Tour de France 2025

[The Ouzo]

34 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Slightly wet roads, not enough to wash everything away.
As a result, a Lotto rider when down, and then many others followed suit.
Apparently it was only Total Energies that didn't have a rider fall, every other team has at least one.

Another crash, Bardet abandons

Eish man, that's harsh. Hope he mends soon

[Frosty]

Close the gap

[Bub Marley]

There is literally nothing separating these 2 again. All that effort again from Pogi and he gets like 3sec gap. Surely one of them will break somewhere on a climb?

[babse]

Ineos 2 in 2. Rodrigues with a opportunistic win and up to 3rd on GC.

Surely that's like a yellow Jersey against this 2 freaks. 

Heads up to those motorbikes pilots 👏

That was some battle and tomorrow there'll be more fireworks. Who's cracks first??? 

Edited July 15, 2023 by babse

['Dale]

35 years ago - Die Hard was released in movie theatres

 7 years ago - Richie Porte was leading Chris Froome up Mont Ventoux, crashed into a motorbike and Froome into him, breaking his fiets and had to run like a Kenyan marathon runner as he had no other choice really.

Pogačar was denied his ambush by two motorbikes alongside each other, leaving no space for his attack for another time gap on the Golden Fleece. ASO will have to review how they set up the final km or so for these crucial bonus segments.

 Another stage win for Ineos-Grenadiers and Rodrigues moves up into 3rd by one second over Hindley (scraped kit after crashing).

That high speed crash. Eina. ☹️

4,200 meters ascended today. More to come. Beautiful racing.

 

[OVERDRIVE]

Stupid motorbikes. 

[Vetplant]

12 hours ago, OVERDRIVE said:

Stupid motorbikes. 

"We" the TV viewers want the best pictures, but they impact the racing on these stages, especially with the insane kick from Pogi. 

What to do?

Do we settle for helicopter shots on the steep climbs? Motorbikes to be told to be at least 50m up the road when Pogi and Jonas are dueling? Only cover their battle from behind? 

Tough one. 

[Zebra]

13 hours ago, OVERDRIVE said:

Stupid motorbikes. 

Yes…and no.

Been watching TdF for 35+ years, every year, and very few incidents like this occur, given 20-plus stages per race, over 35 years, and the NUMBER of motorbikes on the route at any given time….

Rare occurrence - organisers take note, sure; but let’s wind our necks in a little…

Human error will happen, and you cannot remove every CHANCE of something along the route happening…..

fact is, spectator behaviour impeded/slowed the bikes down, AND the bikes should have been more situationally aware….

barriers last 300 meters would have kept spectators back, bikes then unimpeded, incident LIKELY would not have happened.

['Dale]

4,500 metres of vert today. That'll warm me up!

Don't blink. UAE vs Jumbo', with Bora' and Ineos' in close attendance.

The scramble for bonus seconds will definitely threaten the breakaway artists as, after 57 hours of racing, the Golden Fleece is only leading by 10 seconds.

It appears that Ciccone is hunting the dotted jersey, currently held by Jonas. Powless and him will likely dance their way up to the heavens trying to out climb each other. 

Spare a thought for those that had to abandon yesterday. So much hard work goes in, tons of time away from family with altitude camps and race commitments and finishing a Grand Tour is a career achievement in itself.

[love2fly]

1 hour ago, Vetplant said:

"We" the TV viewers want the best pictures, but they impact the racing on these stages, especially with the insane kick from Pogi. 

What to do?

Do we settle for helicopter shots on the steep climbs? Motorbikes to be told to be at least 50m up the road when Pogi and Jonas are dueling? Only cover their battle from behind? 

Tough one. 

Maybe use/more use of drones up the final km watching the leaders and 3x2 Gendarmes on motorbikes clearing the crowd? Maybe the Gendarmes need to be welding knobkieries.....

[J Wakefield]

Motorbike issue would change anything on the day. Jonas was directly onto Tadej wheel in that instance and he was the strongest on the day overall on the climb. 

[splat]

16 hours ago, OVERDRIVE said:

Stupid motorbikes. 

And stupid crowds

unfortunate combination at that exact moment

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tv-and-photo-motorbikes-suspended-for-stage-15-after-pogacars-attack-blocked/

Edited July 16, 2023 by splat

[emme]

[emme]

Meintjies going down....

[NC_lurker]

5 minutes ago, emme said:

Meintjies going down....

Crazy image.

Where did you source it?

[Mongoose!]

1 hour ago, J Wakefield said:

Motorbike issue wouldn’t change anything on the day. Jonas was directly onto Tadej wheel in that instance, and he was the strongest on the day overall on the climb. 

I am not so sure ...