Tour de France 2023 ***spoilers*** Warning in OP

breezy1985

The 2023 Tour de France will be the 110th edition of the Tour de France. It will start in Bilbao, Spain on 1 July[1] and end with the final stage at Champs-Élysées, Paris on 23 July.

EDIT: doping insinuations, hints, accusations, inferences. No matter how subtle will result in a straight ban form the forum for the rest of the 2023 grand tours. There will no more in thread warnings form the 19/07/23

odyssey06

Is there a special reason it is starting in Bilbao?

It seems a strange move as these regions feature in a Grand Tour already?

I understand why Ireland, Netherlands, Denmark or UK get involved in hosting a stage, no GT of their own.

breezy1985

Just to make things more fun practically every team is in a special tour kit so forget the colours you have seen all year.

Bora and DSM also have new but almost identical kits.

Santini are in for Le Coq and have changed the points jersey to a more "Skoda" green.

Mefistofelino

That points jersey looks like the old Irish national team jersey

LCD

Jonas for the win

Pog for 2nd

An Australian in 3rd (Hopefully Hindley because he did The Rás)

breezy1985

I wish I cared more who won between Pog and Vingo. One of them needs to do something horrendous or sign for Ineos so I have one to hate. I'm just happy for both of them.

Brian?

As I’ve done for some Grand Tours recently, I’ll create a league tonight.

I will go into said league with complete confidence and finish 5th. I’m like a Yates or young Uran.

Brian?

League code. Come on board ladies and gentlemen

280607011

dahat

All I want from this TDF is for Bernal to win a stage.

retalivity

Pog's wrist to see him fade and/or DNF.

Jonas to win by 5+ mins over god knows who.

G Martin to lose a heap of time but end up in the top 10 anyway because he got in a break.

Pinot to be the worst teammate in the world to Gaudu.

MVDP to be in yellow after day 1.

Phillipsen to be a lot closer to WVA in the green jersey competition this year

mewso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769770#Comment_120769770

Careful now. Are all teams declared? Still time for pat to drop JAL and bring in Remco.

Dr. Bre

Looking forward to the tour! Tricky start in Bilbao - seems like a few medium mountain stages to begin with

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769981#Comment_120769981

You change the team up to Friday night.

Brian?

I’m disgusted Remco isn’t doing the Tour. It would be great. But Roglic v Remco in the Vuelta will do nicely.

I hope Bernal is in good shape.

mewso

Rodriguez could be a dark horse for ineos.

Darkglasses

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769770#Comment_120769770

Back from the dead to join this 😊

Dohnjoe

Thanks to Netflix I'll be following the Tour de France for the first time in my life this year, are there Youtube highlights videos that sum up the day? If so, any recommendations? (something around 30 mins would be perfect)

(When I miss e.g. an F1 race, I'll watch highlights on Youtube)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769854#Comment_120769854

This tour could really do with someone like Martin pulling a Voeckler. Or maybe another 2019 level Ala performance.

Darkglasses

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

There are indeedy - GCN or Tour de France official will both have highlights, GCN's are better.

There's also lots of "talking head" recaps from people like Phil Gaimon or Chris Horner

Squidgy Black

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

You’ll get highlights on the GCN YouTube channel, but they’ll be fairly short (usually 6 minutes or so). You can get extended highlights on their app but you have to subscribe

Mehaffey1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

Try and follow the GCN Highlights the Tour de France official and Eurosport are both shocking for putting spoilers right in the title of the video.

Mehaffey1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120769770#Comment_120769770

What site is the league on?

dastardly00

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

Not YouTube... but TG4 broadcast a 30 minute highlight show after each stage, usually around 10pm (and repeated again the next day). It's in English.

CantGetNoSleep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770157#Comment_120770157

Does anyone happen to subscribe to GCN and live abroad?

I have a Eurosport subscription and I have no issues with live coverage (in English, no ads etc) but I can't get any of the pre or post race stuff in English, especially highlights. For the giro there was sometimes just the last hour replayed in the evening. I'd love a 30-60 mins highlights show (in English) every evening

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

GCN will have a short highlight package every evening.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770229#Comment_120770229

Velogames

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770229#Comment_120770229

here you go

https://www.velogames.com/

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770338#Comment_120770338

I live in the Netherlands, the Eurosport player always have everything in English for me. Including highlights. Are you sure you can’t access it?

adrian522

ITV4 have a nightly highlights show too, repeated overnight on ITV1 I think.

dastardly00

The face on Pogacar 😂

https://twitter.com/TeamEmiratesUAE/status/1673258337801043968?s=20

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770401#Comment_120770401

Think they are geoblocked on some providers eg Virgin Media.

Mehaffey1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770360#Comment_120770360

Brilliant thanks you, in as the Broomwagon Balladeers. Been years since I've gotten really into a Grand Tour, hopefully this is the year.

adrian522

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770519#Comment_120770519

Didn't know that, I get it through satellite with a FTA box.

Don Juan II

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770594#Comment_120770594

I series link the ITV4 one hour highlights on my FTA satellite receiver. I'm a paid up subscriber to GCN but the ITV4 highlights are by far the best.

It's a shame the same crew don't cover more cycling. They cover Paris - Nice too and a few more which is a shame.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

Ive always found the TG4 highlights to be ideal, concise but not short and on at the perfect time when the kids are well asleep.

Must check out ITV this year though.

mewso

It's also worth pointing out that subscription to either Eurosport (good if you want tennis and snooker too) or GCN+ (good if you want nothing but cycling including documentaries) is 40 Euro...a year. This will get you all stages live, available for playback later and highlights every evening. Just worth mentioning as those familiar with Sky might expect it to be 40 Euro a month.

Also GCN are doing a 20 percent off at the moment.

Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770089#Comment_120770089

TG4 used to have the "world feed" half hour highlights. For highlights packages, I'd really recommend ITV4 tbh. An hour if you watch live, but if you have the option to record and skip ads less. It has more features/ stories surrounding the race than the other highlights.

Paddigol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770515#Comment_120770515

LOLZ. You can't help but like him.

Will be interesting to see how Soler get on. I kinda want him to throw a tantrum at a critical moment in a stage.

dastardly00

I've picked my provisional team for the Velogames fantasy league... I've gone with Vingegaard, Pogacar, & WvA, with the rest of the team consisting of bargain basement riders (and also Fred Wright!)

breezy1985

Carapaz wouldn't be a bad shout for having a good tour. Himself and EF are both good at stage wins, he has GC pedigree and EF know how to ninja a guy on to a podium.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120770519#Comment_120770519

It's the same as the TG4 ones

cunavalos

I know there is a short turnaround time before the tour and not every team can afford to go sponsorless on the front of the national champions jersey like Groupama FDJ normally do but Lidl and Trek really butchered their attempts. I remember Morkov would have had a similar design for the danish jersey at quickstep with the sponsor in the cross but this looks cheap and lazy.

Darkglasses

That's properly the worst Pro tour jersey I've ever seen

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120779625#Comment_120779625

Given what was teased yes it's an absolute disaster.

I was expecting this all over the kit.

CantGetNoSleep

It is difficult to do anything with that Lidl logo as a main sponsor - both in terms of colours / design and the fact that the first thought that springs to mind when you see it is cheap.

Those national champs jerseys are a disgrace though, imagine dreaming all your life of a season in the national champs jersey and getting a big Lidl logo splashed across the front of it.

Squidgy Black

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120779651#Comment_120779651

They did that on the back and it looks 10 times nicer than the front of the keep, even with the gaudy Lidl logo

breezy1985

Lidl really need to stop insisting on the full logo and just go with the letters if they want to be doing these sponsors.

It's not like any of us are going to be less aware of the brand or what it is because it doesn't have a blue square.

Also those are 3 national kits it's almost impossible to ruin.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120780477#Comment_120780477

Now you heard it lads.

No more criticism of jerseys 🤣

Macy0161

I actually like the 90's vibe of the standard jerseys! However, I would agree that the National Champs one's need more work, although I would caveat that they've had less than a week to actually see what national champs jerseys they would be working with. Still better than some that have had the national flag barely visible.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120780996#Comment_120780996

The 3 nations involved I am pretty certain have rules like with the rainbow kit.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120773242#Comment_120773242

+1 on Discovery+ - it has everything that's on Eurosport and GCN, plus a huge range of really awful American reality shows, what more could you want! You can use it on any device, you're not restricted to the Sky box. And it's included with any Sky package, I'm only paying them €10 a month and still get Discovery+ thrown in.