No-ones talkig about it because tha talking about it happened on the stages where he got the points. He's an early jersey holder, he won't be holding them for much longer.
But he's also had a very good spring/classics campaign, so being a good breakaway rider wasn't unexpected.
New to this, but from what little I know he recently gained weight and that helped him? Based on my fantasy league, yes his performance is totally unexpected.
At first I thought so. However, then listening to some other commentary it could have just been that Ayuso is inexperienced as a domestique. As soon as he was called he moved to the front. If he had alternative motivations for staying at the back he could have told the team he was just barely hanging on. He may have GC ambitions of his own, but Tadej should be able to keep him in line.
How is that old man youtuber guy really can confirm that Almeida was pissed on Ayuso? Did Almeida literally told him? Fvck that youtuber lmao. He talkin alot of nonsense in this sport.
good ol' Sepp Kuss wouldve been glued to Jonas all the way to the line (maybe behind by a a few seconds towards the summit) but theres no way Pogi makes this much of a gap if Sepp was there
I see a lot of people saying this. But can you please explain how? Sepp definitely could not follow Pogi's attack, only Vingegaard could to some extent. So how would he make a difference?
In addition, Sepp Kuss has not had one top 10 placement in a world tour race this year.
I doubt that would have made any difference. Vingegaard was caught just when it actually became possible to work together. Before that it was a proper descent where taking turns isn't really possible. Before that their speed would have been decided by the best descender (Rodriguez).
> Vingegaard was caught just when it actually became possible to work together.
Agree that on the turns there was no point sitting up. Vingegaard was caught when Tadej had 4km left. The turns stopped ~1.6km before. Vingegaard was pedalling furiously all throughout those 1.6 km. They ate up 4-6 seconds in that 1.6 km. Let's say Vingegaard sat up for a bit, it's still around 3-5 seconds in that 1.6 km. With another 4km to go, could have saved 10-12 seconds.
Of course it is easier in hindsight for us knowing Vingegaard didn't have the legs.
Interesting. After recapping stage 4 Patrick thinks Jonas will win if he maintains current form. Benji thinks Pogacar. Love that they’re also on two sides of the fence lol
In other news I cannot function normally for 3 weeks in July
What is also interesting is the way most casual cycling fans think of form in Grand Tours (not Patrick or Benji). The reason that riders appear to get stronger in the Tour is not because they actually gain strength (or watts/kg), but rather because they keep their peak form longer relative to their competition. There are simply too many back to back intense days with very little rest to actually get stronger. Rather, the game is all about not going too deep and then recovering better than your competition. So Patrick thinks if JV can keep his current form, he predicts that Pogacar's form will drop precipitously in comparison. I am more with Benji because repetitively going very deep is difficult to recover from and to me it looked like JV went much deeper than Pogacar on stage 4. He lost 40 seconds in the last 10Km showing just how badly he cracked on the stage. My guess is that Pogacar will recover better than JV for the time trial. In addition, Pogacar should be able to just cover attacks at this point, and then make moves near the top of the climbs to his advantage. In contrast, JV will need to isolate Pogacar from distance and then drop him, which based on his team doesn't look likely. It is certainly possible that Pogacar will crack in the third week. However, he looks to be conserving his energy much better than in previous Tours.
Watching the replay, Anyone else notice the guy in the giant Cock and Balls costume . It's at 6.8km to the top of the Col du Galibia , right after Almeida starts pulling.
Pog is better at sprinting. The previous years Jonas was better at climbing, but perhaps he's not *quite* there right now. However losing just under 10 seconds at the top is exactly the same as last year on Puy de Dôme where he went on to bury Pogacar in the third week. Obviously Pog got a bigger gap now because of the downhill finish, but it's too early to tell what will happen this Tour.
The difference between the Galibier and Puy de Dome stage last year is that JV was able to just hold the 8 second disadvantage up the Puy de Dome climb and matched Pogacar except for the initial acceleration. On the Galibier he cracked, and had it not been for the decent he would have lost a massive amount of time. In fact, JV did not lose any time on the steep parts of the decent, only when the road flattened out and JV had to peddle did he lose time. JV was completely cooked. This is totally understandable given his preparation, but the situation between this year and last year are completely different.
Well he’s not great at it 🥲 he also said: “He (Pogi) rode really fast today, and deserved the victory.. I couldn’t really keep up on the last part of the climb on Galibier, and he just rode really fast, so he deserved it…” from post stage [interview](https://sport.tv2.dk/cykling/2024-07-02-vingegaard-maner-til-ro-bedre-end-forventet) (in Danish)
He’s awkward. That’s part of his appeal on this subreddit. He also said gravity helped Pogacar downhill, which means it would hurt him climbing. if the implication is that Pogacar is heavier
He said Pogacar is heavier amd could go faster in the end. But I have seen lighter riders than Pogacar go fast on less technical parcours (Pidcock, Nibali etc).
I think on a longer climb, JV has the edge. Pogi's explosiveness near the top of the Galiber doesn't mean he can drop him on a longer mountain stage, or after a couple days in the mountains. Time will tell.
Exactly
Their power output w time curves are similar in a sense in that they aren’t like a sprinter or a classics specialist, but pogs is a bit higher for bit smaller duration. JV can sustain a bit lower but for much longer. A naturally gifted climber
Going off yesterday tho, Pogacar got Almeida, Ayuso and Yates dragging him to just before the top of the last climb of any longer stage, probably even 15 so does it really matter if he's a bit punchier than JV and maybe not as crazy on longer mountain days if compared individually.
It was the first day in the mountains in the first week and it was a short stage, so i'm looking for more than one day in the mountains and longer stages. I should have specified a longer day with steeper climbs.
And at the top of the climb, he didn't have that much of a gap. He got like twenty seconds on the descent.
When Vingegaard started losing time to Pogacar, you could see Pogacar was getting out of the saddle to get the bike up to speed after the corners, while Vingegaard stayed in the saddle. A pretty good sign that Pogacar still felt fresh, while Vingegaard wasn't.
The slander the Sepp gets shall be no more. Visma is a different team without the man who won the Vuelta. UAE has juggernauts supporting Podacar. Idk if Jonas can keep up down then stretch... I know he's a week 3 rider but not having a good support system plays a big factor.
This just goes to show that some domestiques aren’t cut out for team leadership. Jonas and Primoz did a great job supporting Sepp in the Vuelta but they clearly can’t carry their own GC campaigns.
/s
So I have a few things...
1. SOO happy for Pogi, I love the guy and I am so excited to see him in Yellow (again)
2. I also love Roglic and I was really happy to see the efforts that he put in today as well. He was looking strong. Although Vlasov and Hindley they dropped - which makes me think, maybe they will go for a "stage" but play the satelitte rider role and Roglic could teleport for some more time...
3. Remco is showing really good form and I am enjoying seeing that he has been able to keep up so far. I can't wait for the TT action between the Big 4...
4. I would LOVE to have been on the team bus for UAE to hear how Almeida and Auyso were...Almeida was really doing the team dream today and Auyso...well, he is performing well but he needs to take a pull for a bit longer...perhaps watch how Yates operates.
5. I am proud of Jonas, I think this year its great that he is the under dog because you really end up rooting for him, however the JV squad, where were they? I think they are really missing Sepp, Van Hoydonk etc... also, WVA called it early and wasnt able to assist like in previous years. This could also play a really big factor.
3. Can't wait to see Remco on the big mountains. I hope he gets his top 5 goal, and maybe a podium.
5. JV (or do you mean V-LAB :P) is beset with bad luck, injuries and crashes. A win would be miraculous for them at this stage.
Im a bit surprised that since Tadej felt good, he didn’t test the waters with an attack maybe 2-3km earlier in the climb than he did. Understandably you don’t want get greedy on stage 4, you want to maximize your domestique work, and there was a long descent after that may have played into that.
Makes me wonder if UAE respected JV’s shadowing of Tadej on stage 2 and/or were concerned about Tadej going too deep on a long climb followed by a long descent.
In addition to the head wind on the stage, I don't think Pogi had the confidence he could crack JV given that JV covered his attack on Stage 2 with seeming ease. In addition, JV has a massive psychological advantage from beating Pogi the last two years. I personally don't think Pogi was planning to drop JV on the Galibier but rather was just going for the time bonuses at the top. When he saw that he cracked JV, he just went for it on the decent. Now that he cracked JV on the Galibier however, he may have more confidence to go from further out if he is feeling good.
It's because there was a strong headwind on Galibier. That makes it difficult to attack solo from afar versus staying in a group. So he waited until the last bit before the summit and did his classic attack-sprint combo that Vingegaard can't really respond to.
It was probably the most he could get out of it that he got in the end.
I think this sums it up pretty well. He said afterwards he wanted to attack earlier but left it late because of the headwind. I think he'd have had a bigger gap if he'd attacked sooner, given the gap was starting to open up properly by the time they got to the top of the Galibier.
I love Remco's riding so far. He has rode much better than what i thought he was capable of. Hope he can stay with the three on the longer multiple climbs. He also looks so lean and much more fit for this race.
Rog is getting there, but I don't think he will be able to match the duo on those 7w/kg efforts. Maybe just maybe the standard will switch for him. He was always lacking the 3rd week power. Maybe Bora's training switched that for him.
Vigo has been the old tough Vigo from the last two years. I think he has something prepared for the last week. He does not look bothered with those under 1min gaps.
Pogi is the powerhouse here. He can do it all, but it can come as a downside in the 3rd week as the giro tiredness could show...hopefully not! And did i hear it right that he will ride Vuelta also? Mad, just mad!
I don't see too much happening in GC, except for ITT, until the 13th.
So many thoughts, but I’ll distill them down to the ones that are taking up the most space in my head right now:
- Visma needs better support for Jonas. Jonas looks like he’s likely to hold up his end of the deal with his form, but leaving him all alone while UAE has 4 riders pulling for Pogi isn’t going to cut the mustard.
- The podium and top 5 battle are going to be biblical if today’s display from GC hopefuls is any indication .
- I’m not writing off Remco’s potential in this tour yet. He’s doing things through 4 stages that are making me raise my eyebrows a lot and I can’t wait to see how the cards fall for him
As Jonas said to a Danish tv reporter after stage 4, regarding losing 37 seconds on stage 4, now being 50 seconds behind Pogecãr.
“..To be honest, it's actually better than expected. We had expected to be up to two minutes behind now, so that way we can be quite satisfied, says Vingegaard.” Adding that Pogecàrs bodyweight helped Pogecàr on the decent.
Considering this was an all out Pogecār attack at his max, Jonas is actually holding on quite well, come the steep mountains in hot weather, Pogecàr will eventually crack, no doubt about it.
I don't know how much we can read into any of this. Pog attacked late, into a head wind, so not optimum conditions for one of his explosive attacks. And Jonas is hardly going to say "yeah, I've not got it this year". So I don't know, all of what you say may be true, or none of it.
A disappointing result. It seems Jonas is indeed hampered by the injury and instead of seeing two people fight it out, Pogi has already secured the win. I guess there's always next year.
Jonas is the only one who could challenge Pogi but it seems like the injury is going to stop him from keeping up.
I'm well aware of past Tours being dominated by one person early on, I just don't find it interesting to watch.
The Tour is long. Jonas had over one minute on Pogacar last year after stage 5 and they ended up 10 seconds apart before Jonas then brought down the hammer in week 3.
Honestly, as long as Jonas is within 4 minutes before stage 19, stage 20 and stage 21, then the Tour is not decided. Pogacar only took less than 10 seconds on Jonas on the climb itself. That is amazing considering Vingegaard’s recovery and lack of racing before the TdF.
Jonas picked that minute up a few seconds at a time, usually from short sprints, not by totally dropping Jonas. Jonas looked exhausted while Pogi looked fresh.
I'm hoping I'm wrong and the tour isn't over, but to me it looks like Jonas hasn't recovered enough to compete at the right level.
If this is what being hampered by the injury looks like for Jonas 4 stages into the tour, you’d be smart to buckle up for week 3. No chance this is sealed for Pogi yet. And he’s smart enough to know that.
Don't get me wrong, Jonas is still a beast and better than everyone else even hampered. But it seems that injury has affected him enough that Pogi can drop him.
I'm hoping I'm wrong and Jonas can get better but he looked absolutely dead while Pogi was fresh.
There is a world of difference between a broken wrist and being able to train on the home trainer within a week vs. multiple broken bones and organ damage plus a 12 day hospital stay.
Both are injuries, yes, but people really shouldn’t be comparing them.
Couldn’t have gone better for Pog and UAE to have Pog come out 45 on top and still have Ayuso and Almeida well placed on the stage.
Some good signs in G2 though, Jonas good on the climb but understandably nervy on the descent. Remco, Rog and Rodriguez also very good. The race isn’t over yet.
this continues to bode well for an exciting Tour. Today's stage would not historically lend itself to big changes in GC: too hard to carry any advantage 19km to the finish. I thought for sure JV would catch on the descent, maybe even the rest of the GC group, but no. And the attack so late in the climb also did not lend itself to significant time, but at the end of the day, it seems like a significant advantage. Pog definitely looked properly motivated.
Pogacar has more power than any of the other GC riders and this is a descent where you can really put power into the pedals. Add that this was clearly a very good day for him too, I think there's basically no way Vingegaard should catch him. Perhaps if the group behind had bridged to Vingegaard before the technical part ended, they could have worked together and caught/maintained the gap, but then again, it seems like that group was basically just Rodriguez throwing it down the mountain and the rest taxi'ing a ride.
8" gap at the top and timid descending by JV? I would say that the battle is only beginning. Jonas is just going to get stronger. TP is not a patient racer and JV is. JV's current Achilles heel is his reluctance to take it to the limit on long technical descents. That is where he lost most of his time. Might be the best Tour since 89.
While the entire cycling world is thrilled by the top three battling it out in a superb exhibition of power, speed, and skill, Spanish fans are finally realizing that Enric Mas has been deceiving them.
For over six years, he has been earning a hefty paycheck while delivering only mediocre performances. He's a true con man!
I don't know whether you speak Spanish but you should listen to his interview after the finish line: "I lost a lot of time but we're taking it step by step".
The fact he's mediocre isn't the issue. Not every rider can be Pogacar or Merckx, not every football player can be Messi. It's his interviews where every year on the eve of the grand départ he states he's confident he can win.
Have you seen how he "trains"? He goes for rides with some middle-aged friends on e-bikes!!! Still, chapeau to him, as the true con man he is, he's been earning 1-2 million euros a year for such a long time. I wish I had such a job!!!
Where does the sentiment come from that Vingegaard needed domestiques (Wout, Kuss, Roglic)?
Ok they are super important if you want to set a pace, to help you in case of a mechanical or just for morale... but I don't think any rider in the entire peloton could have helped here.
Having good domestiques means you can ride the stages how you want to ride them. You get to dictate the tempo, up the pace when you want to, and plan exactly when you're going to attack (or just keep the pace so high it deters attacks from other riders). Of course, yesterday wasn't necessarily bad for JV as he's such a good climber, but he had to wait to see what Tadej would do rather than being on the front foot.
Also, if you look at 2022 and 2023, there's no doubt that Jonas was the strongest rider but he also benefited a lot from his team's tactics. Like the 1-2 with Roglic in 2022 - that only works because you have a strong team, with a top rider like Roglic to work with. Maybe without that, Jonas doesn't drop Pogi on that stage (or maybe he does, but the team tactics make it more likely).
In 2023, Visma knew Pogi was coming back from an injury and didn't have the optimum preparation. So they kept the tempo as high as possible over the first few weeks, to fatigue him as much as possible. Eventually, it worked. At the moment, Jonas will have to ride the mountain stages how Pogi wants to ride them, because so far Jonas doesn't have the domestiques to dictate the pace. Now, that might suit Jonas, but if it doesn't, there isn't a lot he can do about it.
Essentially, the team isn't everything. It doesn't mean Jonas won't win this Tour. But the team definitely helps!
The stronger team tries to control the race and drop the other star's key domestiques to isolate them and set up their star's attack at exactly the point they want, or dissuade the rival from attacking at all and keeping the group together until the finish.
This is how the tour de france has always worked? The teammate doesn't need to keep pace with a pog attack, the point is to make sure pog doesn't get the full mountain leadout from his guys and give that to Jonas if that's what the plan is for the stage. Ideally it prevents a Pog attack from happening at all.
if you need specific examples, exhibits a and b would be the 2023 and 2022 TDF. It didn't work on every single stage, Pog still attacked and still won stages, but it got them yellow in Paris.
You failed to answer my question, Jonas just has to follow Tadej assuming he’s not attacking or being attacked by multiple people. His team wouldn’t have changed what happened there unless you think he would have sent a domestique after Pog’s attack, which he wouldn’t have.
I’m not saying they don’t matter, I’m saying they wouldn’t have made a difference in that situation, and you’ve yet to explain what having an in-shape Sepp Kuss would have done there, because he wouldn’t have changed it at all and you know it.
If we’re talking about Jonas setting up an attack, or Wout pulling him across gravel when he falls behind, having people break wind during sprint stages, getting him water, chasing down breaks, or playing satellite rider, you have an argument. Domestiques are valuable for that, and get amply for that duty. They don’t solve the issue that Jonas couldn’t follow Tadej yesterday, because nobody expects domestiques to manage a Tadej burst.
It’s not like he was in the wind for more than a km going uphill, I’m curious what having Sepp there would have changed.
A strong team is useful to set up attack, less so when you’re defending. Ving wouldn’t have had extra draft had he been in the wheels of Kuss instead of Almeida.
Sepp Kuss in great form wouldn't have made much difference today. Maybe with Kuss in the group behind Remco Jonas could have fallen back earlier and have Kuss pace on the lower part of the descent. But wouldn't have changed much.
Wout (and perhaps 1-2 other strong Visma domestiques) who could put themselves in the break as satellite riders could possible have saved Jonas on the descent. They would have had to ride like crazy to get a big enough gap for one of them to survive across the top, but who knows. UAE would of course not have wanted them to go, but with a full roster of top Visma guys they might have been able to force it.
But I think the biggest deal is that with Pog nearly a minute ahead (and maybe 1.5 minutes after the TT) Vingegaard will need to attack to win. And without a strong team to lay the hammer down in the third week (like UAE did today) it may be impossible.
First week TT and Jonas not being top form + TT profile + less time to prep.
Consensus is that it will be Remco > Pog > Jonas, but we will have to see. I am not convinced Jonas won't surprise us, but we'll have to wait and see. In the Vuelta he was quite bad on an early flat TT, but he was a bit sick for that.
I think the assumption is that JV won the TT through a lot of prep, plus it was more climbing. This year he has had very little time to prep a TT id imagine.
Look at what uae did today.
It's what jumbo did to pogacar the last 2 years. It's about controlling the pace, protecting your leader and delivering them to the point they can attack to maximum effect.
What you say might hold for non mountain stages (typically crosswind, cobbles, gravel stages)
But in mountain stages (especially stages that end at the top of climb), I tend to not fully agree. What Visma did to Pogacar the past 2 years was having Jonas as the best rider of the Tour. If you are the strongest, having good domestiques definitely helps setting up your attack. If you are not the strongest, having good domestiques is not that impactful in a final ascent.
If you look at the Tourmalet/Cauterets stage from last year, Visma dropped everyone, Tadej had better legs in the end and won. Yates was a non factor. Kuss/Van Aert helped dropping everyone but didn't help in the particular Jonas vs Tadej duel.
In the past few years, anyway both UAE and Visma would just pace super hard until there is no domestique from either team left and the one who has the better legs win.
Having the good team mates mostly help if there is an issue unrelated to the rider's form (like a mechanical issue, get some food/drinks, etc). But when you look at how Jonas and Tadej are just so much stronger than the rest of the field, if they have a bad day where they need a domestique to pace to limit the gaps on an ascent then the Tour is close to lost for them.
That said, today was ending with a downhill. The best Visma could have done would be to have a top shape Van Aert in the breakaway and hope he is caught after or very shortly before the top of Galibier. Then he might have pulled Jonas back. If Roglic and in form Kuss were in the Visma team, and managed to reach the top of Galibier 35s behind Pogi. Then Jonas might have waited for them and maybe they would have caught up to Pogi or end up closer.
I was talking specifically about todays stage not domestiques in general. UAE was pacing given they wanted to attack. You can't force a lower pace so domestiques would only have helped if
* A) Jonas wanted a higher pace which I seriously doubt.
* B) Jonas needed help after pog dropped him. But I don't think anyone could have helped Jonas there today.
So I still wonder what specifically the presence of Rog (as TJV teammate), Kuss or WVA could have done here?
WVA as a satellite rider with perfect timing could have helped just over the top. But no way UAE would have allowed that.
you can absolutely force a lower pace, and you also get a significant advantage out of controlling on the front at exactly the same pace.
And obviously, the pace Jonas was doing prior to Tadej's attack was far slower than the pace he was doing as he followed, especially on the climb. The plan wasn't for Soler and Almeida to crack Jonas - they knew that wasn't likely, the plan was for Tadej to attack him - as they did. Soler and Almeida were pacing to prevent any other attacks from going before their planned 'go' point. If any other attacks had gone up the road, they'd be responsible for pulling them back if they could. All this is a huge advantage to Tadej and if Visma had the guns to do it, it would be the same advantage for Jonas, regardless of what happened after the two of them took off on their own.
The lack of Sepp Kuss is already hugely impacting this race and it will only become more obvious.
unless you are dsm blocking the road in the ronde you can't force a lower pace...
so your point is kuss riding a pace higher than ayuso / almeida still comfortable for jonas but dissuading pog to attack? That logic I can follow.
Yep that's basically my logic... it would need to be more than just Kuss because UAE have multiple strong guys. Also if Kuss and Jorgenson can actually manage to drop the UAE guys then that's a huge advantage because now they're in the driver's seat in terms dictating what happens next. That's what they did last year, basically.
Ok, but there were references in the last few km up the Galibier that he was isolated, as he had no teammates - like this was a big potential problem. I understand the concern if he has a mechanical, but realistically, what's the other problem? All he has to do is follow Pog's wheel, and mark him when he attacks. He doesn't care if any other UAE riders attack without Pog. What does having other teammates with him do for him when Pog attacks?
I'm not asking rhetorically, I legitimately don't understand.
Given how he held up, of course today they didn't matter much. But if he went under like say Bernal did, which can always happen on mountain stage, having domestiques escort you uphill can be the difference between losing and winning the tour eventually.
Also, he had to respond to any attack by himself. Which was ok today specifically because the attack came late in the climb, but in general it's a big issue.
Pogacar himself basically lost a tour by being isolated and attacked by Roglic and Vingegaard at the same time.
I asked this before. And apparently it's about the time consuming protocols related to yellow jersey (1-2h after the race). This could hinder the recuperation/preparation time.
My guess is that UAE expected to drop Jonas in stage 2 and take yellow. But when they saw they couldn't drop Jonas, they'd rather not get the yellow jersey and it's burden.
I don't know if it's actually playing a huge factor or just marginal gains, but he probably wanted to be as rested as possible to go very hard on today's stage and drop Jonas as far as possible. Looking at how close Jonas was to stick to Pogi in Galibier, leaving yellow to Carapaz yesterday might have made the difference.
I think there's the other factor of the need to defend yellow, which might mean working your team harder than you'd otherwise want to.
But yes, I don't think the problem was taking yellow, it was taking yellow without actually putting any time into his rivals.
I mean stage 3 was for sprinters team to control, and stage 4 was always going to be for UAE to pace regardless of the yellow jersey holder. So imo even with the yellow, the team wouldn't have worked particularly harder during the stages.
On stage 2 he took all the hassle of yellow with no actual time gain. Today he took yellow and put 50 secs on his opponents and a stage win - that is well worth it.
I hopped on Zwift this morning after being an Aussie tdf fan (which my body clock wakes me up at 3am and then I just can’t help myself to watch and find out the result) snoozed off after and then did a climbing ride - my god I nearly went into a darker space than my dark garage hahaha how these guys do it I have no idea. My ride was for an hour hahaha
The climb portal in zwift tries to simulate the grades of famous climbs but the graphics are just colored polygons basically. More like gamecube mario kart rainbow road lol
Is anyone else seriously impressed by Jonas descending? He was taking time on everyone at the top when it was more technical, just didn't have the power on the faster sections. But watching him fly down that descent was nerve wracking. He just crashed bad enough to potentially be career altering and it didn't affect his mentality at all. I know plenty of guys that have struggled just to take flat corners at a moderate speed after getting hit by a car.
I keep seeing people say he was taking time on the more technical sections of the descent. He had an 8-10s deficit at the top and it never got smaller than that on the descent.
Once they actually started descending it was at 12 seconds and he got it down to 7 seconds by the end of the technical part. Not a huge gain, but still impressive considering how hard Pogacar was pushing it.
I think he lost a few over the top as he was so deep in the red, but he was clawing back time slowly on the switchbacks. It wasn't for long tho. Pogi was flying too.
Vingegaard's texting tonight: "Dear Sepp, I miss you". Honestly he was phenomenal today, given what he's been through. Just Pog was phenomenal-er. The lack of team depth will be hard for him. Given this and what he's been through, his result is amazing and if he holds this kind of performance, it's admirable and a great showing of himself as an athlete. He looked cooked at the finish. Hide in the peloton for a few days here.
Pog looked great, rode smart, didn't dig too deep (smart with headwind/late attack), and has several days now to sit in. One way to perhaps use Ayuso's ego is to keep him fresher than the other UAE, and when Pog attacks, see if he can sit on Vingegaard to annoy him / jump him too at any weakness. Their armada looks both strong and deep.
Evenpoel performed well, good things forthcoming given many of the hilltop finishes forthcoming.
Roglic is a fighter, the descent served him well. He probably should fear the forthcoming hilltop finishes however.
Rodriguez is strong and cagey. Looks like Ineos has its leader issues solved by the road deciding. Not sure if it has it's domestique issues solved ; )
I think one big factor that has been overlooked is Wout's perfornance. Having him in his usual role today might have been the difference between Jonas holding Pog's wheel over the top vs not.
Also, how good is it to have a genuine rivalry for GC? I grew up watching Lance dominate everyone and, as much as I enjoyed it, there was no romance. I never saw Le Mond vs Hinault for example.
I don’t understand how having Wout there would have helped Jonas today.
But I agree having Wout in form would really help to Jonas to regain time on Pog.
is there any explanation for Van Aert being out of shape? Did he have any injuries in the spring season or messed up training schedule? Any other priorities for him in the calendar year?
I think that’s the first time Vingegaard lose significant time in the Tour without making a mistake/or having bad luck.
The 2 other times I remember were:
- On the gravel stage in 2022 (but he had a mechanical)
- On Cauteret last year but he towed Pogi for most of the climb.
Haha I will. I should say I got lucky in my position but my friends and I actually argued over it for like an hour haha. We were like at like 800m to go when the gradient pinched up quite a bit.
The next hot question after todays stage:
What does JV have in his tank for the TT? I personally think he will be strong but not as strong as to put 2min into Pog.
Unfortunately due to his inactivity and recovery, Jonas has not had any time to train on the TT bike. I expect him to lose around a minute to Evenepoel and Pogacar.
This is not true. He had his TT bike with him in Tignes and his coach confirmed Jonas could get into TT without too much pain.
Of course, he has had far less time to train on it, but it’s not like he has not been on a TT bike since April.
Right. The difference between normal bike and TT bike is you ride the normal bike every single day, including all the stages of Tour de France like today. To succeed in the mountains, Vingegaard can simply hope to get stronger after each week (as he did have quite a bit of altitude training). If he doesn't get better, well tough luck.
But to succeed in TT is a more technical challenge, for which you need so many equipment adjustments that Vingegaard has not had the chance to work on, because they didn't prioritise it.
Obviously he's not putting 2 minutes into Pogacar (unless something happens with Pogacar). Apart from everything else, it's a much flatter TT, so no climb where he can take a minute on Tadej.
This comment has been removed due to breaking the rules on doping talk within race/results threads. Repeatedly breaking this rule will result in a ban.
Pog has now uploaded his [ride to Strava](https://www.strava.com/activities/11791347633).
2nd overall on a [long segment covering most of the descent](https://www.strava.com/segments/9697811?filter=overall) (this doesn't seem to include the all of the technical part).
15s faster than Remco who is the next fastest rider from today's stage.
He's also 2nd overall on [this segment](https://www.strava.com/segments/15422608?filter=overall) which is most of the technical section, 13s faster than anyone else from today.
Think of it as a perfectly vertical km/h, but it's meters/h. It allows some comparison on how fast he, or anyone else, can battle gravity, although other variables do play in.
Busted speed up the mountain. (Meters of altitude you'd gain doing that speed up that slope for an hour).
To compare it to: I am by now in kind of good shape, never have been really in bad shape though. I started out doing my local hill (7.5km) with about 560 VAM being barely capable to make it up, and am now at about 860 VAM going up it, and have done smaller races. So yeah, 2200 VAM after a stage is fucking insane.
I know Rob Hatch is all about clichés and hyperbole, but in what world is Cavendish “the greatest of all time”?
Primoz did better than I expected honestly.
[удалено]
Those who follow cycling outside of GTS know he has been on fire this season, I have him in my tissot team and he has been paying me back nicely
No-ones talkig about it because tha talking about it happened on the stages where he got the points. He's an early jersey holder, he won't be holding them for much longer. But he's also had a very good spring/classics campaign, so being a good breakaway rider wasn't unexpected.
[This](https://www.tv2.no/studio/jonas-abrahamsens-nakne-sannhet) portrait article is very, uh, informative
Wow, that article was very revealing!
Those are some big slabs of beef propelling that bike forward.
he was already quite good in the one-day races. Dwars door Vlaanderen en Dwars door Hageland he did quite good already.
New to this, but from what little I know he recently gained weight and that helped him? Based on my fantasy league, yes his performance is totally unexpected.
He has shown before he can pedal. Did well even last TdF
Was Almeida pissed with Ayuso? His gesture calling him up to pull was pretty emphatic. I know they got testy in La Vuelta
At first I thought so. However, then listening to some other commentary it could have just been that Ayuso is inexperienced as a domestique. As soon as he was called he moved to the front. If he had alternative motivations for staying at the back he could have told the team he was just barely hanging on. He may have GC ambitions of his own, but Tadej should be able to keep him in line.
Chris Horner said he was, because Ayuso possibly had GC ambitions (like Yatest last year) and was not pulling for UAE as he should have.
How is that old man youtuber guy really can confirm that Almeida was pissed on Ayuso? Did Almeida literally told him? Fvck that youtuber lmao. He talkin alot of nonsense in this sport.
I mean this was pretty obvious I thought?
good ol' Sepp Kuss wouldve been glued to Jonas all the way to the line (maybe behind by a a few seconds towards the summit) but theres no way Pogi makes this much of a gap if Sepp was there
I see a lot of people saying this. But can you please explain how? Sepp definitely could not follow Pogi's attack, only Vingegaard could to some extent. So how would he make a difference? In addition, Sepp Kuss has not had one top 10 placement in a world tour race this year.
no way
Chris Horner says Jonas should have sat up earlier, and then worked with Remco & Primoz. And UAE really blew their team tactics.
Horner is great at noticing small details that most people miss but he's the epitome of a Monday morning quarterback
True it's only in hindsight.
I doubt that would have made any difference. Vingegaard was caught just when it actually became possible to work together. Before that it was a proper descent where taking turns isn't really possible. Before that their speed would have been decided by the best descender (Rodriguez).
> Vingegaard was caught just when it actually became possible to work together. Agree that on the turns there was no point sitting up. Vingegaard was caught when Tadej had 4km left. The turns stopped ~1.6km before. Vingegaard was pedalling furiously all throughout those 1.6 km. They ate up 4-6 seconds in that 1.6 km. Let's say Vingegaard sat up for a bit, it's still around 3-5 seconds in that 1.6 km. With another 4km to go, could have saved 10-12 seconds. Of course it is easier in hindsight for us knowing Vingegaard didn't have the legs.
Sepp’s been having a rough year…not sure he would have made it as far as Mateo
Interesting. After recapping stage 4 Patrick thinks Jonas will win if he maintains current form. Benji thinks Pogacar. Love that they’re also on two sides of the fence lol In other news I cannot function normally for 3 weeks in July
What is also interesting is the way most casual cycling fans think of form in Grand Tours (not Patrick or Benji). The reason that riders appear to get stronger in the Tour is not because they actually gain strength (or watts/kg), but rather because they keep their peak form longer relative to their competition. There are simply too many back to back intense days with very little rest to actually get stronger. Rather, the game is all about not going too deep and then recovering better than your competition. So Patrick thinks if JV can keep his current form, he predicts that Pogacar's form will drop precipitously in comparison. I am more with Benji because repetitively going very deep is difficult to recover from and to me it looked like JV went much deeper than Pogacar on stage 4. He lost 40 seconds in the last 10Km showing just how badly he cracked on the stage. My guess is that Pogacar will recover better than JV for the time trial. In addition, Pogacar should be able to just cover attacks at this point, and then make moves near the top of the climbs to his advantage. In contrast, JV will need to isolate Pogacar from distance and then drop him, which based on his team doesn't look likely. It is certainly possible that Pogacar will crack in the third week. However, he looks to be conserving his energy much better than in previous Tours.
Wow impressed with how Remco came back, especially after a slower downhill.
same. Although i was more impressed by his climb in the first place. because he didn't do well in the dauphiné's climbs.
Watching the replay, Anyone else notice the guy in the giant Cock and Balls costume . It's at 6.8km to the top of the Col du Galibia , right after Almeida starts pulling.
I caught that. My wife said it out loud “is that a penis”
Haha screenshot?
What in the Movistar was QuickStep doing with several riders behind Soler when they were chasing the break?
Is it me or are Jonas' interviews as bad as I think they are? Who gets dropped then says the guy who dropped me wasn't stronger than me on the uphill?
It was def more of a direct interview than we typically see. *almost* felt like making excuses
Jonas also praised Pogacar a lot. This man is usually humbleness himself, please let him have one comment where he hypes himself up a bit 😂
Pog is better at sprinting. The previous years Jonas was better at climbing, but perhaps he's not *quite* there right now. However losing just under 10 seconds at the top is exactly the same as last year on Puy de Dôme where he went on to bury Pogacar in the third week. Obviously Pog got a bigger gap now because of the downhill finish, but it's too early to tell what will happen this Tour.
The difference between the Galibier and Puy de Dome stage last year is that JV was able to just hold the 8 second disadvantage up the Puy de Dome climb and matched Pogacar except for the initial acceleration. On the Galibier he cracked, and had it not been for the decent he would have lost a massive amount of time. In fact, JV did not lose any time on the steep parts of the decent, only when the road flattened out and JV had to peddle did he lose time. JV was completely cooked. This is totally understandable given his preparation, but the situation between this year and last year are completely different.
Well he’s not great at it 🥲 he also said: “He (Pogi) rode really fast today, and deserved the victory.. I couldn’t really keep up on the last part of the climb on Galibier, and he just rode really fast, so he deserved it…” from post stage [interview](https://sport.tv2.dk/cykling/2024-07-02-vingegaard-maner-til-ro-bedre-end-forventet) (in Danish)
He’s awkward. That’s part of his appeal on this subreddit. He also said gravity helped Pogacar downhill, which means it would hurt him climbing. if the implication is that Pogacar is heavier
He said Pogacar is heavier amd could go faster in the end. But I have seen lighter riders than Pogacar go fast on less technical parcours (Pidcock, Nibali etc).
I think on a longer climb, JV has the edge. Pogi's explosiveness near the top of the Galiber doesn't mean he can drop him on a longer mountain stage, or after a couple days in the mountains. Time will tell.
Exactly Their power output w time curves are similar in a sense in that they aren’t like a sprinter or a classics specialist, but pogs is a bit higher for bit smaller duration. JV can sustain a bit lower but for much longer. A naturally gifted climber
Going off yesterday tho, Pogacar got Almeida, Ayuso and Yates dragging him to just before the top of the last climb of any longer stage, probably even 15 so does it really matter if he's a bit punchier than JV and maybe not as crazy on longer mountain days if compared individually.
Galibier wasn't long enough? How long of a climb are you looking for?
Tourmalet is more steep. Stage 19 also looks insane.
It was the first day in the mountains in the first week and it was a short stage, so i'm looking for more than one day in the mountains and longer stages. I should have specified a longer day with steeper climbs. And at the top of the climb, he didn't have that much of a gap. He got like twenty seconds on the descent.
Wasn't even on the descent. Jonas was at 7 seconds. It was on the straights. Jonas was gassed compared to Pogacar and is also smaller.
Ye Jonas was cooked, this wasn't a situations where the route favored one of them.
When Vingegaard started losing time to Pogacar, you could see Pogacar was getting out of the saddle to get the bike up to speed after the corners, while Vingegaard stayed in the saddle. A pretty good sign that Pogacar still felt fresh, while Vingegaard wasn't.
True he may have been gassed earlier - his pedaling was slower.
Fair point.
Jonas wants 10k at 12% at high altitude
Jonas would definitely have the edge going up K2.
Jonas & Rogla,both missing Kuss. lol
The slander the Sepp gets shall be no more. Visma is a different team without the man who won the Vuelta. UAE has juggernauts supporting Podacar. Idk if Jonas can keep up down then stretch... I know he's a week 3 rider but not having a good support system plays a big factor.
This just goes to show that some domestiques aren’t cut out for team leadership. Jonas and Primoz did a great job supporting Sepp in the Vuelta but they clearly can’t carry their own GC campaigns. /s
So I have a few things... 1. SOO happy for Pogi, I love the guy and I am so excited to see him in Yellow (again) 2. I also love Roglic and I was really happy to see the efforts that he put in today as well. He was looking strong. Although Vlasov and Hindley they dropped - which makes me think, maybe they will go for a "stage" but play the satelitte rider role and Roglic could teleport for some more time... 3. Remco is showing really good form and I am enjoying seeing that he has been able to keep up so far. I can't wait for the TT action between the Big 4... 4. I would LOVE to have been on the team bus for UAE to hear how Almeida and Auyso were...Almeida was really doing the team dream today and Auyso...well, he is performing well but he needs to take a pull for a bit longer...perhaps watch how Yates operates. 5. I am proud of Jonas, I think this year its great that he is the under dog because you really end up rooting for him, however the JV squad, where were they? I think they are really missing Sepp, Van Hoydonk etc... also, WVA called it early and wasnt able to assist like in previous years. This could also play a really big factor.
3. Can't wait to see Remco on the big mountains. I hope he gets his top 5 goal, and maybe a podium. 5. JV (or do you mean V-LAB :P) is beset with bad luck, injuries and crashes. A win would be miraculous for them at this stage.
Im a bit surprised that since Tadej felt good, he didn’t test the waters with an attack maybe 2-3km earlier in the climb than he did. Understandably you don’t want get greedy on stage 4, you want to maximize your domestique work, and there was a long descent after that may have played into that. Makes me wonder if UAE respected JV’s shadowing of Tadej on stage 2 and/or were concerned about Tadej going too deep on a long climb followed by a long descent.
In addition to the head wind on the stage, I don't think Pogi had the confidence he could crack JV given that JV covered his attack on Stage 2 with seeming ease. In addition, JV has a massive psychological advantage from beating Pogi the last two years. I personally don't think Pogi was planning to drop JV on the Galibier but rather was just going for the time bonuses at the top. When he saw that he cracked JV, he just went for it on the decent. Now that he cracked JV on the Galibier however, he may have more confidence to go from further out if he is feeling good.
Lower gradient and into a headwind. Multiple riders might be able hold his wheel in that scenario.
It's because there was a strong headwind on Galibier. That makes it difficult to attack solo from afar versus staying in a group. So he waited until the last bit before the summit and did his classic attack-sprint combo that Vingegaard can't really respond to. It was probably the most he could get out of it that he got in the end.
Yes. That Pogacar still could gain almost a minute (bonus secs added) is a feat.
I think this sums it up pretty well. He said afterwards he wanted to attack earlier but left it late because of the headwind. I think he'd have had a bigger gap if he'd attacked sooner, given the gap was starting to open up properly by the time they got to the top of the Galibier.
I love Remco's riding so far. He has rode much better than what i thought he was capable of. Hope he can stay with the three on the longer multiple climbs. He also looks so lean and much more fit for this race. Rog is getting there, but I don't think he will be able to match the duo on those 7w/kg efforts. Maybe just maybe the standard will switch for him. He was always lacking the 3rd week power. Maybe Bora's training switched that for him. Vigo has been the old tough Vigo from the last two years. I think he has something prepared for the last week. He does not look bothered with those under 1min gaps. Pogi is the powerhouse here. He can do it all, but it can come as a downside in the 3rd week as the giro tiredness could show...hopefully not! And did i hear it right that he will ride Vuelta also? Mad, just mad! I don't see too much happening in GC, except for ITT, until the 13th.
So many thoughts, but I’ll distill them down to the ones that are taking up the most space in my head right now: - Visma needs better support for Jonas. Jonas looks like he’s likely to hold up his end of the deal with his form, but leaving him all alone while UAE has 4 riders pulling for Pogi isn’t going to cut the mustard. - The podium and top 5 battle are going to be biblical if today’s display from GC hopefuls is any indication . - I’m not writing off Remco’s potential in this tour yet. He’s doing things through 4 stages that are making me raise my eyebrows a lot and I can’t wait to see how the cards fall for him
Remco has really impressed me. I expected him to be gone once dropped. Coming back on stage 2 with carapaz and then today! My interest is piqued.
Remco's issue aside from descending is having a bad day in week 2 or 3.
Today confirmed for me that the race for the remaining podium spots is going to be exciting to watch!
As Jonas said to a Danish tv reporter after stage 4, regarding losing 37 seconds on stage 4, now being 50 seconds behind Pogecãr. “..To be honest, it's actually better than expected. We had expected to be up to two minutes behind now, so that way we can be quite satisfied, says Vingegaard.” Adding that Pogecàrs bodyweight helped Pogecàr on the decent. Considering this was an all out Pogecār attack at his max, Jonas is actually holding on quite well, come the steep mountains in hot weather, Pogecàr will eventually crack, no doubt about it.
Pogacar said the other day that he manages heat better now.
I don't know how much we can read into any of this. Pog attacked late, into a head wind, so not optimum conditions for one of his explosive attacks. And Jonas is hardly going to say "yeah, I've not got it this year". So I don't know, all of what you say may be true, or none of it.
Of course he’s gonna say that to himself. 50secs is a big gap after 1 mountain. JVs team isn’t nearly as good this year either imo and UAEs is better.
And yet Jonas managed to take 6 minutes on Pogacar on just two mountains stages last year. And 4 minutes on two stages in 2022.
FWIW Horner had a similar assessment. He said Pogacar was great but his team screwed up their tactics
Never underestimate the Pøgaçår.
A disappointing result. It seems Jonas is indeed hampered by the injury and instead of seeing two people fight it out, Pogi has already secured the win. I guess there's always next year.
Lmfao what???? Is this your first year watching? 😭
Jonas is the only one who could challenge Pogi but it seems like the injury is going to stop him from keeping up. I'm well aware of past Tours being dominated by one person early on, I just don't find it interesting to watch.
The Tour is long. Jonas had over one minute on Pogacar last year after stage 5 and they ended up 10 seconds apart before Jonas then brought down the hammer in week 3. Honestly, as long as Jonas is within 4 minutes before stage 19, stage 20 and stage 21, then the Tour is not decided. Pogacar only took less than 10 seconds on Jonas on the climb itself. That is amazing considering Vingegaard’s recovery and lack of racing before the TdF.
Jonas picked that minute up a few seconds at a time, usually from short sprints, not by totally dropping Jonas. Jonas looked exhausted while Pogi looked fresh. I'm hoping I'm wrong and the tour isn't over, but to me it looks like Jonas hasn't recovered enough to compete at the right level.
This really is your first tour
It really isn't, so you're wrong and I'm right.
Last year the tour was really close until week 3...
If this is what being hampered by the injury looks like for Jonas 4 stages into the tour, you’d be smart to buckle up for week 3. No chance this is sealed for Pogi yet. And he’s smart enough to know that.
Don't get me wrong, Jonas is still a beast and better than everyone else even hampered. But it seems that injury has affected him enough that Pogi can drop him. I'm hoping I'm wrong and Jonas can get better but he looked absolutely dead while Pogi was fresh.
Luckily nobody was injured last year, right?
There is a world of difference between a broken wrist and being able to train on the home trainer within a week vs. multiple broken bones and organ damage plus a 12 day hospital stay. Both are injuries, yes, but people really shouldn’t be comparing them.
Couldn’t have gone better for Pog and UAE to have Pog come out 45 on top and still have Ayuso and Almeida well placed on the stage. Some good signs in G2 though, Jonas good on the climb but understandably nervy on the descent. Remco, Rog and Rodriguez also very good. The race isn’t over yet.
this continues to bode well for an exciting Tour. Today's stage would not historically lend itself to big changes in GC: too hard to carry any advantage 19km to the finish. I thought for sure JV would catch on the descent, maybe even the rest of the GC group, but no. And the attack so late in the climb also did not lend itself to significant time, but at the end of the day, it seems like a significant advantage. Pog definitely looked properly motivated.
Pogacar has more power than any of the other GC riders and this is a descent where you can really put power into the pedals. Add that this was clearly a very good day for him too, I think there's basically no way Vingegaard should catch him. Perhaps if the group behind had bridged to Vingegaard before the technical part ended, they could have worked together and caught/maintained the gap, but then again, it seems like that group was basically just Rodriguez throwing it down the mountain and the rest taxi'ing a ride.
Vingegaard descended well. He was slow on the flat part.
oh, almost forgot. yeah, this Tour is definitely over. /s
8" gap at the top and timid descending by JV? I would say that the battle is only beginning. Jonas is just going to get stronger. TP is not a patient racer and JV is. JV's current Achilles heel is his reluctance to take it to the limit on long technical descents. That is where he lost most of his time. Might be the best Tour since 89.
While the entire cycling world is thrilled by the top three battling it out in a superb exhibition of power, speed, and skill, Spanish fans are finally realizing that Enric Mas has been deceiving them. For over six years, he has been earning a hefty paycheck while delivering only mediocre performances. He's a true con man!
Mas Deception
I blame Landa for setting the precedent. Once he got away with it, the door was wide open
Mas has deceived noone. His Spanish fans have deceived themselves.
I don't know whether you speak Spanish but you should listen to his interview after the finish line: "I lost a lot of time but we're taking it step by step". The fact he's mediocre isn't the issue. Not every rider can be Pogacar or Merckx, not every football player can be Messi. It's his interviews where every year on the eve of the grand départ he states he's confident he can win. Have you seen how he "trains"? He goes for rides with some middle-aged friends on e-bikes!!! Still, chapeau to him, as the true con man he is, he's been earning 1-2 million euros a year for such a long time. I wish I had such a job!!!
Copium is a hell of a drug.
Where does the sentiment come from that Vingegaard needed domestiques (Wout, Kuss, Roglic)? Ok they are super important if you want to set a pace, to help you in case of a mechanical or just for morale... but I don't think any rider in the entire peloton could have helped here.
Having good domestiques means you can ride the stages how you want to ride them. You get to dictate the tempo, up the pace when you want to, and plan exactly when you're going to attack (or just keep the pace so high it deters attacks from other riders). Of course, yesterday wasn't necessarily bad for JV as he's such a good climber, but he had to wait to see what Tadej would do rather than being on the front foot. Also, if you look at 2022 and 2023, there's no doubt that Jonas was the strongest rider but he also benefited a lot from his team's tactics. Like the 1-2 with Roglic in 2022 - that only works because you have a strong team, with a top rider like Roglic to work with. Maybe without that, Jonas doesn't drop Pogi on that stage (or maybe he does, but the team tactics make it more likely). In 2023, Visma knew Pogi was coming back from an injury and didn't have the optimum preparation. So they kept the tempo as high as possible over the first few weeks, to fatigue him as much as possible. Eventually, it worked. At the moment, Jonas will have to ride the mountain stages how Pogi wants to ride them, because so far Jonas doesn't have the domestiques to dictate the pace. Now, that might suit Jonas, but if it doesn't, there isn't a lot he can do about it. Essentially, the team isn't everything. It doesn't mean Jonas won't win this Tour. But the team definitely helps!
Who's team controlled the race and set up a perfectly timed attack that resulted in a pretty big time gap on GC?
Unless Jonas had a teammate who can keep pace with a Pog attack better than Jonas can I’m curious what you expect his team to do there?
The stronger team tries to control the race and drop the other star's key domestiques to isolate them and set up their star's attack at exactly the point they want, or dissuade the rival from attacking at all and keeping the group together until the finish. This is how the tour de france has always worked? The teammate doesn't need to keep pace with a pog attack, the point is to make sure pog doesn't get the full mountain leadout from his guys and give that to Jonas if that's what the plan is for the stage. Ideally it prevents a Pog attack from happening at all. if you need specific examples, exhibits a and b would be the 2023 and 2022 TDF. It didn't work on every single stage, Pog still attacked and still won stages, but it got them yellow in Paris.
You failed to answer my question, Jonas just has to follow Tadej assuming he’s not attacking or being attacked by multiple people. His team wouldn’t have changed what happened there unless you think he would have sent a domestique after Pog’s attack, which he wouldn’t have.
if domestiques don't matter in the tour why is visma spending so much money on them? Come on man.
I’m not saying they don’t matter, I’m saying they wouldn’t have made a difference in that situation, and you’ve yet to explain what having an in-shape Sepp Kuss would have done there, because he wouldn’t have changed it at all and you know it. If we’re talking about Jonas setting up an attack, or Wout pulling him across gravel when he falls behind, having people break wind during sprint stages, getting him water, chasing down breaks, or playing satellite rider, you have an argument. Domestiques are valuable for that, and get amply for that duty. They don’t solve the issue that Jonas couldn’t follow Tadej yesterday, because nobody expects domestiques to manage a Tadej burst. It’s not like he was in the wind for more than a km going uphill, I’m curious what having Sepp there would have changed.
A strong team is useful to set up attack, less so when you’re defending. Ving wouldn’t have had extra draft had he been in the wheels of Kuss instead of Almeida.
ok. that has nothing to do with what i said tho
Yeah 2022/23 memories are basically made up of the vision of the jumbo train, with Pogacar tagging along (and doing damn well)
Sepp Kuss in great form wouldn't have made much difference today. Maybe with Kuss in the group behind Remco Jonas could have fallen back earlier and have Kuss pace on the lower part of the descent. But wouldn't have changed much. Wout (and perhaps 1-2 other strong Visma domestiques) who could put themselves in the break as satellite riders could possible have saved Jonas on the descent. They would have had to ride like crazy to get a big enough gap for one of them to survive across the top, but who knows. UAE would of course not have wanted them to go, but with a full roster of top Visma guys they might have been able to force it. But I think the biggest deal is that with Pog nearly a minute ahead (and maybe 1.5 minutes after the TT) Vingegaard will need to attack to win. And without a strong team to lay the hammer down in the third week (like UAE did today) it may be impossible.
> and maybe 1.5 minutes after the TT Is Pog a favorite for the TT this year? Asking because Vingegaard won the TT handily last year.
First week TT and Jonas not being top form + TT profile + less time to prep. Consensus is that it will be Remco > Pog > Jonas, but we will have to see. I am not convinced Jonas won't surprise us, but we'll have to wait and see. In the Vuelta he was quite bad on an early flat TT, but he was a bit sick for that.
I think the assumption is that JV won the TT through a lot of prep, plus it was more climbing. This year he has had very little time to prep a TT id imagine.
Look at what uae did today. It's what jumbo did to pogacar the last 2 years. It's about controlling the pace, protecting your leader and delivering them to the point they can attack to maximum effect.
What you say might hold for non mountain stages (typically crosswind, cobbles, gravel stages) But in mountain stages (especially stages that end at the top of climb), I tend to not fully agree. What Visma did to Pogacar the past 2 years was having Jonas as the best rider of the Tour. If you are the strongest, having good domestiques definitely helps setting up your attack. If you are not the strongest, having good domestiques is not that impactful in a final ascent. If you look at the Tourmalet/Cauterets stage from last year, Visma dropped everyone, Tadej had better legs in the end and won. Yates was a non factor. Kuss/Van Aert helped dropping everyone but didn't help in the particular Jonas vs Tadej duel. In the past few years, anyway both UAE and Visma would just pace super hard until there is no domestique from either team left and the one who has the better legs win. Having the good team mates mostly help if there is an issue unrelated to the rider's form (like a mechanical issue, get some food/drinks, etc). But when you look at how Jonas and Tadej are just so much stronger than the rest of the field, if they have a bad day where they need a domestique to pace to limit the gaps on an ascent then the Tour is close to lost for them. That said, today was ending with a downhill. The best Visma could have done would be to have a top shape Van Aert in the breakaway and hope he is caught after or very shortly before the top of Galibier. Then he might have pulled Jonas back. If Roglic and in form Kuss were in the Visma team, and managed to reach the top of Galibier 35s behind Pogi. Then Jonas might have waited for them and maybe they would have caught up to Pogi or end up closer.
I was talking specifically about todays stage not domestiques in general. UAE was pacing given they wanted to attack. You can't force a lower pace so domestiques would only have helped if * A) Jonas wanted a higher pace which I seriously doubt. * B) Jonas needed help after pog dropped him. But I don't think anyone could have helped Jonas there today. So I still wonder what specifically the presence of Rog (as TJV teammate), Kuss or WVA could have done here? WVA as a satellite rider with perfect timing could have helped just over the top. But no way UAE would have allowed that.
you can absolutely force a lower pace, and you also get a significant advantage out of controlling on the front at exactly the same pace. And obviously, the pace Jonas was doing prior to Tadej's attack was far slower than the pace he was doing as he followed, especially on the climb. The plan wasn't for Soler and Almeida to crack Jonas - they knew that wasn't likely, the plan was for Tadej to attack him - as they did. Soler and Almeida were pacing to prevent any other attacks from going before their planned 'go' point. If any other attacks had gone up the road, they'd be responsible for pulling them back if they could. All this is a huge advantage to Tadej and if Visma had the guns to do it, it would be the same advantage for Jonas, regardless of what happened after the two of them took off on their own. The lack of Sepp Kuss is already hugely impacting this race and it will only become more obvious.
unless you are dsm blocking the road in the ronde you can't force a lower pace... so your point is kuss riding a pace higher than ayuso / almeida still comfortable for jonas but dissuading pog to attack? That logic I can follow.
Yep that's basically my logic... it would need to be more than just Kuss because UAE have multiple strong guys. Also if Kuss and Jorgenson can actually manage to drop the UAE guys then that's a huge advantage because now they're in the driver's seat in terms dictating what happens next. That's what they did last year, basically.
Ok, but there were references in the last few km up the Galibier that he was isolated, as he had no teammates - like this was a big potential problem. I understand the concern if he has a mechanical, but realistically, what's the other problem? All he has to do is follow Pog's wheel, and mark him when he attacks. He doesn't care if any other UAE riders attack without Pog. What does having other teammates with him do for him when Pog attacks? I'm not asking rhetorically, I legitimately don't understand.
Given how he held up, of course today they didn't matter much. But if he went under like say Bernal did, which can always happen on mountain stage, having domestiques escort you uphill can be the difference between losing and winning the tour eventually. Also, he had to respond to any attack by himself. Which was ok today specifically because the attack came late in the climb, but in general it's a big issue. Pogacar himself basically lost a tour by being isolated and attacked by Roglic and Vingegaard at the same time.
I get why was not ideal for Pogačar to get yellow on stage 2, but why he took it now when it's still early?
How I see it: if vindegaard is in perfect condition, pog will be stronger than him now rather than later(as proven in last years tour).
I asked this before. And apparently it's about the time consuming protocols related to yellow jersey (1-2h after the race). This could hinder the recuperation/preparation time. My guess is that UAE expected to drop Jonas in stage 2 and take yellow. But when they saw they couldn't drop Jonas, they'd rather not get the yellow jersey and it's burden. I don't know if it's actually playing a huge factor or just marginal gains, but he probably wanted to be as rested as possible to go very hard on today's stage and drop Jonas as far as possible. Looking at how close Jonas was to stick to Pogi in Galibier, leaving yellow to Carapaz yesterday might have made the difference.
I think there's the other factor of the need to defend yellow, which might mean working your team harder than you'd otherwise want to. But yes, I don't think the problem was taking yellow, it was taking yellow without actually putting any time into his rivals.
I mean stage 3 was for sprinters team to control, and stage 4 was always going to be for UAE to pace regardless of the yellow jersey holder. So imo even with the yellow, the team wouldn't have worked particularly harder during the stages.
We know how Tadej races, he's happy to do the extra hour or two of media time if that means he's opened a big GC gap or won stages.
because this time the burden of the yellow comes with the benefit of 45s which is huge.
Having yellow with no gap isn’t worth it but with a 50 seconds it’s a different story.
On stage 2 he took all the hassle of yellow with no actual time gain. Today he took yellow and put 50 secs on his opponents and a stage win - that is well worth it.
About to humble myself on the zwift climbing portal on Col du Galibier and see how much I'd be gapped.
I hopped on Zwift this morning after being an Aussie tdf fan (which my body clock wakes me up at 3am and then I just can’t help myself to watch and find out the result) snoozed off after and then did a climbing ride - my god I nearly went into a darker space than my dark garage hahaha how these guys do it I have no idea. My ride was for an hour hahaha
Can you descend on it too?
You can and it's nice because you don't have to worry about falling off the mountain.
Ha! I bet! How are the graphics, if you don't mind me asking? Or is it actual video footage?
The climb portal in zwift tries to simulate the grades of famous climbs but the graphics are just colored polygons basically. More like gamecube mario kart rainbow road lol
Ya. The graphics are not exactly realistic. I'd peg them closer to sim city with bikes. But zwift does _feel_ real.
Plot twist: you actually climb it faster than Pogi haha
Well on Zwift I do only weigh 42kg....
lolol.
Is anyone else seriously impressed by Jonas descending? He was taking time on everyone at the top when it was more technical, just didn't have the power on the faster sections. But watching him fly down that descent was nerve wracking. He just crashed bad enough to potentially be career altering and it didn't affect his mentality at all. I know plenty of guys that have struggled just to take flat corners at a moderate speed after getting hit by a car.
I keep seeing people say he was taking time on the more technical sections of the descent. He had an 8-10s deficit at the top and it never got smaller than that on the descent.
It went down to 7 seconds.
Once they actually started descending it was at 12 seconds and he got it down to 7 seconds by the end of the technical part. Not a huge gain, but still impressive considering how hard Pogacar was pushing it.
I think he lost a few over the top as he was so deep in the red, but he was clawing back time slowly on the switchbacks. It wasn't for long tho. Pogi was flying too.
It was extremely nervy and nerve-wracking!
I would not have even attempted the descent if I'd have made that crash earlier in the year.
Vingegaard's texting tonight: "Dear Sepp, I miss you". Honestly he was phenomenal today, given what he's been through. Just Pog was phenomenal-er. The lack of team depth will be hard for him. Given this and what he's been through, his result is amazing and if he holds this kind of performance, it's admirable and a great showing of himself as an athlete. He looked cooked at the finish. Hide in the peloton for a few days here. Pog looked great, rode smart, didn't dig too deep (smart with headwind/late attack), and has several days now to sit in. One way to perhaps use Ayuso's ego is to keep him fresher than the other UAE, and when Pog attacks, see if he can sit on Vingegaard to annoy him / jump him too at any weakness. Their armada looks both strong and deep. Evenpoel performed well, good things forthcoming given many of the hilltop finishes forthcoming. Roglic is a fighter, the descent served him well. He probably should fear the forthcoming hilltop finishes however. Rodriguez is strong and cagey. Looks like Ineos has its leader issues solved by the road deciding. Not sure if it has it's domestique issues solved ; )
Pog defending vs Jonas and fresh Roglic and Remco should be fun to watch!
If there's one thing I know about Pogi, it's that he won't be defending, he will be attacking
Yeah having Jonas glued to Pog’s wheel was fun but I hope we’ll see different things this time.
Jonas didn’t win the last two Tours by being glued to Pogacar’s wheel considering he won by minutes. He has had plenty of attacks himself in the past.
I think one big factor that has been overlooked is Wout's perfornance. Having him in his usual role today might have been the difference between Jonas holding Pog's wheel over the top vs not. Also, how good is it to have a genuine rivalry for GC? I grew up watching Lance dominate everyone and, as much as I enjoyed it, there was no romance. I never saw Le Mond vs Hinault for example.
I don’t understand how having Wout there would have helped Jonas today. But I agree having Wout in form would really help to Jonas to regain time on Pog.
is there any explanation for Van Aert being out of shape? Did he have any injuries in the spring season or messed up training schedule? Any other priorities for him in the calendar year?
He broke his collarbone, 7 ribs, and his sternum in a crash in late March in Flanders.
Van Aert crashed in Dwars Door Vlaanderen and fractured a collarbone and some ribs.
He had a pretty bad crash on the cobbles.
was actually a wide open asphalt
Yeah it was a cobbled race though? Or am I just an idiot
It was cobbled, yes. Dwars door Vlaanderen.
I think that’s the first time Vingegaard lose significant time in the Tour without making a mistake/or having bad luck. The 2 other times I remember were: - On the gravel stage in 2022 (but he had a mechanical) - On Cauteret last year but he towed Pogi for most of the climb.
There were a few times in 2021 too but Jonas was not really the leader in the same way there.
I was watching in person right where Pogacar began his attack. Absolutely beautiful stage and one of the most exhilarating experiences on my life!
Lucky man. Let us know where you're stationed on future climbs so we can know where the attacks will come!
Haha I will. I should say I got lucky in my position but my friends and I actually argued over it for like an hour haha. We were like at like 800m to go when the gradient pinched up quite a bit.
Think like Tadej, find where its gonna hurt most.
I bet Visma already missing Rogljic as super domestique.
Kuss too.
That wouldn't do any difference today.
True. But the comment was missing them, not effectiveness.
I'm preparing myself to watch the battle for second place.
The next hot question after todays stage: What does JV have in his tank for the TT? I personally think he will be strong but not as strong as to put 2min into Pog.
Unfortunately due to his inactivity and recovery, Jonas has not had any time to train on the TT bike. I expect him to lose around a minute to Evenepoel and Pogacar.
This is not true. He had his TT bike with him in Tignes and his coach confirmed Jonas could get into TT without too much pain. Of course, he has had far less time to train on it, but it’s not like he has not been on a TT bike since April.
Right. The difference between normal bike and TT bike is you ride the normal bike every single day, including all the stages of Tour de France like today. To succeed in the mountains, Vingegaard can simply hope to get stronger after each week (as he did have quite a bit of altitude training). If he doesn't get better, well tough luck. But to succeed in TT is a more technical challenge, for which you need so many equipment adjustments that Vingegaard has not had the chance to work on, because they didn't prioritise it.
I am not sure he will take any time back in the ITT. Pog put time into just about everyone on the flatter part of the run into the finish.
The last TT is basically just a climb and a descent though. I don’t think anyone expects Jonas to take time on Pogacar on the flat TT on Friday.
Obviously he's not putting 2 minutes into Pogacar (unless something happens with Pogacar). Apart from everything else, it's a much flatter TT, so no climb where he can take a minute on Tadej.
This week's TT is flat, but there's a second one to close the race which is a little lumpy.
Hahaha, nice one! But siriusly, he'll be happy if he only ships 30-60sec to Remco ... :)
This isn’t that sort of TT
[удалено]
This comment has been removed due to breaking the rules on doping talk within race/results threads. Repeatedly breaking this rule will result in a ban.
[удалено]
Pog has now uploaded his [ride to Strava](https://www.strava.com/activities/11791347633). 2nd overall on a [long segment covering most of the descent](https://www.strava.com/segments/9697811?filter=overall) (this doesn't seem to include the all of the technical part). 15s faster than Remco who is the next fastest rider from today's stage. He's also 2nd overall on [this segment](https://www.strava.com/segments/15422608?filter=overall) which is most of the technical section, 13s faster than anyone else from today.
You miss the most absurd part. The final 850m of Galibier he did at 2200+ VAM.
Ok, this is... Completly busted.
New to some technical expressions, what exactly does that number correspond to?
Think of it as a perfectly vertical km/h, but it's meters/h. It allows some comparison on how fast he, or anyone else, can battle gravity, although other variables do play in.
Busted speed up the mountain. (Meters of altitude you'd gain doing that speed up that slope for an hour). To compare it to: I am by now in kind of good shape, never have been really in bad shape though. I started out doing my local hill (7.5km) with about 560 VAM being barely capable to make it up, and am now at about 860 VAM going up it, and have done smaller races. So yeah, 2200 VAM after a stage is fucking insane.
I figured it had to be something insane, but this puts it in a whole different perspective. Damn. Thank you everyone for your detailed answers!
At what speed he was climbing. 2.2k means if he continued with same speed for an hour, he would climb 2.2km