Tour de France 2021

The risk run! He's young, plenty of time for him fo be a new Thomas De Gendt.

Fun Fact - Pog was 7 years old when Cav first won a stage of the tour.

That was even more of a nail biter than I was expecting.

Oh hello, there you all are.

Yesterday was a great day for sentimental old fools (like me). From his form in the lead-up to the tour, I had a feeling he could do it (once he was subbed in for Bennett obv). Gutted for Moer but he has his whole career ahead of him. These days I watch with a seven-year-old who loves a crash, so it has been an exciting few days for him, the sicko.

I was going to say, did he find today boring in comparison?

(Or I should say yesterday but today also works. But I haven't seen any of it yet so I'll bow out for now...)

I'm saving myself for an hour of highlights later, it's too much of a distraction for me to watch it live on a weekday.

Wowee today. Won’t spoil, but what a time trial! Turning into quite the Tour…

Yeah if we can avoid the disaster mode of the opening days this is already looking nicely tricky.

that was great! v exciting

7-y-o has taken to calling Mark Cavendish ‘Lidl’.

I’m 100% on team Cav , I want him to get the Merckx record, and win green in Paris. It really looks like they designed the course to give a not Peter Sagan a chance to win green. Who knows if Cav can get over the mountains, but I wouldn’t bet against it.

Peter Sagan also seems strangely absent, I guess it’s hard to be an aging Sagan in a world of Wout Poels, Van Aerts and Allaphillipes.

Remarkable indeed and I’m with you at this point, let’s see Cavendish crush it. Sagan does seem to be in eclipse but at the same time he almost doesn’t have anything to prove at the Tour any more? And he did pick up the equivalent this year at the Giro so it’s not like he’s not still doing his thing.

Lack of camera on the bunch gave us the slightly sad LOL of Carapaz getting caught on the line, I really thought he’d got a gap there.

Great stage today, holy heck

That was immense. I’m sure pogačar won’t take every mountains stage like that but I hope he will try that again. I still don’t he even he knows how good he is yet.

Only just now finished the replay. Good Christ. Astounding to see it all.

woah, just realised that American cycling journalist Kate Wagner who has been popping up on the The Cycling Podcast is the same person behind the McMansion Hell blog. this is like when I found out recently that footballing journalist Philippe Auclair is the same person as él records legend Louis Philippe.

I gave up on the cycling podcast at the giro, it fell to pieces without Lionel Burnie.

more like ineos grannygears amirite

yeah god its really not enjoyable without Lionel

Francois is also better in smaller doses imo

xpost to ed

you'll enjoy today's stage vg if you didn't already just watch it

camping this wknd :/
will watch the replays tomorrow when we get home

camping trumps all imo (unless it's raining?). enjoy!

Today’s stage was indeed a thing. Mentally glad for a break tomorrow.

Haven’t seen the stage yet but great to see Cav make it in inside the time cut, when a lot of others didn’t.

🤝 An emotional @MarkCavendish after the @deceuninck_qst "Wolfpack" pulls together to finish within the time limit.

🤝 Le "Wolfpack" se mobilise pour finir, ensemble, une étape difficile et rentrer dans les délais !#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/3vdWv8tj3c

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 4, 2021

back from camping trip, now deep in catchup mode

phwoar stage 8 holy cats!!! pogacar performance was wild, glad i opted for the whole replay vs highlights
incredible

now on to the stage 9 replay :)

stage 10 caught up

not to be gauche but
Aussie Aussie Aussie OI OI OI
XD

Awesome ride by O’Connor

Also looooooooooool
Quintana never not gonna Quintana
wtf
can we finally stop talking about him

stage 9 i mean oops

Cav did it! 33 down, 1 to go.

*nervous Merckx noises*

Proper stuff of dreams, this - it’s such a great story. Though today was proper goal-hanging, he only had to turn the pedals 14 times after Mørkøw peeled off!

yeah damn that was some cool handling
to paraphrase what the kids all say, i am loving this for Cav

and tbh i am enjoying more bc of THIS cav that we get! humbled, smiling, but genuinely appreciative. he has lost the caged animal quality where it seemed like he was always needing to aggressively prove himself
here now fully swaddled in a team he clearly trusts & who perform for each other AND him
in the interview he didnt even really take the win for himself, instead namechecking the accomplishments of everyone who got him there
its cool to see it at this stage in his career after everything

rotten luck for cobrelli w that flat tho :/

A beautiful sight, that Cavendish win. Almost clinical in the best way.

tomorrow sounds fkn bonkers
obv here for it

I know what, guys, let’s make them climb the deadly mountain, twice.

Wondering about staying up for it but I also have an 8:15 meeting across town.

I know what, guys, let’s make them climb the deadly mountain, twice.

Wondering about staying up for it but I also have an 8:15 meeting across town.

that descent finish is going to be nuts

Whatever do you mean, this is surely TOTALLY normal:

https://cdn-ctstaging.pressidium.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/TDF21_PROFILS-ETAPES-SANS-RAVITO_ETP11-1340x811.jpeg

I like how the setup is (now) 'watch Cavendish aim for all the points and then mysteriously disappear'

Bonus time awarded for whichever rider making the loudest Wilhelm scream on the way down to the end.

it’s like the cycling version of this

https://media3.giphy.com/media/xT9IgvzKKIn6AauFSo/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b95260032bb61a1a5628f53f17621f672f43612aba50&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

"And the winner of the stage, the flaming tire that crossed ahead of the bike itself..."

the ultimate venn diagram:
Tour De France/Saw movie franchise

That was stage 3

true :/

Does anyone have a link to the expected timings for today's stage? Thinking of scheduling my afternoon around watching some of it live for once but not sure when will be best.

Wild stage today for sure. van Aert seems like he can do lots of things damn well individually — once he stitches it all together look out GC.

Okay this final lap is looking entertainingly chaotic

Kinda hope Wout wins the sprint now? That’d be a cool moment for the jumbo team, #2 podium & stage win in Paris

Is there anything Wout can't do?
Really enjoyed this Tour, what am I going to do with my afternoons now lol

Haha be like me and get into the Vuelta just as much. But we have the Olympic races coming up — and next year Tour de France Femmes too!

Anyway yeah if next year we have van Aert as more seasoned all arounder, van der Poel committing for the full thing, Pogacar looking to extend the streak, Roglic and Ewan out for making up for lost time, Ineos just collectively irritated at a two year shutout, Sagan wanting to see what can happen and Cavendish after 35, fucking bring it on.

And that doesn’t even include Vingegaard emerging as surprise number two this year!

Enjoying this montage overview, cripes this was a crazy entertaining TdF wasn’t it

Aw, baby

Bahrain Victorious win team award, celebrate with illicit hold on I’m getting a legal notice here

Oh I love the Vuelta but it feels too far away!

Oh it starts on Aug 14th? That's not as far as I thought. Forgot about the Olympics, it doesn't feel like it's real for some reason

Yeah it’s like a week after the Olympics we got a Vuelta. Full times! But yes the unreality of the Olympics is clear enough

WOUT!!!

i fully teared up

that was an exciting final lap, chaos reigns, wout snatches the victory, jumbo just the little team that could, what a great + ~wild~ tour this has been

What I like about it is that while there's certainly every chance that Pogacar could lock down things for a couple more years to come, that's not guaranteed necessarily and he did finally break the Ineos 'sit on everyone's heads' masterplan. Just thinking even only five years back about how every day of coverage seemed to be another set of occasionally interesting day races intercut with footage of grim-faced lookalike Sky types grinding out a peloton pace so Froome could win...you can't argue with success but you sure as hell could argue with lack of flair.

yeah it def makes for better viewing

i did like this exchange the other day though

Thought we’d get the band back together 🤣 #TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/COzAtR32XU

— Geraint Thomas (@GeraintThomas86) July 16, 2021

https://t.co/hUwYoApozD pic.twitter.com/Ibny8JFhh7

— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 16, 2021

Okay now I want the world where mysteriously for a day said groups do a prince/pauper switch, with Harry trying to bike up Mont Ventoux past his screaming fans while Geraint Thomas patiently explains his strategy for working with Stevie Nicks to an arena audience.

"Liam is broken...really he is."

lmao

loved Cav’s youngest kitted out in the same gear as his dad <3 i heard Cav say in an interview a couple of weeks ago that his youngest was mad keen about cycling

This picture 💚#TDF2021
Photo: @GettySport pic.twitter.com/1N1J5xwno6

— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) July 18, 2021

All three of his kids were great (as were van Aert's, Vingegaard's and especially Carapaz's 'do we really have to be here' kids). I do like how the middle kid there thanks to the haircut and Keith Haring shirt is basically halfway to forming some kind of band.

yes! so rad

lastly, a v hilarious thread re this year’s round of Panini stickers. well worth a read

Here it is then, Panini #TDF2021 stickers and what I think the riders look like.

The difficult second album 📖🧵

— tom owen (@tomowencc) July 13, 2021

Egan Bernal injured while training in Columbia, possible broken femur, hope he's alright:

https://www.velonews.com/news/road/breaking-egan-bernal-in-the-hospital-following-crash/

ugh right into a bus :( nasty

Oof. Not good! Hope he heals up well.