Roadman, don't cry because it's over
Roadman, don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. It's the Roadman Tour de France round up. Let's cue that intro. The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long chances? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Well, the sun has set on the Tour de France 2020 a race which we all feared would not happen in the wake of Covid and the pandemic that is gripping the world at the moment. But credit to the ASO, they have pulled off a spectacular Tour de France, one of the best in living memory. I had said it was the Tour de France Daily podcast and here I am, the day after the Tour de France still finding myself wanting to talk about the Tour de France. I just don't want the party to end. So I wanted to bring a little bit of a Tour de France round up, a little recap of my best moments and I want to finish off today's podcast with giving out three award, four awards. Three, do myself a disservice. There are four rewards that I've invented. The Toucha Class award, funniest moment, top domestic and the breakaway king. So make sure you listen all the way to the end to figure out who is holding these coveted make-believe prizes. Before I get started, I'd like to remind you of how I've won this podcast, it's patreon.com the forward slash Anthony underscore watch. That's the place you can go. The link is in the bio. That's the place you can go and buy me a point of beer to say thanks for the work that goes into creating the podcast, producing the podcast, hosting the podcast, all that. I'd encourage you to head on over there please because it makes such a difference to the podcast and the continuation of it. Guys, I feel like there's just so much to talk about. Now, it's obviously very, very easy to be an armchair critic, but nevertheless, that's exactly what I'm going to be over the next 10 or so minutes. I'm going to be an armchair critic. First, I want to talk about Yumbo Vismin. Eddie Merx was very critical, basically if you didn't see the article in Lacquib, it summarised as they were headless chickens, they got their tactics completely wrong. Now he's a great cyclist ever, so we need to listen a little bit. So I was thinking about what could they have done? Really, those days when the breakaway should have went and got 15, 16, 20 minutes, and it didn't, they were transitionary stages, and we've seen them in previous years going. A huge breakaway, a huge gap between the breakaway and the main peloton. Yumba Vismir decided they didn't want that happening for whatever reason. Like historically we would have seen back in the Armstrong day, you know, he might have won a prologue, kept the jersey for one or two stages, but they didn't want to control the boy craze. True descent of the race. It's too much effort. It's too much energy. So to give the jersey away, they let somebody in in the breakaway who was a non-treat who couldn't climb and they knew would lose 50 minutes, 60 minutes as soon as it came to the high mountains. They let him hold the Yellow Jairsey for a few days. His team go on the front to control the race and your boys can chill. Yumba Viz Minnesota did not do that and they worked and they set up for Och's tempo all week. It's doing a lot of things. It's Taran and Elle obviously the guys who have to set the tempo but it's also Taran Elle Roglic because he's sitting at the back of that line rather than in the peloton. But it's harder to sit safer, but it's harder to sit there than it is sitting in the peloton. That's the first thing you could arguably criticize them for. The second thing is not playing the Tom Dumelan card.
Tom Dumelan was a card, he's a previous year old Italian winner
Like Tom Dumelan was a card, he's a previous year old Italian winner. There's not many super domestiques in the peloton that can bode a grand tour win. But they didn't utilize him, he finished seven minutes down and that's even after all his work on the front. Really what needed to happen was. If Far Tom Dumaland into one of the breaks, and now all of a sudden UAE are exposed, UAE have to work, Yumbovizmar are in a great position where they can sit back, if UAE don't take up the chase, Dumaland goes on, gets a handful of time and potentially becomes a threat on the overall, and if UAE do work, they're losing all their troops and Roglich is just sitting there chilling in the bunch. They just didn't make best use of their Reuters. Easy to point the fingers after, we'd be sitting, having a very different conversation about the total utter dominance of Yumbovism if Roglic pulled out a better time trial. But, you know, that is the benefit of hindsight. And that's what we get to do when I am here in my armchair, filling the role of armchair critic. Another couple of things that just dawned on me, post Tour de France, just getting that day. And I went out for a ride this morning just hinkin' through the events of the last three weeks. If I'm Chris Froome, Grand Thomas, am I sittin' back now and reconsiderin' my Grand Tour ambitions? I think I am. I don't Froome and Thomas have never done the sort of numbers that we've seen, Pogacha, riding up La De Belfie or a parachute earlier in the race. I don't know if they're good enough to win Grand towards ever again. If you think about we have Bernal who's just a year older than Pagacha. Pagacha's 22 today. Happy birthday. We have Evan Paul who I know we had a bad crash and he's coming back from that hip injury but Evan Paul is legitimately as good as Bernal and Paul Gacha if not a better talent than they are. So yeah, are these senior Reuters the sort of heavier set? Now that's difficult to say have you're set when the boys are still 70 kilograms but they're a much bigger frame than your Bernal's and your Bogatia's and your Evan Paul's they got to be taken back and maybe saying especially if you're Thomas gone oh I've already wanted to order France here be pretty cool to put my name on a tour of Flanders a party roux Bay a little bit of food for thought and especially with the world's coming up next Sunday now I can't believe this season we have going on. So we still have the world's coming up this weekend, which is amazing after the Tour de France because it normally feels like there's a lag and off here a cycle and find there you got to waste because all the good races finished in the spring and we're kind of hanging around until the Vuelta. No, no, no. The world is this weekend and if some of the writers can manage their form on tinking Woutfahnart, manages fatigue in the seven days between End of Tour de France and start a world, you would just find it really, really hard to bet against Wout Van Art coming into the world. It has to have helped that there was no parties, there was no celebrations in Paris yesterday. I believe, chatting to Alex Kirsch, who's the guest on Wednesday's podcast from Trek, Sega, Fredo. He was talking about port and Richie Port's performance and how it was a little bit unexpected. They went in for stages and maybe a top five in the general, never expected the podium but they're obviously delighted with it. They had a lot to celebrate last night and my understanding is that it was just some catering in the hotel and a bit of a dinner. So fairly muted celebrations. Just got to be a kick in the teeth. It's your forced tour and you're looking forward to getting to Paris for a bit of a celebration. Ah, got a feel for them.
Straight back into action on Sunday for the Worlds and then the Euro…
Straight back into action on Sunday for the Worlds and then the Euro starts on Saturday week which is insane. We have Sam Benas, sixth ever Reuter to win wearing the green jersey in Paris and he's the fourth since Mark Cavendish in 2011 and the prestige of winning on the Champs-Elysé in the green jersey can't be over-egged if you're a sprinter. That's the sprinter's world championships. They all absolutely going for it. All the sprinters rest up for it, it's the hoyloy of the sprint and season, so I was absolutely delighted to see Sam winning that. And also I was delighted to see the gap in the end when I'm winning that stage and taking the intermediate yesterday. His gap to winning the Green Jersey, his gap to Saigon in the Green Jersey competition is more than the amount of points that Saigon was penalised. Today he got relegated for leaning into Wote Van Art. Doesn't that seem like today Saigon leaned into Wote Van doesn't that seem like it was about four and a half years ago. Times a funny way of moving. So yeah, it's a big gap now. So I think Sam is the fastest man in the Boycraze. And when you're the fastest man in the Boycraze, you should win the Green Jersey. That's what it is. So Saagann does it a different way because he climbs better and I don't know, delighted to see Saagann not get his aid jersey. Okay, let's get into these awards. Oh, actually before I get into these awards, Yeah, I mentioned on the podcast I'm back training in a very condensed window. It was three weeks when I started out for the National Championships. I'm less than two weeks away. I'm having to choose between do I want to be fast or do I want to have good endurance when you're trying in a really condensed period like that. You have to make that choice. You can't have speed and endurance. So yeah, I've been getting out and making it happen and luckily the weather is playing ball for the moment. So national championships here in Ireland are on Saturday week. I've dated Eurostarts Saturday week. So definitely looking forward to that. A bunch of you guys took up the 14 day challenge that I put together. That was in response to, Poyles at DMs. I got all true, the tour about just how do you get started, what's the steps and the kickstart your fitness. And I wanted to give detailed answers because I want to see you guys going fast on the bike. But I couldn't do justice to it and Instagram DM. So I put together cool video course, trying to plan, shopping list, eating plan, still got a lot together of the link in the bio to go and get that for the princely summa to quit. Let's get in drum roll. I can't do a drum roll. I'm not even going to pretend I can do a drum roll. Do you remember that lad out of what was that movie? He was a colored lad. It's me being tried to very politically correct. He was a colored lad. Police academy. And he used to make those sounds. He's the man I gave for this bit, the drum roll. The first award. That was the drum. The first award. It's the funny moment of the Tour de France Award. My funniest moment in the Tour de France came from the very fourth stage. It was the stage of the journey back to call the ease. And we had basically an agreement in the Peloton that no one was going to Royd heard on the front under the scent because the roads were super wet, super dangerous and everyone seemed to agree until Astana took it on themselves to say no this is the Tour of France. We're gonna push on, we're gonna ride fast, we're unreal boy handlers. Fast forward 30 seconds, the Astana boy on the front, he twitches front wheels gone, back wheels gone, front wheels gone and he skates into a hedge. We can laugh about it because he wasn't hurt and straight after that Roglish rolls up and he just says today stand-up boys like what are you doing you've just embarrassed yourselves and they all slowed down that was my favorite funny moment from the Tour de France my touch of class moment involved Primo's Roglish he's already yellow Jersey all through the Tour de France he's just had a shocking horrific defeat on time up La Plata Belfie and he's rightly entitled to Trowist's drop, walk off, but what does he do?
Market champion, he goes and he interrupts an interview, the Tajé…
The market champion, he goes and he interrupts an interview, the Tajé Pogacha is given on Euro sport and he congratulates his friend, his fellow countrymen and the winner to Tour de France. It was a beautiful embrace between two great champions and I just thought it's a marketer man. It's a marketer, what a great athlete he is and what a great ambassador for our sport he is. Touch of Class award goes to Primo Sruglich. Now with scant consolation, I haven't lost the Tour de France but winning a Touch of Class award. I feel like this is kinda like under 15 when I was a nail-on to win Player of the Year football and I got the most improved Player award. It was just a slap in the face. In retrospect, I feel like my Touch of Class award might be a bit of a slap in the face to Rugglich. But if anyone's friends at Rugglich pass it on to, let him know he won the Touch of Class award. By top domestic award, The coveted top domestic award, the unsung hero award, it could only go to one man, it was Wout Van Art, he rolled the crosswinds, he rolled the climbs, he rolled the valleys, he rolled the descents, he won two stages, he is the best all-round boycrotor in the world, top domestic unsung hero Wout Van Art. Our final award in this coveted prize giving, it's the Breakaway King, the Breakaway Specialist. This is a writer who I didn't know if I'm honest coming into the race. It's Sunwebs, Korn Anderson. Two stages and I just loved when he won his second stage, his interview post-race. We talked about this in the podcast that day. He said Trenton attacked full gas and he was completely in the red and he talked to himself now. Now is when I have to go. I just thought that encapsulates everything about cycling. It's just so hard. You need to go, you need to attack when you've lactate in your eyes and every fiber of your muscle and your body is saying slow down, stop, you need to say fuck it, send it. And that's how you win the stage in the Tour de France. Epic stuff. That was our Tour de France award show. So I feel like the only thing I can do before wrapping up this podcast is to give our world's prediction. I'm going to give Wilt Van Art as my world's prediction. I know really going out on a limb. Roadman, it's great to be back for the Roadman Roundup podcast. Unfortunately, I bid you now to our Tour de France coverage. It's been an amazing three weeks, but I'm going to be back tomorrow with our short-form Roadman Boits podcast and then Wednesday, Alex Kirsch from Trek, Sega Freida, who has joined me for a long-form podcast and you know the drill Thursday, Friday again and there are regular roadman boats from Monday to Friday back in our role. Roadman, thanks for joining me for what has been an amazing tree week of ups, downs and ultimately for Ireland a great celebration and been bringing home the green. I would ask you to head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. That's how you can support this podcast. We're rolling forward. I want to make it bigger and better. I want to invest in better equipment, better guests, and just roll it on. Who knows? We could have a full Lance Armstrong move, Stoyl stage, but it's time we roll around to next year's Tour de France. I really appreciate the support, Rodeman, Roy Tait out there, and I'm gonna chat to you tomorrow. .