Cycling Thread

[Gavster]

Pogi hit an estimated 8.43w/kg for over 4 mins in his attack today

[Gavster]

Big GC stage again today, it's a long stage with a huge amount of climbing too, finishing on a big hors categorie climb.

[Jobbo]

Hmm, wonder who will win today’s stage…?

Be nice if Pidcock could get into a front group and bounce back up to the podium but I don’t think it’ll happen.

[8Ball]

I feel today might be a GC day. It's all pretty close in the places behind Pogacar, that they'll be battling it out to take time from each other. Pogacar will probably just follow them for the most part, and maybe attack at the end if he fancies it. It's a rest day tomorrow, so an extra recovery day if they extend a lot of effort today

[Gavster]

Definitely a big GC day, those podium places are very tight right now and today's stage could blow it apart.

There's only 1m20s between Vingegaard and Del Toro in 7th. In fact, only 46 seconds between Remco in 3rd and Del Toro in 7th. It would be easy for any of them to lose more than a minute if they have a bad day today. That's definitely where the fight will be today, which of those guys can hang onto Jonas.

[Gavster]

Remco finally showing some real grit at the tour. His performance on Sunday was particularly impressive, that iceman persona all the way up the mountain was an incredible poker face, he didn't blink the whole way! Didn't give anything away and still had some in the tank too. Very shrewd but great racing too. Although I'm sure Pogi could have taken the stage if he'd really wanted to launch at the end.

Big week of racing this week, especially Thurs, Fri, Sat all being mountain stages, with Saturday's being an absolute belter with 5,500m of climbing. That's got to be on Pogi's hitlist for a win to seal his victory. Up until then, I wonder if he's going to turn domestique to try and help get Del Toro a bigger gap clear of Seixas.

[Jobbo]

Pog gave the impression that he could have beaten Remco on Sunday, and that's consistent with his respect for Jonas crashing out and not taking advantage, but who knows really. The ITT was excellent yesterday. I don't think Evenepoel can really challenge Pog for the win but he can make it a fight for GC, possibly more so than Vingegaard would have. Yes, the race is very back-end loaded this year but based on Remco's performance on Sunday it may not be a totally foregone conclusion.

The race itself is making 5's coverage tolerable at least.