Tour de France 2021

bazermc

Starting tomorrow. Doesn’t feel like it though.

Usually I’m more excited as the first stage approach, for a race I grow up watching every summer. Doesn’t feel like it this year, strange.

breezy1985

bazermc wrote: »

Starting tomorrow. Doesn’t feel like it though.

Usually I’m more excited as the first stage approach, for a race I grow up watching every summer. Doesn’t feel like it this year, strange.

Im the same and it's surprising as I was really excited for the monuments and Giro this year.

Looking out the window it certainly doesn't feel like summer so that's not helping. Also I just have no enthusiasm for Pog,Rog or the Ineos many GC guys so at best unless Dan or Ala does a wild run in yellow I am only watching to see Ineos not win

Panrich

bazermc wrote: »

Starting tomorrow. Doesn’t feel like it though.

Usually I’m more excited as the first stage approach, for a race I grow up watching every summer. Doesn’t feel like it this year, strange.

I think that Sam and his quest for the green jersey brought a whole new dimension to the tour last year. Looking at stage maps and where the intermediate sprints were and working out how many points for the places in the sprint finish etc. was great.

at1withmyself

I'm looking forward to it, good mix of gc & sprinters plus some interesting names looking for stage wins like Dan & Vincenzo.

Keen to see how Sky get on with 4 leaders and hope there is a gc challenge and not Sky covering the podium after week 1.

Could Lopez at Moviestar cause them to ride for him or will they go for team classification again!

Can Sagan win green this year, I hope so.

Also will be interesting to see how some of th up & coming riders get on.

odyssey06

Panrich wrote: »

I think that Sam and his quest for the green jersey brought a whole new dimension to the tour last year. Looking at stage maps and where the intermediate sprints were and working out how many points for the places in the sprint finish etc. was great.

That was the first time I paid attention to intermediate sprints and breakaway formations... helped that the later start to the TDF meant I was on a staycation for much of it and could follow it on TV.

breezy1985

I think the Ineos 4 leader this is BS. Ineos have never been able to break the programming and will fall in behind the strongest rider who I think will be Carapaz or at a stretch Porte. Hart won a poor Giro and Thomas isnt the rider he was or I suppose gone back to the rider he was depending on how you look at it

irishrover99

Not sure what all the doom and gloom is for. Porte is going to have the best come back since Floyd Landis.

07Lapierre

Froome for the win! You heard it here first!

velo.2010

The Tour was at the sporting centre stage last year with no football or Wimbledon to compete for coverage with. This year, the focus has been on the Euro's and the return of the tennis. More overlap than usual with those two events has meant the Tour isn't as visible this summer. Also, restrictions have limited reporting on events such as the Tour.

I hope it kicks off with a decent couple of stages to set it up for the GC battle later in the Tour.

MPFGLB

Seems the secret pro shared my views on Sam Bennet not riding the Tour no matter the unfounded conspiracies on here

"you want stage wins; you take the world’s fastest rider. But you don’t take him if he’s injured. You have to think about the team, and a rider who could more than likely leave the race after a few stages due to an injury you know about would be bad management. You take a guy who A: has a pretty good track record at the race, and B: has had five wins this season. "

Also he doesn't like Sagan much

https://cyclingtips.com/2021/06/the-secret-pro-tour-de-france-sagan/

Shedite27

Is there a boards velogames setup?

at1withmyself

Shedite27 wrote: »

Is there a boards velogames setup?

Yep, check the general race thread

at1withmyself

As much as I dislike Ineos and the power they have, they have always declared the strategy of the others falling in whoever is leading and not having 4 different riders attacking as such. Second on the road will be the last on the front of the train before the leader is left alone is what they are saying.

breezy1985 wrote: »

I think the Ineos 4 leader this is BS. Ineos have never been able to break the programming and will fall in behind the strongest rider who I think will be Carapaz or at a stretch Porte. Hart won a poor Giro and Thomas isnt the rider he was or I suppose gone back to the rider he was depending on how you look at it

Shedite27

Shedite27 wrote: »

Is there a boards velogames setup?

Yes, see here https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=117481792&postcount=1341

retalivity

MPFGLB wrote: »

Seems the secret pro shared my views on Sam Bennet not riding the Tour no matter the unfounded conspiracies on here

"you want stage wins; you take the world’s fastest rider. But you don’t take him if he’s injured. You have to think about the team, and a rider who could more than likely leave the race after a few stages due to an injury you know about would be bad management. You take a guy who A: has a pretty good track record at the race, and B: has had five wins this season. "

Also he doesn't like Sagan much

https://cyclingtips.com/2021/06/the-secret-pro-tour-de-france-sagan/

Read that this morning, its almost slanderous what is said about Sagan!

MPFGLB

at1withmyself wrote: »

As much as I dislike Ineos and the power they have, they have always declared the strategy of the others falling in whoever is leading and not having 4 different riders attacking as such. Second on the road will be the last on the front of the train before the leader is left alone is what they are saying.

That is when they have had the strongest rider

They dont anymore

at1withmyself

MPFGLB wrote: »

That is when they have had the strongest rider

They dont anymore

I don't know, I think Thomas might come good this year, he looked very strong at the Dauphine but time will tell!

ednwireland

the cosmic ballet goes on

at1withmyself

Lachlan Moreton taking the scenic route!

https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/26/cycling-lachlan-morton-tour-de-france-endurance

Raoul Duke

So another Tour done. Hard to know how it rates overall to others.

Some things I liked:

Pogacar was supreme. I enjoy seeing someone win who will more than likely be remembered for a long time. If he had got knocked out, the Tour would have been won by someone who probably won't be considered "great". Hopefully he will have more competition in future Tours.

No Sky etc train up the mountains.

The relative failure of Inios. Not just because I dislike them, but because it meant that it wasn't a 1 team dominated Tour.

The Polka dot jersey battle, until the end. Usually it's something that I couldn't care less about. It was won in the end by the best climber, so on one hand it was won by the right man, but on the other hand it was won by someone almost accidentally. It still needs a bit of tweaking.

Disliked:

The green jersey battle. It was a lot more boring this year. Without Sagan/Bora competing for it, Deceuninck–Quickstep had it too easy.

Didn't mind seeing Cavendish win a few stages, but again Deceuninck–Quickstep had no one pushing them in the last few kms.

Crashes

Not enough mountain top finishes.

I'm not as despondent as others about the future of the Tour. I think that Pogacar is a potential great, but a lot of things fell his way this year. Without the crashes and the cold weather, I think that he would found it a lot harder to win. Of course, he will probably get better every year for the next 5 years or so and Roglic has already probably peaked. So next year will need the likes of Bernal to step up. We could be in for a great few years - Pogacar, Bernal, Remco, Vingegaard, Roglic, Almeida.

deise08

Great watching it this year on Champs-Elysées all relaxed not worrying about Sam.

Crap watching it this year n Champs-Elysées all relaxed not worrying about Sam.

Dcully

WVA is simply the best all round cyclist on the planet

TT stage victory

The hardest mountain stage victory

The biggest sprint stage victory

All after surgery just before the tour .

Prett good tour to watch apart from all the abandons especially sprinters.

Morris Garren

Looks like my velogames team took the lantern rouge -- not that I set out to achieve such ignominy.

On a different note-- Ineos were brutal, or overall they seemed clueless or out of form, crashes aside. Did Porte fall off a cliff? Did Tao actually win the Giro 9 months ago? If Thomas was so injured he should have abandoned, or was his head wrecked by stage 9? Very poor overall

ednwireland

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117628882#Comment_117628882

is that an ineos Jersey on the podium . not what we expect obviously .

yeh Porte and thomas who were 1 and 2 at the dauphine disappeared. think Porte crashed early on as well and thomas was riding round

breezy1985

Pretty boring Tour in fairness. No real fight for any jersey and from a personal point of view I don't really care about any of the jersey or stage winners bar Ala way back at the start.

The only saving grace was it was someone not riding for Ineos who was boring the arse off me with his dominance

retalivity

The Gorilla 5th on his last ever Tour stage on Champs Elysse, enjoyed that!

Shedite27

Yeah dull tour, the mountains are really only fun if there's a GC battle going on

In with my granny this evening, she's watched the tour for decades. She gave a it a 6/10 she's no time for Pog and even less for Cav so was pretty chuffed he didn't beat Merckx record.

Morris Garren

Strangely, Carapaz being a bit of a d1ck that day on the Col de Portet made me shout for him momentarily, it was as if we needed a bit of old-school drama or Italian style 'polemica' as an antidote to the inevitable conclusion most days. He is actually good for Ineos, I wonder if his rural Ecuadorean attitude and adventurous spirit sits well with the genteel Sir Dave and marginal gains... and of all the Ineos team I was happy to see him do best.

Team selection from Ineos for the Tour was seriously questionable. Dunbar being left out despite only having one GT in him and taking off my green jersey here was a no brainer given his support for Carapaz a few weeks prior to the Tour. Kwiatkowski hasn't been at his best for 2 years now imo, and Castroviejo had the Giro in him despite him being an absolute beast he wasn't his best either. When you look at who they did take and didn't to the tour it's shocking.

Like we know Richie Porte is going to crash at some point so why bother?

EDIT: If they wanted to win the tour they would have had to have sent a different team to the Giro and maybe lost it.

retalivity

Castroviejo provided more support for Carapaz in the mountains than Porte, Tao or Thomas did, even with the Giro in his legs.

Dr. Bre

Why was geoghagen hart so poor? Thought he would kick on from winning the giro but maybe that was a poor giro he won

breezy1985

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629959#Comment_117629959

It was

mewso

Not sorry to see Cav lose out today. Especially after seeing his outburst at his mechanic followed by sickly fake apology. A sneak peak at the real person I suspect. No wonder himself and lefevere get on so well :)

Brian?

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629419#Comment_117629419

The Tour organisers made a balls of the route to start with. Finishes on descents never make a great GC battle, yet there are more of them every year. They make for great stage battles, i.e. people fighting to win the stage but they destroy the GC battle in the mountains.

The rest of the GC battle was killed by Roglic and Thomas crashing in the first week. Pogacar would have still won, I think, but we were robbed of a good battle.

Brian?

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117629959#Comment_117629959

He beat Wilco Kelderman with a decent TT in the end. That's all you need to know about that Giro.

The Giro can be the hardest grand tour to win, but it also throws up the most weird winners of all the Grand Tours in the last 25 years. I haven't looked it up, but I bet there are more Giro winners who have never won another Grand Tour than any other Grand Tour.

breezy1985

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117632305#Comment_117632305

Its unusual placing last year made it an even weaker field than normal last year.

Hindley wasn't anything more than decent this year either

Shedite27

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117632280#Comment_117632280

Yeah you're right. Wonder what the thought behind it is, they've clearly done it on purpose. Easier to finish in a town with crowds/busses? Or do they want to make descending more important part of the sport?

breezy1985

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117633051#Comment_117633051

Alaphillipe will lose time on climbs but pull it back on descents. Simple as

Tour routes seem to go 2 ways it's either to suit a home rider who might win yellow or 1 stage was really fun 1 year so it get repeated for the next 5. Expect the first week to mirror this one for the next 5 years like the short mountain stages we started getting after 1 good one 1 year.

There are exceptions like back in the good old days when they thought a UK tour winner was a fun novelty and made a tour for Wiggins

retalivity

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117632305#Comment_117632305

Kelderman - the man who came third in a one-horse race.

Shedite27

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117632305#Comment_117632305

Ryder Heyjdal winning with Thomas De Gent also on the podium was the oddest Giro in my lifetime

Brian?

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117635199#Comment_117635199

Absolutely bizarre.

Macy0161

Thomas De Gent wasn't doing the Thomas De Gent things we've come used to at the time. iirc, it was that race he decided he didn't want to go for GC!

Copenhagen Grand Depart next year (rolled over from last year) btw. I still go with only one of the crashes was really the route, so hopefully they will be back in that terrain.

De Gendt was steadily gaining places in the last week - 10 days in that Giro. He took a decent jump winning on the Stelvio putting minutes into Basso, Heyjdal etc then a solid TT to put him 3rd on the final day. I don't think his book is available in English, which is a shame.

I think I recall him saying he didn't like/want the pressure of riding for GC after that.

cunavalos

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117635199#Comment_117635199

The 2010 Giro comes close, Ivan Basso had to wait until the last weekend of the race to overtake David Arrayo!!!! (who finished second). Arrayo had been part of a large breakaway early in the race and built up a commanding lead over the GC favourites.

Other events in that years race Richie Porte winning the white jersey and Chris Froome getting disqualified for hanging off the back of a motorbike while climbing the Mortirolo in his debut grand tour for Sky