listen to that prick.

The Ludwig interview is lovely and yet again women’s racing shows to to be equal if not better in terms of entertainment, drama and quality that the men. Ironically the UCI’s sexism helps this along. In no other major endurance sport do women race over shorter distance than the men. So when we get what is effectively a shorter one day climbing race like nothing on the men’s calendar the women go all out to leave it all on the road (short recovery time after the giro Rosa notwithstanding). Alpe d’Huez could be a snooze fest today partly due to a the battle now being for the third step and partly because there will be tired legs.

The women deserve a lot more than the paltry crumbs they are currently getting.

As for the sky thing - the other advantage that they have is that they are grand tour focussed and pretty much Tour de France focussed. No other team gets that luxury and it becomes a self reinforcing loop. Sky barely show at the classics, the vuelta has been a consolation or development race and the giro was barely anything for them till this year. They have a programme that is all about he top step in July. I don’t think any mainland European team would get the opportunity to do that. Also, looking down the list of sponsors I can think of a name that comes remotely close to the size of sky apart from Movistar ( I guess the state sponsors, Astana, Bahrain and UAE). One does wonder what will happen to the Sky if the Comcast bid succeeds.

The women deserve a lot more than the paltry crumbs they are currently getting.

Rather. I saw some La Course highlights but I'm going to catch up with the full race soon.

i do think dumoulin will be right washed out tomorrow. as far as sky goes, number ones often appear unbeatable til they get beat. it's not likely here.

that pod cites brown's or nibble's claims (and their doubts on the claims) re budgets: "Team Sky spends the most, around $42 million. Bahrain-Merida counts on a budget in the 15 million range. Other teams have only 10 million." https://www.velonews.com/2018/07/tour-de-france/nibali-it-may-seem-boring-but-thats-modern-cycling_472562

"it aint where you focus is the way that focus, and that's what gets results!"

xp

lol "it's"

and um, also "you." gnight!

Annemiek Van Vleuten is a boss ass bitch & the world should know it imo

also women have a decent claim for the two best pound for pound cyclists of the past 7/8 years in voss then PFP

Meanwhile, Cavendish, Kittel & Renshaw didn’t make the time cut.

Alpe d’Huez should be a good watch tomorrow after today’s excitement

yup, i think the rider who finishes first (of the favorites, GC contenders) TODAY, will win the Tour. Thomas' chance really, is he's as good as yesterday.

I think Froome will be looking for some kind of pretext to gain time on Thomas, but hoping it can be under the guise of marking someone else's attack.

In the past 7 yrs when froome has gone into hyper-robo-crab climb mode, he’s been pretty untouchable. Today we r all waiting to see that i think.

I cannot imagine anything much more batshit than his revelation at the giro, but im prepared to be amazed. As dull as his persona is, he has managed to improve his competencies in actual and impressive ways since his tdf run began, from muuch improved descending, to like, creating a new ride pedaling position on toptube, to dismounting and running when necessary.

Groenewegen abandon

Agreed with Ludo and NBS, it will be very interesting to see if Thomas pulls through. Only sky could crack Sky :)

he's doing it.

Poor Steven.

It's certainly convenient for Sky that the rider having a ton of shit thrown at him is doing less well than his team mate this year.

So far.

i want what egan bernal had for breakfast unless it causes cancer.

That was fantastic.

Nibali did well to limit his losses there - I think he pulled back about 30 seconds on them over the last few kms. I've got no idea how this one is going to play out. With Thomas's ridiculous run of bad luck over previous years, I can't help feeling it's just a matter of time before he crashes out in yellow or has a nightmare day like the one (the other) Yates did near the end of the Giro earlier this year and lose loads of time. Difficult to see how the time trial will affect things as well, as even though Dumoulin is clearly the best, both Froome and Thomas are very good at time trials.

I wonder if we're going to see the Giro affecting Dumoulin and Froome as the race goes on. In any previous year, when Froome attacked that would have been it. Instead he didn't get very far away and was clawed back and dropped (for a while). You could put that down to the Giro, but then Dumoulin doesn't seem to be affected at all. It's received wisdom nowadays that it's impossible to win the Giro and the Tour in the same season. I'm trying to think of actual Tour contenders who tried this recently: I think it's only Basso (2010) and Contador (2011 and 2015, with a big asterisk next to 2011). From what I recall, it wasn't that they faded away as the race went on, but more that they didn't have it in their legs as soon as the race hit the mountains. We've done half the mountains in this race already.

Possible fractured vertebra for Nibali: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vincenzo-nibali-transported-to-hospital-after-crash-on-alpe-dhuez/

would be good to see the world's most overrated cyclist geraint thomas actually add something to his palmares win the tour I guess

Bounced to pcs site today and im like, that was a lot of bloating he got rid of lol.

https://www.procyclingstats.com/mob/

Christ, NBC streaming has been useless today, the replay still isn't up hours later so I have to scrounge for highlights since I'm busy tonight. Anyway, quite a finish!

what a great finish! bardet, i just love him. heart of a lion, i loved seeing him attack again & again. Kruijswijk too - that took incredible, unbelievable gas.

and this sucks - more video evidence to indicate it was spectator & not moto as first thought

BREAKING - Broken vertebrae confirmed, Nibali won't start tomorrow (Italian journalist Andrea de Luca on FB) #TDF2018

— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) July 19, 2018

I am a giant softie and this made me well up slightly. https://chpt3.com/blogs/journal/well-done-mark

first time Greipel ever left the Tour. will he ever return? I am not so sure.

I just realized Bradley Wiggins was 32 when he won his only Tour. This could be Gerraint's only Tour. It's certainly starting to look like it.