Tour de France Tour De France 2025, Stage 17: Bollène - Valence(160.4K)

[Samamba]

Girmay and De Lie survived. This is their chance, but they don't really have the team to control.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

There really are too few B tier sprinters with climbing abilities that have their team trust. Milan and Merlier dropped and no team seemingly wanting to seize the opportunity.

 

[JosefK]

Simmons working hard to drop Milan? ... High value entertainment.

 

[Red Rick]

And this is why it was stupid for the breakaway battle to not be bigger.

Also, petition to steal the nickname "Polittburo" without getting banned plz

 

[Brullnux]

Trek knows that green guy is from their team?

First time I saw Milan he was winning some 1k murito between some climbers. I guess these longer climbs are just too hard for a big rider. Especially in week 3.

I think he's taken a step back this year tbh. Granted, the Tour is raced a lot harder than the Giro, but he was getting over similar climbs fairly comfortably in 2023 and 2024, incl. in the spring.

 

[Unchained]

So who attacks when they make the catch? It's still a long way out to control at this speed..

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Simmons working hard to drop Milan? ... High value entertainment.

He's not really pushing the pace, mainly fake pacing and closing down attacks.

 

[Unchained]

There really are too few B tier sprinters with climbing abilities that have their team trust. Milan and Merlier dropped and no team seemingly wanting to seize the opportunity.

I would think Tudor needs to try something..

 

[Didinho]

Waiting for the Belgian social media to criticize Vingo for not riding for Wout.

Hope De Lie can take this today.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Yes, yes, Milan dropped!

 

[Tim Cahill]

Alpecin, Bora should work

 

[Samamba]

Alpecin, Lotto and Intermarché should really start riding, even tho they don't have a lot of fit riders left

Bora honestly too, but they aren't going to.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

This is one of those days where they back in the day would've arranged two stages

 

[Samamba]

Meeh Milan group will just come back if no one starts riding full immediately

 

[E_F_]

What is missing is competition

That's was what I meant by domination!

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Girmay made it but Intermache I think have 3 (!) riders in the dropped group, what a diasterclass from them, golden opportunity and then you have no team.

 

[Escarabajo]

I really don't get Trek. Don't they want green? why not work as a team? weird tactics

 

[Potomac]

And this is why it was stupid for the breakaway battle to not be bigger.

Also, petition to steal the nickname "Polittburo" without getting banned plz

Yes! Politburo should be an allowed nick name.

 

[Potomac]

With Milan's condition in this race, did he ever really have chance to be in today's sprint even if every team member was with him? I allotted him two stars in the PCS game today. A waste of stars it looks like now.

 

[Berniece]

Meeh Milan group will just come back if no one starts riding full immediately

Wouldn't it make more sense to save your riders, drop Milan/Merlier again on Col de Tartaiguille, and then start riding? Then you only need to ride hard ~40km's instead of ~80km's.

 

[Samamba]

Wouldn't it make more sense to save your riders, drop Milan/Merlier again on Col de Tartaiguille, and then start riding. Then you only need to ride hard ~40km's instead of ~80km's.

That climb doesn't look hard enough. like 3%.
The problem is that the teams of the sprinters still there either have a top GC rider (Visma/Red Bull) or aren't strong enough (anymore). Well Alpecin and Lotto are there with 5 guys, they should've ridden earlier.

They will be back in a few minutes.

 

[Unterlenkerfahrend]

Alpecin finally start to sort of commit, just about when the second group is coming back, yikes.

 

[Samamba]

Alpecin, PIcnic and Tudor commiting now but they waited WAY too long. Really dumb

 

[Unchained]

What a novel idea..go back and pace Milan back on!! Genius!!

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Teams who let Milan come back need to do a second stage today.