Final stage and Paris love letter
It's the sprinter's world championships, the final day of the Tour de France. 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 changes? That is the question, this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch, and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Rolman, welcome back to another Rolman Cycling Podcast. It is the last of this year's Tour of France and I wasn't witchy yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to do a podcast on the TT and I flagged that at the outset that the vestige was just too boring, like the TT that I wasn't coming. But we're back today for the sprinters world championships and we're finishing and you guessed this, Ula la party. I absolutely love Paris, the city that I've spent a little bit of time on. I've never raced in Paris, never had the opportunity and the privilege of riding on the Champs-Elysées, that is reserved for the tour de France and I think it's the only time of the year it's closed. I have raced all over France but I've got to spend a little bit of time in Paris and I love it. If anyone hasn't been to Paris, I'd highly recommend it. And don't mind the stereotypes you hear. The French people are rude, or they're arrogant, or they're ignorant, or they're not welcoming of tourists, French. Some of the warmest, most beautiful, most caring, kindest people I've ever met are from France. And I was treated amazingly in my year racing over there. Highly recommend getting to France. Anyway, I diverge. Before I jump into the full podcast, let me remind you about the Patreon. Patreon's how we fund the podcast all the way to the Tour de France. Some of you guys jump on board and decide to buy me a beer to say thanks for the Tour de France. Now's your chance. Jump in, get me that beer if you've listened to the Tour de France podcast and you've been sitting back, I get so many messages on Instagram talking about how to enjoy the podcast. Let's translate that into Point of Beer. So I can go on the beer. So over on patreon.com, the link's in the bio, it's forward slash Anthony underscore watch by me a price of a point of beer there once a month. So what I noticed this morning is, Jakob Fugelsang was a DNS, did not start on the final day at the Tour de France and considering 90% today is a procession. And if you're new to cycling, this will probably baffle you. The people are announcing that Tajé Bogacha has actually won the Tour de France yesterday. Well, in fact, I announced that he won after week one, but that might have been a bit premature. But he actually won the Tour de France yesterday, but it's rubber stamped today. Tradition has us that we don't race on the last day. That it's photos, it's champagne, and they've raced hard for three weeks. So it's kind of a little bit of a wind down into Paris. And then when they get to Paris, they race full gas, the circuits, really for the sprinters. But you can lose the Tour de France. I don't think there's precedent for it, but you can lose the Tour de France on the last day. If you crash, take a risk into a corner, come down and the racing's on. No one's waiting for you. You will lose the Tour de France. It's never happened. And that's why we announced because there's no racing. It's not that Urgy Bargie at all until we get into Paris that we announced the winner. But so Jakob Vugelsang had, you know, what, 30 kilometers of hard riding to do today and he didn't start. And he said it's because of the COVID vaccine that he's been feeling completely drained during the Tour de France. He said, I feel limited and I'm not able to push my body I normally can. Now he was pretty pants, I think 24st was his best stage placement, that was on the 4th stage of the tour. And bear in mind this is a guy who finished tour overall and the tour swiss just before the tour behind Carapaz and Rigobert over Ran who were both very prominent in the GC battle. So yeah we definitely know something happened with Theodgle Singh and yeah look the Covid vaccine is going to affect performance and some surprise morgoids haven't come out with it. It's completely experimental on many levels, but definitely for these athletes that control every single thing that's gone into their body. And they understand the reaction and everything's been split tested a hundred times to add a variable in the build up to the Tour de France that they haven't tested before. It seems a little bit reckless and I listened to Lance Armstrong on the move last week and he was saying if he was preparing for the Tour de France, there is no way in hell that he would have been getting a COVID vaccine and run up to the Tour de France. It's back for it on Fugelstein, but what I don't get is why he didn't just finish today.
Cavendish misses record and mechanic outburst
I don't, there's no, there's no one like I'm sick. He said he was going to prepare for Tokyo and let the body recover. Bizarre that you wouldn't just chalk up another Tour de France like completion, lap around France instead of being an abandoned Tour de France when you're already doing all the hard work. That was bizarre. The Spring Terrace World Championships today anyway, obviously Cav was going for that record. It was 35th as the record. He's equal at Eddie Merck's at the moment, going into the stage. And he didn't equal the record. There was a lot of pressure on Cav going into a Woutfener, done at Harry Jasper Phillips and then Cavendish rheumming out the podium and toward. He might have got a little boxed in, but honestly, I think normally the finish line is, you come out of that last corner, you come around that sort of sleepy left and then into the right. And normally the finish is 200 metres from that really corner slowed uphill. But this is the fourth year they've moved the finish to 700 meters in the corner. So we didn't see the mad battle for the corner like previous years, but that longer uphill finish on the cobbles, I think suited a more powerful rider like Wout Van Art. I think you couple that with all the pressure Cavendish has of going for the record. And this mental video that emerged yesterday of Cavendish shouting and abusing his mechanic because it looked like his headset was tight before the race. I'm not sure if you haven't seen this. It's all over social media. I've shared it over on romance, I can learn Twitter as well, asking people what they think and there's huge reaction to it. And it almost seems like every Silicon fan in the world has seen Cavnish being a completely arrogant wanker. There's no other word to it. Now I get that he's in the heat at the moment and I get he's gone for the record and I get his fiery as a character and you've listened to the podcast and you know, a lot of time for Cav and his comeback and it's been the story that's heard of France for me in a lot of ways, but there's just no excuse for talking to anyone like that. Like it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. And he came out with an apology, which was, you know, if I'm the mechanic, like fucking stick your apology up your hole, like, you know, you've abused them in public, like regardless of it's in public, I probably would have, but it should never happen. But yeah, look, I was very conflicted today watching the finish, because I've been a big car fan of ridden my car, I like them. And yeah, I wanted them to get the record all true, the tourable today. I was a little bit conflicted. I actually wanted Andrei Greueple to win today's stage because it's his last hortifrant stage ever. The gorilla has announced his retirement. So, calf didn't win it. Look, it didn't make me happy. He didn't make us my kind of copy, probably. Yes, did it make any miracles happy? Yes, did it make Sam Bennett happy? I'm sure it did. But yeah, I don't think it made me happy. I wouldn't go that far, but I just, I don't know how to feel about it. I've obviously said and done stuff in the heat moment that I'm not proud of and you know we can't judge anyone on our weakest moment but it was just it was shit to see from Kav. Well to fanart won today sprinters world championships he won yesterday's TT and he won the double-vont-2 stage. If that's not the definition of an all-rounder I don't know what is. After the stage he said this tour it's been such an amazing rollercoaster to finish it off this weekend referring obviously to the TT in the sprint it's beyond expectations a victory like this is priceless thanks to my incredibly small team, especially Mike Tounison, who delivered me into a perfect position. Textbook, Tounison delivered him perfect, without executed perfectly. It was a brilliant sprint. It sealed him. He went deep in yesterday's TT to get the win and then to win off the back of that today. It's really breathtaking how good this lad is. We can never get away in cycling from when somebody pulls out performances. We're living in the spectre, the shadow of a generation of doping with the Armstrong era and the scandals EU s postal and Bjorn Reese and Mr 60% and even the Miguel injury and even into Contador and the clampedeur all stuff. So as fans, especially fans who have lived through that, I feel like were the most skeptical sports fans in the world and when these performances do come out Tajé Pogacias, like 10 months ago he won no Tour de France because of the time in the Tour de France been later and now fast forward 10 months and he's won two Tour de France's and six jerseys two King and Amelst two white jerseys and two yellow jerseys. Napoleon Cav's comeback, You put in Wiltwinn and Von Two stages at 78 kilograms, Sony Calbrelli is suddenly the best climber in the fucking world.
Motor doping rumors and team dominance
How did that happen? And it adds up to four teams which have an incredible dominance on this order France this year. I think 18 teams got nothing out of the race and four teams got everything out of the race. Four teams with an incredible dominance in the sport. And then we have yesterday, we Reuters coming out who haven't identified themselves. So we're not sure who it is or the weight or gravity to attach to these claims But there's Reuters apparently coming out saying that they're hearing strange noises from the rear wheels of these four teams and the rumor that Cycling news have reported this so don't you the messenger here with me the rumor that cycling news From the anonymous sources are saying that it's Formula 1 uses it's not it's not motor doping Formula One uses a technology where it takes the historic inertia from breaking and redistributes this inertia for the effect of a motor. And that's what I think has been claimed to happen at the moment. Now I don't know the validity of this. Some of that stuff is worrying. Caves come back when it's amazing fairy tale on one level, but the Armstrong thing, it's just hard to be so skeptical of fairy tales. sales. Without fanart climbing, like insane. Like when you think about some of the climbers that specialise with this that are born at altitude, they can't go without any 78 kilograms, some of these dudes are 58 kilograms, that's mental. For me, Sony Cabrali is the worry in one and Sony Cabrali climbing that well. The Victoria, or sorry the victorious, Maria the victorious team, where their police raided their hotel, they took training and foils, they've taken all sorts of data, seized phones. That's the worrying one for me. And we digester with Mahay Mothrich two days ago, crossing the finish line with the classic Armstrong Zip it symbol. So yeah, I just think I think this is going to run and run. I hope, Hope as a Cyteland fan I hope the bottom of my heart that this is not another dopant scandal. We cannot take another dopant scandal. The sport cannot take it. Taji Pogacha, please the god if it comes out that. Just motorized open with Jumbo, UAE, Quickstep and Bahrain victorious. Like, this board is just, it's so fucked, it's setting us back so far. So hopefully these are unsubstantiated realmers and we're in a weird spot in cycling where you're guilty until proven innocent. It's almost a reverse burden and it's a strange place to be but it's the place we find ourselves in nonetheless because of the checkered past. So that's the only sort of sour note I suppose in this year's Tour de France and I would normally put head in the sand but that type of stuff, but history's taught us we can't do that. The Tour de France has finished all those accusations are just that at the moment, baseless accusations. There is no confirmed wrong dealing from any writer and we have what looks to be the talent of a generation coming through and Tajé Pogacha winning his second Tour de France on the bounce also claiming the mountains jersey and the young Royal jersey. Jonas Vindegard from Denmark from Yumbovismar rider in his main debut Tour de France getting second and the Snake Carapas filling out the podium, forced Ecuadorian ever to get on a podium, roided at Tour de France from me, Beno Conner, 10 minutes and two seconds back and without his spectacular blow up on the Vontou stage, he would have been on the podium from Ajit D'Azir, Citroën, Waterroy from him and Wilco Kalderman rounds out the top five. Folks, that has been the Tour de France 2021. There's been some highlights, there's been some lowlights, there's been some absolutely unbelievable performances, especially Machuve under Paul illuminating the race early and then there's been some painfully boring stages. It's all in another year, to the front, folks I'll be back with regular Roadman podcasts starting back tomorrow. So until then, ride safe and chat to you then. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join and 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 kickstart 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 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 masters, 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 roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.