Tour de France 2021

[Vetplant]

"The 9 riders in the @MarkCavendish gruppetto made it with a 7' margin on the time limit, @kraghsoren survived the day by 4''... but @LukeRowe1990was still on the road and finished OTL."

4 Seconds?! 

[shaper]

The green jersey of Mark Cavendish came over the line in a large gruppetto around 40 minutes down so the Manxman beats the time cut by around seven minutes. Earlier, on the first ascent of Mont Ventoux, Cav showed his class by doffing his helmet towards the Tom Simpson memorial.

Source: Eurosport

[Patchelicious]

16 minutes ago, Mntboy said:

So you saying it was a bit of smoke and mirrors to see who of the other contenders have a little bit of ambition left? Or am I on the wrong track with your comment?

I think he didn’t need to go into the red today, so he didn’t. Little TC today so that he can suip some more in the next week.

[splat]

1 hour ago, Patchelicious said:

Seem more like a cycling version of a TC

Tactical Chunder ?

['Dale]

The tears of the Belgian champ after providing some healing balm to his wounded team after all their setbacks and disappointments - priceless! 

['Dale]

About the maillot jaune unable to follow Jonas - conserving is not cracking.

[dsw]

16 minutes ago, 'Dale said:

About the maillot jaune unable to follow Jonas - conserving is not cracking.

Agree... He was not even close to cracking. All in all it was a quite good day for him as he extended his lead over second place from 2 to 5 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by dsw

[Bonus]

The laughing group are usually pretty good at calculating their way just inside the cut-off. 7 minutes means they worked a bit harder than they had too, but better safe than sorry I'm sure.

[Patchelicious]

10 minutes ago, Bonus said:

The laughing group are usually pretty good at calculating their way just inside the cut-off. 7 minutes means they worked a bit harder than they had too, but better safe than sorry I'm sure.

It’s was a close call for the comedians 

[betaboy]

Some strange tactics today, but the media are talking about “cracking”, did we all watch the same stage?, giving a rider his own chance to either follow or take a small breather is NOT cracking! Cracking is.... Cadel Evans 2010, that’s when you just can’t do anything. Anyway that’s my two cents. This race has some big twists and turns before we even see Paris. Maybe some broom wagon footage will enhance the word cracking! ????????????and elevate it to it’s true colours.

 

[kosmonooit]

Best stage of the tour so far!  What a ride from Wout.

[Mountain Bru]

I wouldn't say Pogacar "cracked", but he definitely chose to not follow Vingegaard when on previous days, he was dropping the field on the climbs. He has the massive advantage of being 5 minutes ahead, so he knows that he can let people go and ride his limit to the top and if he looses a minute it's no big deal, as long as he doesn't mega crack and loose 20. 

But if the race was tighter, and Vingegaard was 10s behind him, he would probably have tried harder to stick to his wheel, and then potentially have actually cracked if he went over his limit. But he's obviously a smart rider that doesn't just burn all his matches and go pop. 

BUT..... In the 2018 Giro, Yates dominated for 17 stages, then on stage 18, he lost some time when he couldn't quite follow wheels, but he didn't completely crack. Then stage 19 came and he super mega cracked on the Finestre and lost something like 30 minutes that day. If history repeats, Tadej can be lucky the next 2 stages are flat. I don't want him to fail though, but I do kind of hope he loses some time somewhere just so the race is closer and more exciting.  

[Mntboy]

3 hours ago, Patchelicious said:

I think he didn’t need to go into the red today, so he didn’t. Little TC today so that he can suip some more in the next week.

Ah gotcha.

[Patchelicious]

 

[Patchelicious]

 

[Mountain Bru]