It's stage 5 of the Tour de France drama drama drama, let's be having…
It's stage 5 of the Tour de France drama drama drama, let's be having you give 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 on this podcast, and give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Hello, man. Welcome back to another roadman sort of France show special. We're rolling on to stage 5 today and I'm not going to lie to you. It was uneventful for our large parts of the day but don't fear because there's high drama. There's high drama after the finish line which I'll reveal in one second. We rode 183 very, very slow kilometers. It was coffee stopped from gap to pre-vass. Before we even got started today, it was a couple of things to cut my eye. Roach is doing a Nicholas Roach friend of the show, is doing an article for Irish newspaper, the Irish Independent, and he had an interesting recollection of a conversation he had. It wasn't a conversation, I'm being polite. He had a spot in the bunch with one of the I keep calling them Lotto because they used to be sponsored by Lotto I think of the Jumbo Visma Reuters, Janssen. I want to talk to you about that in a second but before I jump in and talk about that and the rest of the drama, high drama I did mention. From today I want to draw your attention to our Patreon. Thank you guys for your continued support on Patreon. If you're one of our Patreons, if you're not yet a Patreon, please please please take one second and head over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz. That's how you fund the podcast. That's how you can show me we're going the right direction. You can show your appreciation. It's a small amount of cash. The pubs are closed at the moment. It's the price of buying like one beer a month. If you're getting some value from it, I wouldn't encourage you to go over there because your donations make all the difference. They really, really do, especially during the Tour de France, where does we're going daily every day a week so it's extra hosting costs, extra resources been pulled in. Okay, here we go. So, Nicholas Roach, I think he won't mind me saying, it's fair to call him a veteran of the palatons at this stage. He had a lot of who I don't even really know of him, honestly, Janssen from Yungbo-Vizma. Now, you get a bit of a swagger when your roguage's teammate, but this swagger is a bit uncalled for. He said Janssen barged into me from the roises he tried to cut on to the wheel on front of me. This was going into the penultimate climb, he said it really annoyed me. When you're riding in close proximity every day, bumps and barges off and happen accidentally, so I taught noting of it and I used my shoulder to bounce him off me. Then he started coursing that me calling me a fucking idiot. I politely informed him that he shouldn't speak to me like that and we traded a few insults in one of our separate ways. In the valley below, I noticed Janssen just in front of me. And with our little argument behind us, I went to shake hands with him. He Blanked me and kept riding. Boy, yeah, that doesn't sound good, but I suppose this is what happens in the bunch. I don't actually know yet, so I got to look them up and see what he's about. What he's about. The kids got some stones blank on one of the elder states, my Nicholas Roach. I've seen another interest in one. Tivo Pinot. Now we all know the French, they have, how do we put this nicely? A ponchant for the dramatic. But you know, apparently has been undergoing 3 hours, this to me sounds a bit unbelievable. 3 hours of treatment every evening on his back which is completely seized.
Team's doctor told Lequip it seems an extravagant amount of treatments
The team's doctor told Lequip it seems an extravagant amount of treatments. 3 hours of noise. Like is he eating his dinner on the massage table? Like the stage is finished at Foyev. Like they're back there. It just does not up for me. 3 hours of treatment sounds crazy. Who knows? Today was complete piano day and there's a couple of things I think you need to understand as to why these days come around. So often, potentially, while there's one of them today, we spoke about the tour potentially and then early with COVID. Now if you're a GC team like Inyos or Yumba-Vizma, in these transition stages, it's been tradition for years to let a big breakaway go, let it get 17 minutes a half an hour with the guys who can't climb for peanuts. The guys who are spat out and wants the serious race and starts. But you let one of these teams, one of the lesser teams of Kofas, take the jersey and then it's on to the end to defend the jersey. They're never going to defend it. So they defend the in vain through the easier transition stages and it saves the legs from the race favorites. It saves the race favorites in Yoss or Yumbo, potent riders on the front and defending a jersey all day, every day. That's what's happened a lot of the time. We didn't see that today and today was one of the stages I'd marked out as potentially a breakaway going and taking a huge amount of time and the jersey changing hands. It didn't happen for a number of reasons. The Peloton haven't been allowing these breaks to get time. So the race has been super hard up to this point and everybody just decided that you know what, The sprinters are so keen on this today. They're not letting any breaks get time. There's zero chance of a break going to the finish. So I'm not bothering me. Bullock's going out on the break all day and wasting my legs when I have no chance of getting to the finish. And because of that, we had a little bit of a stalemate all day. The second thing I think we need to consider is with the COVID situation and to potentially not making it all the way to Paris, I don't think the big team is wanted to let your unknown coalfitist roiter take 17 minutes because they might get the full three weeks of racing to chip away at that time which would normally be no problem once you get into the high mountains but I don't think they wanted to give that rope this year so it's been race slightly different. Just my top in his ward but what I made for was thankfully I had some work to be done and I had it on mute in the background but it made for some pretty painful view and I didn't listen of the commentators, but I would say they were telling stories about orchards, terrors, I say it was a local history lesson from the commentators to try and walk fans through that. It did start to poison up with about 20k a go, seppkuss, the young American protégé, I would say seppkuss' main lieutenant, depending on how Tom Dumeland's legs are. I had a bit of a get down, luckily for him it wasn't a get down, stay down, it was a get down, bounce back up with a bit of road rash. He got back in, ripped the jersey, you know, there's now, I love the way I comment headers and you know fans often trivialize crashes. It was an easy one. He didn't hurt himself. Every time you hit the ground at 30, 40 kilometers an hour, it hurts. If it doesn't leave coats, if it doesn't leave broken bones, that's great. But you fuck up your body, you fuck up your alignment, you fuck up cortisol levels, you're going to sleep poorly that night. There's no trivial crashes in a three week stage race where you're fighting for your life and every day you're doing the craziest things to get marginal gains to maximize your recovery.
Crash sets you back huge. Make no mistake about that
A crash sets you back huge. Make no mistake about that. A crash really affects you. So it's interesting. Except of course, and George Bennett now have both hit the deck recently and we're heading into quite a difficult stage tomorrow. So let's see how they go. Let's see how they come around. Any else had an attempt to whack in a cross tailwind at about eight kilometers to go. If anyone's not familiar, cross tail like riding full gas into a headwind, a team trying to split the bunch, it will never happen. Cross winds are where you can really do damage. So team Ineos smelt to change the direction. They were forced to react. They got there with AK to go. They got everyone organized, even Bernal riding through. It was a couple of splits, but not in major. And it reformed. Mark Hershey was actually dropped today in the run-in, the Cervelo, or Cervelo Call himself, is a Sunweb, Sunweb writer who went with the Alaphilippe attack on stage one, and who for the world looked to have amazing legs. He was only, I think he was 44 seconds down on the white chairs he had into today's stage, so he was well in the shake-up, but that unfortunately come to an end for him now. The point sprint wasn't an all-out, last sprint fest it was a slight little uphill on it but yeah it was basically it wasn't as much of an uphill as I taught it went I think from 200 meters to 270 meters in the last K so again 74 meters in the last K so pretty trivial but it was enough to slap legs of the real fast men like Kayla Mun and it was a real man's man strong man I don't know what this man can't do cyclocross world champion He can ride the classics, yesterday he's riding full gas up a cat-worn climb and spitting some of the best climbers in the world. Woutfanaart, powered home ahead of Ball who got an amazing lead out from Sunweb. And then we have Bennett, the Irishman, who took an intermediate sprint earlier in the day and that combined the best workplace finish was enough to wrestle the Granger jersey out of Saagans hands and on to an Irish shoulder. That's great great news. I'm sure there's a one talked about little rivalry between him and Saigon after Benus moved from Borahansgrove over to the Wolfpack. There's got to be a little bit of needle there because I know he got so little focus and so little attention on that team with Saigon. He so often played second fiddle, was an afterthought. That's got to be a chip on the shoulder, it's got to be great at you. I would have liked to see Benus sprinting for the stage win. It didn't feel to me like he sprinted for the stage win. talked about this yesterday if he keeps going for intermediates. I just don't see him getting the green jersey all the way to Paris. I just don't see him getting over the hills with Saigon, maybe he proves me wrong, but I would have way, way preferred to see him abandon taught to this green jersey and win the stage. It's something that'll just live, live long on the parmurs and live long in the memories of our cycling fans to win a stage in sort of Maybe it's common forum what opportunities like today. They don't come around too often. He was toward today He went for the intermediate and he won the intermediate Well, if I'm not going there that intermediate and he wins the sprint We're talking about tiny tiny margins at this level And I just think you got to be doing everything conserve that energy look on not Patrick LaFavour the quick step director He has his own bottle plan and Bennett's gone for intermediates. It's his decision. It's their own decision, but it's his decision So, there you go. Yumbo Visma must be a cool place to be at the moment. Woutvern Art winning today, Woutvern Art smashing shit to pieces yesterday on the last line before Sepkos took over and then Roglage winning the stage.
They just are a team with momentum, they're a team that must be great…
They just are a team with momentum, they're a team that must be great crack to be hanging out on the boss and they must just feel invincible at the moment and the real change in the regard from Inyost, Yumbo Visma, they're a team that has a swagger about them and hopefully that's why I continue because I'm really enjoying them. Now the big drama, Alifelip is the race leader from Adam Yates at four seconds from Roglicch at seven seconds or is he? Alifelip went away, he got his cheers, he posted pictures on social media, quick step even posted a picture of Ben and Alifelip on social media saying great day for the Wolfpack, entered a commissaries and some fucking horrible bastard of a video ref, they're only after going on fine and Alafleep a 22nd penalty for taking a bottle on the side of the road off of Swonior with 20km to go. They find them 20 seconds folks. Alafleep has been thrown out of the lead in the Tour de France for taking a bottle. A bottle. It's not like he pushed off a car, it's not like he drafted, it's not like he cheated, he took a bottle in the last 20k he's been fined 20 seconds. Now I know what you're gonna say it's against the Reels, it's against the Reels, it is. But it's a stupid fucking real, I'm finding them 20 seconds, find them some cash. You gotta find 200 Swiss francs as well. Our fleet is now down to 16th on GC. I can only imagine if you talk to Blacklives protests or the yellow vest protests were bad. The French are gonna be so pissed off with this. For me it's a joke, it's a complete disgrace. It obviously went to that committee, the Commissar's committee, and they found against them. But how they taught it was a good idea to strip the leader, the sort of France, of the jersey for taking a bottle. It's farcical, to be honest. So I really pissed off when I say that. Tomorrow's stage is stage six. It's La Teal to Mount Agal. It's 191 kilometers with two category tree climbs and then we've won quite a spicy climb at the end. It's a cat one climb called the Luzet. It's a GC day making no mistake. It's gonna be our second shake-up we've seen the GC. We've seen Rob Litch yesterday, the man was beast. We've seen how strong his team were. We've also seen George Bennett and Seb course hitting the deck in recent days. The Wolfpack aren't gonna be defending the jersey tomorrow because Alaphaleeb has been wrongly forward out of the jersey. What we do have now, and I'm delighted for the guys, I'm sure it's not the way they would have wanted to get it, but we have a friend of the show, Mark White from Mitchell and Scott. We have his boy, Adam Gates in the jersey, so the boys, I'm sure, are ferociously going to defend that jersey. Tomorrow's the stage, it's going to suit Adam anyway. It's interesting, it's interesting, I'm just so delighted we still have a tour de France to talk about every day. The race has been brilliant, the drama has been brilliant. I don't know what you're thinking, this podcast has been brilliant and if you're thinking that, jump on over to Patreon because that's the end of the show so it's my time to remind you to get on over to patreon.com. Buy me a point of beer, buy me a coffee and say thanks for doing what you do, thanks for sacrificing your time and researching this tour de France podcast. Guys, it's a pleasure to chat to you about Zweigling and I'm gonna be back tomorrow So, first thing, six of each one of us. Talk to you again.