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

Is there co leaders on the Ineos Team i.e. Pidcock and Bernal?

Agree with your first two ,Ben O'Connor could sneak into third.

I didnt hear anything about it, not that they would say much anyway but im guessing they are their two hopes albeit longshots.

Its a bit like Roglic and vingegard last year, both started out with team apsirations of GC and it quickly became decided that only vingegard was going to contend.

I see you and raise you protected rider!

Seen Vingegaard was doing the recon for this stage on a 1x bike, SRAM are really gonna shove this down our throat now with Jumbo aren’t they

Do we have a cobbles stage this year? That would be extra challenging.

3.5km until the official start and Kelly has already said some variation of "he is a one who..." 3 times. 😁

It's great to be watching the Tour once again. Some of my hopes for the Tour:

• Ineos don't go for GC at all. They are potentially a great stage winning team. They just won't even come close to the top 5 in Paris. So the quicker they give up on that ambition the better for them and for the viewer. I do not want to ever see them on the front of the peleton this year, unless it's to catch the breakaway for one of their guys to win the stage.
• A green jersey battle. I don't see it happening to any great degree though. Maybe, because Van Aert might head home early for the birth of his child, it'll keep others interested. But I think a proper battle for the jersey really animates a lot of stages that otherwise would be fairly boring. Think Sagan's battles with Bennett and one or 2 others over the years.
• Pogacar to be fully recovered from day one. With a fully fit Pogacar you are guaranteed attacking at the front of the peleton.
• Van der Poel at 100% fitness. I'm a fan.
• Pogacar to win. I've warmed more to Vingegaard, but I will always favour the cyclist who doesnt just concentrate on the Grand Tours. Last year I think that Pogacar was slightly off form. I base this largely because of his form post Tour de France compared to the previous year. Up until his injury this year I think that he had better acceleration this year compared to last year. He just couldn't get any kind of gap on Vingegaard last year. If he has somehow maintained that same explosivity post-injury, I expect (hope) that he will be able to find those few metres of a gap that he couldn't last year and then we will see how good Vingegaard is. However, both because of what happened to him last year and because of the injury, I think he will be more conservative with his efforts this Tour.

I’d agree with GCN comms that they will want to make it hard first two days to test Podjacar.

Those Lidl-Trek jerseys really are horrendous 🤢