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

[Bolder]

Dont like Arensman or his dad but Chapeau to him for a really strong ride.

You don't like Thymen? He's a pretty straight up guy from what I can tell. He did a nice AMA on Reddit earlier this year IIRC. It was a fabulous ride. He's still a grinder; his profile hasn't changed much since DSM days.

Jonas looking fine today, Visma team subpar again. To be fair, UAE with the exception of Soler didn't really impress either. Pog looked a bit tired but still cruised home on a monster climbing day. Great to see a few new GC faces emerge with Onley and Lipowitz. Still having a hard time watching Gall eggbeater up a climb, though...

 

[Rob5091]

The pain and the glory for Ineos today. Arensman gets the biggest win of his career (and then faces questions about Rozman) and INEOS Grenadiers DS Oliver Cookson gets a 5000 Swiss Franc fine and a yellow card for driving into a spectator.
Thought Pogacar would get the win, but he settled for a little sprint practice, Remco needs to sit and down and realize he'll never be a climber like the best, so maybe some more focus on classics instead in the future. Remco's disappointment is Lipowitz's good fortune as looking good for a podium spot. Only 2nd, 3rd & 4th are within 10 minutes of Pogacar and we still have the Alpes.
Lenny M gave a good account of himself and we'll see how he does in the Alpes, not bad for a young un.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I have many questions after this stage, mainly wtf Jumbo Visma are doing, but the most surprising thing is the totally off-form and buried Carlos Rodriguez is 10th in GC... 23 minutes down.

 

[Brullnux]

the most surprising thing is the totally off-form and buried Carlos Rodriguez is 10th in GC... 23 minutes down.

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...

 

[Red Rick]

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.

 

[Valv.Piti]

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...

Carapaz óut with sickness (doubtful if he did GC at all), Almeida crash, Landa DNS, Remco DNF.. And then you just have all these GC/climber types that just got really mediocre really fast - O'Connor, Mas, C-Rod, Vlasov, Hindley etc. Then you have the Giro crew who are not here for GC, but stage hunting and domestique work, and suddenly we are left with Onley and Vaquelin in the top 5. Sure, Gall will enter still, thats really unexpected. And the back end of the top-10 is just a joke with 3 big mountain stages left

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Looking at it from a different angle, maybe one can say that the GC is full of riders who still have to validate their GC prowess because it's basically the start of the Tour GC career for Lipowitz, Onley, Vaquelin, Healy and Johanessen. Who knows how we might think of this Top 10 in 2 years when half of it is brand-new. Outside of Pogi and Vingegaard it seems to me we are in a transition phase in which some established riders don't get the results any more and the new ones are just relatively unknown.

 

[Unchained]

Strange that day before there were multiple fan incidents caught on camera, including the day before with a freaking out fan trying to cover Remco's head with a flag as he was passing,
the day before that some lunatic in the name of protest ran into the finishing sprint and was tackled by a fast acting police officer.
The answer is always the same, tell the spectators that the road is for racing, not randomly running in front of each other, running next to or directly at cars, motorcycles, police..
Guy driving the car is partially responsible but @99% of the responsibility is for the spectator not to enter the race course ..We have situations that are almost identical, except for car- spectator interaction..
It's rider- spectator interaction and often a manhunt because spectator caused crash, threw rocks, urine, mud at racer..
Giving the support driver anything other than a handshake and a cold beer is ridiculous!! Driver has car justified to far right so racers, motos and others can race up the road!! The spectator should have to pay for damages because they stepped into the race route.. And if you have ever been to these races, marshals and police walk back and forth telling people to stay off the road, move back.. And what the police mean when they tell you to stay back, stay off the road.. They mean for the rest of the race, doesn't mean stay off the road until police officer turns their back and walks away.. These type of spectators should wear clothing clearly marked saying " I don't think, the message that my parents and everyone else has given to me as a small child, look both ways, stay out of the road, don't get in front of moving cars and trucks.. I didn't get it, I can't learn!! "
If the person's parents told them not to look both ways, parents told child to walk in traffic.. Different solution.. The scary thing is that there are a measurable number of people who think running into a bicycle final sprint is cool..running into racing traffic is fun or intelligent.. Stay off the street.. Maybe no more barriers at F1 or horse racing.. Great place for a folding chair.. Or stand look at your phone, awesome selfie spot!!
Do people need to pass a test to watch a bike race? Multiple choice.. A car is coming you should..? Step in front.. Use your phone.. Get out of the way..There can be no excuse for this.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

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

Madouas 10th 2022, Matthias Frank 8th 2015 and Leopold König 7th in 2014, Christoph Le Mevel 10th 2009 are my favorites.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Looking at it from a different angle, maybe one can say that the GC is full of riders who still have to validate their GC prowess because it's basically the start of the Tour GC career for Lipowitz, Onley, Vaquelin, Healy and Johanessen. Who knows how we might think of this Top 10 in 2 years when half of it is brand-new. Outside of Pogi and Vingegaard it seems to me we are in a transition phase in which some established riders don't get the results any more and the new ones are just relatively unknown.

Yeah, exactly. Lipowitz should come as no surprise though, but Onley and Vaquelin are definitely huge surprises to me. So is Johannesen, he has been really consistent. Its no surprise Healy is in top10 given his raids and the lack of proven GT-riders, but nonetheless it should count as a suprise as well given how we were looking at him pre-race - simply just a stage hunter

Its just a weird top-10. My expections are Onley and Lipowitz will feature in the next many years at the top of GCs while I don't rate the others as year-in-year-out type of GT-riders at all

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Madouas 10th 2022, Matthias Frank 8th 2015 and Leopold König 7th in 2014, Christoph Le Mevel 10th 2009 are my favorites.

Cyril Dessel 2006.

 

[Unchained]

Looking at it from a different angle, maybe one can say that the GC is full of riders who still have to validate their GC prowess because it's basically the start of the Tour GC career for Lipowitz, Onley, Vaquelin, Healy and Johanessen. Who knows how we might think of this Top 10 in 2 years when half of it is brand-new. Outside of Pogi and Vingegaard it seems to me we are in a transition phase in which some established riders don't get the results any more and the new ones are just relatively unknown.

This is an excellent perspective.. Lots of emerging talented riders..

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Cyril Dessel 2006.

Good call, he was 6th!
In my memory he was better than what he probably was. I see now that he was pretty mediocre except of the 2006 and 2008 seasons.

 

[Unchained]

View: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/01qBslWqiOI


I can't see this video too many times!!

 

[DenisMenchov]

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...

You have winners of last 7! Vueltas, last 3 Giros and last 5 Tours. How deeper can it get?

Don't forget, last year Top 6 places were from just 3 teams, and this year both Quick Step riders are out before the 3rd week and Almeida crashed out too.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Looking at it from a different angle, maybe one can say that the GC is full of riders who still have to validate their GC prowess because it's basically the start of the Tour GC career for Lipowitz, Onley, Vaquelin, Healy and Johanessen. Who knows how we might think of this Top 10 in 2 years when half of it is brand-new. Outside of Pogi and Vingegaard it seems to me we are in a transition phase in which some established riders don't get the results any more and the new ones are just relatively unknown.

Yeah, I think this is spot on.

 

[awavey]

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...

is it though ? or are the GC rivals just not there for this tour. For sure Pog is at the top of his game at the moment, but for all the other chat from his rivals about how great they feel and are doing, none of them seem to have brought their A game to this tour.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Congratulations to Thymen Arensman for winning the stage.

Visma not interested today in anything but for Jonas trying to outperform Pogi near the finish line. Lipo with a nice performance again and Rogla, although some time shifted, decent performance again. Unfortunately Remco gave up and somehow i feel the race might fall in a bit of a limbo, or better a standoff, on where it comes to GC.

 

[topcat]

What a tour! Positions 1 to 4 are locked down but we have a scintillating battle for 5th place between the Vac, the Rog and the Gall. (What's up with the love affair with Gall?)
Also, can Healy finish top 10? This one's going to go down to the wire.

 

[Cookster15]

Congrats to Thymen Arensen.
Sad to see Remco abandon but maybe not unexpected after his disappointing MTT.

Watched the replays. Good to see Vingegaard able to attack Pogi but seems like Pog controlled those easily then Pog took 4 seconds and a time bonus. Means he has plenty in reserve. Reminds me how Pog tried to recover lost time after Granon 2022.

 

[madthebad]

The way I see it , prime Vingegaard shouldn't be finishing only 10-15 seconds on a stage like this ahead of guys like Gall or Lipowitz who , with all due respect , they're not top tier GC riders . So that tells me Vingo isn't even close to his best days during this TDF . Easy work for Pogi .

 

[awavey]

The way I see it , prime Vingegaard shouldn't be finishing only 10-15 seconds on a stage like this ahead of guys like Gall or Lipowitz who , with all due respect , they're not top tier GC riders . So that tells me Vingo isn't even close to his best days during this TDF . Easy work for Pogi .

which is crazy when you think about it as during the Dauphine he seemed alot closer to Pog, even if Pog eventually won convincingly

 

[geisterhome]

Possibly Grand Depart in Slovenia 2029 with a proper MTF on stage 2!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1946219515160699147

View: https://x.com/laflammerouge16/status/1946219515160699147

I would like that put 1 or even 2 proper mtn stages at the start and the last one just before Paris. Otherwise am I kind of missing the old days were you had no clue who is just a pretender after a first week of sprint stages, always a huge excitement and some real surprised during that first proper mtn stages.

 

[geisterhome]

The way I see it , prime Vingegaard shouldn't be finishing only 10-15 seconds on a stage like this ahead of guys like Gall or Lipowitz who , with all due respect , they're not top tier GC riders . So that tells me Vingo isn't even close to his best days during this TDF . Easy work for Pogi .

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.

 

[madthebad]

which is crazy when you think about it as during the Dauphine he seemed alot closer to Pog, even if Pog eventually won convincingly

I think Pogi was playing a bit of poker at the Dauphine or he was undercooked . Good race for preparation but I wouldn't take it as a benchmark . I have seen Vingegaard much stronger in the TDF in previous years , this version of him ain't it . Probably that fall in Paris Nice messed up his whole training schedule and his prep was not so good .