Looks like Sep Kuss weighs about the same as me. With regard to Sep Kuss, Dumoulin said "He is a really nice guy. Super friendly. He is not really American, though." Asked to elaborate by the reporter, and he said "He doesn't have a big mouth." Glad to hear Sep is representing the US well. That cracks me up.
For the sake of a good close race, I hope they do. I don't see anyone else realistically challenging Primoz. Pogacar is good, but this is a year too soon for him I think.
Something is off. I mean drafting in Carapaz when he was building nicely to a Giro defence, G not included when that experience would be invaluable especially with no Portal. Maybe Bernal still comes into form, but the rest look like they're on their way off the plateau already.
Ineos Grenades worry me this tour. It looks like they keep trying to stick to their playbook from previous winning tours, when that wont work for them here, and they seem to have lost some spark. Is it Portal? Is it G? Dunno, something is off in their racing - tactics, ability, preparation.
Well, that is indeed daft if they built a route to cater for a breakaway. The route should be the route. A break needs to craft some brilliance from it to get a stage win, that's what makes a ride like this from Lutsenko so special. Take it on and win in spite of. Also, I'm a huge Lance fan, even more so now then when I named my son after him in 2006, so you wont get my vote.
Edit, unless like Lance says, this is a stupid stage finish with the decent after the Cat 1 climb. The GC guys are not going to go hard here, as everyone would just come back in the 15 odd kms from the top of the Cat 1 to the finish.
Looking at how they popped on Van Aert's wheel the other day, I'd say this is them on the rivet. They certainly aren't stringing it out at the moment, which you would expect them to do if Bernal is looking for time today. Added to that the leader keeps gaining time.
I've been watching the Tour for nearly 4 decades now. some of my earliest memories are my mom ignoring the racing and gawking over the scenery and talking about which places to visit.
Must be something real special in those "finish bottles" to make the teams so desperate. Makes you want to look at the Evenepoel bottle from the pocket mystery with a different perspective.
Hell yeah. I couldn't agree more. I have ex wives and kids and maintenance payments and houses and cars to pay for and I still afford nice bikes and whatever. You can be grown up and budget and plan and work hard. It's not a choice between kids or a hobby.
I watch the slow boring stuff with it on one screen on mute, and listening to or watching the previous day's collection of podcasts from Wedu. Makes it a good afternoon's entertainment.
