Tour de France Tour de France 2025 Stage 14: Pau – Luchon Superbagnères (182.6k)

[geisterhome]

I know we mock the Giro for having a weak field, but I think this Tour makes it clear that the GC depth in world cycling is just not very good at all...

Also feel that way, in the past making it in the top 10 of A GT was quite a thing and meant you were somewhat relevant and visible in the GC race, now any random allrounder can achieve that by somewhat limiting damage and making it into an escape group once or twice. Chances are that u have never seen the 8th placed guy hanging with the podium riders on a final climb.

 

[BeachBum]

The guy with the horns on the helmet wtf was that about !?!?

He's been around for over a decade, sort of the American version of the Devil.

Raging Stag Cycles

 

[madthebad]

If it was Yates, Landa and Caruso alright, but Lipowitz, Gall or Only are younger riders who certainly might have turned themselves into close to top tier GC riders recently so I feel this isn't as easy to conclude.

yeah but even so they shouldn't be close to the mutant levels of Pogi and Vingo. Once again, I see Ben Healy finishing only 90 seconds behind these two on a killer stage like today , 2 HC mountains , to me something's off. I know Pog could have put another minute on Vingegaard today if he wanted to but if Jonas gave it everything ... nah , also the whole Visma team looks cooked , weird.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

If it was Yates, Landa and Caruso alright, but Lipowitz, Gall or Only are younger riders who certainly might have turned themselves into close to top tier GC riders recently so I feel this isn't as easy to conclude.

Trying to think of riders that were young lower-tier GC riders and gradually transitioned to top tier and can't. They've either been top tier elite talents right away (like Pogacar, Evenepoel) or began cycling at a late age, came over from other sports (like ski jumping or fish chucking) and were also dominant right away.

I guess you can say that Gall, Onley and Lipowitz might aspire to be this generation's Teejay Van Garderens.

 

[movingtarget]

I'm surprised people don't get squashed more often tbh.

Some folks are insane and have no concept of danger. Special shout out on the wtf scale goes to the people who let their children wander unguarded at the side of the road when vehicles are flying by.

The same people that let young children act as road runners or take unleashed dogs to bike races.

 

[movingtarget]

Nice touch by Remco to hand a boy his bottle, when he was struggling and not far from climbing off.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Nice touch by Remco to hand a boy his bottle, when he was struggling and not far from climbing off.

I saw that. Chapeau, Remco!

 

[Schultz0620]

Jonas looks like he will be flying by next weekend. I know Pog isn't feeling well and still covered the attacks fairly easily, but in hindsight, maybe Jonas should have tried going earlier.

 

[Brullnux]

I too prefer rating the depth of the entire Worlds GC field by who's in 10th place in the Tour.

There's some *** names having a fluke results in the top 10 every year.

It's been an ongoing issue, though, especially when mixed with the 'hoarding' of tier two GC riders by UAE, Visma, Bora. And it's not really about who is 10th, it's about the lack of established GC riders at all in the top 10, other than Roglic, who is on his way out (granted, Evenepoel and Almeida DNFed).

I think @Rechtschreibfehler is right – it's a transition period. But that still doesn't detract from there being few proven/genuine tier two GC riders in world cycling at this moment. I agree though this looks like it'll change in the next few years – and hopefully they won't all just sign for the rich teams like Hindley, Yates (x 2), Almeida, Jorgensen, etc did

 

[geisterhome]

Trying to think of riders that were young lower-tier GC riders and gradually transitioned to top tier and can't. They've either been top tier elite talents right away (like Pogacar, Evenepoel) or began cycling at a late age, came over from other sports (like ski jumping or fish chucking) and were also dominant right away.

I guess you can say that Gall, Onley and Lipowitz might aspire to be this generation's Teejay Van Garderens.

Lipowitz is very close to top Evenepol GC level already plus he came over from another sport.

 

[Brullnux]

Trying to think of riders that were young lower-tier GC riders and gradually transitioned to top tier and can't. They've either been top tier elite talents right away (like Pogacar, Evenepoel) or began cycling at a late age, came over from other sports (like ski jumping or fish chucking) and were also dominant right away.

I guess you can say that Gall, Onley and Lipowitz might aspire to be this generation's Teejay Van Garderens.

From this generation? The only top tier GC riders have been Pogacar, Remco, Roglic, and Vingo. You can see in someone like Almeida, though, how that blueprint might look nowadays.

From previous generations, Nibali is an obvious example.

 

[RedheadDane]

Skjelmose with a very "nice" description of his injuries:

"It's like someone took a razorblade and just scraped the skin off."

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Skjelmose to go nuclear today with endless success or he has to handover his entire wage to Quinn - or better; any lost GC time if that was an option.

I've been watching cycling races for 45 years and outright hating an active rider hasn't been on my mind - but c'mon - he should bwar in mind that thr entire team that has spent months preparing to ride dedicatedly for him - and then he takes it so lightly, like it ment nothing?

Win today or Kim Andersen will throw you down the street from your hotel room tonight.

Ridiculous he didn't report crystal clear a week ago, otherwise he could have ridden a 100% for Simmons by now Just read Hincapie's blog, I agree 112%.

Now my post looks even more stupid

Just spent the entire day (last holiday here) following up on the latest stages.
Ofc I'm wrong in that the entire team has prepared for Skjelmose's GC ambitions, I think maybe I was just extremely provoked by his relaxed attitude in a Danish evening Tour studium (plus 2 nights with zero sleep I must admit a finch flew off my forehead) after a very unsuccessful breakaway where he ended up losing 15 minutes.

Of course it's about getting Milan to Paris.

And maybe not much else.

However, I still think Lidl should've had much more focus on Simmons and Skjelmose (now abandon ) and get much more out of the stages if Skjel had been honest with the team - where Kim Andersen stated several times that the clear goal was GC ambitions for Skjel.

Mad Mads' comment that Skjel's crash was stupid, I have absolutely no need to be similar to the level of haughtiness. That kind of thing happens when you are very tired and deep into the 2nd week of a Tour version where it's been full gas more or less all the stages except maybe one or two...

My post looks stupid now , I regret some of what I have written, and I wish Mattias all the best.