• 141 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Those times mean that the distances are getting ridiculously short, especially for a speciality trial!

    It looks like these ‘girly’ distances are in fact truly so, as they are apparently justified by forcing an equality of distance between men and women.

    France 26.5 km:

    1. Bruno Armirail (Decathlon) 32’16’’
    2. Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa) +21’’ (I heard he crashed ??)
    3. Paul Seixas (Decathlon) +44’’

    Armirail isn’t truly a specialist any more, he’s become more of an all-terrain rider since he started training a lot for mountain and lost weight a few years ago. Vauquelin is good at TT, but he shone on the Tour of Switzerland, as a puncher/puncher-climber there. Seixas who did very well on the Critérium du Dauphiné is more of a climber.

    First FDJ is Cavagna at 50’'.

    Several club riders did better than Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis and Olympic champion of omnium)…


    This is getting so ridiculous that, inside the Tour of France, one ITT for non-specialist riders will be longer than the one granting the National TT Champion title…

    Meanwhile in Great-Britain (Wales), the course took close to 1 hour to complete…










  • Stage 2

    A stage pretty similar to the first one, with another 6 small climbs to provide a bit of animation for the mountain jersey: two 4th cat and two 3rd cat. (2 & 1 pts) in the beginning of the course, then one 2nd cat. (5, 3, 2 & 1 pts) much later and one last 4th cat. near the end.

    As on many (all?) French races, the amount of points offered is meagre, so there is not much point in fighting if you cannot be first. Same goes for the points classification, as there is a single intermediate sprint per day and it only gives points for the first 3 riders: therefore, there cannot be even a small sprint from the peloton after a small breakaway has already gone through the sprint line.

    That’s a big difference from the Giro d’Italia which just ended, where points were given to many more riders.










  • Stage 21 : Rome – Rome, 143 km (Sunday 1 June, dep. 16h06-16h26, ETA 18h40-18h55)

    Very short parade-stage, for sprinters

    Stage without difficulties, 50 points to the winner.

    The ‘3 km’ rule applies for falls/incidents within 5 km from the finish.

    Only splits larger or equal to 3 seconds are counted.

    Delays : 7% if ≤ 40 km/h; 8% if ≤ 45 km/h; 10% otherwise. Expected average speeds: 41 km/h ⇒ 11’50’‘, 43 km/h ⇒ 11’12’‘, 45 km/h ⇒ 10’56’'.

    This stage will be raced in the end of the afternoon.

    Beware of delays for riders who would crash, they are really short, which is a bit stupid for a last stage! (On the other hand, the circuit is short: a bit under 10 km, so being OTL is sort of equivalent to being lapped.)


  • He didn’t seem cooked to me at any point, therefore the second option should be the right one.

    Imagine losing a Grand Tour you lead with some margin: not because you have not the legs and are overpowered in the long run or on multiple short attacks or on an unfavourable terrain; not because you have a bad day on the wrong day; not because there are natural or provoked circumstances that put you in a catastrophic situation; but just because you and your team are a bunch of wallies. 🤣



  • Stage 20: Verrès – Sestrière, 205 km (Saturday 31, dep. 10:45-10:50, ETA 15:55-16:35)

    Long mountain stage with includes the Cima Coppi and a final climb.

    Stage with high difficulties, 15 points to the winner.

    The 3 km rule doesn’t apply.

    Delays: 16% if ≤ 30 km/h; 17% if ≤ 34 km/h; 18% otherwise. Expected average speeds: 36 km/h ⇒ 1h01’55’‘, 38 km/h ⇒ 58’19’‘, 40 km/h ⇒ 54’54’'.

    Beware, the stage finishes 1 hour earlier than others (to that effect, it starts earlier too).


    Standings after stage 19

    General classification:

    1. Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE)
    2. Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) at 43’’ (formerly 41’')
    3. S. Yates (🇬🇧 Visma) at 1’21’’ (formerly 51’')
    4. Gee (🇨🇦 IPT) at 2’27’’ (formerly 1’57’')
    5. Caruso (🇮🇹 Bahrain) at 3’36’’ (formerly 3’06’')
    6. Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) at 5’13’’ (formerly 4’43’')
    7. Pellizzari (🇮🇹 Bora) at 5’32’’ (formerly 5’02’')
    8. Rubio (🇨🇴 Movistar) at 6’39’’ (formerly 6’09’')
    9. Storer (🇦🇺 Tudor) at 9’11’’ (formerly 7’46’')
    10. McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) at 9’33’’ (formerly 9’03’')



  • During the breakaway, one Jayco tried to break from the big group after several mountain tops / intermediate sprints, with the guys who disputed the points. But each time, all refused: they just wanted to get back inside the big group, from which they just popped now and then to grab the points.

    Denz (🇩🇪 Bora) had shown he was strong(er) earlier: he wasn’t originally in the group of 8 or 9 which managed to separate from the big group. He had to jump solo, as one or two others guys, to catch up with the new group.


  • Stage 19: Bielle – Champoluc, 166 km (Friday 30, dep. 12:20-12:30, ETA 16:55-17:35)

    Mountain stage with many long climbs.

    Stage with high difficulties, 15 points to the winner.

    The 3 km rule applies for falls/incidents in the finish.

    Delays: 16% if ≤ 30 km/h; 17% if ≤ 34 km/h; 18% otherwise. Expected average speeds: 33 km/h ⇒ 51’41’‘, 35 km/h ⇒ 51’30’‘, 37 km/h ⇒ 58’06’'.

    If I am not mistaken, this stage grants a maximum of 147 mountain points, and the next one 80 points. That’s 227 points. Fortunato (🇮🇹 Astana) has got 355 points, his teammate Scaroni🇮🇹 161, and the first non-Astana only 66. Therefore Fortunato has an advance of 289 points over the first non-Astana , which is already enough to ensure that the Blue Jersey will go to Astana.

    For points classification, Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) is 141 points ahead of Kooij. There are still 152 points for grab in theory, but that would require Kooij (🇳🇱 Visma) to win the 2 mountain stages on top of the final one and all the intermediate sprints (without Pedersen scoring more than a handful). 😁 So the Cyclamen Jersey will go to Pedersen.

    The intermediate sprints classification, the Red Bull KM sprints classification, and the breakaway classification are still undecided.