NGM

100%. That "festival of watts" he produced just before the last climb forced pogi to close the gap twice, tiring him out. Wout drafted pogi and had a bit more in the tank to attack on the last climb. One of the best day's racing I've seen.

I would ask these guys. I last used them 2 years ago and they were great, hopefully nothing has changed since then. They specialize in this.

This is ageing quite well...

Ya I agree. Pogi just doesn't look close to cracking. That incident the last time they were on Ventoux was one of the most exciting moments of that tour. Pogacar was so imperious and then this scrawny relatively unknown (to me at least) danish guy starts to open up a gap... it was a wtf moment.

That would be great to see. He's a favorite in my household, I'm sure he is in most. In the front group Arensman and Mas are probably the best climbers, although Mas has been pretty lousy in this tour. If the break were to succeed I guess you'd have to bet on Arensman. But with visma running out of chances I think they will be going quite hard from the bottom - Will 6 minutes be enough on a 1hr long climb?

My mind also went to Phil Gaimon's kom attempt videos. @Mamil if you're not familiar, you'll likely get some good ideas. I thought it was good though. Side note: Phil's books "Draft animals" and "Pro Cycling on $10 a day" are two of the funniest books I've read.

That's awesome. I was trying to work out how they did that so quickly. This first paragraph explains a bit: https://efprocycling.com/racing/tour-de-france-bike-check-ben-healy-s-yellow-cannondale-lab71-supersix-evo/ But I'm still not sure if they have a few yellow frames in a few different sizes "just in case", or are they able to paint one yellow at very short notice? I can't imagine anyone at cannondale & EF was expecting a rider in yellow, so I can only assume a last minute paint job. Anybody know how this stuff works behind the scenes? The reason I ask is because, well you'd imagine UAE would show up with loads of yellow kit before the tour even starts. Fair enough. But it's less of a formality in this case....

This tour I find myself thinking how impressive the talent pool is for the riders just below the Pogacar/Vingegaard level. And how unpredictable the tour would be if the two of them weren't riding. In that scenario you'd probably have to pick Remco as the favourite, but he does seem vulnerable in the mountains. And then you'd have the likes of Jorgenson, Lipowitz, Roglic, Gall and co all much more willing to attack than they are now - because how can you drop Pogacar? I guess it's the race for 3rd place (assuming no crash/incident with Pogi and Jonas). I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I think Lipowitz will be on the podium. Also, how insanely strong is Jogenson? He's just turned 26 and has won the last 2 editions of Paris-Nice. He's got to be close to his prime now. Is he happy with a (presumably) big paycheque and getting to be the leader on some of the smaller tours?

I'd love to see a good fight in the mountains. My feeling/theory with Jonas is that he always seems to finish grand tours quite well. eg: every time there are two time trials in tour, he does much better in the second one. I don't think he's the best rider (that is obviously Pogacar) but he does seem to recover very well and has few bad days. I remember Laurent Fignon writing that he wasn't the best one day racer, but after 2 weeks of hard riding, he was always in better condition that everyone else when the final week arrived. The same was said of Greg Lemond. So as long as he keeps the time gap small, there's always the chance he catches Pogacar on a bad day in the mountains. But Pogacar is just insane. He beat the best cobbled/classics riders in spring, and then beats the best climbers and (almost beats) the best time trialers in summer.

So... do we think Remco could end the day in yellow? Pogacar's terrible TT (by his standards) at the Dauphine has left me not knowing what to think. Not sure what happened there and I doubt it will happen again. But this TT is twice as long and very suited to Remco.

I was going to say - I'd love to see Wout win, but the terrain definitely doesn't rule out MvdP in my opinion. Its perfect for him and he has far fewer responsibilities (read: "GC men to protect") than Wout. A longish hard day followed by a bunch of short punchy climbs at the end? It's like Milan San Remo. I think there's a good chance of Poggi and MvDP dicing it out again, possibly with Jonas in the mix too.

Ah right. I hadn't seen this, I only saw the final few 100m to the line. OK well if this is indeed the reason then his behavior was pretty immature and unfair. I thought it was because Bini was drifting a bit to the left in the sprint, which also looked pretty harmless to me.

Did anyone see what happened? I mean, was there more to it than what the footage showed in the run in to the line?

Lol, is that Dan "Loubster"?

No lock is totally safe if somebody has enough time, but I can at least tell you that my own experience: 15 years ago I bought an ABUS Granit D-Lock and with 5 years of riding in London (where I used it every day) and 10 years of riding in RSA (where I find myself using it once a month), I've never had a bike stolen while it's been locked up. Would I endorse the lock? Yes. But would I leave my bike locked up with that lock in the same public place every day where I'm away from it for hours? No. edit: Ahhh right, sorry I see you are referring to a car mounted bike rack. I misunderstood. The big/heavy D-Lock I'm talking about might not be great for that.

Just an update here, I went this route and am very happy. I picked up a Speeder fork from David, a post mount adaptor from Williams bike shop and Thru-axle adaptors plus expander plug for the carbon steerer from Rapide. It was a 1hr job after that and I think it looks great (if you ignore the light and saddlebag). It's also lighter and has the ride quality I was after. Thanks for the advice.

I find that hard to believe. Were there multiple strangers coincidentally filming it at once and then all got together afterwards to splice their footage into one scene?

I can't help you with the surcharge issue but do have some other advice. If you do end up taking your own bike, on return to CT there's a very good chance you will be asked to prove that you bought it in RSA for import tax reasons. So either have some proof of payment or (and I don't know how this works) declare it on the way out. Not difficult, but a PITA if you don't have it. I've flown twice with a bike and was asked both times on return to CT. On the first occasion customs in CT would not let me leave until I'd found the receipt on my phone, which I luckily still had. On the second occasion I'd actually bought the bike overseas, but it was just a frame and the value was less than R5,000 (minimum allowance) - which again I was required to prove. You might have a bag full of high end electronics and jewelry but they seem pretty keen on bikes. I guess a bike in a box is easier to ID.

Bliksem, some of that got me a bit emotional!

Credit where it's due... he called it.

Ya I remember GCN reviewing the route and coming to the conclusion that it was a bit underwhelming. But the flip side is that with 6 stages left there is under 4 minutes separating the top 10 riders which is exciting in it's own right. Someone like Bernal, in 8th position, still has great incentive to attack and I'm sure he will! The time gaps will probably be a lot bigger by the end of today though, and I fear for Roglic.

I've always been a bit apathetic towards carapaz in the past but I find myself cheering him on more and more in this giro. He seems to be unburdened and riding with a smile on his face. Very exciting to watch.

Ja I was wondering about this. 2 years ago Jumbo Visma was so strong they had a separate rider win each of the 3 grand tours. It both worked and didn't work though, as they narrowly avoided a total meltdown at the Vuelta and Primoz left. I don't know too much about del Toro but he does seem like a good climber and stage racer in general so I'm looking forward to the next 2 weeks. Also, if ever a rider was born to rider for Red Bull... del Toro.

I didn't read your whole post but I did type "Minnaar" into the search tab of the hall-of-fame website and got back the equivalent of "Did you mean Steve Peat?" I needed a minute to cool down. That's not to say Sam Hill and Steve Peat aren't both legends. I should have read the whole post first.

You guys are all clueless. This race is Derek Gee's to lose. edit: just seen @Shebeen's list of odds further up and he's actually got half decent odds! I wasn't really being serious, but at the same time there's nothing I'd rather see than him win.