Mid-Week One

Stage Three: An incredibly boring 5-and-a-half hour sprint stage that couldn’t incentivize anybody to go into a breakaway until the stage was more than half over. In the crash-marred finale, Biniam Girmay took a surprising win from the bunch ahead of Fernando Gaviria and Arnaud De Lie. That’s not a top three that anybody would have predicted. Richard Carapaz sprinted to 14th, which gave him the yellow jersey on overall stage positions because Pogacar was caught behind a crash and finished 38th. There was a lot of talk that Pogi wanted to give away the jersey, but I don’t think so. He didn’t care much either way because of the team’s plan for the next day.

Stage Four: In part due to the agonizingly long opening shallow climb (40k at 3.7 percent), the battle for the breakaway raged on for a long time. UAE’s Marc Soler patrolled the moves and neutralized at least 10 dangerous ones. Trek did a strong leadout for Pedersen to win the uphill intermediate sprint at 20k and then it was down to the people who wanted to invest for the stage win.

Finally, a group of 17 men, none of whom were dangerous for the stage or for GC, got up the road. In the peloton, Nils Politt did a tremendous job for about 2.5 hours keeping the break’s gap under 3 minutes. I’d like to see what the big German’s average power was for this stage.

When he was done, Wellens and Soler took over on the shallow slopes of the Galibier as the breakaway began attacking itself and fragmenting. The strategy of the riders in the break, which included my man Oier Lazkano, was senseless. They were stop-starting with 25 minutes left in the climb and a one-minute advantage. As soon as Sivakov got on the front for UAE and the climb got steeper, Lazkano, the last survivor, was swept away.

As the peloton got up into the clouds on the mighty Galibier, Adam Yates came to the front, which always means a strong pace. He pulled hard for only a few minutes though, and then sadly dropped well before the summit. I know he’s a domestique, but I still had him finishing second in this Tour. That, of course, is not going to happen now with his time loss on this stage, but more because of the shocking strength of Jonas and to a lesser degree Remco.

Then it was the turn of Joao Almeida to pull hard, and this is when most of the GC contenders dropped. The most memorable moment of the stage occurred a few kilometers from the KOM of the Galibier, when Almeida looked over his shoulder, noticed Ayuso in the back of the group, and gestured angrily for his teammate to come to the front and work. Importantly, there was a headwind on the shallow climb, which makes pacing in the front even more energy-sapping, and sitting in the wheels even more advantageous.

So Almeida was clearly angry that Ayuso was not doing his job. One has to imagine that UAE had established a clear plan on the morning of the stage, which was simply to control the stage and then do a mountain leadout for Pogacar to attack and try to win the stage and take bonus seconds. Ayuso would have been the last or second-last man in the train, so for him to be in the back of the group saving energy (probably to protect his GC chances) while Almeida was pulling full-gas and harming his own GC, was a dereliction of duty by the Spaniard.

After Almeida’s gesture, Ayuso sprinted to the front and began swapping turns with the Portuguese. They did this until about 800 meters from the summit, and by that point the GC group consisted of those two, Pogi, Jonas, Roglic, Remco, and Carlos Rodriguez. So essentially, it was the chalk for the top five plus two UAE super-domestiques. I’ll get to everybody else in a minute.

Social media was in an uproar after this. In my view, there is no excuse for what Ayuso did. He claims he was “saving energy at the back of the group so that he could pull for longer” but that’s not true. He seemingly had no intention of coming to the front until Almeida publicly shamed him. Almeida pulled for over eight minutes, Ayuso, just over two. And most importantly, in cycling, you sacrifice everything for your team leader, especially when your team leader is the best rider in the world and the favorite for the Tour de France. Ayuso trying to fight for a podium spot or the white jersey is irrelevant if Pogacar finishes second. And with how the stage finished up, Ayuso’s behavior seems even more egregious.

Finally, it should be noted that Almeida’s pull was about to drop Roglic, whose shoulders were rocking violently, and was put on a half-bike length gap from the third-last rider in the group (Ayuso was behind him, if I remember correctly) until Almeida turned around. Clearly, Almeida and Ayuso agreed on a slightly slower pace after that, because nobody else dropped and those two were able to go on for a while. That is incredibly important, as I will explain.

So with 800 to go on the climb, and a 9 percent ramp all the way to the top, Pogacar had his launching point. He attacked brutally and immediately only Jonas was able to respond. He briefly got into Pogi’s wheel before a few switchbacks, which helped Pogacar gap him as they require more acceleration. The gap was stable at just a few seconds for a while, before just like Puy de Dome last year, the Slovenian excruciatingly prised open about eight seconds at the KOM point. The eight bonus seconds went to Pogacar, five to Jonas, and Remco was the third-strongest to get two (he was only about seven seconds behind Jonas, showing his level and his wise pacing strategy).

There was a brief flat bit before the descent where Pogacar gained about two more seconds. The descent was pretty technical at first and Jonas looked a little bit more comfortable, but Pogi had more power to sprint out of the corners. The gap stayed around 10 seconds for a nerve-wracking few minutes before the road opened up and flattened out a bit. Pogacar began to use his power to gain time rapidly and would have over 30 seconds at the bottom of the mountain. Jonas ended up getting caught by Remco, Rodriguez, Ayuso, and Roglic.

Pogacar powered all the way to the line and won the stage by 35 seconds over Remco, who led out the sprint and still won over Ayuso. The pair took two seconds out of Roglic, Jonas, and Rodriguez. Almeida finished with Landa a further 16 seconds behind.

Pogacar won his 12th career stage of the Tour de France in impressive fashion and gained time on everyone, most importantly Jonas.

As for the rest of the contenders, Ayuso having the legs to sprint so well at the end is even more damning evidence that he is riding selfishly and not going all-in for his leader. Remco’s sprint was massive and he is truly flying right now. Roglic looks like shit. Jonas is extremely strong, but UAE is wisely exploiting his lack of explosiveness. Rodriguez is a podium contender because he is so strong on the high mountain days, despite having no sprint and no time trial. Almeida can finish very high up, it just depends what UAE wants to do with him and Ayuso. Adam Yates lost 2:42 to Pogacar in a group with Jorgenson, Gall, Cicconne, Buitrago, Bernal and Thomas. These guys are out of GC contention for the victory (as expected), but all could fight for a top-ten.

I’m not sure if Pogacar would have won the stage by more and gained more time if Almeida and Ayuso had pulled harder and dropped themselves. Pogacar would have attacked earlier, but on the shallow gradients and into the headwind, it may not have worked. He might not have even won the stage if everybody had covered his early move and they had taken the descent together. So despite UAE’s poor communication/selfishness, the tactic might have been the correct one. But when it comes to later on in this Tour, they need to get their workers in line.

Everyone in that front group smashed the record on the Galibier into a headwind with Pogacar doing the equivalent of nearly 7 w/kg for over 20 minutes normalized for sea level (if Karlis Ozols is to be believed). To me, the crazy thing is not that Pogacar can ride up a 20-minute climb 90 seconds faster than Quintana and Pinot (who previously had fast times on the Galibier), it’s a). that even the eighth-best rider in this Tour can beat Quintana’s record despite a headwind (which I also think affected Pogacar and Jonas far less as they were sheltered in the draft for over 90 percent of the climb) and b). that Pogacar launch a 900-watt attack and sustain it at the top of a 2,600m+ mountain on which he’s already been pushing high watts. The level of professional cycling continues to impress. I’m excited to see what records go down during the rest of this Tour.

The GC situation after Stage Four was 1). Pogacar 2). Remco +45 3). Jonas +50 4). Ayuso +1:10 5). Roglic +1:14 6). Rodriguez +1:16 7). Landa +1:32 8). Almeida +1:32 9). Cicconne +3:20 10). Bernal +3:21

Stage Five: An incredibly boring sprint stage until the final few hundred meters, when MARK CAVENDISH BROKE THE RECORD FOR TOUR DE FRANCE STAGE WINS. It was a beautiful and emotional moment for everybody.

Stage Six: The threat and realization of crosswinds all day led to an extremely nervous peloton racing into the corners, but despite a brief split, things calmed down for the expected bunch sprint won by Dylan Groenewegen.

Stage Seven, which is today, is the all-important Wine Country Time Trial. I’ve got Remco for a narrow victory over Pogacar. Let’s go!