Suspense was not all over imo, and even if it was, it still made a long range attack the only opportunity for Jonas. In another world where he had the legs of yesterday instead, he would have tried 5-10 km from the top of Bonette as was the plan. Still, even if the last mountains stages were kinda meh until the MTF, the stages still very much delivered. They have all been ridden very hard, and thats all I can ask for. That goes for every mountain stage, so no rolling and looking around, just pure racing thanks to Vingegaard, Pogacar and Remco yesterday. The medium mountain stage on stage 11 was maybe the best stage of the Tour and was an extremely exciting watch. The other medium mountain stage looked like a dud because riders and experts had already voiced their displeasure with Pogacar and UAE winning too much, so they all decided to not really race apart from the last kilometres of Noyer which still made huge gaps and created som interesting tactical racing among the best three which ended with Remco going away.
So in my opinion, we could obviously have used a bit more suspense in week 3, but usually we do have a great idea of who will win at that point anyways. Thats not at all the most important thing for me when watching a race, especially as it in some cases can provoke desperation attacks kinda like Nibali in 2016 and what Jumbo and Visma had in store on stage 19 which they cancelled due to Jonas not feeling great which in hindsight was the correct call. The biggest problem for me was we have 6-7 completely uneventfull sprint stages where nothing happened. The GP was exciting to me, and the stage in Troyes very much delivered despite no gaps - under different circumstances it would have been different. If Gouvenou is smart, they will use similar roads but not finish in the flatlands of Troyes, but pur more emphasis on the hilly part of the course which have the potential to create amazing racing alá Strade Bianche with easier hills.
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