Cycling Thread

[Jobbo]

Reference on the highlights show last night to rumours that Pog isn't well. I think the fastest ever ride up Ventoux shows he was well the day before - though that factoid is a bit unfair to Vingegaard who matched him all the way so had the second fastest ever.

I get the feeling that early in the race Pog was able to be more calm and light-hearted because he couldn't win the Tour there, only lose it. Now he has a solid lead but 4 mins is eminently catchable if he blows up on today's climbs, and Vingegaard may not be quite as explosive but he looks incredibly solid. I should probably put it on live now.

[Gavster]

Ooohhhh, it's already on live? Jumping on it too!

Sad news about MVDP dropping out and with pneumonia too, he's such a fantastic rider.

[Jobbo]

71km to the end of the stage, this is getting both serious and exciting.

[Gavster]

71km to the end of the stage, this is getting both serious and exciting.

Absolutely, very interesting how it's developed and also very tactical too, my work has taken a back seat

[8Ball]

Another great stage of racing

[8Ball]

All sorts of combinations of who needs to attack and who needs to chase.

[Jobbo]

Been so busy this afternoon I didn't get the chance to watch it, just had Ned's voice mumbling at me quietly. So I'll have to watch the catch up tonight. It starts at 9pm but I've been watching the highlights then anyway to avoid Love Island

[8Ball]

Shortened stage today, reckon it'll be flat out racing to the finish.

https://www.letour.fr/en/news/2025/chan ... ne/1331722

[Gavster]

Oh wow, short stage, one big climb at the end. That's quite unusual, I have no idea how the teams will react to that. I wonder if it's a breakaway day, it's not long and mountainous enough to drag it out for a big GC battle at the end, because Vingegaard simply doesn't have the minerals and Tadej is being Mr Sensible this year. It might be more of a Lipowitz/Onley battle as they've got way more to fight for.

[8Ball]

I reckon Lipo & Onley, and Roglic to an extent fighting it out as well. There's still the Col du Pre & Cormet de Roseland first, so UAE and Visma going full gas up those will thin things out pretty quickly leaving the leaders to fight it out to the finsh if they want. Will be interesting to see.

Fingers crossed for Onley, would be great to see him jump onto the podium.

[Jobbo]

Shortened stage today, reckon it'll be flat out racing to the finish.

https://www.letour.fr/en/news/2025/chan ... ne/1331722

It was already a fair bit shorter than yesterday so I wasn't sure if the route shown on the highlights show last night was the shortened version. Probably not since that page is timed at 22.31 last night; even French time that would be 9.31pm over here.

The profile looked pretty interesting already. Shorten it and I wonder if the plans go out of the window and we see people going full gas early and blowing up?

[8Ball]

It was originally 120km or so, now down to 95km-ish.

It does lend itself to more attacking racing, especially between Red bull & PostalNI, but UAE & Visma will probably want to try and control things

Still, should be a good watch again

[JonMad]

Fascinating finish to that stage. They're going to go... they're going to go...

[Gavster]

[Jobbo]

Seeing the four top GC contenders together for so long on that climb was great - so tense. And makes Thymen’s stage win the more amazing really. There was every incentive for two of the top four to go for it (Onley for 3rd overall, Ving for a stage win) and they didn’t do it.

Pog definitely looks like he’s not quite 100%; he probably has a cold or something. Which would explain why he didn’t behave like a cannibal at the top of that climb. The weather must have been hampering him quite a lot.

Loved Lipowitz’s sideways action too.

[Jobbo]

I watched the whole of yesterday's stage live. I'm not entirely sure I shared their enthusiasm for the new format; if the result is neutralised before the end and the riders don't really race each other anyway in Paris then the Montmartre circuit is just for show. It was too damp and slippery for anyone to take a risk. Bring back the final stage individual time trial. Yes, I still remember 1989's final day... I guess you couldn't replicate that result even if you'd done it every year since.

The montage of clips from four decades of the Ch4/ITV4 team coverage was pretty emotional. I'm going to feel utterly bereft next July.

[Gavster]

I joined the broadcast when they started the circuits, and enjoyed it far more than I usually do the last stage. It had way more drama than the usual procession which is only decided in the final 1km. Also the circuits were well suited to the WvA and MvDPs of the cycling world, which gives a far more drawn-out strategic approach to that last stage and the way Jorgensen and WvA worked together in the break made it feel more like a proper racing stage than usual. On that note, what an epic ride by Wout, the way he dropped Pogacar had me literally jumping out my seat.

The problem with making the final stage a time trial is that time trials are quite boring to watch, and after three weeks of racing, the GC is usually fairly well settled with decent time gaps, so the race is over for 99.9% of the peleton. If it had been a time trial this year, the only people with anything left to race for would have been Onley and Lipowitz, with Lipowitz being most likely to have simply taken even more time out of Onley. Anyone ahead or behind them couldn't care less by that point.

[JonMad]

I enjoyed that! Great crowds, good to see there were no accidents. The wet weather added another dimension - as Ned and David said, WvA was able to take more risks on the downhill wet bits - as well as having less to lose than TP at that point (he still had to finish, right, to win the GC, even though the times had been neutralised?). The shots as they got back to the Champs Elysees showing Sacre Coeur way off in the background, having been there only a few minutes before, really highlighted how fast they were going. The win with Wout alone at the front was epic imo. Funny that JV was relatively chilled for the whole stage and didn't get in the mix.

I hope there'll still be a Never Strays Far podcast. I was refreshing it last night for one from the final day but it hadn't appeared when I went to bed. Just checked and it's there now. Does anyone know if Ned, David, Pete, Gary etc are going elsewhere next year?

[JonMad]

I obviously haven't listed to the pod enough - I didn't realise one of the Welsh commentators is actually a rock guitarist as well (& composer of the NSF theme tune?) https://www.instagram.com/perryguitar666/?hl=en https://theroadbook.co.uk/blogs/blog/5- ... amiXazBlm_

[Jobbo]

I joined the broadcast when they started the circuits, and enjoyed it far more than I usually do the last stage. It had way more drama than the usual procession which is only decided in the final 1km. Also the circuits were well suited to the WvA and MvDPs of the cycling world, which gives a far more drawn-out strategic approach to that last stage and the way Jorgensen and WvA worked together in the break made it feel more like a proper racing stage than usual. On that note, what an epic ride by Wout, the way he dropped Pogacar had me literally jumping out my seat.

The problem with making the final stage a time trial is that time trials are quite boring to watch, and after three weeks of racing, the GC is usually fairly well settled with decent time gaps, so the race is over for 99.9% of the peleton. If it had been a time trial this year, the only people with anything left to race for would have been Onley and Lipowitz, with Lipowitz being most likely to have simply taken even more time out of Onley. Anyone ahead or behind them couldn't care less by that point.

I agree it was great for the crowds and more interesting to watch than the usual laps, though there is a certain something about them going up and down the Champs Elysees again and again, getting slightly faster, which creates a bit of tension. But the fact that it wasn't even competitive at the end anyway and that it's virtually impossible for someone with the legs to make up time anyway on twisty wet cobbles means it's a very false spectacle. Why not get the four main jerseys unicycling while fire juggling for the spectacle?

You're absolutely right about time trials but... Lemond/Fignon was such an amazing thing to watch that I want to recreate it. Would never happen of course.