Tour de France Tour de France 2021, Stage 18: Pau – Luz Ardiden, 129.7 km

[Mayomaniac]

the second coming of christ and merckx

Almeida?

 

[Big Doopie]

After Pog puts another 1'30" into the next GC guy in the TT (probably Jonas), he'll have a gap over 7 minutes to 2nd.

#fignon84

 

[luckyboy]

no. More TT kms to always ensure that the best man wins like this year.

So Bernal and Landa can race and there will be 0 chance to win. Just Pogacar vs Roglic. Sounds fun.

 

[Red Rick]

This, that has bothered me the most with the mountain stages with a flat start: the pack fodder breakaways (climbing wise) with no chance at all.

Also, the breakaway forming uphill makes the race so much harder early on improving the potential for the rest of the stage. I can't remember any stage that was really backloaded that ended with anything else than just action on the final climb unless it was a Mortirolo sort of idea.

Even Finestre is worse off with nothing but flat before.

 

[movingtarget]

Someone said Uran didn't have a bad day yesterday then there was today..........

 

[titan31]

14 August.

Yup, really looking forward to that and hopefully no crashes and we get all guys on form. You've the big 2 of Rog and Pog, and then Bernal, and then hopefully the likes of Landa and Lopez can get a clear run on top form, and then Ineos could have Carapaz, Martinez and Yates around Bernal.

 

[memyselfandI]

He is the best since Indurain

Roglic would not have beaten him
Nor Bernal nor any of the rest in top form

He is is a field of his own
talent and killer instinct

But that he is so cool and so enjoys racing is the main reason he is the man to beat for the next x years or so

Hard to say..Roglic and Bernal + Ineos A-team (this tdf-team isn not Ineos A-team nowadays) would have made thing quite a bit taxing. Plus as said many key players were lost in the first week-first half.

Absolute VAM times are of course one measurement and w/kg derived from that, but..Overall Pogi is not still lookin that much of an absolute superman that Froome was his peak years, but closing. Still looking forward to see great downhill escapes, running race uphill with Vingegaard, doing small group escape from the front of echelon at lightspeed flat stage..Ganna included perhaps aso.

 

[lenric]

Almeida?

He’s one of the them

 

[Big Doopie]

So Bernal and Landa can race and there will be 0 chance to win. Just Pogacar vs Roglic. Sounds fun.

And vingo.

and the revival of the all rounder.

bernal and Carapaz are not on the same planet if the routes were balanced again.

 

[fbjim]

Hopefully Huge Carthy is back to his 2020 form where he was matching Roglic in the TT

 

[movingtarget]

Castroviejo hasn't stopped getting better, some would never thought he would be more than decent tt-ist and flat/lower slope dom years ago, now he's up there among the best 15 or 20 GT riders while slaving hard and ahead of everyone else in Ineos train hierarchy.

Ineos looked more like their old selves today. Only Porte disappeared early. Certainly killed off Uran but Carapaz knew he was racing for third overall.

 

[Finn84]

so pogacar got 80 points in two mountain top finishes, Poels got 88 total

smells like a bad points distribution more than anything

He would also beat Cavendish for green if all stages were worth the same like in Vuelta.

 

[Põhja Konn]

The double-points thing isn't great but Woods summed it up perfectly: the four guys who've taken points off each other is what brought Pogacar back into the mix.

Still, I'm glad Pog has won it as hopefully, we'll see a points system change.

Starting the last two mountain stages off with a mountain near the beginning instead of around 100 k of flattish roads would have given them a proper chance to fight even under the current rules. Giving out double points for MTF on a stage where there was no chance for a proper climbers breakaway to form was utterly ridiculous and basically setting the jersey up for a dominant GC man.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Hard to say..Roglic and Bernal + Ineos A-team (this tdf-team isn not Ineos A-team nowadays) would have made thing quite a bit taxing. Plus as said many key players were lost in the first week-first half.

Absolute VAM times are of course one measurement and w/kg derived from that, but..Overall Pogi is not still lookin that much of an absolute superman that Froome was his peak years, but closing. Still looking forward to see great downhill escapes, running race uphill with Vingegaard, doing small group escape from the front of echelon at lightspeed flat stage..Ganna included perhaps aso.

I mean the kid is 22. If you look at Froome's wins, 2013 and 2015 was decided on the first mountain stage where he got out climbed numerous times in the last week of both Tours - mainly by Quintana. 2016 and 2017 were just straight up bad years with horrible competition, raced extremely conservative with an extreme amount of talent on Team Sky which basically killed the race.

Sure, very impressive. I would rate Pogacar's win this year with Froome's in 2013 - the rest I dont consider that impressive at all.

 

[luckyboy]

And vingo.

and the revival of the all rounder.

bernal and Carapaz are not on the same planet if the routes were balanced again.

If the routes were 'balanced' then GTs would be even more boring than this because climbers would have no chance. Watching two guys take minutes in time trials and then easily match everyone else in the mountains is not interesting.

 

[fbjim]

I mean the kid is 22. If you look at Froome's wins, 2013 and 2015 was decided on the first mountain stage where he got out climbed numerous times in the last week of both Tours - mainly by Quintana. 2016 and 2017 were just straight up bad years with horrible competition, raced extremely conservative with an extreme amount of talent on Team Sky which basically killed the race.

Sure, very impressive. I would rate Pogacar's win this year with Froome's in 2013 - the rest I dont consider that impressive at all.

also seeing Pogacar slaughter everyone to LGB was much more exciting than seeing Ritchie Porte slaughter everyone at Ax 3.

 

[Escarabajo]

Who is going, Pog, Rog, Bernal?? Anyone else of note?

Think about anybody and that rider is going too!

 

[Valv.Piti]

also seeing Pogacar slaughter everyone to LGB was much more exciting than seeing Ritchie Porte slaughter everyone at Ax 3.

Sure, although I must admit that I loved that stage. Peak MTF Tour de France action

 

[Big Doopie]

If the routes were 'balanced' then GTs would be even more boring than this because climbers would have no chance. Watching two guys take minutes in time trials and then easily match everyone else in the mountains is not interesting.

fair opinion to have.

but that is actually the traditional history of GTs. And particularly the TDF.

lemond even said that in reality there were only 3-4 riders who could win at the start of the tour. So now we have Pog, Rog and Vingo!!

To me, by far, the most important is that the very best all round rider wins

 

[Froome]

Who is going, Pog, Rog, Bernal?? Anyone else of note?

Padun maybe?

 

[Escarabajo]

I agree with luckyboy. However nothing will change the outcome of Pogacar winning. What I don't want to see are the Indurain's tours. Those were probably the worst. Killing everyone in the Time Trials and then defending in the mountains.

 

[fbjim]

I'd like to see more TTs, it's pretty clear that the days of only British Cycling superstars competing for them are past. I understand them being scared after the Sky years but I think we've got a pretty good selection of top riders who are excellent at TTs now, rather than it just being like, Froome vs Quintana and all that.


e) like this year you'd have Pogacar, Roglic (who was hurt!), Vingegaard, and even guys like Wout Van Aert up there. And Carthy was TTing with Roglic at the Vuelta last year, as another fringe contender.

 

[Põhja Konn]

Sure, although I must admit that I loved that stage. Peak MTF Tour de France action

Trying to control Quintana's attack on Pailheres that day really killed the Sky train in 2013. Porte recovered later in the race but on the next day Froome was completely alone, sadly Movistar couldn't capitalise on it.

 

[memyselfandI]

I think Pogi and Rog at this year Giro w/ Bernal would have been very hard game for every one of them.

 

[BlueRoads]

Padun maybe?

I honestly don't think Padun will do much, if he still could they would have brought him to the Tour and the nationals and Olympics and not the Settimana Ciclistica.