You can also say this, you have a better chance, it's a probability game. If Grand Thomas was happy to do, I'm not sure he's happy, but he done a great job support last year and he stood on the Tour de France podium. Maybe he's not on the exact same ping and form this year, but he's there, there about, he's up there in Treino, Adriatico. You bring him, maybe he rides into the race. If something happens, it's a, this is a sport where we have a million variables and we say someone like Rob Litter of Bernal goes into the race as a favourite. But it's three weeks you have I don't even know how many kilometers over three weeks a touch of wheels and it's over one bad day one bad night's sleep one bad meal it's over like think about three weeks in your day-to-day life and the things you do from stubborn toes on the bed getting into bed having a bad meal where your stomach's not great a bad night's sleep waking up with a headache dehydrated And that's you not even probably riding that much. And now you throw in all the, you know, dram of this sort of France, the stress to its sort of France, and then the physical exertion of the sort of France, that just amplifies the chances of anything happening. So to reduce the probability of, or to increase the probable chances of you having a good result in the sort of France, I don't see how you leave a player like Garand Thomas at home. So building for next year's Tour de France, me whole, because the narrative before this was, yeah, we can go and we can do a ride in the Tour, the Vuelta and the Jiro. And now they've had a bad tour. So it's all about next year's tour, which is, it's very, to say that, it's very dismissive of his team selection because he tried to say, you know, on team selection. So you know the Jiro, the Vuelta and the Tour, they're all equal races, which was bollocks, because we know they're not all equal races. in Oritor is clearly the prioritized race for teams, especially team Ineos. But now that it hasn't gone well, he's just completely dismissive of Froome and Thomas' chance in the world and the 0. So I don't like that. It's not a noise. And apparently he's on 5 million a year at Brailsford, which I heard. Where did I hear that? The Mill of Podcast, George N. Copy. One of the episodes, one of the nuggets of information I managed to catch in their 25 minute episode which is 19 and a half minutes of ads. Some good products but 19 and a half minutes of ads. Lads, come up brayer, come up brayer. Fuck. We had Aegon Bernal today in the Broome Wagon. That boy, you know, he didn't voice to hang on today. The GC is over for Bernal. He's the defendant champion. So I don't, there's no criticism attached to being in the Broome Wagon or no judgment. The Broome Wagon for anyone listening. It historically comes from the idea that there was a bus on the end of the road or a van and it was the last vehicle behind the last group on the road and it was used to metaphorically to sweep up riders. That's why it's called the Broome Wagon. So the Broome Wagon kind of rides are just above the time course. So you need to get in at 20% of the winner's time. So the winner crosses the finish line, then you take 20% of that, add it on and the last rider needs to be in before 20% as elapsed or else he's disqualified from the Tour de France. So the broom wagon will encourage people to stay ahead of that pace if they're falling behind the broom wagon. They're typically out of the race. Although if you're in an Irish race, there'd be some dubious tactics. I've heard stories of lads getting into the broom wagon. The broom wagon accelerating 20km down the road and they're us and then dropping someone else. But that's a story for another day and I could name names here but I won't. some funny stories out of races, but I think it's all above boards and races like the Tour de France with the Broome Wagon. But Egan Bernal was in the Broome Wagon, which is historically just sprinters. So we have our Sam Bennetts, our Caleb, Jones, our Peter Saagans, and they bring up the rear of the race in the Broome Wagon on mountain stages. I would say, Bernal was like the new kid in Skil, where he had to kind of learn the rules and introduce himself and all the other guys are kind of 74 kilograms and he's sort of this weird man-child at about 49 and 50 kilograms. So today it was first day at Skil for him. But he looked, being enjoying himself. He kind of had his big brother, Luke Rowell, with him, who was able to just kind of introduce him to the lads and tell him what was going on.
A roadman kyappa as we say here. So I said we had two races. We got that race for the stage win and then we had the second race. It really only started for this 2.2 kilometer climb on the call the meal and we had David Delacruas come from UAE Pogacha's teammate come right over the top and set a heavy tempo and it disrupted that lot of vis-ma train or the jumbo vis-ma train and that's what you have to do. You can't let them them ride their pace, you need to change it up, especially some of the engines like George Bennett and Tom Dumeland, they like that steady pace. Delicruz came over the top, whacked it, disrupted that pace and it definitely upset them, they weren't expecting it. But Wout Van Art, he just took control back. It's his 26th birthday today. The guy has the maturity of a 26 year old, he rides like a Valverde, he 77 kilograms, takes to the front of the a boy grace. On the last climb of the day when there's 20 guys left in the group and he just puts a pace on it where no one can attack and he completely, it must be so comforting and reassuring for Roglitch to have this kid there. He's the best boy handler in the world. He's the best, one of the best time trialists in the world. He's the best side-block roster in the world. I'm actually sick of talking about how good this guy is. I see him Willie Smith who was a podcast guest of ours, writes for B.H. Borghos was on talking about he time trial he can climb. I was like, Willy, lock up your girlfriend. If he can do that shit, he's gonna throw down. You need to keep her under luck and keep my friend. In the end, Pogacha, he attacked, but it was weak-ish. Lopez countered, he didn't get any time. I think you got a bike lint. We had out of the GC guys, we had Superman Lopez, Pogacha Roglish. We still have Pagacha trail in Roglich by 40 seconds on the general classamole, as Sean Kelly would say with Rigoberto Oran at 134, that's the big battle for the podium. Tomorrow is epic, it's 170km, there's so many pivotal stages, but you know when a stage starts in Grenoble that it's going to be brutal. We have two horse category climbs tomorrow, it's the only stage in this race where we have two horse category climbs and a summit finish again tomorrow. If Pogacha is gonna make his move, my prediction for the tour now, it's an Irish poet. Is it Yates? Someone will probably correct me on this. It's this saying and it's definitely applicable to my tour de France predictions that I hold strong opinions loosely. I think it's Yates, I could be wrong. Strong opinions loosely. I did say Bernal, I did say Roglage, I did say Bernal, now I move into Pogacha because I think that he's gonna just snatch and grab 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there, and we're set for the finale of all finales on this Call the Bell fail. Get your Google Calendar out now and block that Saturday off because you're not leaving home. That's a drinking in your boxer shorts, a 10am job, watching a full TT. It's gonna be epic. We have two horse category climbs tomorrow with the Call the Mad lane, which I've done some serious suffering on me self and training camps and then we have the horse category Merabelle called de la lose it's a stinker so tomorrow we're gonna have the jumbo vis-ma mutants hitting the front again and they're gonna try and control this Slovenian kid pogacha then the big fight behind it's Iran it's Lopez and it's Yates looking for that last step on the podium it's gonna kick off it's gonna be epic. I actually can't wait to chat to you guys on the roadman podcast tomorrow night. Until then, channel my saying that I have above my little podcast studio here. Do it now, head on over to that Patreon app, keep the support flowing for the podcast, make sure we're around for a long time to come. I really appreciate that. I love the idea of Patreon that it's crowd sourcing this support from multiple parties so we don't have just one influential party determined in this podcast so we can do things like call Astana, Mad Dopers, without consequences. We still have some loyal blogs. But don't worry about that. We'll talk about that down below. Roman, thanks for listening. And you know what, I'm going to be back again tomorrow. Ciao, Tia Ren.