Very glad I called this wrong. Been great so far

brilliant stage last night, both as a Pog fan but also as a TDF fan. Pog looked really strong yesterday and I loved seeing him sitting back and waiting. While I love his unbridled aggression, I do fear that he wastes energy too often

so great to be getting action like this in week 1 and I really hope the fight stays close through to week 3

Crazy how far ahead of the pack these two are.

What a plot twist, Jumbo goes for the knockout blow on the Tourmalet but Pogacar too strong.

WvA gave 111%, impressed he got across less than six minutes behind, looked like he was dead.

He's a ****ing motorbike

17km pull on the tourmalet. was kind of funny to see the only riders that managed to stay on his wheel fight the mountain points at the top (unsportsmanlike even), I'd almost have been too ashamed

That's a new one for me, 3 of 4 riders in the break dropping back immediately.

Not sure Cav will get a better chance to break the record than that

The foreshadowing...

What a terrible way for Cavendish's final Tour to end, and just a day after looking like he was still competitive.

Mads Pedersen with the most Mads Pedersen sprint I've ever seen, well done.

He was super strong today. Started his sprint at the same time that van der Poel started his leadout for Philipsen and just stayed in front.

****ing Aussie Man jinx

sucks so bad for Cav. Definitely the best sprinter since I’ve been watching the tour since the mid 80s.

Trying to think who else I’d have up there. Sagan is incredible. Zabel, Kittel?

I remember the original van Poppel as being unbeatable for a year or two but not sure he sustained it

Not sure what to make of the last 4km being behind closed doors effectively. Made for an odd spectacle

Enjoyable stage nonetheless and GC looks to be fierce

Gutted for Mateo. He did everything right, that last 5k seemed to go in slow motion, but just ran out of gas. He’s got a huge future ahead of him.

I agree, was telling my friend earlier that I kinda miss the idiots along the road on mountain finishes

I wouldn’t want it every day and I wish the TV direction could have been better, but I’m guessing it all explains why the tour hasn’t been there for so long.

Still, it was a great stage and it’s so fun to have had so many GC battles in wk 1. Also for the initiated it showed just how much time can be made up/lost on those steep climbs

At this rate it won't be long until conspiracy theories that Vingegaard and Pogacar are paid actors on motorized bikes meant to make the GC more interesting than it has been in decades begin to emerge - and I'd be tempted to believe in them myself, as they seem to be from another world, while it is so close between them.

My earlier assessment that Pogacar seemed to not be in great shape has certainly been put to shame by the his performance on the previous two mountain stages. I think it is impossible to predict who will win right now, as good arguments can be made for either of the two getting the upper hand later on - and both of them have already had better Watt/KG performances at the Tour than they have had at any previous Tour, according to lanternerouge's analysis.

For Vingegaard, you could undboutedly argue that we've been in Pogacar-favored mountains, and Vingegaard's terrain is yet to come. Higher altitudes, longer, more difficult stages with more vertical meters should favor him if history is any indicator. He has also tradtionally gotten better and better as the race progressed, and managed to drop Pogacar in the third week in both previous Tours. His losses in Pogacar-land has been small; the "big" loss happened on a day after he went a lot deeper than Pogacar, as he was pushing all out alone for the past 30-40 mins on the previous day while Pogacar had help. Vingegaard also took a lot of the wind before getting dropped the next day; they gambled and lost, but from a tactical perspective I think it was still the correct decision to try to bury Pogacar. And while he was on edge on Puy de Dome, Pogacar did not really distance him after the initial attack. No doubt that before the Tour, if he and Jumbo could had been offered the current GC situation on the first rest day, they take this without hesitating for a moment.

On the other hand, Pogacar has looked better on the past two mountain stages, and if he is still in the process of gaining form, he'll possibly get even better. He's also by no means bad in the later stages of the race, and it feels more like he has an occassional off-day (last year on Hautacam, arguably on Granon, although that was more due to poorly tactical racing I think), and when he got dropped by Vingegaard on Marie Blanque than he's lacking form.
Additionally, last year, when Vingegaard was no doubt stronger, Pogacar did not drop him at any point of the race. Pogacar won the sprints at the finish line, sure, but they finished together on all of those stages, he simply could not even create seperation. This year he's created seperation twice already, which is a very strong indicator that, at the very least, he is relatively much stronger than last year.

The next mountain stages can't come soon enough.

nice summary

just looking at the stage guide and it doesn't look like there'll be a big GC context again til Fri.

was also surprised to see how short the time trial is this year. Can't remember a shorter one

I figured the same, but you really can never know with these guys. Vingegaard and Pogacar both in the morning break right now, what is going on?!

This tour is just crazy. I'm confident that the other GC teams probably wouldn't even care too much about Pogacar and Vingegaard in the break, Yates brothers and Bardet are a bigger concern for them.

God yes why does it have to be consistently terrible year on year.

Watching Gaudu and Pinot being dropped when Jorgenson was in the last km had me screaming

lol.fr

Hahaha yeah me too even though they're all insufferable and I feel like another big incident like Froome is very overdue

This one happened only a couple days ago:

Organization is trying its best to get a frenchman on the podium. Bet they did not feel too proud after yesterday with Bardet & Gaudu dropped

They should put 100KM of TT just to bait remco into coming. Imagine an in-form Remco, Pogacar & Jonas

it's not Bardet's fault because he's been a consistently good grand tour guy for the best part of a decade and coming somewhere between 6th and 12th this year again is nothing to be sniffed at, but I can't help inwardly rolling my eyes these days whenever he's featured.

France really should have more depth

hopefully Remco can become a TdF rider next year or beyond. With him, Jonas and Pog and maybe Pidcock if he keeps developing, we could have some incredible battles for at least the next 5 years and maybe more

I enjoyed yesterday's stage. Great performance to break away and win from there. Now the GC battle can begin again - huge week ahead.

Mouth watering next 3 days, followed by a rest followed by a tt day and then another mountain stage. Then the rarity...a big mountain stage on the penultimate day - if things are still close, that could be bedlam.

For those who don't have access to something similar, here's the stage by stage guide

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/65843147