Tour De France 2019

Well, that was an interesting ending to the first race of the Tour. Very exciting and two talented riders in crashes, one requiring hospital attention, the other losing his shot at winning the stage. Very good racing and unusually competitive for the first outing. And a nice young racer saw his shot and took it, benefiting himself and his team.

Anyone else following this year? After Froome's accident in June, the race is wide open. I'm looking forward to some excitement, and today did not disappoint.

Just found this thread!

I don't know how I feel about it yet, but it looks to me like Ineos has basically already wrapped this one up.

I think we need to see what happens in the next few days, but yeah, they pulled a really smart move yesterday. Watching it to figure out what happened, but I suspect they planned that move that broke the peloton...

ooooh, I hadn't gone as far as to say it was planned. Now that you mention it though...

I saw an interview with the team strategist - Blaisford, something like that? - and he dodged and weaved on that question, instead discussing the effects now that it's happened. I think they were paying attention to the wind on the latter half of the stage, and decided to stir the pot deliberately.

It was exciting, whether it was planned or not.

Oh interesting!

How about that last stage eh? The Rohan Dennis thing was certainly weird.

I only got to see bits of it in between work. Was that the feed bag incident, where the guy fell over and nearly got hit?

I did enjoy the sprint at the end. They really played some psych games in those final turns. Yates pulled it off nicely.

Edit - Now I see the Dennis news! Totally missed that yesterday. Perhaps there's more doping going on and Dennis could not take it?

Edit 2 - Now it looks like it was chronic equipment problems.

That is brilliant!

Very interesting that Alaphilippe has managed to stay in the lead for so long.

I keep thinking he's run out of gas, and he keeps coming back. Classic Tour performance from him and others this year. I'm really enjoying the twists and turns.

Yeah! I don’t think he is going to hang on to it, but at the same time I want him to? Also a lot of speculation on who Ineos is really supporting. Thomas and Bernal are so close. I think I heard the commentators saying one night that they had Bernal’s replacement bike in the most important spot on the support car?

Just stumbled on this thread. Glad to see there are some other bike race/TV travelogue fans out there.

Allez Pinot! (because the French are long overdue; yes, I know Alaphillipe is French, but I think he's doomed. Would love to see him win, tho.)

If you want more TdF reading, I highly recommend the Inner Ring blog. The anonymous author does a preview before each stage. He's also recapping the 1989 LeMond-Fignon tour, which got me excited about cycling way back when.

Oh, thanks Enix, I'll check that out!

I also want Alaphillipe to win. But we'll see. Was today a rest day? I have not had time to even look...

Nope. It was the last flat (mostly) stage before three very hard day in the Alps. Also very hot.

Today's winner was ...

Spoiler:

Matteo Trentin of Italy, who broke away from the breakaway group with a few Ks to go and solo'd to a win. Details here.

I'll watch it tonight in the highlight broadcast.

I'm so happy for Mitchelton Scott with their stage wins.

One word for today's stage: bonkers

In all my years of watching Le Tour ...

Spoiler:

I've never seen a mudslide win a stage. Congrats to Bernal. He'd be up on the field by an hour if they hadn't canceled today's final climb.

Yes, today and yesterday were absolutely spellbinding. This has been one of the most interesting races I've ever seen (and I've been watching them for decades).

Yep a great couple of stages. I was pretty bummed about ending stage 19 early, but they really didn’t have any choice.

What a Tour! My take-away is that we have a good number of young riders who have earned their way into the top ranks, and will be forces moving forward. My favorite so far is Wout van Aert, but of course Bernal is amazing. I'm excited to see how things are for them with another year under their belts.

The ending was ... unexpected. I'm not sure I've ever seen a cyclist pull a quad muscle like that. And I'm not sure I recall the race being shortened by a mudslides. (Snow, yes; never a mudslide.)

Next year could be especially bonkers if Ineos brings all three past tour winners. You saw how the three-headed Movistar monster tried to eat itself.

Maybe one of these days a French rider might actually win this thing. Notre Dame will burn before that happens ... oh, wait.

Apparently, Pinot had fallen a day or two earlier and bashed his thigh on his lower handlebar. That produced a large, painful bruise but also seems to have masked a small tear to the muscle. It was treated as a bruise, but his continued use of it tore it further, and finally on his last start he was unable to use it normally. Kind of a freak injury underneath what I am told is a not uncommon one (smacking the handlebars or frame).

Bad, bad luck indeed for him, but that's the Tour.

I can see Ineos playing those guys for years, rotating leaders as circumstances dictate. They are the descendant of Team Sky, after all, one of the most competitive organizations out there...

Thomas' graceful performance may foreshadow what a disciplined Ineos looks like next year. Only with more supermen lol.

I really doubt they’ll bring three past winners to the same tour. That’s too much ego and ambition to handle. Surely they’ll make the riders reprioritise, and make it clear they might need to be targeting other big races instead.

Always fun to think about, though.