It's stage 17 of the Tour de France and honestly that was one of the…
It's stage 17 of the Tour de France and honestly that was one of the hardest climbs I've ever seen in my life. Let's cue it out of the intro. The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. Rolbmann! Welcome back. It was stage 17 of the Tour de France, a 170-kilometre challenge which took us from the beautiful Alpaine village of Grenoble to Col de Lise. I called the loose, called the lease, however you pronounce it, my French. It's let me down ultra the tour. I'm going to have to go on French classes before the tour next year. And all this from man who used to live in France, so here you say. Because you might notice sometimes at the beginning of the podcast, I appear a little out of breath. So I'll let you in on a little secret. I got a while ago. I actually, I'm not going to claim any credit from this. The grave motivational speaker Tony Robbins spoke about how when you just need, when you got to speak, when you need to speak, when you need to motivate people, when you need to connect with an audience, you need to show up in a state of flow. And he said, one of the tricks for changing your state is jumping on a trampoline just before you start talking. You can't come on to a stage on to a podcast and be like, Hey, it's stage 17 and it's sort of runs. You're joined by Brian Smith on EuroSport where my crap Scottish accent and my t-shirts that don't fit and they're all the same design with different colors. What's going on with Brian Smith's t-shirts? That's what I need to get off my chest here. I need a little section called What Grines My Gears. His Scottish accent is barely tolerable but he has a smug head that you just want to punch off his shoulders. He is probably the nicest guy ever but yeah I can't take it. He has the same t-shirt in three different colours and it's too small for him. It's easily, it's the size he used to wear when he used to race. So yeah, sort that out, you're a sport, sort that out, brine smit. Anyway, I have a mini trampoline here and I jump on the trampoline. Like just for 20 seconds, it's called a bellicon. It's awesome, it's like an indoor trampoline before you're wondering do I have like 24 salons and live in some sort of castle. No, live in quite a humble apartment with regular soy salons and the trampoline is the job. So I would encourage you. If you're a podcaster or a man who needs to speak, zoom calls, everyone's gonna be on these before zoom calls. Let's dive into stage 17. But before I do, let me remind you all to head on over to the good sponsors of this podcast, patreon.com, patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore which that's what funds the podcast to the France. It's a marathon for the Reuters, but also it's a marathon for me and logistically, infrastructurally everything it's put more strains on editing more strands and hosting more strands on time research. Well, bore you, etc, etc. But what I do need is your support and your generosity to keep the podcast going. If you think it's a valuable podcast and it deserves a place in our beautiful cycling ecosystem, I would encourage you to head on over to Patreon and please support the podcast. So before we start, as always, let's wrap up yesterday and sort of what happened before the stage started. Eigen Bernal has abandoned the Tour de France. It's big news, but we kind of expected it. He had a pretty tragic show and yesterday and we're kind of speculating did he have to introduce himself as the new kid to the big 80-heelock fast man. Yeah, he obviously didn't get on well on school. So he said to his, man look, you know what? I don't want to go back to that school tomorrow. Can I go home to Columbia where I'm an absolute legend? And they said, yeah, you know what? You can go home and you can come back to school next year.
That's what he's doing. Bernal is out of the Tour de France
So that's what he's doing. Bernal is out of the Tour de France. Intermediate sprint today, most of the points were Hoover, up boy, our breakaway. But we had our own Sam Bennett, increasing his lead over Saigon by two points. Bennett gets up in the sprint, Saigon gets up in the sprint. It's just tiny amounts of points changing hands at the moment. But in a race that's going all the way to the war, who knows those little two points are preferred to have them, then to be losing them. Our main break of the day on what was an incredibly hard look and day where we finished up to call the, like I don't even know how to pronounce I call the Lowe's El Ozidi. We finished up to call the Lowe's. Stacklime was epic. It was like a wall. But we were over called the Madeline before that two horse category climbs in one stage and the breakaway that animated the day it was the fans favorite. And I know a favorite is podcast and he never comes in for any criticism. It was Carapaz. To be fair to Carapaz, he looks super cool on the bike. He's a very stylish looking boycrowder, especially when he's climbing. With the housewives favourite, Yule and Aleph Aleep, we had Inyoste from Astana, we had our very own Dan Martin and we had yesterday's winner, Kamna. So he was obviously buoyed and didn't have too much champagne overnight because he was out of the game. Kamna was dropped. Dan Martin managed to get himself dropped under the scent. Like there's a lesson in there for everyone listening. You gotta be able to go downhill as well as uphill. skills are as important as strength. The break didn't stay to the finish. If that break had a stay to the finish, which it should have, it was just the Bahrain Marida took it up into the bottom of the call the Lees and they really narrowed that gap down. That break should have stayed for the day and Dan Martin lost out on a potential Tour de France stage win because he couldn't go downhill. That's pretty shit. You need to be practicing that sort of piece. Normally not as bad at the center as that, but I don't know what happened. Julian Alaphilippe is a particularly good descender, but that's really not an excuse. We had this climb that I'm talking about the finishing climb that called the Lees, and it's never been in the Tour de France before, but a little interesting piece of trivia. It was in the Tour de Lavaneer last year. The Tour de Lavaneer is a tour of the future. We often see riders who are going to make an impact in the Tour de France stage forced making an impact in the Tour de Lavaneer. We'd like Powell's Civic Off as a previous winner, and I'm sure we're going to see him step up with Eigem Bernal as a previous winner, then it's sort of France winner. So to illustrate how difficult this last climb was, Sean Kelly in his brilliant Irish mannerism, as only Sean Kelly can say, he said, the road is so steep that you can touch the road with your forehead, as you're slightly open. Gearing wise, the guy is for this, I would say, you're looking at on a regular road bike that you're out riding on a Sunday. We have two chain rings on the front. The number denotes the number of teeth on the chain ring. So we have a 50-tree as the big, your big dinner plate ring and with a 30-nine for your inside. That's pretty standard. We actually call that standard 50-tree, 30-nine. And then on the back you'd have a spread like something like 11-25. With 11 being your hardest gear, 25 being your easiest gear. So your hardest gear on the bike to pedal is your 5311. Your easiest is your 3925. Now the gearing for this climb the guys have gone with non-standard gearing so most of them I've seen on Instagram were running a 36 on the front and a 30 on the back. A gear that basically you could cycle up the side of a house with. It barely like you wouldn't be able to cycle on a flat road with this gear but it's interesting to see that gear choice because pre-lanternstrong era. Like you were taught to be a complete sissy, you were a furry if you changed your gears down, it was the manly thing to grind up hills.
That's all changed, I know everybody's spinning up these crazy gears
But that's all changed, I know everybody's spinning up these crazy gears. And we've seen Karapas doing that because he dropped Alafelib in Osti, Dan Martin dropped himself and Karapas, he put in a big fight, spinning away in his little gear. Bahareem Marita came over the top, they just took control of the race from the Madeline and Bahrain Marita hit the front, Rod Elling's worth is a DS and Bahrain Marita now, Rod Elling's worth if you're not familiar with the name, has come over from the team, any else team Skye that had all the success, so he knows a Ting or two about controlling the race. He didn't sit back and wait because everyone has been sitting back and waiting for Yumbel Visma to take control of the race and he said you know what, no, I'm going to upset the apple card here and he stuck the boys on the front and they don't have a super job. They tore the race to shreds, the only problem is, they tore their own team later and make a lander to shreds as well because just as his last little soldier boy pulled over and you would expect that explosive lander attack, lander actually managed to get himself dropped. Nevertheless that shouldn't undermine the correctness, correctness is that a word? It is, we're making wards up on the roadman podcast, it shouldn't undermine the correctness of that decision by Baharem Reeder to take control of the race because they neutralized Yumbo Visma as Reuters like George Bennett, Wout Van Art who he spoke so highly of. They got dropped, these lads were dropped by the tempo Baharem Reeder were setting. Awesome. Then we had David De La Creos really loin the touch for a paper to tee up Pogacha and the only ones initially that could follow were, well I'll tell you who couldn't follow first, Lamba obviously got himself dropped, Yates couldn't follow, Iran couldn't follow. Iran interestingly doesn't ride with a heart rate or a power meter or a speed sensor. Must be the only rider in the pro peloton to not use any of those things. That's an interesting trivia question. And when we're on the subject of trivia questions, I posed the question yesterday to seven Tour de France first time stage winners this year. And I didn't number you guys entering that contest and I had a winner which I announced on my Instagram. So he will be getting a roadman cap. We're going up to eight today with Superman Lopez winning, which will unpack out, I'll happen in a second, but Superman Lopez winning the stage, we're going up to eight. And assuming the history books don't come back and take that stage off them for being a Dopin' cheese, we'll stay at eight so far in this year's Tour de France. So we will see, time will tell. I'm not saying he's a Doper, I'm saying he has a head like a Doper. very, very different. Okay, that's a very different distinction. Not labeling the man of the over saying he has a head like someone who is a dober. So Lopez attacks and it puts people into all sorts of problems. Sept-cous, pogacha, roglage. They're the only one who can follow. Richie Porte makes a brief sort of attempt with like an elastic band between him and the group on front and he came in and he went back and he came in and he went back and eventually it snapped. And in the finish we actually had this kind of time trial nearly separated with Lopez at the front of the race Roglic Chase and Pogacha Chase and him. It was epic. It was amazing TV. The climb kicked up to 24% at parts and 24% for anyone that's like watching this and they're riding out on a train and ride. 24% is something you would contemplate getting off and walking on. It's It's that bad. It's ridiculous. It almost serves no purpose to build a road that's deep. But the boys are just so good. They're so light. They're so powerful. It just, it breezes up and it's beautiful to watch. The fans were out in droves today and I don't know if that's a good thing given COVID. Most of them seem to be wearing masks. The French president was at the finish line. We have paid fans running B so I think it was Carleton Kirby in commentary set.
Something about your man's not even wearing a mask
That something about your man's not even wearing a mask. He's dressed as a dinosaur, and that's what we're focusing on, that he's not wearing a mask. But that's the year we're living in, and the fans had been called on to respect the Reuters by wearing masks, but it seemed to have partially went through. It's difficult. I've been on both sides of defense as a racer, not at those all points staged in Tour de France, but with fans out of races, and I've been a fan over in Alpe de West a couple of years ago. And like as a fan, your mentality is a priority mentality for the day out at Boyc Race. You're drinking from early in the morning, you're having the crack and restraint and clapping. It's a different crowd to the horse race. I'm like, it's, so Eclan is a working class board across Europe and it attracts a crowd that don't take themselves too serious. So yeah, I don't know. I think it's, you need to shut the mountains If you don't want people to do that stuff, shut down the access to them getting up there because you're going to have crowds. You really are. We had Pragacha at the finish line, which I taught was a super cool attitude. I just want to read out the quote from saying he lost a few seconds on the climb, but it was a really hard climb. I gave him a best, the team gave their best. We got to our place in the day to show off. The tour is not over, so anything can happen. I can win or I can lose the podium. We'll try. That's brilliant, isn't it? So yeah, that's brilliant. I don't even know if we need to unpack that one anymore. I can win or I can lose the podium. He's going for it. He's second in the Tour de France, and he's 22 years old and he's like, fuck it. I'm gonna go for the win in the stage at Tour de France. Now, talk is cheap, so hopefully he follows that up and actually does attack it because he's got a scintillating day tomorrow to attack. So we're starting off in Meribel tomorrow. We're going 175 kilometers. We've caught one climb over Roseland. We've caught Tree climb. We've a Cat 2 climb, over call. The CSA, we've a Cat 1 climb. Then we've a horse category climb on the Monte de Plateau. Like it's an epic, epic day tomorrow. Like I can't wait for it. So, so hard. And it's been a feature this year's Tour de France that it's just epic day after epic day. But if Pogacha goes into it with that attitude that he's displayed there tomorrow is gonna be another epic day. I'm retaining up this big finale on Saturday. That's what we all wanna see. I'm not actually that bothered if it's Pogacha wins, if it's Roglic wins, but let's just heal this finale. It's gonna be absolutely awesome. So today finished out with Lopez winning the stage. We'd Roglic 15 seconds back, Pogacha 15 seconds back. Sept Coos interestingly has come around after a great start and a bad middle week. He was four to Richie Porter's fifth. Great day for Columbia. What can I say? Superman Lopez, top step at a podium, It's propelled him into toward placing the general for classification So we have Roglich now and Pogacha gave away a few seconds. So he's back at 57 seconds still in striking distance and we have Lopez rounding out the podium. He's at 136 It's real real interesting It's finally finally poised and I for one cannot wait for tomorrow stage And please just set that finale for us guys before you head off and go about your merry day I would encourage you to head on over to patreon.com forward slash You know what I forget it's talk about so much patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch there you go. That's a tongue twister That's like one of those things you have to say it like six times really fast patreon.com for such anything There's a girl was really around. I'm gonna do guys enjoy your ride and I'm gonna talk to you tomorrow