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

I think you have a point here and I believe his absence from the the line up demonstrates Mullens value to the Bora sprint train. There was a lot of commentary that Sam's performance were so disappointing because he had the best leadout team in the World Tour. Mullen does a lot of the donkey work in the 3km to 1km to go part of the stage where van Poppel takes over (excluding today because it looked like van Poppel had a bad day and didnt feature at all in the lead out). If I was looking to build a world tour leadout train for next season I would be seriously looking at Mullen (and Morkov for one season at least now that it appears he is leaving lotto Soudal).

Now it is also worth remembering that when Meeus was announced in the tour team the 8th rider was A.N Other which obviously meant it was a last minute decision to swap out Sam with Meeus. The dilemma for Bora was then whether to bring Mullen as a third member of the new sprint strain or pick an extra support member for Hindley which they had not originally planned for and ultimately chose Konrad who had just completed the Giro. A Bora sprint train of van Poppel and Meeus was a complete unknown as they rarely raced together beforehand and not bringing Mullen as the third member of the sprint train compounded that mistake.

Morkov-Mullen-Cavendish at Astana for #35 😅

His brother is a director at UnoX isn't it? Thought I read somewhere that it's there he's likely to move to

I’m ranked 251 of 30,501 total in velogames

Wont last so thought I’d share while I can

I've been looking forward to this stage - the GC seems paused for now, hence a chance for some attacking and tactical racing up the road. Stage 10 was superb viewing-- but Bilbao won't be let away this time. I'm starting to wonder if both Bettiol and Magnus Cort are in the race at all, hardly a sight of them so far? Maybe Jorgensen will get away again, and surely Neilandts will have another go. I picked Nans Peters for Velogames with a view to a breakaway on this type of stage, but he wasted huge energy on a pan flat stage last week in a break to nowhere so not expecting any fireworks today.

Jakobsen goes home this morning. Won't start the stage.

Pinot will probably be saving himself for Bastille Day tomorrow and his home stage next week.

Cue six months of PL shitposting about Fabio's "fragile mental state" and "poor resolve".

Ineos must be getting tetchy that they have not won anything yet.

They will be gunning for a stage win but also rodriguez only needs 1 min 40 to make the podium so they will be having a battle with hindley from here on out for that 3rd place because it clear who 1 & 2 are just not the order of them yet.

Gall showed well last week so maybe he comes back today.

Plenty of points for powless to pick up early I would expect him to try and make an early break.

And I thought it was a misprint......