Van der Poel's emotional yellow jersey
It's stage 2 of the Tour de France and Machu van der Paul has made history. Row men, let's keep that 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. Roman, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast where here daily for the duration of the Tour de France and what an unbelievable stage today. If you're a fan of the sport, if you're a fan of the history and the romance of the sport, it's a day that would have just given you goosebumps, it's here in the eye and a lump in the throat. The grandson of the late, great Raymond Poulador has taken the Moyer-John in the Tour de France in honour of his late grandad and honestly chokin back to tears as Machuveander Paul on the finish line said, imagine how proud he would be. I have no words, I'm thinking of my grandad, of course, before breaking down. What a fantastic day and I'm sure today we've just grabbed so many neutrals who are kind of exploring and seeing what this sport is about and we've just brought them across and indoctrinated a whole new generation of cycling fans who are just captured and cultivated by how much this means to so many people. What an absolutely epic stage before I jump into a roadman just a reminder about Patreon. Patreon's how I fund the podcast Patreon is, you know, our model it's, it, I've been saying it's one of soundness and it really is. That's the best way of describing it. So many podcasters now put their podcast behind paid firewalls like luminary or patreon Like a full patreon paid firewall where you can only get access to it when you pay five euro a month I've chosen not to do that because I want to get the podcast out to everybody regardless of the if they can afford it or not But the only way this works is If you're enjoying the podcast and you can afford to pay me a little something for my work If you'd see me out on the street, if you'd see me in celebrating the town yesterday, buy me the price of a point to beer once a month and pay me for my work. And that's what keeps the podcast rolling for free for those who can't afford to pay for the podcast. So in that way, that's why I call it a model of soundness and how you can do that. It's on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Welsh. We had 183 kilometers from Perox to the Murr the Britannia. The more famous climb, obviously we had Kedel Evans winning up there in 2011, we've had Dan Martin winning up there. In that way it's kind of a climb that's almost a battle between the GC Reuters and the Punchers, the Ardent hype classics Reuters, your Valverdes. It's two kilometers at 6.9%. But really the hustle today for a position started around 23k to go when we're seeing Quick quick step coming to the front and none other than 30 time Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish appeared on the front of the Peloton in Super domestic role Cav position in Alifaleep and again that just adds to how beautiful this sport is that there's no Eagles that somebody the greatest Tour de France stage winner of all time is riding on the front of the bunch to position the yellow jersey there's something so brilliant about that. With 18k to to go. We're saying Tony Martin from Yumba-Vizma dropping off, haven't done a lot of work. We're also saying Chris Froome dropping off after he's fought so hard over the past two years to get back. Then your heart couldn't go out to Chris Froome yesterday. When he hit the deck and he was in, if you look on his Instagram, he was in hospital late last night getting the results of scans.
Froome's grit and Van der Poel's attack
He started this morning as he called it round two. He had For every reason in the world to step off, every excuse is covered. He's big build up, he's not perfect, not back to 100% and then he hits the deck in a high speed crash. If you wanted an all about Frolem's character, you got everything you need as an all today but I'm taking the start line. So hopefully he heals up and hopefully we see him at the pointy end of the race. The brilliance of today is race and the brilliance of Machuva and Rappal. It started with 16.7k to go when we tackled the more for the first time because it was too a sense of the more this year. And even it was funny because I was watching, I'm not sure where you get your coverage, but I was watching on EuroSport and the commentators done such a bad job of explaining something that seemed so obvious. Vanderpaul attacked with 16.7km to go. He clearly attacked for the time bonuses and there's talk of oh can you hold this to the finish? There's teams with multiple riders still there? He had no intention of holding it for the finish. He went for the time bonuses. It showed the confidence of Vanderpaul that he thought he could get the time bonuses and still win the stage, which is what he needed to take the Yellow Jersey. And just his awareness to go for that. And it was brilliant. And we're seeing this clash at the moment of the likes of Vanderpaul, Paul Gacha, Welt Van Ert. These, a little bit of pick-up as well when we see him about racing. They're racing like Junior's race. racing, carefree, allofolip. Somebody's got, they surf wheels very well, you never see Vanderpaul with the big leading into these climbs, you kind of surf surround and we've seen that from allofolip today a little. And you contrast that to ineos, they're like stormship troopers and they line up and ineos were super strong. I think they had like six or seven guys, like the full ineos squad in between after the Mordahoy and the the cat for and before the last ascent of the Mordhoy. So so strong keeping Garand Thomas in position with T.O. Gagan hurt, with Richie Porte, with former world champion Kiekovsky and they're all just lined up. But then as we take the turn into the Mordhoy with 2km to go, it's a nasty right hand there. As we take that turn, Garand Thomas disappears and I'm not sure where he goes. And then he doesn't pop up till the finish line when we see that he's lost another 17 So honestly this really isn't looking good for any else at the moment. Thomas losing 17 seconds today Poor Theo Gagan hurt and Carapaz all last time yesterday And when you couple that with Pogacha and Roglitch I've taken time bonuses at every opportunity We're day two in and any else are not in a good spot But let's get back to that Machu van der Paul attack because it was one kilometer to go and And Sony car Brelley went, Vanderpaul, he looked like to me, wanted almost too much, he was covering everything, Sony car Brelley went and it was the perfect launch pad 1k to go and he hit it with mad violence and that's a lesson for anyone watching. When you're going, when you're attacking, it's pure anger and violence you need to go with, it's not this apologetic attack, if you've seen his power foil, he went 14, 1500 watts trying to rip the handlebars off. And on one occasion he actually did rip the handlebars off that canyon. But that's another story and we're assured that it's fixed at the moment. So when he went it was just impossible. It was like him and Raymond Pooley, the Orpheadle and the boy. There was no catching him. He went and at the finish line he had six seconds from Paul Gacha with Roglich also on six seconds and Kilderman and six seconds but Alfa Leep had eight seconds.
GC battle and Cavendish's sprint chance
Roger and Rod just seem to be marking each other, trading off, time bonuses, Roglic took them yesterday, Pogachia took them today, it's that shaping up to be a really spicy GC battle. But when we added it up on the finish line, we added the bonuses from the first time up the more, we added the time bonus for winning the second time and the gap, it meant Machu Vanderpaul took the Mauser-John and he was so so proud after his grandad had stood on the podium I think eight times and never taking the Moyo Jean what a beautiful way it was to honor his memory yesterday we had the tribute kits from Alpason Phoenix to Raymond Poulidore the old-school Mercier yellow slaves and there was a lot a lot of pressure on him and he didn't deliver yesterday but today he delivered in spades we had Julian Alifleap now at eight seconds back on GC with Pogacha at Tordin, Rovica Tordin and Luca Kilderman who people don't really talk about that much but he's under the radar and he's at 24 seconds. Tomorrow is going to be a super interesting stage and one that again the romance and the beauty of this sport, it's Cavendish day. Like can Cavendish go for a stage win number 31? He's not the favourite, I would have to say Caleb Ewan is probably the fastest man in the world at the moment, maybe outside Sam Bennett but whether he has you know injury problems or he has problems with his mentality as we're led to believe we don't know at this point hopefully Sam comes back we all want to see him back at his fight and best but for the moment we have a straight show down tomorrow I think between Cav, Bling, Sagan, Caleb, Caleb off the back at two girogial stage wins you would have to say he's the favourite but if you look at Cav's win in the Tour of Belgium last week his wins in the Tour of Turkey were impressive and it was Cav back But his win in the tour of Belgium was more impressive because we had Malik there, we had Caleb there, we had Greipel there, all the big hitters there and Cavwan. So that's got to give a massive confidence. We know what Michael Markoff and that Quickstep lead out team that they can deliver a ride are super well in the finish. It's got to be interesting the tour has just been absolutely phenomenal. We're only two days in and we've had that Alifleep amazing win yesterday, the craziness of that crash and the potential law. Like I believe they're appealing to the public to identify the girl with the cardboard yesterday. I'm sure that's going to run and run. Today we've the Machu van der Pooh, Raymond Poole, the door honoring his memory. And now tomorrow let's see if Kav can do it. Roadman, I actually have to choke back the tears when I heard MVP today saying imagine how proud he would be. Imagine how proud he would be indeed. Chappo Machu Van der Poel. Roadman, I'm gonna chat to you again tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoidglings.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the that's roadmancycling.com slash 14 day