There’s no way this makes it all the way to Paris - TdF 2020

Here we go.

so many crashes today. i wish NBCSN didn't cut to commercial every 45seconds, but I guess they want people to shell out an extra $55 for the Gold package so you don't have to see the ads. Still excited about the race this year though.

Ive got gold and i’m stuck in phil + commercial shitland for now

eh it was just a weird ui routing maze that kept putting me away from commercial free. thank god i was v sad

I'm curious about the Lanterne Rouge's livestream. Should be on soon but I can't find any links / evidence it's on. http://www.youtube.com/c/LanterneRougeCycling/featured

Beat commercial breaks during the race = big no no

Nice to see Tony Martin being the Merkel of the peloton. Astana got what they deserved, fools

-beat

yeh karma came fast at Astana there, Izagirre's bike handling was pretty impressive tho and liked the way he used his head at the end lol

It was Lopez, not Izaguirre (Lopez was on Ion’s bike)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvnLlAj0nwE

In case you're interested in TLR live stream - he's doing last hour of every day live.

lmao pinot looks raging

Just saw the stage — good lord what a mess. (And I pay $55 annually for all the races NBC has the rights to so I can avoid the ads and Phil being Phil.)

like while i was stuck in philville, he was reminding us that pros in dry conditions ride 125psi and us cat 6s are like- "dude no."

What, no comments on Stage 2 yet? Crazy great finish there.

I haven’t watched it yet but the reports sound good.

Seemed uneventful to me. Once Alaphilip was in the breakaway I assumed he would win. I’m waiting for the HC contenders to get interested in racing.

Alaphillipe and QS owe Gesink a beer, man. That was getting shit done.

Gesink really found his beast mode when once he dropped his gc ambitions.

It was a bit uneventful yesterday. If only Hirschi had stuck 3 meters closer to Ala inn the final, he'd have nicked it.

some panache from juju though - very emotional win for him

Oh I was happy for him, finally nicking a win this season.

Just to be clear, "uneventful" cycling is still great cycling. Sometimes even it's the best kind of cycling.

Poor Perez... Clinching the mountain jersey only to have a flat during a descend, break his collarbone et abandon. Damn.

Not only that, he crashed w/ his own team car.

Listened to the WEDU podcast last night and Hincappie was saying some riders think this will get cancelled after stage 9 due to the testing happening on the first rest day.

thought Bennett had that all the way, amazing sprint from Ewan

some bravery zipping through that narrow gap between the barriers and sagan

amazing sprint from Ewan

perfect timing

that was an incredibly timed and placed sprint. he really looked like he had a full full tank while everyone else was out, because he did not even look tested out of that.

i don't know the post race story on perez, but as told live it made no sense that he'd not wait for a wheel or bike. like, no sense. it's like astana's attack on the greasy descent.

heard he crashed into the back of his own team car after they pulled the brakes on him

meme of the tour

#TDF2020

We caught Whitey a little tongue tied in yesterday’s finish... 🙊😂

Any chance of a lesson @CCCProTeam @GregVanAvermaet? pic.twitter.com/wQEUSq1w24

— Mitchelton-SCOTT (@MitcheltonSCOTT) August 31, 2020

#TDF2020

Hey Whitey, we good now? 😉😜@MitcheltonSCOTT @GregVanAvermaet https://t.co/gD6wl17Syw pic.twitter.com/AKXMpURUn6

— CCC Team (@CCCProTeam) August 31, 2020

Big signs painted on the final climb saying “Le Tour nous Tue”

So not everyone happy about the race going on.

Mm, not surprising. Ewan's win great, that Perez crash is still weird to me. Stage 4 fine enough.

GC-wise stage 4 didn't tell us a whole lot, but it did tell us what it didn't tell us.

Bernal did not look good to me once Rogla ripped away. Jumbo seem to really have an abundance of adjutants for Roglic; if Gesink and even Dumoulin have a bad day, Kuss and Van Aert (!) step right up. Landa and Quintana seem to bob along nicely. Poor old Aru, ofcourse, vmic.

what a ride from van aert - that was some shift on the front in the final

bernal looked off it when roglic went (and carapaz is a busted flush already)

guillaume martin looked good

He did. Carapaz indeed was like, yeah no I'm not up for this. They're really fucked now that Sivakov is knackered.

Even by the standards of transition stages an extraordinary amount of fuck all is going on today.

Yep. Bennett just sprinted Sagan out of the green jersey, and Pinot went to see the doctor for his shoulder. That's about it.

It's ok though, the organisation made up for the lack of talking points this stage by planning the finish line just 250 metres after a roundabout...

There’s no way QS is dumb enough to... oh. Lol.

Pretty good by Lutsenko there.

It was a strangely muted finish with the on-site commentator blaring over the thin crowd noise. This tour is weird. I wonder if it will be halted in a few days with Yates in yellow and Alaphilippe 12 seconds down and kicking himself/the bottle supplier.

echelon fun today

Such a day for hard men, smart thinking, and dependable teammates and friends.

Watching the failed regrouping at like, 50km lol was one of the few times I’ve watched europros and thought “oh, i know EXACTLY how THAT feels, when you’re that close, and just do the peter parker dissolve.”

Hahah a good way to phrase it.

too early for the inevitable Pinot collapse :(((

what a day. 4 yellow jerseys now for Yates which is more than I expected. Pog fighting back, Roglic still probably the favourite but Nairoman is looking surprisingly good so far. I don't even want to look up how much time Pinot lost tho :(

It was pretty bad. Great stage win by Peters in any event.

That was an awesome stage. I loved how Allaphillipe lit the fuse and then dropped like a stone out of the yellow jersey group but it did seem to be the start of everything. It was also very low down the climb. Yates definitely wasn’t the best on the climb but he held on. The killer wasps looked far from invincible and no one in that elite group Had a team mate.

Pogacar might have ridden himself back on the podium if not the win. If he can hold that position and then TT like that (fastest ascent of they Peyresourde ever apparently) up La planche Des belle filles...

If it gets that far, I can’t believe a rider hasn’t picked up the rona from the crowd today.

SBS commentary is pinning new depths of awful, although Understandably difficult doing it in the middle of the night in an Australian basement. Matthew Keenan still hasn’t adapted to not being in the studio alone and the three of them have done none more research than read the road book. Was hoping Bridie O’Donnel would bring some insight being the most recent former rider but she’s not got much to say either other than telling people to go watch the Madison because there are lots of crashes.

ITV coverage is a lot better.

wow what an ending

Great day with great finale. Hirschi is really good and smart.

Hirschi tightening his shoes before the sprint was such a great moment of theater

Just remarkable. I was watching the replay as always and I was still tense as hell, not knowing the result. Best way to go into a break day.

this is the stage I've been most looking forward to in terms of scenery

No cyclists positive for covid, but Prudhomme is!

Shame there's no strong wind today.

Scenery should be good with the coastline, fortresses and glamour light of La Rochelle and the Iles.

And it was! Nervy race, nice break at the end, but all those crashes beforehand!

Today's stage is like the plantonic ideal of a route I'd like to ride. Undulating terrain with shade trees, broken up by cool villages with nice cafes. None of that 5% for 1 hour climb stuff. Amazing.

All that and a well deserved Hirschi win at last. Dude’s good!

Yeah, if anyone deserved it, it was him. Impressive team work, the Sunweb outlaws are swinging this TdF.

Goddamn and Sunweb again today, WHAT a finish by Andersen. Just a crazy last few kilometers.

That was nuts, tactical genius there. Reminds me of the early years of orica greenedge when they had no yellow jersey contender, no out and out sprinter but a the tactics to grab stages. They had a plan A, B and C.

This has been a great tour, no one is our showing the jersey, no soft breaks. Roll on tonight (today, whatever)

And today’s was a hell of a thing — Jumbo Visma collectively destroying Bernal and then Pogacar sneaking the finish just so. Solid tour indeed. Roll on the final week.

feels like Rog activated a cheat code having Dumoulin as a domestique

Dumoulin looks pretty close to gc form, shame there’s not enough tt in this joint. today was a bit static and postal/sky, but the sorting out was impressive. wtf porte lol. dgmw if he’s stompin out his steadystate high watts thing that’s cool enuf, he’ll be a good ineos worker bee next year.

Jumbo's supremacy notwithstanding, Pogacar stands a real chance to nick this. No give-aways from Roglic at the finish line there, he was defeated fair and square. Rolling on w/ the Jumbo train till the last km will not make them get rid of Pogacar, as evidenced. Time for Jumbo to send some runners in the breakaway imo. Dumoulin getting in great shape now, he can win the TT I feel.

(thought Jumbo's tactics in the final km were poor tbh. Kuss should've gone for the stage w/ 800m to go, but instead Roglic went. He thought he'd put Pogacar on the barbie, but he thought wrong)

wait is it true that some kid with a kickstand is winning this thing

If Pog hadn’t crashed he’d be as much ahead as he is behind and I wonder if jumbo would still be trying the sky train tactic. Pog has a real chance in the TT, especially if he keeps nicking time bonuses here and there, and I hope he has a dig to get mire than that.

What will be telling is if the killer wasps let breaks go on the mountain days, today there’s bonus seconds on the summit just before the finish so a 1,2 at both lines is 10 seconds. Jumbo get to choose though as I don’t think UAE have enough of a team left to bring back a big break if Jumbo want to let one go.

If Pog hadn’t crashed he’d be as much ahead as he is behind

Keep hearing this a lot but Jumbo obviously wouldn't have let him go earlier, if he wasn't 1.40 behind after the echelon slip-up. Agreed on all the other points though.

Ok that overhead w 35km to go of the peloton with the gc teams roughly arrayed in team subgroups adjacent to the lake was absolutely grand. I don’t recall seeing teams so cleanly aligned in a “random” moment.

Ha and 3 clicks later they still doing it . 🤔

How did they not give Carapaz the red dossard?

Scandalous. They announced Juju got it juuust before the most difficult km's of the last climb. Idg why, in a mountain stage, they don't wait till the end to declare the red dossard anyway, but that was too chauvinistic even for them.

Lol ima homer but watching kuss’s desperate chase at +10s of his captain’s group at the end of the gravel onto the paved descent was fun. supertuck, standing, fauxtt— all the trix until CONTACT.

Total sympathy for porte, except for the fact that it’s so lol richie porte to have this. at least he’s not hurt. damn he’s gonna get back in good on him.

Näin tullaan alas Alppen laskuja. Taitoja tarvitaan kaikilla lajin osa-alueilla. Alaphilippe tekee sen poikkeuksellisen hyvin. Hänet tunnetaan toki paljon muistakin ominaisuuksista kun vain alamäkiajajana. (video bongattu @lukascph'in tililtä) https://t.co/nC56EIcK4r

— ammattipyöräily (@ammattipyoraily) September 16, 2020

Whoever is the montage editor for itv has really bringing the krautrock. Neu and La Düsseldorf and plenty of motorik beats.

Nice. What a great break by Andersen! Roll on tomorrow...

Bee sting forces Tour de France rider Lukas Pöstlberger to withdraw with just two days left

Ayayayaya, I really don't want to think about that. He got stung in the mouth!

1. I’m aware of at least one other rider being forced out of the tour by bee sting (Vaughters while at credit agricole i think?), and 2) it won’t help if you get stung in face, but my number one reason to zip up jerseys prior to like 300’+ descents is to avoid hornets going into your jersey and then... about wherever, in stingy stingy mode (for me, more than once, into my bibs).

That sucks for postelberger

Absolute scenes

Damn I wish I could've watched this one live

Pogacar takes the yellow, mountain and white jersey. Unbelievable.

Sounds like he crushed it and roglic too

I faintly remember Fignon/Lemond but this was out of this world. Roglic just crushed.

welp. not close even, a whippin’.

i like to joke about porte, but ~respect~ i’m rather glad for him.

wow just caught up, Pog absolutely killed it today
happy to see Porte take 3rd too, he's had a rough few years at the Tour.

Just wow at it all. I’d half heard a spoiler that Pogacar had ridden the ride of his life but THAT commanding, goddamn. And yeah, cheers for Porte too! And Sam Bennett for that matter.

Gonna be a sad glass for Primoz tomorrow, can't fathom the emotion.

And also, per the thread title -- it'll make it to Paris. If anything the Tour this year has been a quiet triumph in actually being able to pull the darn thing off as COVID still spreads. That's not nothing, and it gives me hope on a variety of fronts going forward, including the Vuelta in a few weeks and of course next year's Tour, etc.

I’m hoping that Andre Greipel going home with ‘a cold’ yesterday isn’t the start of something.

Just about to start watching the TT, couldn’t hold off on reading the reports though.

That was hard to watch. Everything went wrong for roglic.

Heh, Pogacar turns 22 on Monday. Sunday night is going to be total oblivion isn’t it?

This Tour has been brilliant, I’ve absolutely loved it.

Same, it's been pretty great. Quite some complaining here and there about TJV's hegemony, but a) I think during the race it was logical they took the initiative, and b) it's not really hegemony if you lose on the last day! Add Sunweb's outlaws to the mix, and it's been a great tour imo. Perhaps it'd been too long before we saw some real cycling action this year but who cares.

Yeah, a treat these last three weeks and I've been glad of it -- really enjoyed just being able to properly watch a full Tour front to back thanks to working at home, as opposed to half-paying attention to streaming during workdays. I really liked last year's Tour a lot but this one was just as good in its own way. And worlds next week and the Vuelta in four weeks, works for me!

I was quite impressed that there were no covid positive DQs after test 2.

I enjoyed the racing. I think the possibility of an abrupt cancel early along with the bumpy parcours kept breaks on short leashes, but eh, that’s fine.

the only way tjv coulda enforced more discipline was to have roglic put a big hammer strike in somewhere earlier, and with no flat TT and no Kruiswijk, they just couldn’t Sky/Postal hard enough. They were great, but not great enough to put Pog away (if that’s even possible). Eh, I know, utterly conventional wisdom.

Ooh i just see merckx called tjv stupid i srsly cant wait to read

https://cyclingtips.com/2020/09/merckx-jumbo-visma-rode-stupidly-at-the-tour/

That clip of Roglic telling Pogačar, “You’re not dreaming, you’ve won it!” is just amazing

I've just been surveyed by a well known polling company about viewing the Tour de France. One question asked who II had predicted would win the TDF, and there were a ton of usual suspects to choose from, but poor old Egan Bernal wasn't even on the list!

RIP Bernal we hardly knew ye.

Just out of curiosity, who ordered that poll? The broadcaster you viewed the TdF on?

Don’t know, it was on Y**G** and it didn’t say.