Tour de France 2021

wow at Anthony Perez’s effort too, he dug so deep!

Not something you often see. Route of the Tour de France temporarily blocked by llamas in fog. Photo from TdF Race Radio. pic.twitter.com/RSC5abj6I0

— John O'Connell (@jdpoc) July 15, 2021

Apologies, people. Turns out the photo is on the current Tour de France route, but it’s actually from a few years ago when this happened. Frankly, it’s still marvellous. My misunderstanding of the colloquial French on Race Radio.

— John O'Connell (@jdpoc) July 15, 2021

Gotta love the llamas.

Well there ya go with that today — not surprised Ineos just went with the ‘let’s do the old reliable and have the squad grind it out’ and no. Now I’m pretty curious as to how Vingegaard and Carapaz are going to try and outsprint/psych each other over these last two stages.

Mind you…this happened

https://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-france/a37034833/bahrain-victorious-anti-doping-raid-tour-de-france/

i’d love to see vingegaard pwn carapaz

liked cav’s move on matthews in the early stage sprint too, very canny stuff going on between them these past few days

stick a fork in rigo too i guess , sad to see him lose so much time

Bit of a weird ‘are we going for it or not’ start today. And then nobody could figure out what to do with Mohoric with 25K to go!

And then of course Mohoric just going full asshole with the zipped lips thing, which I perversely appreciated.

that celebration was v snitches get stitches

great win tho

Cav chucked a wobbly at his mechanic this morning & issued a statement. I for once welcome the return of Flouncy Cav, all that smiling got a bit weird

“My mechanics have worked tirelessly to ensure I’ve always been safe and successful. Although they know how short I can be when I’m stressed, no one, especially those you care about, deserve to have a voice raised to them.”https://t.co/ITQ53d33oe

— VeloNews (@velonews) July 16, 2021

Bahrain prob hoped Mohoric’s win might provide a distraction from the tumult but he does that celebration & basically invites questions about the investigation 😬🤦🏻‍♂️

sorry for shitposting

Peloton at the finish >20 mins after Mohorič... makes the time cut with ~5 mins to spare

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) July 16, 2021

I seem to remember them making an ‘adjustment’ to the time cut in the past when a large number of riders missed it.

Killer ride by the winner today, he smoked em all

looking forward to Paris!

Indeed!

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

And tomorrow we farewell the gorilla 😢

André Greipel: the fifth biggest winner in cycling history. 163 victories including 11 Tour stages, 7 Giro stages, 4 Vuelta ones. A giant of sprinting https://t.co/ojOIRtoMHj

— Andy McGrath (@Andymcgra) July 17, 2021

And into the final day aka ‘wow this stage starts late enough that I can actually watch it live’

i love the happy smiley ride into Paris, always one of my fave parts of the tour

Yeah always fun. Endless photo ops!

And with the intermediate sprint done now to see what the stage ends with…

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.