Tour de France 2026 ***spoilers*** in exile

[No Ta Doctor]

No idea how I'm expected to survive a full week of the Tour with no spoiler thread, so I'll make my own here...

It's Disappoint The French On Bastille Day Day today, a feat managed spectacularly by Pidock on Alpe d'Huez and Froome running up Ventoux in recent years

The stage finish is where Vingegaard became the first rider to beat Pogacar in a two up sprint for a win. In fact the only other rider to have managed it is Wout van Aert in Roubaix (Neither McNulty or Del Torro count, for obvious reasons)

It's also the stage where Roglic crashed on the uphill finish when he was having difficulty holding Remco's wheel - but was given the same time because the 3km rule applied. As it does today, so keep an eye out for shenanigans....

 

[No Ta Doctor]

My mate should be out on the Col de Pertus today, so please keep an eye out for him. Thanks

 

[Blazing Saddles]

Do you get a different stage result if you are in exile?
I think a few names were suffering with post rest day legs, today. Not Pog obviously. Still the battle for third is shaping up nicely.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

Do you get a different stage result if you are in exile?
I think a few names were suffering with post rest day legs, today. Not Pog obviously. Still the battle for third is shaping up nicely.

Unfortunately not.

Vingegaard deliberately chose to ride his own pace rather than try and go with Pog. It looked like G2 was working well for once, for a short while, then Lipowitz blew it all up with what, an attack, an acceleration not in keeping with general group speed? They had Pog at around 20" there, but he'd put Remco into the red and signalled to the Trek riders that he had legs and they've have to keep an eye on him, so they stopped working. So instead of being an agreement to bury Del Toro (who may have the legs that tried to take a double rest day, as you mention) they watched each other and left Vingegaard to "worry" about his 2nd place (he doesn't give a shoot about it).

I think there'll be some interesting discussions on the RedBull bus this evening

My mate was out on Col de Pertus, so I helped him with some text updates - this is how the race looked (I didn't see the key features that would let me have a look for where he was):

Think I did alright with that. Slightly more info than mididoctors normally gives, but no gratuitous mention of Nairo....

 

[UglyWithaSidePart]

It's the first time in well over 30 years that I haven't watched any of it at all.

 

[No Ta Doctor]

It's the first time in well over 30 years that I haven't watched any of it at all.

I didn't watch any cycling from the moment Pantani planted his arse on the road along with the rest of the peloton in '98 until Floyd wrote his letter in 2010