I'm starting to wonder how much it's going to matter in the final 2 laps that Jorgenson and McNulty have been able to sit in the wheels for 60 km. Could make the difference if they have the legs, and they do, or they wouldn't be in this group

Either Remco Evenepoel is making a huge tactical blunder, or he really doesn't have any legs today. I almost can't imagine either of those possibilities

With the training Simmons has been posting on Strava recently I'm not surprised he's doing this and I would also not be surprised if he just wins this race head to head with the best riders in the world. 6-hour rides at 300 watts, 4.5 hours at 350 watts followed by multiple 1-minute efforts at 600w

I've heard people dismiss any help for Del Toro from the Mexican team at all but even when the likes of Ben O'Connor, Felix Gall and Enric Mas are dropped there are still 3 Mexican riders in the peloton, one of whom was trying to follow attacks on this climb. Del Toro, Frayre and Cadena

Imagine being one of the people at Team Picnic-PostNL who first decided to not let Ryan Gal focus on his TT for two years and then decided to let him go because of a lack of results

Enric Mas has ridden the least Mas-like stage ever. Dropping everyone else and closing down Pogacar on a short-ish gravel climb, descending better than Pogacar, making smart tactical decisions in the final KM, even his timing in the sprint was not terrible. The whole works. Insane

Yeah climbing performance wow but Mas definitely has the better descending and cornering technique here. In comparison to a couple years ago this is an absolutely amazing difference and a great example of how working on technical skills can transform a rider who's been a pro for years

Vuelta TT is a study in the first rule of time trialling -- you don't gain time in the fast bits, you gain time in the slow bits.

And the award for stupidest tactics of the day goes to... EF! If they keep the gap at ~30 seconds, Carapaz jumps on this climb, a couple riders probably follow and they join the break that's already there. No problems and Carapaz is in a completely acceptable breakaway.

Between the often-verging-on-boring dominance, the team staff lead by a notorious doper who previously lead one of the worst doping teams in the sport, and the sponsor that's funding an active genocidal war, it's a little bit insane that Tadej Pogacar is so well liked by cycling fans

The perfect symbol for this Tour so far is the main favourite's biggest competitor sending satellite riders into a break and them just not caring, waiting for a climb and then closing the gap without much trouble. There's just nothing they can do to hurt Pogacar or his team

It must be annoying for Kasper Asgreen to be marked out so hard by the sprinter's teams but on the other hands it's a massive sign of respect that they won't let him take more than 5 metres because they know he's good enough to finish it off.

It's been a while since there's been an actual fight for a breakaway with some teams trying to get away and some teams trying to neutralize breaks. If you ask me this is cycling at its best (and probably most confusing for most people unfortunately)

Javier Romo may well have the worst cornering technique I've ever seen in a professional cyclist. What the hell was that descent?

Lidl-Trek decided to go for controlling the peloton ahead of the intermediate sprint. I think it's not the best choice. Pedersen in a breakaway with climbers would have resulted in a larger point delta on the sprinters who would likely not make it into such a group.

Break formation today will be dominated by the intermediate sprint after 25 km. Almost no chance the pure sprinters will get over the initial ups-and-downs in a competitive position, so Pedersen will do everything he can to get maximum points. The first 11 km are fairly simple...

Obligatoire wat-zegt-dit-over-het-niveau-van-het-mannenwielrennen post

I can see a combined group with 2x Redbull, 2x Lidl-Trek and Seixas be pretty powerful on the false flat. Only problem: Del Toro and Kuss sitting on. We'll see if it happens but if they work together it'll be a risk for Vingegaard...

If they have DSQ'd Huub Artz over that position, I may just stop watching the Tour, actually, because that would be an absolute joke

Huub Artz understandably shaking his head watching Victor Campenaerts hold his handlebars in the exact same way as Artz himself just did after being told off for it by the commissaires. Finally, after 5+ years the UCI's inconsistency in enforcing the hand-position rule is coming back to bite them

Ehhh Huub Artz!?!?!? Where did that suddenly come from and how has he gone from never sprinting in a professional mass sprint to finishing top 5 and sprinting faster than most of the actual sprinters in the biggest race in the world? That's insane

Being a climber, not able to drop Mads Pedersen on a medium mountain stage and then being up against Pedersen and two super strong team mates in a group of 10... Why the hell are you all working together? GC time, but the rest? What possible reason is there to ride?

There are again some really interesting points in break formation today. The first 20 km look fairly innocuous but there are some serious lumps and bumps in there. - The first 5 km are 2 % uphill but within there are sections of 6 % with some very short spikes closer to 10 %

Interesting to see how Visma seem to be quite keen to get into breaks, but they're being reliably countered by UAE riders. Jorgenson is clearly marked by Wellens on the first climb. More interestingly Del Toro has now jumped across to moves twice, both times followed by Vingegaard himself

Break fight today will be super interesting. Hard to predict what will happen. Half of the peloton will want to be in the break to win the stage, and some of those riders will have their eye on the yellow jersey as well. It's a prime opportunity for a fringe GC rider to slip in and take time

I like to predict where breakaways get away based on the course but today it's very difficult to say. Not many obstacles, only some very slight ups-and-downs in the first half hour. The first spot that looks particularly promising is 26-30 km into the race. Most likely the break is gone by then.

On my blog I have written about the process of training individualization using a recent block of training as an example. emeraldcycling.nl/blog/how-i-i...

How I individualize training

Individualized cycling training beyond average VO₂max and FTP: How tailored intervals helped a U23 rider improve repeated high-intensity efforts and race performance.

emeraldcycling.nl

Just took a look at the final of the Belgium Tour stage 1 of yesterday, and was then very surprised to find Tim Torn Teutenberg still in the results, not even with a yellow card. 2 headbutts, when Zanoncello got a DSQ for 1 during the Giro. Make it make sense

If SD Worx is going to sue the UCI for the damages caused by the Wiebes DSQ, it is going to cost a lot of money. I mean, all of the prize money Wiebes could have gained from this week in one of women's cycling's biggest races. That could amount to something like a thousand euro's!

You can dunk on Unbound Gravel all you want but the dynamic of 2 teammates in the lead figuring out how to fix a massive sliced tyre and ultimately deciding to switch wheels after minutes of working together to fix it... I think it's fascinating. Some of the heroics road racing is often missing