Tour de France Tour de France 2023, stage 12: Roanne - Belleville-en-Beaujolais, 168.8k

[Skijumper Roglic fan]

Ion Izagirre, IMHO one of the best cyclists on the planet, for the past almost 15 years… He can do everything, ITT, hills, mountains, sprints… And he‘s still one of the best.

Doesn’t look intimidating at all, and is a silent person, so he always gets underrated. But he‘s still so good.

Since nearly 15 years, one of my life‘s biggest challenges is to separate these four riders: two Izagirres, two Herradas. I still am not able to separate them, they are too similar. But I know, Ion Izagirre might possibly be the best of the four…

Congratulations to Ion Izagirre and Cofidis squad. Now they will want to achieve a final GC Top-10 with Guillaume Martin…

 

[red_flanders]

Van der Poel is still dumb as rocks.

I just hate it when legend level riders attack and take their chances. Terrible!

 

[DNP-Old]

I just hate it when legend level riders attack and take their chances. Terrible!

What move do you think my post is referring to?

 

[Pantani_lives]

Le nouveau Pinot est arrivé! In the GC Sepp Kuss is now sandwiched between four Frenchmen.

9. Gaudu
10. Pinot
11. Kuss
12. Bardet
13. Martin

 

[Tim Cahill]

Felix Gall moves down 1 GC position

 

[StryderHells]

True. Though Dolly would have learnt what pain really was if she heard our version of Jolene at the ukulele club last night.

You’re absolute gold

 

[StryderHells]

Basques killing it in the medium mountain stages just a week and a half too late.

I think they trolled it perfectly

 

[StryderHells]

I just hate it when legend level riders attack and take their chances. Terrible!

Yep folks don‘t get cycling

 

[JosefK]

Good stage for entertainment. Frenetic for over half the route. A good guy wins. ... Teams up in GC not really saving their legs, eh? Maybe a price to be paid, later.

 

[jmdirt]

I love it when the winner comes from a break, especially when they win because they attack the break (30 K out) and TAKE the victory!

Congrats Ion!

 

[zlev11]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

 

[JosefK]

I love it when the winner comes from a break, especially when they win because they attack the break (30 K out) and TAKE the victory!

Congrats Ion!

Panache happened. Iz took that chance and cashed in.

 

[KZD]

Great to see Van der Poel in the mix even though he didn't manage to win the stage.

Amazing Tour for Cofidis. Many Tours without any stage win and now two in the same edition. Ion deserved it today

 

[Sciatic]

whats with the heart flags?

If it looks like one heart slightly overlapping another it could be the Vendee flag, there was a big section of Vendee folks I saw on Cambasque. But my French wasn’t good enough to hear why they were out in force.

 

[Sciatic]

Pog could have put his team on front and tried to win the stage but he decided to do the meme sprint for 13th place.

Sharpening up his sprint legs for upcoming finishes against Vingegaard.

 

[KOM]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

No its not just you I said the same during the stage a few times. Its alot more entertaining than flat stages or the first group beeing let go, but it turns into a "OMGGGGGG THIS IS INSAAAAANEEEE!!! WHAT AM I WATCHING!!?!?!?!OMGGGG!!!" circlejerk quite quickly around here which I find kindof annoying, but to each there own of course. And like 1/100 times something sick will actually happen so theres that too.

Edit:For me the entire hype died down when I started realizing even if, and usually thats one big if, some (semi) relevant gc riders drop theyll just come back oncethe group is formed anyway like it happened today with the Yates' etal

 

[Rackham]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

Such stages tend to be very frontloaded.

It means everything is crazy & "wow!!!" for the first 80km or so on the early difficulties & then when the real harder climbs started, the break was already formed & the peloton did a very moderate tempo over the successive cat 3, cat 2 & cat 2 climbs, allowing a regroupment of the large bunch behind which got dropped during the initial phase of attacks & counters.

For the sake of entertainment, it probably would have been better if the first part was raced at moderate speed & then a GC team absolutely blitzed the col de la Croix Montmain & Rosier with a super hard pace & we got some real GC action.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Such stages tend to be very frontloaded.

It means everything is crazy & "wow!!!" for the first 80km or so on the early difficulties & then when the real harder climbs started, the break was already formed & the peloton did a very moderate tempo over the successive cat 3, cat 2 & cat 2 climbs, allowing a regroupment of the large bunch behind which got dropped during the initial phase of attacks & counters.

For the sake of entertainment, it probably would have been better if the first part was raced at moderate speed & then a GC team absolutely blitzed the col de la Croix Montmain & Rosier with a super hard pace & we got some real GC action.

The ending could have been raced hard if we didn’t have 3 mountain stages coming up. UAE had the numbers to set a hard pace and keep Jumbo and others from coming back. If this was the final stage of the race with the GC situation as it is, it would have been crazy.

 

[zlev11]

No its not just you I said the same during the stage a few times. Its alot more entertaining than flat stages or the first group beeing let go, but it turns into a "OMGGGGGG THIS IS INSAAAAANEEEE!!! WHAT AM I WATCHING!!?!?!?!OMGGGG!!!" circlejerk quite quickly around here which I find kindof annoying, but to each there own of course. And like 1/100 times something sick will actually happen so theres that too.

Edit:For me the entire hype died down when I started realizing even if, and usually thats one big if, some (semi) relevant gc riders drop theyll just come back oncethe group is formed anyway like it happened today with the Yates' etal

the posts in the thread are fine but the way the commentators and "experts" react to stages like this is so annoying to me, it's like they've never seen a bike race before. "watching the breakaway form" is the most overrated thing in cycling.

 

[RobertCrawley]

Ion arrives at the hotel after the victory!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1679558499158638592

View: https://twitter.com/TeamCOFIDIS/status/1679558499158638592?s=20

 

[KOM]

Such stages tend to be very frontloaded.

Yea thats like 1 if not the major issue I have with modern stage design... Its quite rare these days (maybe its always been like that I dont know I dont have 100GT routes memorized) that theres climbing from the start like even most mountainstages start with a 40-80km flat runin. And the ones that dont usually are a bit frontloaded, like you said, where the climbing will ease of significantly sooner or later for atleast 20-30km where usually everything calms down. Id like to see alot more stages like stage 20 this year, can even be easier just the general gist of a stage like that I love.

 

[Netserk]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

Formigal.

There's also the stage in the 2018 Giro that eliminated Chaves in GC, and you can include the Etna stage that put him high up in GC in the first place.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

Literally earlier this race Hindley ended up winning from a breakaway after a crazy start...

 

[HelloDolly]

is it just me or are these "iNsAnE sTarT!!!!" stages overrated? its fun to watch i guess (depending on how much you enjoy watching 40 GC-irrelevant riders throw a bunch of hopeless attacks) but you always know it's going to amount to a non-dangerous break getting away while all the GC riders sit in the peloton. i cant remember a single time it's actually caused any gaps in the top of the GC at the end of the day. even when a dangerous rider gets up the road it always ends up with some loser team like Ineos riding on the front to protect the position of their rider who's 8th on GC or something.

two things

1. Not everything is about GC , Racing hard at the beginning has a better element of unknown than a break going early and everyone sitting up. Its the anticipation of the unknown and an element of chaos (though one could do without the constant 'this is chaos, this is brilliant' commentary on GCN). Plus its nice to see a different cast at the front of the peloton chasing for their own reasons. And it all is after all a wearing down process so days like today will effect alot of riders further into the race

2. Some people on here are never satisfied. Their default setting is complaining. A break goes it boring, and break takes ages to go its just 40 GC irrelevant riders throwing attacks . Its a boring sprint day or a breakaway of irrelevant riders win . Whats really annoying is the constant moaning . And calling teams or riders losers or irrelevant ? This by people who probably sit on their asses all day and couldn't even ride 30km up a mountain. WTF are the best riders in the world supposed to do if you are not entertained ???

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Formigal.

There's also the stage in the 2018 Giro that eliminated Chaves in GC, and you can include the Etna stage that put him high up in GC in the first place.

Also L‘Aquila 2010.