Apparently Pogacar and Vingegaard were openly talking about how Carapaz was faking it on the climb. Looks like he didn’t surprise anyone. But I guess you don’t really have to surprise them if you are getting away with doing slightly less work.

It’s pretty stark how much better those three are than the rest.

Can't say it was disappointing to see Carapaz get third after all the sitting on the back he did in the last 10km.

Looking forward to tomorrow even if nobody else is going to have the legs to challenge the best.

A bit of drama before a hopefully dramatic stage today as police has raided Bahrain's hotel.

Probably similar to the Arkea raid last year that didn't lead to anything.

Anyone know what the hell Movistar are doing here? Mas is not really in contention for the podium, but they haven’t really been stage/jersey hunting either. If baffles me how they are just riding to Paris with seemingly no objective. I guess at least Valverde tried to win the Kuss stage.

Usually they have a goal and fail spectacularly. It’s not as enjoyable when you can’t even ascertain what goal they are hilariously failing to achieve.

Presumably their main plan was thwarted on one of the early stages when Miguel Angel Lopez, their captain and best GC hope, crashed and lost a lot of time iirc. So instead their GC duties fell to Enric Mas. I think they have tried a bit, with Valverde like you mentioned, and Erviti who finished 2nd on the breakaway stage that Politt won. Soler, who also could've been hunting for stage wins from breaks abandoned after the crash on stage 1.

So all in all (yet another) underwhelming Tour from them, assuming they don't pull out a win today somehow.

Yeah I think they were looking to podium with MAL and Mas as a backup and looking for stages with Cortina, Valverde and maybe others. Mas doesn't quite have it, MAL has been so out of form since the crash that he can't even hunt for stages and the rest hasn't quite worked out either.

Obviously they would have also wanted to win team classification as is tradition but too many riders aren't in the shape needed.

Uran is completely done, he must be sick or have forgotten to eat or something, seems strange that he'd collapse this completely otherwise.

But I guess it's not impossible he's just utterly empty.

Is Cav in trouble for the time cutoff?

LOOOOL at that French TV direction

Is it only on French TV that they directly talk about doping suspicions right after a stage win? Double funny when they are employing people like Jalabert who was 100% dopped (as was anybody competing at high level in the 90s)

Didn't you love seeing those huge trucks lined up perfectly? French engineering.

Cina, have you gotten your feet wet yet?

Dry feet so far

This is one of the incredibly stupid unwritten rules of cycling that makes no sense at all, basically telling someone they should reduce their chances of winning to help others to beat them.

So police raided Bahrain - pretty sure this is the old let's go after someone other than the leading team to make it seem that they are tough on drugs

Been a bit busy the last couple of days.

But I'm very happy with how Vingegaard managed Thursday, quite the replica stage of the previous one, Pogacar is simply a level above.

Yesterday was quite the eventful day, unlike what one might've thought based on the stage profile. But with it being the last day for anyone to win from a break (not gonna happen on Champs elysees imo), and everyone having sore legs from the mountains, it went as it often does and turns into a break stage, which Mohoric won convincingly after simply riding away solo from the break for the second time this Tour. Feels like all the breaks have had one guy distance the rest, we haven't really gotten (m)any breaks settling it at the finish line.

The ITT today seems like a bit of a formality, I doubt it'll make big differences in the GC, and I suspect it will come down to whether Pogacar wants to cruise and risk nothing or wants to go for another win, which I suspect he will.

I don't think it's a formality for Pogacar, van Aert is in better form than he was at the start of the tour and Küng has been able to save energy for a while now, I think any of those 3 can win today.

Oh yeah, I meant formality in the grand scheme of things ie the overall placements seem fairly cemented. There's definitely a solid chance that WvA or someone else beats Pogacar today.

Ah I slightly misunderstood you then, yeah GC seems mostly done. Kelderman should overtake O'Connor for 4th I think if his issues from the first TT are fixed. Maybe Lutsenko can challenge for 6th but 1:10 behind Mas seems like a little too much.

Great performances by WvA and Vingegaard, smart ride by Pogacar and lots of heart shown by O'Connor and Mas holding onto their places.

Today's ITT wasn't nearly as good on TV as last year's memorable courses.

Going back to Porte - it has to be one of the most easiest tours someone has ever rode that ought to have been a super domestique. I mean his last big effort was the first time trial when he put in a good enough performance for the team to consider giving him equal status with Carapaz. But I think that pretty much ended the next day. But looking at his performance this year in the Critérium du Dauphiné and considering he won that race, I reckon he has rode the rest of the tour after that first individual time trial with his eyes on the Olympics as it does look like a course that he will do well at.

Going to throw my hot take in now before he wins in one hour but all the wanking over Mark which is about to happen in one hour for beating Merckx's record is too much glorification with not enough context.

Merckx won 3 TTT and a prologue who are somehow not counted but more importantly spent literally thousands of kilometers up front whereas Cavendish has spent a total of 6km in his TdF career I read

Crossgeneration comparisons (à la Lebron vs MJ) are always stupid but doing comparisons between Merckx's record and Cavendish's as if it was an even comparison feels like to much glory for Mark - a guy who races the last hundred meters of a race then gets dropped first the other 15 stages) especially when a guy like Morkov is not getting any of the glory + I hear very little mention of the fact that the best sprinters are injured

Go WvA

I would be thrilled if Wout won to complete the mountain, ITT, sprint trifecta. And to your point, more Merckx-esque display of adaptability. That said, Idk if he is even trying and he has no team left to help him.

I agree Cina

Cav seems like a pretty likeable guy based on very little information, but even if he takes the record for stage wins nobody in their right mind is going to suggest that he's a greater cyclist than Merckx (among others).

WOUT!!!