Puncheur

Tag: Cycling

  • Tour de France Reflections

    I’m not sure where to start. What a race! This post will be a little bit different from what I normally write after Grand Tours. But this was a special race, so it deserves a special essay. And to be honest, I’m looking to change things up with this blog. I haven’t been getting the…

  • Week Three

    The 2024 Tour de France has reached its conclusion. I’m sad that it has to end, but happy with the result. Stage 16: A sprint stage won by Jasper Philipsen. Biniam Girmay crashed in the final kilometer and limped to the finish; I thought his green jersey dreams were over. Stage 17: With crosswinds and…

  • THE PYRENEES

    A dream I don’t want to wake from. At the same time, I’m still in shock. Today is the second rest day of the 2024 Tour de France, and I feel like I need it just as much as the riders do, except the guy who didn’t seem tired after yesterday’s race (he won it).…

  • Stages 12&13

    The Tour de France rolls on, and waits for nobody. Stage Twelve: A high-powered four-man breakaway consisting of Jonas Abrahamsen, Valentin Madouas, Anthony Turgis, and Quentin Pacher escaped after a scuffle, but because of their strength and the nervous peloton, a few sprint teams including Alpecin and Movistar kept them under two minutes in front.…

  • Stages 10&11

    One incredibly boring day and one absolutely enthralling battle. Stage Ten: The peloton noodled along for over four hours with the brief exception of UAE attempting to split the peloton in an exposed section, which was never going to succeed due to low wind speed. Japser Philipsen finally got his sprint win, easily getting the…

  • Tour de France Week One Wrap-Up

    I’ll start this piece by covering the remaining stages from the first week, then analyze the week as a whole and how the top guys might be feeling. Stage Seven: The all-important wine trial (the French say the time trial is the race of truth, and of course the Romans had a saying “in vino,…

  • 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…

  • Opening Weekend Recap

    The Tour de France has begun. The opening weekend was full of heat, hills, surprises, and disappointment (for me). Stage One: The “hardest” opening stage in Tour de France history delivered strange racing. A strong-ish breakaway got away after a little under an hour of attacking. UAE seemed fairly interested in controlling it at first,…

  • Tour de France Team Preview

    Since yesterday was the teams presentation (an awkward and clunky affair) in Florence, I wanted to go through every team and analyze what their goals might be and whether their riders can get it done. I’ve already given a brief preview of the GC teams but I will discuss them again here in more depth.…

  • Surprise and/or Late Entrants in the Tour de France

    I threw up my preview a few days before every team had finished confirming their lineups for the biggest race in the world. So I’ll run through some names that are now in for better or worse. Lenny Martinez: The 20-year-old Frenchman has won five races this year, mostly farming on the French Cup circuit,…