msu2001la

On the other hand, if you've got a rider in the top 10 on GC and are worried about surviving the final two days in the mountains, are you really going to have them go all in on a 30-35 minute TT to try to gain a relatively small chunk of time to move up a slot or two on GC 8th to 7th overall? Seems risky - those efforts aren't easy to recover from and the potential time losses in the mountains are far more significant than any gains from the TT.

We're also talking about a bunch of teams who knew that Pogi and Jonas were going to light that thing up, plus you've got WVA to contend with, so I doubt many of them really felt like a stage win was possible. I have a feeling "managing the effort" played a pretty big role in the results.


This wasn't the final battle.

msu2001la

Pogacar was down 30 seconds at the bike change, and lost more time on the final climb despite being on the lighter bike.
At a minimum I think it's safe to say the bike change didn't help. It probably cost him some time.

MinnMan

Lanterne Rouge said it cost him 15-20 seconds. So, part of the story, but not decisive.

DonkeyShow

Did none of you watch the TT or do you just not understand going fast? The way jonas attacked every corner was some senna-esque stuff. Dude was fearless and riding to perfection.

slcbob

I see no anomaly in Vinegaard beating WVA by 3 minutes given that course, their characteristics, and all the work Wout has been doing.

It was weird to see the gap to Pogaçar but less weird after seeing the cracks the next day.

Shadco 

Here’s a thought, TP’s wrist injury was causing too much pain on the aerobike, they knew he was going to have to change on the uphill. They tested with Bierg to see how bad it was going to be and figured he was going to lose less time with the change than he would have trying to climb on the aero bike.

.

Hondo6

Might well be part of the issue - and not only on a TT bike.

The wrist injury certainly impacted his pre-TdF training. If it's still bothering him, it may be affecting his ability to concentrate (pain does that) as well as his efficiency when pedaling at times (harder to pull up on the handlebars when needed if one wrist hurts like hell).

I also think there are at least two other factors in play, though.

While they're about the same height (1cm difference, with Pogacar being the taller), Pogacar is 6 kg heavier than Vingegaard (66kg vs. 60kg). Hauling an extra 6kg up every hill and mountain adds to the accumulated fatigue over Grand Tour - where both speed and resilience are decisive factors. Add extra weight to less time to fully prepare, along with possible lingering wrist issues, and those three factors alone may explain Pogacar's relative "cracking" vis-a-vis Vingegaard the past 2 days.

Vingegaard is also a couple of years older than Pogacar. If I recall correctly what little I've read about human male athletic potential, for endurance activities that peak generally occurs in the late 20s to early 30s. If I'm remembering correctly, that means Vingegaard is closer to his physiological "peak years" than Pogacar.

Or I could be "out to lunch" and it could be due to something else entirely. Dunno.

cthenn

The amount of naivete in here is cute, but if you actually look at the numbers, there is no way this outcome came about without some kind of "help". In a 22.4km ITT, he beat 2nd place by 1:38, and 3rd by almost 3 minutes. For comparison, everyone's favorite doper, Lance Armstrong, never won an ITT by more than 1:30, and that was over 60km, not a third of that. He put in 4.4 sec/km on second place(and over 7 sec/km(!!!) on 3rd place, who just happens to be one of the strongest riders in the world, WVA), which has never happened, even in the days of the super duper doper Miguel Indurain. I'm seeing a lot of people commenting that "you don't understand how stage racing works" because many riders just cruise over the course when they have no reason to ride. While that may be true, the 3rd-11th place riders on GC finished around 45 seconds of one another, and there's no arguing that they were not actually racing the TT. Then you have TP, who is ~5% better than that, and JV who is 5% better than that, damn near 10% better than any other contender...vs the very best riders on the entire planet. That'd be like winning the 100m dash a full second ahead of the next guy lol! The other thing I keep seeing is "his downhill and cornering technique tho!" Are we just ignoring the climbing bit? Pushed 7.6 W/kg from the bottom of the categorized climb to the finish, and on the 2.5km climb itself, a VAM of 2100, ON A TT BIKE! In an interview, he even had the gall to say he was "holding back" at certain points, and at one point thought his power meter was broken because he didn't believe the numbers


Dude used to clean fish guts a few years ago, now he's the greatest cyclist in the world by a massive amount. I guess I simply don't believe this is at all possible clean. I'm sorry I don't dream big, I'm sorry I don't believe in miracles. This is why I quit watching stage racing back in the Sky days, and why I'm only going to last 2 weeks into giving it another chance. Enjoy the freak show, folks!

Bacciagalupe

Vingegaard has been smoking almost everyone for weeks. Pogi has hid it well, but almost certainly wasn't in top form this year, plus he likely flushed 20 seconds down the drain with a bike change. WvA has put himself into the wind almost every day for the past 2 weeks.

I mean, really. What's your theory here? Vingegaard is the only one in the pro peloton who is doping?

Oh, good grief. Vingegaard was already riding on a UCI Continental team when his coach told him to work at a factory to teach him some discipline.

Let's get real: There's no actual evidence that he doped. If there's a test result, a text message, a syringe, that's a completely different story. Otherwise, you could construct a just-so story for anyone who wins a bike race to accuse them of doping.

pstock

this writeup of the time trial, by ex-pro Michael Barry of Mariposa Bicycles is quite good.

https://mariposabicycles.ca/2023/07/...eid=44ff79a5f6