Mountain Bru

As someone that has carried my road bike across a gravel parking lot at the cradle, I find this offensive ???? ???????? Tyre choice matters though. If you're riding the worlds heaviest tyres - gatorskins - you can ride wherever you want without worrying too much. But if you have something quicker and softer, like GP 5000s, I think being more careful is a good idea, especially if you don't feel like starting your morning ride by fixing a puncture.

Not sure if the crashes are to blame, but they really haven't shown up this year. I mean yesterday Gee got dropped from the gun, and today he was their last rider trying to string things out for Carapaz on the last climb? Pogacar must have been laughing to himself when he saw their "attack". Where was Porte, Kwiato, Geoghegan Hart, Castro? Checking the results, Porte, Kwiato and Geoghegan Hart finished with Rowe 31 minutes back? I don't understand. Where they saving themselves for the rest day? ????‍♂️ I'm willing to bet that Ineos have the worst "salary to performance" ratio in the whole tour. Their only competition is maybe ISN who must be paying Froomey millions, and paying Dan Martin to practice his invisibility skills?

Probably also the effect of the teams being a bit more balanced in power, and no team being able to completely shut things down on the last few stages. Also the effect of Pogacar being the strongest rider, but his team not being as dominant, and not having a Luke Rowe/Panzerwagon/Declerqc that can ride a high tempo on the front all day and control things. And also Alpecin was also in yellow for a few days, but they made no real attempt to control the race like the leader's team normally does because MVDP wasn't following the script and was sommer getting into the break himself. Makes for great viewing, but probably exhausting for the riders to spend 70km going balls to the wall waiting for a break to get away.

I heard Matt White (Bike Exchange DS) talking on a podcast, and he said that they slightly relaxed the time cut limits this year, but now there's no exceptions. If you're outside the limit, you're out. Apparently in years past, guys were abusing the "big group leniency", so the organizers put their foot down. But thats all just talk. If Cav and 80 riders are OTL, it'll be a big move to kick them all off the tour.

Don't want to take anything away from Colbrelli, but does this not say something about the pace that UAE were setting on the climbs? Even when Ineos were in front today and Gee was trying to pull, they weren't really tearing things up. In the old days of the old Sky/Ineos train, or even the TJV train last year, no one who wasn't an in form top tier climber was hanging on. Not taking anything away from Pogacar, but I don't think he's competing against the strongest field this year, and no one seems to have the team to really expose him.

He's just bored and playing snake 2.0. Without Roglic in the race, this is all just a procession for him.

UAE gurning.... Pogacar casually takes off jacket... Me thinks he's gonna attack across to O'Conner soon.....

Paintwork reminds me of a 2015 epic.... Dare I say that Giant are 6 years behind Spez??? (It's a joke......)

Quintana pulls his parachute

Do you wear a buff to cover your face and put your hand over your race number when you ride past photographers so that there's no evidence of your sins? Do the SQ grips come with the genie that cuddles you from behind? https://sq-lab.co.za/Innerbarends/

That bad? ????

Just heard time cut is 37 minutes.

Any idea what the time cut will be? And what happens if too many people are outside of it?

Sommer on the big ring just to screw with the other guys

Pog making up 3:30 on WVA to take yellow on a climb is almost deja vu of him hunting down Roglic on the stage 20 TT last year. - "Here we go again"

Carapaz getting ready to attack once Formolo cracks

Or he has a terrible saddle sore.

Have you not watched Lord of the Rings? There can be only one Lord of the (chain) Rings!! So far, it looks like the number 1 contender is a Trek Procaliber with a Lauf fork, 2x groupset, and 2 wheelsets. Or something that's a hack of a bike that you love just because you're the one that hacked it together. That Niner MCR 9 looks nice, but I'm not sure how I feel about having the rear shock in the firing line of the mud flinged off the rear tyre. I guess that's why it has an integrated mud guard.

WVA was suffering too.... Can he hold on and take yellow. Also, with Vingegaard crashing again, is WVA the only TJV rider thats gonna finish the tour?

These things? Can you send a pic? I'm sure they work wonderfully, but I'm not sure I could ever defile my epic with bar ends.

Krag Anderson needs to ditch Benoot and go for the win alone. #superbrupicks.

De Bod down... big crash. Lost the back end around a bend

If you don't ever ride on the road, that makes perfect sense. But on a 100km road ride, your mind will spend a lot of time dreaming of skinny tyres, and drop handlebars. ????

This descent is terrifying.... someone should inform the riders though. They don't seem to have noticed

Sigh.... These bikes are the equivalent of a super model. Absolutely beautiful, but it's never gonna happen ????