Recent content by Devil's Elbow

If it was under 23, a grand total of 14 riders would have been eligible, instead of the 47 it is now. This is a big part of the reason why I don't think it makes sense to change the age requirements for the white jersey.

I sense a 'what is a false flat' tier argument brewing...

You can make it work, but not with a start in Loudenvielle. Obviously it's immaterial with the GC the way it is, but imagine if they had looked at the 1989 Orcières-Merlette MTT (which also climbed Manse) for inspiration, started in Saint-Lary-Soulan and climbed the hard side of Col d'Azet first.

Approximately 24 minutes for the winner is still incredibly short for a mid-race TT. That's only a quarter above the 2009 opening TT, and even less than that above the 2005 one.

Are you sure your numbers are correct? As per PCS we have 602 metres of net elevation gain tomorrow compared to 777 metres tomorrow.

Kittel 2017? Won five times, got blocked and couldn't sprint once, and there were no other full bunch sprints nor breakaways taking sprints prior to his abandon on stage 17.

Been plenty of Tours where the sprints were foregone conclusions.

After today, this might well be the most pointless non-sprint stage in Tour history...

Cristian Rodriguez in 10th at 7 minutes proves the strength in depth is comical right now.

Well, at least that gives me a little bit of reason to hope someone can at least make things interesting again to prevent us from facing another 5-7 years of this ***.

Did Vingegaard even beat his own 2022 time? Regardless of what Pogacar did, he has clearly regressed in relation to the rest of the field, and also compared to his own level in 2023.

Finestre stage aside, Visma appear to have taken something of a step backwards since last year in general. That could cancel out the effect of not having just recovered from a crash.

Vingegaard looks actually laboured, Pogacar is just pretending for the cameras.

Pogacar decided the Tour 15 minutes ago. If not on stage 5.

Still putting time into everyone else. He has not collapsed, Pogacar is just that laughably overpowered.