AlgarveCycling

Ineos are using ice vests - sorta like gilet's but with ice compartments. GCN+ did a short explanation about their use. Looking at the Peloton though, it seems most just stick an ice pack on the back of the neck.

MinnMan

Ice vests sound heavy. Do they let the meltwater drip away so that they become lighter with time?

Eric F 

Looking forward to an exciting battle in the Pyrenees. Pogi is going to punch hard. If Jonas can keep riding the way he has been, he should be able to hold on, but any weakness, and things could flip in a hurry. Jumbo's losing two of their strong climbers may be problematic, but UAE hasn't really shown a lot of team strength on the climbs. Expect to see Jumbo lean even more on WVA and Kuss. The strongest team is probably Ineos, but it looks like they are missing a rider who can truly compete with Pogi and Jonas. Pogi is stronger in the TT, but probably not so much so that her can make up his current deficit.

diphthong

vingegaard will want to add a few more seconds to his lead if possible to avoid a repeat of the team jv collapse 2020 tdf stage 20 itt.
itt then was harder (with more than twice the climbing of this year's) but approx 4km shorter than the upcoming one. pogacar swung it
from being almost a minute behind to almost two minutes ahead of roglic. uneasy is the head that wears the crown...

cthenn

It's a more believable race that's for sure. At a minimum, it's not the same boring crap with Sky doing whatever the hell they wanted when they wanted. It's much better because the teams are far more even, and really not that great (compared to previous eras), no one is sending 8 guys to the front and preventing anyone from doing anything.

slcbob

That piece from Matt was confusing. I'm pretty sure they're using those for warm up / cool down only.

MinnMan

J-V and UAE are both domestique-depleted. Ineos *could* take advantage if they have the right strategy and if Thomas is up for it. Presumably the scenario is that the J-V domestiques drive the pace in order to keep Pogacar from attacking, but when Kuss blows, Vingegaard will also be isolated. If at that point, Ineos needs to take over. If Yates and at least one other Ineos worthy (Pidcock) are there with Thomas at that point, they may be able to do something.

diphthong

oh maan...loving the look of stage sixteen. transitional trap stage. breakaways galore. so much descending on the last third of the stage
and we're all well-acquainted with tpiddy's il falco homage this tour. thinking both he and danimal martinez get a chance to set up gthom and yatesie
at some point. top of the last climb is 28.5 km's from the finish and that's an eternity. road is sufficiently wiggly so anything could happen on that last descent.
who's a guy that's a solid climber, is at least five mins back on gc, not protecting another rider and has a heckuva itt engine to power down flattish final descent spots...?
mollema, powless, bojangles, caruso and cattaneo. for some reason...mohoric (not a perfect match but been very very quiet) popped into the ole empty noodle tho
so matej is the (un)lucky horrible prediction for stage sixteen. the stage is likely to short for him tho-he likes the looong stuff.

GrainBrain

Day of highs and lows! Beautiful win by Houle!! Tragic miss for Jorgensen -- Bardet way back.

Martinez is looking better!

Eric F 

A win on the wings of an angel - beautiful and moving. Jumbo still looks pretty big. Ineos' best hope is to keep G-Tom on the 3rd step. Expect Pogi to throw big punches tomorrow.

gpsblake

So, you think Wednesday stage 17 or Thursday stage 18 is where Pogacar shows his hands and goes all out to try to get back into yellow? He's lacking team mates now though.

Hopefully next year, we get some more sprinter stages, something this years tour lacks

slcbob

Yes

GrainBrain

Going to be much cooler so that will help Pog. Vingegaard shouldn't have a problem though in this he's a better climber. Best chance for Pog might be sneaking into the break right before the first climb of the day?

Pog is caught between a rock and a hard place with Geraint 11 seconds back at the moment -- and a whole team behind him. The 40k ITT will favor Geraint over Pog right?

It will be crazy if Yates gets into a break and burns out JV and UAE domestics, though Intermarche will probably help pace along with arkea and Bora.

I'm hoping to see Martinez given freedom the next few days.

Eric F 

The hope of major fireworks turned out to be nothing more than a single firecracker. McNulty's tempo pace shredded everyone but the top dogs, and appeared to be the absolute limit for his Pogi. Yellow got a lot more yellow today as the race takes a big step closer to Paris.

GrainBrain

McNulty was awesome!

So much for Yates doing anything!

gpsblake

Pog had a teammate today, still couldn't crack Vingegaard. then again, I thought Pog was superman but all it took was one bad stage. Can't see any serious attacks tomorrow but who knows.....

Shadco 

Wonder if JV and the team let their domestics take it easier in light of tomorrow’s stage while maybe UE burned up all their matches today?

.

scottfsmith

It definitely looked like the UAE team burned all their matches. Pog could still have a good day tomorrow, he has had some very good days in past tours with no support to speak of.

evanessny

Does anyone understand how Peacock's coverage works regarding the 2 teams of commentators. Yesterday's stage 17 live coverage commentators were Nicholas Roche and Anthony McCrossan. Today its Phil Liggett and Bob Roll. Also I'm pretty sure the replay had Ligett and Roll. Googling this is tedious, lol, lots of generic pages with schedules and offers to watch. I found a youtube video that identified McCrossan as Roche's TV partner, from reading the comments I'm deducing that they are an international feed--provided by the TDF organization?--and actually the 2022 SBS (Australia) coverage team. The nice thing with yesterdays's Peacock coverage was there were no ads. Plus Roche had some interesting things to say (the commentary about the differences in descending during training--where there are cars and who knows what on the roads--vs actual races was great). PS No cable so streaming is my option.

MinnMan

Can we hope this is the start of a years-long rivalry between Vingegaard and Pogacar? That would be great. We are moving out of a two-year era when the apparent contest was between the two Slovenians, but Pogacar pretty much always bested Roglic, so it didn't work so well as a rivalry.

Kudos to McNulty for an unbelievable performance yesterday. He made his reputation as a time trialist, but yesterday he out-climbed all of the pure climbers except for the premier two. I thought that Sepp Kuss was quietly the strongest American rider in the peloton, but now I'm not so sure.

Shadco 

What I have seen so far is that there are 2 live and 2 replay feeds.

Bobke and Phil’s are label USA and the others aren’t.


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Eric F 

Fantastic finish in the mountains!! The strongest rider - and team - left no question about their dominance. Punches thrown and dodged. Tanks drained to empty. Absolute respect for the competition on vivid display.

MinnMan

And sportsmanship

Eric F 

Yes! That's what I meant by "respect for the competition". They fought the battle in the sporting arena, rather than taking advantage of the other's misfortune. At this point in the race, in that scenario on the stage, it was the right decision between two classy competitors. "You okay? Great. Let's beat each other up on the climb."

surak

Van Aert might've had a chance to take the polka dots along with green but seems like Vingegaard wanted to put his stamp on the race as the leader by winning today after Pogacar made his own statement with his third stage victory yesterday.

Who knows what went into Vingegaard's decision to wait after Pogacar crashed, but I thought it was super smart on many levels. With the respect the two have expressed for each other, and Pogacar's image as a true competitor gracious in both victory and defeat, it was obvious that Pog wouldn't continue attacking on the descent. Yes, there was some risk that Pogacar would resume attacking on the Hautacam, but by neutralizing the descent Vingegaard allowed his teammates to rejoin while knowing WvA was also up ahead. Pogacar meanwhile gained nothing from letting the chasers back in, was likely tired from attacking, possibly took damage from his crash, and hadn't shown all Tour that he could put in a minute+ on Vingegaard uphill that he needed.

While Vingegaard has been impressive all Tour and barely put a foot wrong (except right before his rival made an even bigger mistake!), in some respects Pogacar takes main responsibility for being in second place by being overly active since the start of the Tour. I wonder if Pogacar got swept up in his own hype of being a level above everyone in the peloton and felt obligated to put on a show, constantly attacking for meager seconds even before the major mountain stages. He paid for it on the Granon when he fell into the trap Jumbo Visma masterfully set. Ever since, he's had little choice but to continue the all-or-nothing attacks in hopes of cracking Vingegaard, but the latter's shown himself unshakable, and Pogacar's efforts harming himself more than Jonas.

Realizing that it's premature to declare the GC race over, I still wonder if Pogacar taking a more conservative strategy would've produced the far more expected, albeit boring, result in this TdF. Surely Pogacar won't be foolish enough to make those same wasteful moves in the future, especially knowing there's now a legit threat at his level who can capitalize on his mistakes. I hope that a wiser Pogacar won't make future races less interesting. Maybe he'll come back with a vengeance to prove that he can both win and still attack, or will we see a more cagey racer?