Tour de France Tour de France 2025, Stage 3: Valenciennes – Dunkerque (173.8k)

[SHAD0W93]

Great win by Merlier, definitely the fastest while Milan has the better train. Stinks that Evenepoel was involved with a crash and it was puzzling seeming him do some work. Then it stinks that we even had more crashes.

Was the Philipsen crash at the intermediate or finish?

 

[noob]

Was there a time sprinters weren't in grand tours?

 

[Peyroteo94]

I just hope some team tries to reduce the peloton tomorrow, if not, we will have another chaotic stage.

 

[Red Rick]

Great win by Merlier, definitely the fastest while Milan has the better train. Stinks that Evenepoel was involved with a crash and it was puzzling seeming him do some work. Then it stinks that we even had more crashes.

Was the Philipsen crash at the intermediate or finish?

Intermediate.

 

[saunaking]

Why was Coquard riding so dangerously for an intermediate? He hasn't got a hope of even finishing in the top five of the Green jersey.

Its a race.

 

[noob]

Great win by Merlier, definitely the fastest while Milan has the better train. Stinks that Evenepoel was involved with a crash and it was puzzling seeming him do some work. Then it stinks that we even had more crashes.

Was the Philipsen crash at the intermediate or finish?

Intermediate

 

[RobertCrawley]

Merlier like Sagan when it comes to these messy sprints with no leadouts

Great job wheel surfing and latching on to Milan's wheel.

 

[Berniece]

I just hope some team tries to reduce the peloton tomorrow, if not, we will have another chaotic stage.

Indeed, and maybe they should just allow riders to slowely ride out after that 5km mark. Not only in case of a mechanical or crash, just let riders if they have no role to play anymore skip the final. It’s too dangerous and it keeps going faster closer to the finish line.

 

[Divergence]

I don't know how to break this to you, but Merlier and Milan (and Philipsen, and all the other sprinters) are in fact also professional road riders.

Well they would not be if there is nothing for them to win on the GTs. Nobody would be offering contract to such riders, therefore they will be battling it out on the track.

 

[Oldman]

Great win by Merlier, definitely the fastest while Milan has the better train. Stinks that Evenepoel was involved with a crash and it was puzzling seeming him do some work. Then it stinks that we even had more crashes.

Was the Philipsen crash at the intermediate or finish?

Intermediate Sprint. Brian Cocquard should be taking a very, very long vacation. His wheel chopping is well documented and this time it had serious consequences for the best sprinter in the race.

 

[AmRacer]

Intermediate Sprint. Brian Cocquard should be taking a very, very long vacation. His wheel chopping is well documented and this time it had serious consequences for the best sprinter in the race.

He did nothing wrong.

 

[RobertCrawley]

Watched it for the umpteenth time. Coquard had reason to move to his right, yes, but he lurched into another rider. He could have avoided Milan's wheel, as happens thousands of times in a ride when avoiding the wheel in front of them, without swerving so hard.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

If a big straight road is a danger zone right now to the point we blame organisers for mass crashes then we've truly lost the plot.

It's the very definition of rider behavior causing everything.

Criticising the organisers does not automatically absolve the riders of blame, and criticising the riders does not automatically absolve the organisers of blame.

In this case, I didn't see any particularly dangerous behaviour causing the crash at 3k to go, though. And when it's an established fact that a strung out peloton is both less likely to see crashes and will on average have fewer riders going down in any individual crash, then it makes sense to talk about the fact that there were zero meaningful curves between Mont Cassel and 2k to go. Especially given that they had a bajillion other options in a city of this size. The bigger the city is, the closer you should be able to get to the ideal sprint finish of regularly spaced 90-degree curves, an actually straight final straight of 500 metres to 1 kilometre, and in a city with some elevation difference (that one doesn't apply here) a slight drag to the finish.

 

[Didinho]

Some positive news. Roglic survived another day.

 

[Oldman]

He did nothing wrong.

Your eyes deceive you. He very aggressively moved to his right to a non-existent sprint line and hooked up with the rider he was trying to move off the line. That's a deviation and a relegatable offense in itself and his bike survival skills took out Jasper. That he got caught up in the finish sprint is not coincidence, either.
Hope everyone realizes I'm referencing the intermediate sprint. Final sprint was a timebomb and Cocquard got blown up but didn't light the fuse, there.

 

[Oldman]

I just hope some team tries to reduce the peloton tomorrow, if not, we will have another chaotic stage.

Block headwinds for 50km are always dicey. You can sit in the back and get a free ride right up until someone takes 30 riders out being momentarily distracted. It's what happens when there are too many teams/riders in a race like this. So much pressure piled on to teams just trying to earn points and stay in the big league and large budget teams trying to keep their guys safe by blocking the front.
I can't imagine that stress for that many miles....crazy.

 

[RedheadDane]

Well they would not be if there is nothing for them to win on the GTs. Nobody would be offering contract to such riders, therefore they will be battling it out on the track.

Merlier wouldn't be.... he's (also) a CX rider, not a track rider.
Maybe you should just accept that road racing does indeed include sprinting, and therefore sprinters also deserve their chance.

 

[noob]

Timing and awareness of movement decisions: does consciousness really come too late? - PMC

Since Libet's seminal observation that a brain potential related to movement preparation occurs before participants report to be aware of their movement intention, it has been debated whether consciousness has causal influence on movement decisions. ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I just had to drop this one here. Also when you have decided to move a certain way it takes some seconds before your brain can order you to do something else. In short you just go on instinct.

 

[RobertCrawley]

 

[noob]

I look forward to Horner finding some obscure detail of this stage that changes my position on it completely.

 

[Sciatic]

Watched it for the umpteenth time. Coquard had reason to move to his right, yes, but he lurched into another rider. He could have avoided Milan's wheel, as happens thousands of times in a ride when avoiding the wheel in front of them, without swerving so hard.

Or feathered his breaks a bit

 

[Berflamand]

Bittersweet day for Belgium today:

Philipsen crashes out
Meeus crashing hard
Evenepoel and De Lie crashing

Merlier winning

I know there are a lot of Belgians competing this year but they seem to have a remarkably high involvement in today's main events.

Only Van Aert had a quiet day amongst Belgium's biggest stars in this Tour.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Van Poppel has been relegated, by the way.

Funnily enough he was complaining about rider behaviour on national TV after the finish.

 

[AmRacer]

Your eyes deceive you. He very aggressively moved to his right to a non-existent sprint line and hooked up with the rider he was trying to move off the line. That's a deviation and a relegatable offense in itself and his bike survival skills took out Jasper. That he got caught up in the finish sprint is not coincidence, either.

Nope, it's your eyes deceiving you.

 

[Didinho]

Philipsen broken collarbone. Maybe the best outcome if you saw him aside the road.