MinnMan

AFAIK, Sagan has never used a lead-out. It's not his style. He crowd-surfs other team's leadouts.

diphthong

it would appear that wout’s knee “injury” is less serious than reported in the pre-tour hullabaloo.

Eric F 

Damn. He Eddy'd the hell out of that one. Spectacular effort, and a well-deserved result.

GrainBrain

He's got Daniel Oss, that's supposed to be guys leadout right? Though it seems he always surfs wheels. I don't watch close enough to see if Oss helps in positioning on the final kms?

Today Turgis dropped quick, I wonder if Sagan and Total are planning an all out assault tomorrow?

Notable in that final climb that when Benoot blew it apart Roglic dropped back. I think he was letting the wheel go on purpose? Pog poorly positioned and Sans Teamates. Pog once again shows possibly his only serious weakness -- and if Bora pulls some shenanigans on a rolling stage like this years Giro, Pog is in some serious trouble. Add in JVs outrageously powerful quartet and things will click! UAE really needed Trentin plus another Rouleur.

Pog lost 1:40? In 2020 in crosswinds, pulling all the way to the line. That might be impossible to make up in the mountains against Vingegaard.

GrainBrain

There seemed to be a few questionable dropouts due to covid also. Incredible stamina to make it up those climbs with all those sand bags!

GrainBrain

Friggin awesome watching them shred that final climb, good on Yates keeping pace! I laughed out loud watching Wout "fly" across the line. Philipsen looks awesome, he keeps screaming up from nowhere -- is tomorrow going to be the day?

cyclezen

20 km of Pavé tomorrow, and a short 155 km... should bring some fireworks! maybe the inevitable showdown of WVA and MVDP, and all the other classics guys who are ready to hop around the WVA-MVDP fire-fight. Hopefully it will be epic! Not the craziest 1st week compared to some, but still interesting and exciting!
stoked!

diphthong

bring it. there will be hand-wringing and complaining and oodles of second-guessing and comfort saddle speculating. dunno the weather (too lazy) but could be a make or break stage.
hoping for the destructo breaky break side of things to add flavor flav to a mostly vanilla tdf so far. no serious injuries please.

slcbob

I'll speculate an unholy alliance of Sagan and Stuyven that Jasper regrets at the line.

Eric F 

The TDF cannot be won in the first week, but it can be lost, and being lucky is just as important as being good. As expected, cobblestones have shaken things up!

diphthong

well that was fun.

cthenn

2 things I didn't understand today. One, why was Bettiol (EF) pulling the group while 2 of his teammates are up the road? Just saw a tweet from Vaughters saying "this will be an interesting debrief tonight" so obviously he didn't get why the dude was helping pull the main group. Second, why was Stuyven helping Pog once it was obvious they weren't catching the leaders?

diphthong

last few km of tomorrow's stage six look to be a choppy barnburner. should be a hoot.

GrainBrain

God damn he's a tufted phenom!!

Straight up job interviewing is what it was!!

Ay Betiol - you're ******** dead to me! You pull like that then Powless misses wearing yellow!!?? What the f***!!??

GrainBrain

Such an awesome win for Simon Clarke!

USAZorro

I was shocked to see Powless try to make his break with 1 km to go. If he had waited another 500m, he might have gotten the stage and Yellow.

Eric F 

Easy to say after the fact. If he had enough gas in the tank to hold it, we'd be cheering his win. I thought it was the right move, especially when the other 3 didn't react. What I thought was interesting is that all 4 riders in the lead group had a moment where it looked like they had the win.

Eric F 

Roglic apparently dislocated his shoulder, sat in a spectator's chair to pop it back in himself, finished the stage, and only lost 2 min to Pogacar. Tough guys ride bikes.

semroc

Kung sure did a good job babysitting Gaudu. Great ride by Gaudu also. Wonder If Van Avaermat could've helps O'Connor more. Just speculatin. Great race today. Cort is a beast.

MinnMan

Hard to say. If he had waited until 500 m, somebody else might have attacked first or the others might have followed his attack. At 1.2 km, the other 3 didn't react probably b/c they didn't think he could make it stick. And they were right.

But it would have been so cool if he had held on.

slcbob

OK. I only took a quick look at PCS for the race situation mid-stage 6 before I venture out to do pesky life things. Maybe it makes sense to those of you who are watching. The yellow jersey in a three man break with minutes on the field? WTF?

Shadco 

Everyone needs a bad knee like this.

.

cthenn

Early, but seems like the strongest rider (by far) has emerged for the 3rd straight year. How many times can he win this race, 10?!

Eric F 

The same things have been said about other young winners. While Pogi looks to be flying, there are still a lot of miles to ride this year. The first week still isn't over. All that said, I think it's his race to lose.

Eric F 

Very good to see Roglic in the battle at the pointy end of the group after yesterday's incident. I was hoping for Pidcock to pull off a stage win, but Pogi is undeniably powerful right now. I'm curious to see how Jumbo and Ineos sort out who their top GC contender is.