Tour De France 2021 with spoilers

[Milzy]

Loic was a lot more banged up than who I mentioned so it’s understandable.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Enjoyed that. Tough weather conditions again. Was at finish in Tignes in 2007. About 400 metres from finish having climbed an alpine peak in the morning.

 

[StuAff]

Nic Dlamini crashed early in the stage, but finished (over forty minutes after the cut) because he wanted to honour the Tour. Chapeau.

 

[Eziemnaik]

At only 22 years of age, Pogacar could be the first rider to win more than 5 tours and take the record. His future is certainly bright. As a climber, he is head and shoulders above all the others. As a TT rider, he is pretty good too.

Pog destroys TT world champions and outclimbs pure climbers. Sometimes within days. Sometimes on the same day. Soon will outsprint Cav

 

[Adam4868]

It’s unbelievable they didn’t make it. You’d think Demare would go for the win in Paris & Coquard would finish his home tour too. I wouldn’t be extending their contracts.

To be fair that was a bastard of a stage for a lot.I think Cav only just made it by a minute and a half ish ? He had two team mates to help him make the time.He knew before hand how hard this would be.Especially as the ride O'Connor put in !

View: https://twitter.com/VeloUK/status/1411732031990648835?s=19

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've always thought the time limits were a bit mean. But I suppose, sport being what it is, that if they extended the limit there'd still be a big group finishing exactly on the limit, saving energy.

Wasn't there a case in the Vuelta(?) a few years back when a fast break went off and half the peloton said "sod this for a game of soldiers" and called the race authorities' bluff and rolled in late, and because there were so many of them the organisers extended the limit. Did that happen or am I making it up?

 

[Adam4868]

I've always thought the time limits were a bit mean. But I suppose, sport being what it is, that if they extended the limit there'd still be a big group finishing exactly on the limit, saving energy.

Wasn't there a case in the Vuelta(?) a few years back when a fast break went off and half the peloton said "sod this for a game of soldiers" and called the race authorities' bluff and rolled in late, and because there were so many of them the organisers extended the limit. Did that happen or am I making it up?

Personally I think it should be last man standing...Pog could try and catch Lachlan Morton ?
No you weren't dreaming.....
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/riders-react-vuelta-espana-time-cut-incident-282115

 

[mjr]

Wasn't there a case in the Vuelta(?) a few years back when a fast break went off and half the peloton said "sod this for a game of soldiers" and called the race authorities' bluff and rolled in late, and because there were so many of them the organisers extended the limit. Did that happen or am I making it up?

That has happened in all three grand tours and some others. I think there may even be a UCI regulation requiring it, to avoid race organisers deliberately misgrading stages to force the autobus to work harder instead of being the laughing group.

Is there a cycling equivalent of the Barkley Marathons, which often has no finishers due to tight time cuts?

 

[cougie uk]

That has happened in all three grand tours and some others. I think there may even be a UCI regulation requiring it, to avoid race organisers deliberately misgrading stages to force the autobus to work harder instead of being the laughing group.

Is there a cycling equivalent of the Barkley Marathons, which often has no finishers due to tight time cuts?

Can't think of anything like Barkley - certainly not great for a sport that relies on advertising as much as cycling does.

I'm sure the Giro booted dozens of riders out one edition not so long ago for missing the cut off ? Not ideal.

 

[yello]

I only appreciated yesterday (thanks to a snippet on the tele) just how tough a competition it is at the tail end. The weather was atrocious, and that just made it tougher. But some riders are on their limit to make the cut off. The cameras and reports don't really do justice to that. The focus tends to be on the winners.

Riders were rolling in shattered, wet and cold to almost zero acknowledgement. Naccer Bouhanni looked and sounded like a physical wreck. Cavendish, as remarked earlier, treated making the cut as akin to as stage victory.

How some of those guys continue on amazes me.

BTW, I believe the race commissioners can, and do, practice leniency in the application of the cut off. In the TdF anyway, I don't know about other GTs.

 

[hoopdriver]

They do - and if there is a big enough group that fails to make the cut they will reinstate them, at their discretion, but the reinstated riders lose any points they might have accrued up to that point. In Mark Cavendish’s case that would mean losing every single point he’s acquired in the Green Jersey chase and having to start all over again at zero - not something he really wants to do.

 

[Dogtrousers]

There was the famous case of Paul Sherwen who restarted after a crash and rode most of a mountain stage alone. They took pity on him and did not eliminate him despite the fact that he was extremely out of time.

There's an oft repeated story on here - which sounds plausible - that one year Étape du Tour sportive followed the same route as a particular mountain stage, and the fastest riders on the Étape du Tour were slower than the slowest eliminated rider of the actual stage.

 

[cyberknight]

There was the famous case of Paul Sherwen who restarted after a crash and rode most of a mountain stage alone. They took pity on him and did not eliminate him despite the fact that he was extremely out of time.

There's an oft repeated story on here - which sounds plausible - that one year Étape du Tour sportive followed the same route as a particular mountain stage, and the fastest riders on the Étape du Tour were slower than the slowest eliminated rider of the actual stage.

indeed we all think sprinters are slow on hills but the fact is most of them would trounce any amateur on any sort of terrain

 

[Dogtrousers]

I see Froome has managed to overtake Cav.

My mistake. I was looking at the stage rankings, not the overall. Froome did indeed take a big bite out of Cav's overall lead, but not quite enough. The GC battle of the titans is on a knife edge. Cav's lead is down to 24"

 

[yello]

There's an oft repeated story on here - which sounds plausible - that one year Étape du Tour sportive followed the same route as a particular mountain stage, and the fastest riders on the Étape du Tour were slower than the slowest eliminated rider of the actual stage.

I can believe it and, coincidently, I remarked on something similar to my wife when walking the dog earlier. That is, I knew that I'd personally take at least twice the amount of time to complete a stage of the TdF - and yesterday's stage, sheesh, I'd probably still be out there!