The Swamp

Yes, it’s completely crazy! Besides the obvious, they are riding a course of city streets in Nice in a rain storm. People are falling everywhere. Le Tour is back baby!

Rex wrote: ↑Sat Aug 29, 2020 9:34 am Yes, it’s completely crazy! Besides the obvious, they are riding a course of city streets in Nice in a rain storm. People are falling everywhere. Le Tour is back baby!

They were riding so carefully down that last descent. The one rider out front signaling the peloton to slow down for upcoming corners. Never seen that before.

Yes, there was a truce in the peloton. Except for a few moments when Astana tried to attack it. Now I'm not making this up--before Phil Liggett could even finish describing what was happening, the Astana team leader lost it while following his teammates around a tricky curve and went face first into a road sign*, all on live television. I had never seen instant karma play out quite like that.

* the sign was built by a lazy person and easily gave way, possibly saving the rider's life.

Between the quarantine and the fact that a Slovenian dude is wearing yellow, I finally have a reason to watch the Tour again. They’re in the mountains today. It’s gorgeous.

They’re going up Col de la Biche - French for “a bitch of a climb.”

Yesterday's final climb was nuts.

And now today they have a 2km stretch of gravel!

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:38 am Yesterday's final climb was nuts.

And now today they have a 2km stretch of gravel!

The Paris Roubaix cobblestones weren't crazy enough?

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:38 am Yesterday's final climb was nuts.

And now today they have a 2km stretch of gravel!

This has been fantastic to watch. I'm glad to have a reason to watch again and forced isolation giving me time to watch it.

My god, though. They make the race so fucking hard, especially yesterday's 24% grades, no wonder everyone is doping.

Bummed I've missed most of this year's tour. I caught the first few stages in bits and pieces, and there's just too much other stuff on now that the NHL is in full playoff swing and soccer is back. I miss the July timing.

And now, on the penultimate stage, they have the customary time trial...but there's a hill climb right at the end that is making riders decide whether to switch out to a conventional bike, or stick with their time trail rigs.

Bananas...

DaveInSeattle wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 10:40 am And now, on the penultimate stage, they have the customary time trial...but there's a hill climb right at the end that is making riders decide whether to switch out to a conventional bike, or stick with their time trail rigs.

Bananas...

Slovenian on Slovenian violence.

Damn. This is the worst thing to happen in a long time.

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Sat Sep 19, 2020 11:13 am Damn. This is the worst thing to happen in a long time.

Poor Roglic...that guy was shattered at the end. What a ride by Pogacar.

I feel bad for Roglic. I don't think he blew it so much as Pogacar turned in one of the all time TT rides. The revisionist story of this race makes some sense--Pogacar was always always a little faster, always more aggressive, won two stages when it was mano-a-mano with Roglic. It's just that he had no team help and he also punted over a minute in the crosswind stage. (Don't remember if that was his fault or just bad luck). If that hadn't happened, or if there had been an ITT earlier on in the race, it might have been clearer who was strongest.

Great race though. I'm sure we'll see those last two mountain stage courses and today's TT course again in the future.

I agree it was a Pogačar win rather than a Roglič loss. Roglič finished fifth, well ahead of all other GC contenders and only 35 seconds behind the second-place finisher. Pogačar was just too fucking good.

God I hope we don’t find out he was doping.

I’m with you Steve, but it’s hard for me to not suspect. No major GC contenders from that part of the world for ever and now two at once? And both very young and miles better than anyone else?

And really, Slovenia? What good has ever come from there?

Uh oh Luka

I don’t think the question is really why are the top two riders Slovenian. It’s why aren’t they *all* Slovenian?

It was a bad idea, just maybe not for the cyclists.

Yeah but the race was really cool.