Plan B Forum

SPOILER: IF YOU ARE RECORDING TdF TO WATCH LATER!!!

I know we have a Tour thread going on somewhere but IIRC that is mainly about he-who-should-not-be-named.

Yesterday they had 40C - 104F - and today they were in the Alps and stopped by hail in the bottom of the valley. I can see how Alaphilippe (French long-time leader) was pissed - he is a monster going downhll and I watch him through my fingers - but it was the right call by the organizers. No way could they race through that.

The Welsh side of me (4 years grad school) wants Geraint Thomas to win. I think he's cooked his goose and the Colombian Bernal will win it all. There are those who are saying on various blogs that because the third to last stage - today - was effectively canceled, they should make the last stage (Sunday into the Champs-Élysées) truly competitive instead of the usual procession. Makes sense to me.

Weather permitting, tomorrow should be fun. Not least because the two leaders are on the same team and it will be interesting to see how that works out. Each will need support; but if they split the team support between them, a rider who is currently 3rd or 4th could pass them both.

EDITED TO ADD SPOILER ALERT AS LR SUGGESTED

ex-khobar Andy wrote:There are those who are saying on various blogs that because the third to last stage - today - was effectively canceled, they should make the last stage (Sunday into the Champs-Élysées) truly competitive instead of the usual procession. Makes sense to me.

Only year I recall where they raced the last day was 1989 when Greg Lemond had his epic time trial to overtake Fignon.

And, um, spoiler alert for those of us who record the coverage in the morning to watch in the evening.

Yep. it is a real question as to who 'should' have the yellow jersey now. Without the weather/road conditions could the leader have regained time on the long downhill and kept the jersey on the last climb to the finish? Would the guy who was second on the stage won the stage at the original finish? Will be interesting. If the riders generally feel it was an unfair ruling to make the time at the top of that climb the official end of the stage, I think the yellow jersey will be blocked and held back tomorrow.

Yes indeed, that clash between Fignon and LeMond was a wonderful historic race. Lemond was not just the stronger rider that day,, he was the smarter rider. I think we will never see anything like that again. Too much technology involved now that the riders can be constantly coached by radio with the team managers constantly getting live data on the individual riders' power output, heart rate, position of others on the route, etc.

I have been seeing glimpses along the way this year of one or two motorcycles among the support vehicles that have two narrow front wheels, very close together (not typical of a trike) and in similar overall size to other bikes in the entourage. Any body know what brand/model of bike that is?

snailgate

Results doesn't seem right, especially since several top competitors likely were holding back on the penultimate climb, saving energy for the final climb, and knowing they could make a lot of time on the descent. Maybe just bad luck for them, but it seemed like there was plenty of safe riding that still could have been done before terminating the race.

With a mud slide in the way, calling it a day was the only option short of changing the event to cyclo-cross. Short day tomorrow is also unfortunate, and too late to replace with a time trial which would be a fairer way to decide things. c'est la vie

Like much of France, I fell hard for Julian Alaphilippe and I was pissed by the decision on stage 19 (especially after his descent the day before) and the shortened Stage 20. But he has handled himself so well and re-energized Le Tour after its been held in the boring (cheating?) grips of Sky/Ineos.

Hoping JALA is awarded “combativeness” of the Tour today so he makes the Podium.

This article sums it up beautifully: https://www.sbnation.com/2019/7/28/8905 ... low-jersey

(OMG riding through Le Louvre) right now - glorious!!)

(How does Bob Roll still butcher the French language, oy)

(Clarifying I was pissed how/when stage 19 was ended and how time was calculated- but yes they needed to make that decision, given the ice and the landslides)