1.Rest day is behind us

The rest day is behind us. It's stage 16, it's Tour de France and we're in the Alps. 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. Hello you beautiful roadman welcome back to another roadman podcast I just feel the need to be musical it's probably because I had a stifled musical use and my leaving search music teacher said to me looks on you just have no place in music you'd be better off taking geography and I listened to her and I did would have been bad to stick a fail on the leaving search just because I thought I could sing anyway we're past the rest day and we've dealt with the usual the usual I'm wearing a yellow jersey and I'm in France in the month of July so I need to answer a load of questions about doping. Felt a bit sorry for Pogacha and Roglitch having to answer questions all the time considering they've a clean slate so far there's some tenuous some no doubt I'm gonna get hundreds of DMs and Instagrams about these tenuous connections with a dopant doctor but we surely need to have an innocent to approve and guilty not a innocent people have to prove their innocence. Very difficult to prove a negative. That might be just my legal background, but very, very difficult to prove a negative and the lads have never done that so far. So I'm willing to trust and park that. Now, Astana and those boys, tortious fuckers around. So don't get me started on Vinicorov because I got a couple of DMs going, oh, but you criticize Sanchez and Astana and Vinacorov, but you don't criticize the Slovenians, very different. One has no history of the opening, the other has a pretty formidable history in doping. So here we go. Right, let's jump into stage 16 of the Tour de France, we're in the Alps, we're in the Alps and the drama, it's just built into a beautiful crescendo at the moment, much like a symphony builds to this crescendo, the Tour de France is doing the same and the Alps, are finishing peace. I cannot absolutely wait for the next week. Before I dive into this stage, I first want to remind you guys to head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh. The link is in the boil. Patreon's how I fund this podcast. And if you're getting some value from the podcast, pay me for my work. Give me the price of a coffee, give me the price of a beer. I'm not looking to become a rich man out of the but I'd love to make this a full-time sustainable venture where we can keep this podcast going indefinitely because I do feel we're on the coast with something special that it's touching people's lives and there's a place for this on the good earth. So please, I would ask you to support the podcast over on patreon.com. A link is in the bio. We're stage 16. We covered 168 kilometers today from La Tour de Pinta to Villar de Lons. We had some employment to deal with on the race today, but we had before we even got started the usual, the usual little bit of rest day round up stuff to get through. The one thing that stuck out for me, which I wanted to go through was Dave Brails for its comments. He said, we took stock at a situation on the rest day and nobody was looking more in the mirror than us. It's a test of pride, passion and character now to come back from this for the rest of the week. But as far as we are concerned, this is the first day of trying to win the Tour de France next year. To get something out of the race and maybe to do a few things we wouldn't normally risk doing, he referred to as in going into the last week of the race. I'd never judge myself on somebody else's narrative to be honest. This is around the speculation about Schutt-Froom and Grant Thomas have been brought to the Tour de France. He's doing a fantastic job, this is a frame. He's doing a fantastic job, getting back to where he needs to be on both fronts. We will go back and see what we can learn from this. Broughs were finished off by saying I don't gamble in relation to the form of room and Garand Thomas and yeah it's interesting because as soon as Bernal got dropped on the call of the Grand Colombia, as soon as Bernal got dropped anywhere, the critics were going to come out there, armchair 2020, hindsight critics were going to come out and say they shouldn't have built the whole thing around Bernal. I'm gonna be one of those armchair critics because I don't think you can hide before you find the fact that it's easy and hindsight.

2.Can also say this, you have a better chance, it's a probability game

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.

3.Let's get into the race and stop talking dribble

Right, let's get into the race and stop talking dribble. We had two races today. We had a race at the front of the race for the breakaway, which started out as a 34, man. I think it was the biggest break in this year's Tour de France, I stand to be corrected for that. Carapas from team Inios. Carapas who I've been a vocal critic of because the Netflix documentary painted them like a prick. So I haven't liked them since then. He looked arrogant, but then there's a part of me that warms to him because he's Ecuadorian. They love him over there, he's from a poor background and everyone loves that story of the underdog done well. So, you know, now I haven't said that, although I still think he's a prick. So, I don't like him, and I was rooting against him today. So, I was delighted when he got whacked over the last climb by Lenny Kamna. So, Howard broke down as Carapas. He was Mickey swinging all over the last climb. He was attacking people. Alifeliep looked like someone put a stick in his spokes going up the climb. He must have cramped, because he just blew his light. That left Carapas from Timmy and he else Reichenbach from Francis de Joux and Lenny Kanda, the 24 year old from Borahansgrove. At the front of the race Carapas hit it again, it's just Kanda and Carapas coming just to the top of the Cat 1 climb, then with a descent and a small finish up a cadre. I tell you it was 400-500 metres from the top of the climb, Kanda hit him on a counterattack after Carapas had been riding super hard and he just got them by 4 or 5 bike lengths, but there's such a good lesson here. It's known the strengths of your opponent. So this is why I always talk about it. This is a game of chess and Lenny Kamna knew he's a heavier rider. He can descend better than Carapaz, but he can't climb as well. So he knows he has a descent and then he has the valley to make that gap to give himself a buffer going into the last climb. So that's what he does. He gets himself four or five bike lengths with a vicious attack over the top of the cap one climb and then he pushes it on, presses it on the descent and it goes from four boy cleanse to four seconds to ten seconds and going into the base of the last climb he got himself a minute fifteen buffer on carapas and a minute fifteen buffer it was a 2.2 kilometer climb at 6.6 percent it was the call the meal carapas just gave up on it there was no if it had been 20 seconds we would have seen this at violent charge from carapas to try and close the gap but it just wasn't possible He built himself such a buffer. So the 24 year old who actually took his first career pro-victory in the Dauphane Only last month has added its horror france stage win onto his palmaras at the age of 24 It's absolutely incredible and Bora we talked about the other day They wrote 76% of the entire stage on the front of the bunch for Peter Sagann These guys have ridden time and time again for Sagann. We talk about how hard Sagann is on his soldiers on his troops So to see Lenny Kamna winning and to see him beating that little prick Carapas It was brilliant. It was brilliant Carapas hung on for a second Riking back got toward place Sivikov for Inyos was forward which is interesting because we remember the fourth stage in the called the Ease It feels like it was younger back then Like what was that two weeks ago? It feels like it was two years ago up to call the Ease that wet day whenever he was crashing Sivikov hit the deck twice Real bad crash as he was lucky to finish within the time called that day He seems to be coming around the little and he was in the break today It's the four signs of life he's saying and our very own friend or show mr. Nicholas Roach He was eight on today's stage having been in the breakaway all day What was interesting from today's win from Lenny Kamna was it's the eight First time stage winner we've had on this year's Tour de France So, a little bit of a trivia question for you, Roadman out there. I'll give you a little Roadman Cup. You obviously got to be following me on Instagram because if you're not following me on Instagram, I won't see that you've sent me a DM. So follow me on Instagram and send me a DM and tell me the Order 7. So Lenny Kamna has won Force Time Stage winner. I'll give you a second. It's Hershey. So now all you got to do is name me the Order 6 and if you're the first person to do that, I'm gonna give you a roadman cap.

4.Roadman kyappa as we say here

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.