2024 season

First topic message reminder :

While MvdP dominates the cyclo-cross season, it's nearly time to get back on the road.

Pogačar will be riding the Giro this year. Does that mean they're throwing in the towel on the TdF? Well, the plan is for him to ride that alongside Almeida, Ayuso and Yates, so probably not.

The 'Yellow B' team (as they've renamed the official licence holder, seemingly as part of a plan to make that the team name/brand going forward) will now be Visma | Lease a Bike, and there's another big money discounter sponsor (following Lidl-Trek) in Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale.

So as everyman and his dog predicted, Pogacar won Giro. Winning margin 9 minutes 56 seconds which is insane.
Think we all knew he was going to win and win well but that is an incredible gap especially as not due to external factors just purely on a different level cycling wise.

TdF be interesting.

It appears that he is following advice of many and resting before altitude training in the run-up to the Tour. Not even the Dauphine, long used by many as a "warm up"...

Azabache wrote:It appears that he is following advice of many and resting before altitude training in the run-up to the Tour. Not even the Dauphine, long used by many as a "warm up"...

Dauphine is going to come round to quick for him. Although, he won the Giro with some ease there's still a lot of miles in the legs. Rest, recuperate and then get race ready. There's only a month to go until the Tour.

UAE have got a pretty stacked team at the Dauphine even without their star man. Soler, Pollitt, Sivakov, Wellens and Ayuso. Not the only team going strong as well, should be a good race.

UAE team for TdF looks immense,
Pogacar, Yates, Ayuso, Almeida, Sivakov, Soler, Wellens, Pollit.

Interestingly Visma not showing Wout Van Aert at the moment so whether that is tactical as he's back riding and should be fit.
Vingegaard, Kus, Benoot, Jorgenson, Kruijswijk, Laporte, Tratnik, Van Baarle

These are preliminary so could change.

mountain man wrote:UAE team for TdF looks immense,
Pogacar, Yates, Ayuso, Almeida, Sivakov, Soler, Wellens, Pollit.

Interestingly Visma not showing Wout Van Aert at the moment so whether that is tactical as he's back riding and should be fit.
Vingegaard, Kus, Benoot, Jorgenson, Kruijswijk, Laporte, Tratnik, Van Baarle

These are preliminary so could change.

UAE team is stacked - but will be interesting to see how they manage it...Ayuso and Almeida did not work together very well at the Vuelta last year, will they fall in line to help Pogacar or are UAE going to use them as potential GC threats to Vingegaard and allow them more free reign?

Wasn't Van Aert's plan to fully focus on the Olympics this year and ride the Giro (obviously pre-injury)? Hence absence from TdF lineup initially?

UAE team will be there for Pogacar first and foremost, any rider who doesn't toe the line and support him will not be popular.
He's in prime position to do a historic double so surely everything be put into that.

As for Van Aert, I don't know. The injury to him and also Vingegaard thrown everything into uncertainty. I hope Jonas fit and firing for Tour though. I really think only he on top form can challenge Pog.

Critérium du Dauphiné starts Sunday.

Roglic and Evenpoel two of the top names competing, still uncertainty whether Vingegaard will be there but Jorgenson from Visma is riding so assume he's GC hope for them in absence of Jonas.

Should be a decent race!

Highlights on ITV4 at 19:00

Duphine is always interesting to see how the GC competitors are shaping up. Commonly, guys competing for the win here are stronger in the first half of the Tour then try to hold on, while others aiming for a later peak more want the miles under their belts and to test where they stand conditioning wise.

Oh, and again Tom Pidcock has proven that he's the world's best XC mountain biker, even though he only does it for a bit of fun between the main aims of his season.

Watching Dauphiné I can't help thinking how different it would be if Pogacar was there. So far GC is anyones, both favourites, Roglic and Evenpoel not showed much but going by what he did at Giro I'd say Pog would have stormed yesterdays stage. OK the GC race really starts tomorrow and then 2 mountain stages to finish but without him being there I still think he is a class above.

I so hope Vingegaard gets ready for Tour as I think only he can challenge Pogacar.

Agreed the GC contenders in the Dauphiné are letting the race come to them a bit whereas there's no chance Pog would allow that. He'd have forced the issue. Not sure Jonas would have sat back either, he'd have his team on the front pushing the tempo. I'm hopeful we get another installment of them going head to head.

Bad crash or series of crash yesterday on a straight section of road. It had rained so road wet but looked bad. Two Visma riders in hospital so their bad year gets worse as likely TdF riders in Steven Kruijswijk and Dylan van Baarle are out of Tour.

The conditions and crash so bad the stage was neutralised.

TV pictures didn't do it justice, ITV4 highlights had a clip from a spectators phone and it showed the speed they were going and severity of crash as riders slid for ages. Think peleton speed at time was around 80km/h or 50mph as was downhill.

Roglic and Evenpoel both went down but they are OK. Around 40-50 riders went down, grim.

mountain man wrote:Bad crash or series of crash yesterday on a straight section of road. It had rained so road wet but looked bad. Two Visma riders in hospital so their bad year gets worse as likely TdF riders in Steven Kruijswijk and Dylan van Baarle are out of Tour.

The conditions and crash so bad the stage was neutralised.

TV pictures didn't do it justice, ITV4 highlights had a clip from a spectators phone and it showed the speed they were going and severity of crash as riders slid for ages. Think peleton speed at time was around 80km/h or 50mph as was downhill.

Roglic and Evenpoel both went down but they are OK. Around 40-50 riders went down, grim.

Van Baarle is a good rider but replaceable. Kruijswijk will be a very big loss as their major mountain domestique.

dummy_half wrote:

mountain man wrote:Bad crash or series of crash yesterday on a straight section of road. It had rained so road wet but looked bad. Two Visma riders in hospital so their bad year gets worse as likely TdF riders in Steven Kruijswijk and Dylan van Baarle are out of Tour.

The conditions and crash so bad the stage was neutralised.

TV pictures didn't do it justice, ITV4 highlights had a clip from a spectators phone and it showed the speed they were going and severity of crash as riders slid for ages. Think peleton speed at time was around 80km/h or 50mph as was downhill.

Roglic and Evenpoel both went down but they are OK. Around 40-50 riders went down, grim.

Van Baarle is a good rider but replaceable. Kruijswijk will be a very big loss as their major mountain domestique.

I mean Sep Kuss, although he might be a GC candidate. Considering Jumbo have relied on the strength of their squad to bully their way to Tour wins the loss of those two on top of the other issues is going to hurt.

If Vingegaard not ready it'll be Jorgeson for Tour I reckon. Kuss ultimate domestique but not quite top GC rider.

Check out this clip. Around 01:50 shows phone clip which gives a good idea of speed etc as they crashed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8csnI3cCmLk

Roglic squeaks home to win GC. Jorgeson a good 2nd and brilliant ride from Derek Gee to get a career best 3rd.

Evenpoel knew he wasn't in good enough condition and rode his own race and finished on his own terms as training for the Tour.

Going on all I've seen no-one is anywhere near Pogacar.

New series of Tour de France : Unchained on Netflix now available.

Obviously we know outcome but really interesting watch. Only odd thing which I don't like is they have dubbed into English anything spoken not in English. Personally I'd rather have it in original launguage with subtitles. Seems more authentic.

mountain man wrote:New series of Tour de France : Unchained on Netflix now available.

Obviously we know outcome but really interesting watch. Only odd thing which I don't like is they have dubbed into English anything spoken not in English. Personally I'd rather have it in original launguage with subtitles. Seems more authentic.

I know people are lazy but surely not so lazy they can't read a few minutes of sub titles.

It's a bit odd, Julian Alaphillipe sounds like he's from Essex

UAE heading into the TdF looking very strong. Adam Yates and Almeyda dominating the Tour de Suisse on the back of Pogacar controling the Criterium.

Unless Vingegaard has been training like a demon and is ready, I cannot see any team competing for GC with UAE, aside from Jonas injury there's been several others for Visma and going on how the Dauphine went Pogacar and UAE a level above rest.

Bora have looked a solid squad so far and with Roglic leading they could mount a challenge. Fingers crossed as a neutral that Vingaard is back and ready to ride though.

True but Roglic almost got caught out and lost GC to Jorgenson, think winning margin was 8 seconds at end.
Pogacar TT is superior and so is his climbing and I think UAE have stronger team.

Of course until it starts and get a few stages in we won't know for sure but everything so far points to Pogacar win.

No Sep Kuss for Jumbo is a massive blow to them with Vingegaard definitely not at his best already.

Could we see a UAE 1-2-3?

Dunno, I could see maybe Yates getting there but a 1-2-3 be tough as most of team be sacrificing themselves for Pogacar.
I do think race will be for positions 2 and 3 unless Vingegaard has remarkable powers of recovery and has trained incredibly well but having no racing since crash seems it's unlikely.

Visma originally said Jonas would only ride TdF if 100% but now it's if competitive so maybe they are hedging bets as to who will be leader. If not him then Jorgenson but I don't see him challenging Pogacar.

Physically I assume Vingegaard is 100% fit but perhaps not race fit yet and Jumbo are hoping he'll race himself back into race sharpness over the first week.

Almeyda looked good with Yates at the Tour de Suisse. Gives UAE two very strong lieutenants for Pogacar.

GCN previewed the tour in a video and wow it looks even tougher than normal. A ton of climbing on very first stage, not steep climbs but 7 catagorized and then 6 on stage 2 and a mountain stage 4. If Vingegaard not race fit he could lose time in first week and not be able to claw it back.

mountain man wrote:GCN previewed the tour in a video and wow it looks even tougher than normal. A ton of climbing on very first stage, not steep climbs but 7 catagorized and then 6 on stage 2 and a mountain stage 4. If Vingegaard not race fit he could lose time in first week and not be able to claw it back.

I did a quick scan of the route a few weeks ago, and it is unusual, with more climbing very early in the race, 4 sprinters stages and a shortish flat ITT around the end of the first week and early second week. The third week is brutal: Stages 14 and 15 very tough mountain top finishes, 16 easy, 17 and 18 lumpy rather than really hard and then 19 and 20 again hard mountain top finishes, with the final stage being an ITT for the first time since Lemond beat Fignon.

Stage 1 I reckon will have a group of about 30 to 40 coming in together, including all the GC riders and some of the tough classics guys - could well suit someone like Alaphilipe, with ability to get over the punchy climbs and still have a good sprint. What would be fun would be to see him and Pidcock attack on the final descent, to see if they could hold off a reduced bunch.

Stage 2 has 'breakaway' written all over it - 4 punchy climbs in the last 50 km, with only 13km from the last summit to the finish and a decent chunk of downhill there.. Not a stage to hurt GC riders, but too tough for the major sprinters to be at the front.

Stage 4 is a classic 'can't win the race here but could lose it' mountain stage. Not hard climbs by the pro's standard and finishing with a long descent, but very high altitude, so a bad day could be very bad.

Just checking forward, I will slightly change my description of stage 19. Shortish stage at 145 km, starts with the brutal Col de Vars, topping out at 2100m, and finishing at the summit of Isola 2000 at just over 2000m. But in between, a rare passage over the Col de Bonette, at a mere 2800m, the third highest road in Europe and the highest that isn't a dead end. I don't think 'brutal' is a sufficiently harsh description for what this stage is - perhaps I'll try 'murderous'. Seriously, time gaps will be measured with a calendar rather than a stop watch. I don't recall a stage THIS hard for at least a decade.

mountain man wrote:GCN previewed the tour in a video and wow it looks even tougher than normal. A ton of climbing on very first stage, not steep climbs but 7 catagorized and then 6 on stage 2 and a mountain stage 4. If Vingegaard not race fit he could lose time in first week and not be able to claw it back.

There's some chat of Pogacar having recovered from COVID. If there's any hints of him not feeling tip top an early stage attack by his GC rivals could work out. Would be good for the race to see Pogacar and Vingegaard have to chase the other GC contenders down over weeks 2 and 3, for the neutral anyway.

That was some opening stage of TdF.
Cavendish had a major struggle in heat and at one point was potentialy in danger of not making time cut. One of Astana team mates already abandoned.
UAE started to ride at one point but seemed they realised Vingegaard was fine so backed off.
Incredible ride by Van Den Broek to take Bardet to line for win and he of course goes into yellow.
Wout van Aert showing no signs of any post crash issues as he got 3rd.

Great stage. Pogacar gets yellow but Jonas showed he is fit and ready. Evenpoel finished really strong. Roglic lost time though
Set up nicely for mountain stage 4.

Was a great stage today

A bit too early to make any predictions. JV may be playing mind games with TP-perceived wisdom is that whatever training Jonas has done cannot be a substitute for real racing; but, but...he's one hell of a rider! And now we hear that Tadej may be recovering from Covid...intriguing, and so early in the race. We have the grueling Lautaret/Galibier on Tuesday-that may reveal relative performances.

Nice to see Bardet's win on the first day-a nice guy, but unfortunately the leading contenders don't do "nice"! Still, he's in the record books. Anyone have a take on Roglic? He seems more relaxed and at ease with himself now that he's left that team.

Roglic lost 21 seconds yesterday and that's a stage he's ridden before and had success on. Doesn't bode well for when tour hits mountains.
I can't see him competing with Pogacar and Vingegaard or even Jorgenson now.

Can't see anything bar a Vingegaard victory - he's clearly absolutely fine, and Pogacar is going to have a Giro in his legs plus a bout of Covid a few days before the race, and barely made a dent into Vingegaard yesterday.
Evenepoel is no match for them in the mountains and Roglic seems a year or two past his best to me.

It's early in the race so time gaps currently probably aren't worth much. We'll learn an awful lot more tomorrow if have thought. Anyone out the back on those climbs is either on a Froome esque mission or is going to have a miserable final week unless they come back into form.

It's good Vingegaard seems up to it. Going to make this a much more entertaining race. Pogacar hasn't gone for many big digs so far but I'm not sure whether that's tired legs from the Giro or whether he's learned the lesson of previous Tours and is saving is ammunition for later stages.

Well, it's delightful to indulge in this analysis and make such confident predictions!

From reading an interview with Vingegaard he seems to be honest in admitting that he's just glad to be at the Tour and that the altitude training he's done may not be a sufficient substitute for some real race riding. Although I personally wouldn't take at face value anything his management say, he himself has always seemed to me to be too dour and straight to be disingenuous-a classic Dane.

So let's see what happens on Tuesday's stage eh? There's a long, long way to go. But even so early in the race it's promising to be a fantastic one.

Jonas Vingegaard is always polite, and has total respect for his rivals. He is a quiet person as comes over in interviews and the Netflix series but obviously has a ruthless edge. You have to at that level.

Oosh that's a statement of intent. Great battle up front.

UAE and Pogacar ominously strong
Vingegaard lost time on descent which was surprising maybe but must be affected by crash. Mentally more than physically.

What a stage! And so early in the edition. Are we going to see a Merckx-like rampage with Pogacar building up an unassailable lead, or will it settle down as the usual suspects claw their way back up the GC? The time gaps opening up are already worrying.

I'm sure that fellow hacks amongst us who've had bad crashes will empathise with Vingegaard's possible reticence on hair-raising descents.

Azabache wrote:What a stage! And so early in the edition. Are we going to see a Merckx-like rampage with Pogacar building up an unassailable lead, or will it settle down as the usual suspects claw their way back up the GC? The time gaps opening up are already worrying.

I'm sure that fellow hacks amongst us who've had bad crashes will empathise with Vingegaard's possible reticence on hair-raising descents.  

And Evenepoel still looks more circumspect than many of the others on the downhills, and it's now what, 3 years since his crash and injury in San Sebastian.

The next week or so doesn't really offer that many opportunities for GC riders to gain time - a relatively short ITT on Friday and some cobbles on Sunday, so days that someone could lose time. Stage 11 is listed as a mountain stage, but is more what used to be classed as a medium mountain stage rather than a high mountain stage, so would normally be a breakaway type stage, but with Pogacar it's possible he'll just try to crush everyone again.

Cav does it! Cav does it!

Amazing. What a sprint from the great man. Incredible

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Cav does it! Cav does it!

Amazing. What a sprint from the great man. Incredible

Made it look easy - hit the front with about 150m to go and was never really challenged, won by 2 lengths.
Not bad for an old man

Oh and cue the 'but he doesn't win the GC' whingers.

Not that there was really any doubt previously, but there really is no-one who can claim to be a better road sprinter than Cavendish - outright record holder on Tour de France stage wins.

Here to pay homage to the Manx Missile.  To begin with he made it look so simple, but as he aged and injuries began to take its toll, being dropped a few times from the tour, and the years going by, it seemed impossible. The belief to keep going, and the pressure of having a team behind you working for you, hoping that their efforts are going to produce a reward - well I guess it is a winners mentality.

Just celebrate his remarkable achievement. Undaunted in spite of age, crashes, injuries, team changes, a vile attack/robbery in his home....

It would be regarded at this juncture as churlish to open the debate as to whether winning sprint stages can be compared to the "all round" wins of Merckx.

Not sure, however, that that legitimate debate is "whinging"!

Azabache wrote:Just celebrate his remarkable achievement. Undaunted in spite of age, crashes, injuries, team changes, a vile attack/robbery in his home....

It would be regarded at this juncture as churlish to open the debate as to whether winning sprint stages can be compared to the "all round" wins of Merckx.

Not sure, however, that that legitimate debate is "whinging"!

I've no problem with that debate, and obviously Merckx was by far a better rider than Cavendish overall, and achieved his win record in far fewer Tours (although they were a bit longer - iirc, about 26 stages typically_). The issue is less on here, where comments are from people with a real interest in and knowledge of the history of the sport, and more on things like the BBC 'Have Your Say' pages where people with no knowledge of cycling try to discount Cav's achievements because he doesn't compete for the Tour overall.

Oh, and can I just say what a good sprint it was from Cav. Looks like he's still very competitive at least in the slightly uphill straightish sprints that used to be his most dominant days - hit the front quite early and simply no-one had the speed to even get alongside never mind in front.

Pity the last stage isn't on the Champs Elysees, as that's where Cav should be finishing his career.

Another sprint stage today so as usual a dull boring affair until last 3km.
Roll on the mountains!

mountain man wrote:Another sprint stage today so as usual a dull boring affair until last 3km.
Roll on the mountains!

Really flat stage - they've managed to find a pimple to classify as a climb near the start, but otherwise nothing. Can only hope the wind blows enough to keep the riders on their toes (the stage runs essentially due north, but has a section maybe 2/3rd of the way through that swings east, and the last few km run north-west.

Really can't see a break sticking today. Better chance on Saturday, which is a lumpier stage and after the ITT, and on Sunday with a combination of some short sharp climbs and some unpaved road sections (could suit Pidcock, van Aert, MvdP and Pogacar, who won Strade Bianchi for fun this year.)

Be interesting to see how Cav goes in the sprints in the next few days - maybe taking the record removes some of the pressure and he can really fly, or he might decide that the record is enough.