Tour de France Tour de France 2023, stage 13: Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne - Grand Colombier, 137.8k

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An entertaining large stage is better than an entertaining short stage. Paris Roubaix is an example of that.
Paris Roubaix is a classic, where riders have 1 week of no racing to prepare for. We can’t have 21 stages of Paris Roubaix, obviously…

Riders also want heavy but short stages. Preferably three 1-HC mountains on a 160km stage than the same thing but an extra 80km of flat. There’s just no need for it
 
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Paris Roubaix is a classic, where riders have 1 week of no racing to prepare for. We can’t have 21 stages of Paris Roubaix, obviously…

Riders also want heavy but short stages. Preferably three 1-HC mountains on a 160km stage than the same thing but an extra 80km of flat. There’s just no need for it

Maybe not, but what about one PR Stage, one RVV stage and one LBL stage in one edition, all with 220k+ of course and within a week.
 
Paris Roubaix is a classic, where riders have 1 week of no racing to prepare for. We can’t have 21 stages of Paris Roubaix, obviously…

Riders also want heavy but short stages. Preferably three 1-HC mountains on a 160km stage than the same thing but an extra 80km of flat. There’s just no need for it
ASO fell in love with the short stage fallacy because of the success of this stage:

s19.gif


One day earlier, we had this stage, which was even better, and without which we don't get anything like the action we had on the short stage.

PROFIL-21.gif


Of course, the lesson ASO learned from this was "short stage good!" and they completely forgot that the stage that made it happen, the Andy stage which was 200km long, even existed.
 
What are you smoking?

Roglic got beaten on this exact MTF then he/Jumbo got flamed for 3 years for not attacking more.

People just need to stop pretending half the criticism is about tactics when they are completely unable to criticize when "their" guy does it
This is only valid, if you criticized Rog/Jumbo for not attacking. Otherwise, you are just as contradicting as the people you are trying to stick it to.

People have their favorites, what is strange about that? Evidently shown by this race thread, or any other thread for that matter, with people screaming for POG/UAE to attack during the climb... when it makes no sense to do so. Either because they just have no clue about the racing, just want something exciting to happen or they know that it is a bad idea and want it to fail. All coming down to who is their "guy" or not, yourself included by the look of things.
 
ASO fell in love with the short stage fallacy because of the success of this stage:

s19.gif


One day earlier, we had this stage, which was even better, and without which we don't get anything like the action we had on the short stage.

PROFIL-21.gif


Of course, the lesson ASO learned from this was "short stage good!" and they completely forgot that the stage that made it happen, the Andy stage which was 200km long, even existed.
Greatest days of cyling!!!
I rode the etape d' tour of the alpe d'huez stage

Then I drove to Pinarelo to watch the stage start, met Holm, Aldag and Renshaw/Prince Harry ;-)
We then drove back to Briancon in time for the caravan and then the riders.
I remember Schleck flying through catching up to a satellite rider on that day, i think he took yellow at the end.
Watching the caravan and the race in Briancon is probably my favorite ever family vacation moment!
Kids were small, like 8 and 10 and they LOVED it, especially the caravan

Next day sat in a bar in Briancon watching Contador's attack and the stage after riding Granon in the morning
 
This is not how pogacar is gonna win the tour. It's better to do just one attack and gain a significant amount of time, than just attack in the last km and win a bunch of seconds because of his good aceleration. This is not gonna work in the next 3 mountain stages.

Well if Pogačar gets a few more bonus seconds over the next stages and match Vingegård in every single climb plus the time trial he can win the Tour by riding like this.

Very good win for Kwiatkowski showing that he still is a force to be reckon with on a good day. Van Gils also with a great performance. Sad to see Ewan having to abandon the Tour.

Not a very convincing performance by UAE today. They miss a rider like Vine or McNulty in this Tour.
 
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So far you’ve been right on Vinge gaining time on stage 5 and Roglic bossing the TT. Otherwise it’s been like us, swing and a miss. But I do think Vinge will gain time on one of the stages, it just won’t be minute plus.

I think the visual impression & the form curve is way more important than theories regarding which climb suits who better or what weather is better etc. (i.e. theories born out of past races, not this one). And what we're seeing cannot be perceived as anything other than Pogačar repeatedly dropping Vingegaard on climbs. In hot conditions as well. Cauterets, Puy-de-Dôme & Grand-Colombier have dissimilar profiles yet the net result was the same. 28 + 8 + 8.

Bonis included that's 44 seconds Pog has won back since they summitted over the Tourmalet. I mean all caveats included (I could be wrong etc.) but what I see is a rider (Vingegaard) who has plateaued in terms of form, whilst the other (Pog) has grown into the race & gotten much better since the first 5 stages.