Mountain Bru

I think Pogi hunger flatted today rather than ran out of legs. I think he cooks Jonas today if he'd eaten more and hadn't run out of fuel. But... Whats ominous for Pogi is that Visma's plan to take time on him is usually to try and make day after day hard so that he burns 4000kJ + per day, and then go all in on the long steady climbs that suit Jonas. If he ran out of fuel today, that's not a good sign for the proper mountain stages in week 3.

There are rumours that Remco is sick...

Not just UAE, other teams keep missing it, and then attacking to bridge, which drags the whole peloton up and stops the break being allowed to go.

Break formation should be cracking today. 80km flat with an intermediate sprint at the end for the break to form, them some lumps, followed by 60km of climbing. Everyone with a reasonable non-GC climber will be trying to get into it with a rouleur that can smash the flat to build a big enough gap for the break to stay away. All of this while UAE tries to control the chaos - I don't think Visma or Quickstep will help seen as the stage suits Pogi and they don't want him winning bonus seconds. And then there's the likes of Gee, Bernal, Ciccone, Buitrago, Bilbao and Gall that are all top 10 candidates that are currently on 4 to 6 minutes that will 100% try to make the break, but aren't far enough down to be given too much leash from UAE, but might also entice Bora or Ineos to chase. It can only be good, popcorn ready 😀

Depends on who else is in the break I think. You're right, the climbs aren't horrific, but they're stacked close together and short and punchy. A rider that's 10kg lighter should be able to cause problems for MVDP (like Healy or Pidcock). His other big problem is that if he's climbing well, no one will be willing to ride to the line with him cos they know he'll smoke them in a sprint. So he'll have to shut down attack after attack on anything that looks like an uphill for 50km.

I just have a note with this URL in it: https://wa.me/+27XXXXXXX I just copy the number into the URL (instead of XXXXXXX, without a 0 in front), and then clicking it makes a new whatsapp chat with the number. No apps needed.

Mate.... Roglic is best known for his punch on steep climbs. He pretty much made a name for himself with his 200m punch at the end of mountain-top finishes. I'm sure 80% of his stage wins are from him out sprinting everyone in the last 200m of a climb. For a long time, only Valverde could really match him, until Pogi arrived on the scene. Even the San Luca climb on stage 2 has historically been a happy hunting ground for him in the past with him stomping to victory multiple times up there. The fact that Jonas and Remco (I think) beat him to the top on stage 2 tells me he's nowhere near where he would need to be to compete with the big guys. I'm a massive Roglic fan, but barring an incident or accident, I don't think he has a chance. References on San Luca: https://www.teamvismaleaseabike.com/image-gallery/news/relive-roglics-victory-in-giro-dellemilia/ (Last year October he beat Pogacar up San Luca) https://www.reuters.com/article/sports/cycling-roglic-takes-giro-d-italia-lead-with-opening-time-trial-win-idUSKCN1SH0KJ/ (2019 Giro he won the TT up San Luca)

I'm not really clued up on how strava or garmin or wahoo calculate calories burned, but I find this data really questionable, and therefore the conclusions are questionable too. I just find it hard to believe that Pogi burned 40% less calories than Remco on a flat sprint stage, especially seen as Pogi is the heavier rider. And on top of that, there was no break on stage 6, and half of the stage was a snooze fest interspersed with cross winds sparking some action. Can't believe there's a 40% difference in calories burned on a day like that. Maybe Pogi has his weight set to 35kg on strava to screw with Visma when they check out his calories burned. 🤷‍♂️

Seems legit 🤔

I've seen this a lot on Facebook Marketplace over the last while, specifically on some Osprey hiking bags I've been interested in. Someone advertises something for a ridiculously great price, and when you contact them, they're never available for you to meet up, but will keep the item for you if you pay a deposit. Or otherwise they want a deposit before they'll ship the thing to you. If you tell them you'll only pay when you see the item, or delay at all in sending the money, you end up getting spammed with loads of messages asking you to pay and promises that they're trustworthy, and lowering the deposit requested. I haven't been caught yet, but my spidey senses are definitely up when it comes to super lower prices and over eager sellers.

I agree.... mostly... It just looked like Jonas' tactics over the last 9 stages were to stick to Pogi's wheel and not lose time, and save himself for the high mountains that suit him better. I think he pretty much achieved that, even though he obviously would have preferred to not lose time. I think Remco was hoping for bigger gaps on the TT, and there might have been if he didn't have a paranoia attack and think he punctured, but on the whole, I think he'll be happy with being 33s doing on Pogi. He's also definitely been the 3rd strongest climber in the race so far. Roglic has been dropped 100 times in 9 stages, so I don't think he can complain about being 1:36 down on Pogi. If one or 2 things went slightly differently, he could easily be 4 minutes down. Pogi on the other hand has been ultra-aggressive and attacked whenever possible. I feel like he and his team (apart from Ayuso and Almeida) have done everything they can to take time, even when it seemed impossible for him to win the stage. I don't think it's an understatement to say he's burned the most energy of the 4 in the last 9 stages. So to only have a 1:15 on Jonas must be less than what they hoped for.

Oddly, I think the person who would be most unhappy with these standings on the first rest day is Pogacar. He animated so many stages and attacked so many times, and I think UAE would have been hoping for bigger gaps after 9 stages. 1:36 to Roglic is pretty negligible considering how things have gone.

Goated comment. "Enforce Rouxtjie Rule" should be an option on every ad posted.

What would really make the classifieds next level amazing would be if you could select an option in your profile to only sell to guys with a certain number of forum posts, and only buy from guys with a certain number of forum posts, and if turning that on somehow brought back comments on the classifieds 🤩🤩🤩

Yes... But are those really the people you want to deal with?? Often not. But my point is actually that if you want a way to deal with semi-legit guys (mostly) that you can generally trust (mostly) without actually knowing anything about them, then only deal with guys with some kind of presence on the forums side. Buying and selling with these guys is like buying and selling within a community of friends (for the most part, obviously there might still be some bad apples). But if you want to deal with guys that are only active on the classifieds, then you're basically engaging purely with an online marketplace just like facebook marketplace or gumtree, and so you should expect the same kind of people to be trolling around there. Some decent human beings are doubtless in the mix too, but you have no way of knowing who they are, and if things go south, you probably have limited recourse with those characters. If you choose that, then I don't think you should come complain on the forums when you bump into people who treat the classifieds like facebook marketplace for bicycles.

He just gets involved in the forums for a week, gets in a fight on a Friday, and then has 100+ posts.

Only buy and sell from okes that have 100+ forum posts and most of your problems will go away.

To be fair, he slowed down so much that his fans blocked the entire road, and then he stopped to kiss his wife. Not the best situation when the next rider probably started 1min30 behind him. The guys a beast thought. I think I heard he still finished with a 46 kph average speed. Did they fine the FDJ dude that was drafting for half the TT?

Sunday is bumpy..... with 14 gravel sectors... If Strade this year is anything to go by, Pogi is gonna be a force to be reckoned with. It'll be a tough day for the break if the GC teams fight for position before every sector and ramp up the speed.

Depends on what year WVA you're referring to. 2022 TDF Wout is probably the most valuable rider in any team ever. Won a TT, Mountain Stage, Sprint Stage, got in breakaways, was a perfect satellite rider, dragged Jonas and Roglic out of trouble on multiple days etc. Last year he was nowhere though, and this year he hasn't seemed to be on the same level (probably due to crashes). Phillipsen will win you sprint stages though, and is low key a pretty versatile rider. You don't win MSR and come 3rd at Roubaix without some skills, but he's still primarily a sprinter. So for my money, if Wout is in 2022 form, he's probably the most valuable rider in the peloton to have in your team.

I was more thinking that the team-wide relegation would clean up the lead up to a sprint, and cause lead out men to actually care about being relegated. In the Netflix doco, you see how broken the relegation system is in the stage when MVDP is relegated for bumping Bini, but that made the space that allowed Jasper to win. I think the team DS literally says they don't care about the fines, as long as they're winning. But if MVDP's relegation affected Jasper, maybe he'd take fewer chances.

I think if Wout didn't brake, and carried on sprinting in his lane like he's entitled to, it wouldn't have been mild and there would have been a massive crash when Philipsen chopped his front wheel or bumped him into the barrier.

I actually feel for Wout and anyone else hindered in a sprint by someone breaking the rules. The nature of cycling makes it so hard to regulate, and the punishments feel completely trivial and unjust. In rugby or soccer or most sports, if a team contravenes the rules, the other team is given a penalty which gives them a real advantage to balance things out, and the game goes on. In cycling, if someone breaks a rule in a sprint and is punished, the punishment generally doesn't advantage the person they wronged in any way, and usually the wronged person's chance of sprinting and winning is completely nulified. It's the equivalent of a rugby match where a team breaks the rules, and then the opposition is removed from the field and the game ends, and the only punishment is the rule breaker is fined R50 and told not to do it again. The teams don't care at all about the fine, and unless there's green jersey points in question, most guys don't care if they come 4th or 107th. I hope the yellow card system they're trialing from August helps to fix this, but I personally think that the UCI first needs to clarify the rules, and thereafter the punishments need to be way harsher, and team-wide, if they want them to have effect. For example - I think the whole team should be relegated if 1 rider is penalised, because relegating a lead out man has zero effect.

https://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/uci-jury-waarschuwt-mark-cavendish-en-jasper-philipsen/ I wonder what the conversations were in the connoisseurs' office after the sprint. Would have taken massive cohones to DQ Cav.

I think Phillipsen lost this sprint when MVDP could only do a 3s leadout from 440m to go before pulling off. Alpecin's positioning wasn't good on the run in, and MVDP had to work super hard to bring him up just to get him near the front. There's a point where it opens on the right and MVDP tries to start his leadout into the space, but he barely gets out of the saddle before he has to stop. I think the story would look different if MVDP could have done the kind of leadout he did last year and dropped Jasper off at 200 to go in perfect position. On the other hand, Astana did a great job at keeping Cav safe and near the front until the final sprint, but then left him to surf wheels alone. Leadout Starts: Leadout Ends: