Pogačar's TT Demolishes GC Rivals
It's like Deja Vu, Mark Cavendish does it again. Stage 6 victory in 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 and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. Roman welcome back. It's another Roman Tour de France podcast. I didn't come to you yesterday I did flag this at the outset of the tour if there's a stage It's just so desperate that I can't bring the bear commentary on it I'm not gonna commentate on it because I just think it's a waste of your time and it's a waste of my time and Honestly the TT as much as I like to geek out and nerdy on the tick. I I am aware that, like I like watching it, I enjoy watching because I love seeing the positions, the hand positions, the head positions, the helmet, bike setups, but I am also aware that it is like watching paint dry. So instead of covering what I'm going to do is just briefly recap the results because although it is boring as shit, it is very impactful on the general classification. For maybe regrettably, Pogacha blitzed us in 32 minutes with Stefan Kong's second vinegard at 27 seconds, which is a Roy and a half from the Yumbo Vismekid. Wout van Ert at 30 seconds, Machu van der Poel will come back to that in a second, would arguably be the Roy to the day at 31 seconds. But we have to look back to 7 plays from Roglich. 44 seconds he gave away to Pogacha. Grand Thomas G is at 118, he was in 16th place and Carapas in 23rd place at 144. So the problem with this result from Pogacha Arguably the Tour de France is, I don't want to say it's over because there's a lot could happen But he has a very very firm grip on GC, although he doesn't have the jersey at the moment because His closest rivals are so, his closest rivals that we know can rival him in the mountains are so far back and they're so beat up that Pogacha on a defense of his Tour de France crown, honestly in stage six he couldn't be happier I'd say at the moment and he looks like a Rolls Royce, he looks like he's cruising around in Tour de Fort gear and if he needs to, if you push the man, that's a stretch, if you push the kid he has 50, has 6th gear, I don't know maybe this lad has 7th gear as well. Today was like deja vu because Mark Cavendish won again into Chaturu and it's 10 years since Cavendish won this. And I flagged this two days ago when Cavendish won his first sprint. It's momentum. It's confidence. It's belief. And athletes know how important this is because when it's gone, it's like the deals in Para City. They're gone. But when you have that confidence, when you have that momentum, it rolls on one after the order. And there's rumored big bonuses. We've heard 100k per stage win thrown around. I'm not sure the truth of that. But we do know he's on a minimum wage contract, a quick step with a lucrative bonus structure. So 100k per stage and the momentum he is on. I don't know how many sprints they just have in this come win. He historically hasn't got through the mountains brilliant and has fatigued them, but he looks the fastest man in the race no doubt at the moment. It is actually, it's the comeback of all comebacks. He had that high profile, depression, lack of belief, illness, he come through all that. But what I'm just seeing in so many, even clients of errors and people hit me up over on Instagram, that's a roadman. So I can give me a follow over there. It's just pure fire. We're on a good foyer or gravel ride today. So shared some pictures and stuff from that. It was good fun. But Cavendish, this comeback, I'm getting messages over on Instagram from people who are inspired by his comeback, people who haven't ridden for years and they already want to come back.
Cavendish, Bouhanni and Sprint Etiquette
Not saying they're going to come back and win toward a france stage, but it's given them a belief, it's given them a hope and that's brilliant to see Cavendish is inspiring people. He's the fastest man in the race at the moment. There's a couple of questions that are left unanswered for me today. Actually, Before we jump into that, what was interesting today was the Intermediate Sprint, because Cavendish for whatever goes on Intermediate, he doesn't seem to be able to muster a sprint out. Whether it's just he's such a winner that he doesn't give a shit about the Intermediate, I don't think that's true because he needs him for the green jersey classification which he's leading at the moment. It just seems like the legs aren't well go apart if he's not gone for the real thing that it doesn't matter. But there's... Buhani getting a little bit of shit undeservedly. No, I'm not a boohanny fan. I think he's very dangerous. I don't think the UCI impose enough sanctions on how dangerous he is But he wasn't actually a fault in the intermediate sprint today and he took a lot of abuse from you know order Reuters I think it's just his reputation's following around at this stage they felt he deviated from his line when I don't think he did and The deviation from the line is a recording team that we're seeing on Twitter after this stage because Cavendish did deviate from his line He deviated from his line quite significantly. It didn't cause a crash. The two Alpus and Fennec's riders, Philipson and Tim Malair, they sort of navigated around them, had to hesitate, maybe it cost them a little bit in the sprint. But honestly, this is cycling. This is bike racing. I've heard people talking about maybe we draw lines on the road and when the sprint opens out, you have to sprint in your lane. That's not bike racing. We don't need to reinvent this. Greatson has an element of risk and this is just this is quite topical to Marlman Terri in Ireland we have a brilliant Tuesday night criterium that runs all summer we have another closed MotoGP circuit called Mandela the straits the whole course you literally land a jumbo jet on it it's that way so there's no toss off our position there's no other traffic on the course there's a separate a4 race three to one race sorry the trees two ones are in together and the Separae 4 race for the beginners. There have been a couple of crashes in recent weeks and now it turns out that the race is under review because of the crashes and potentially we're going to lose it off the calendar. The organizers have literally done everything they can to make this race as safe as possible. The criticism is that there wasn't enough medical staff and ambulances around. But cycling is dangerous. There is a level of risk associated with being a boy grace. We can't sterilize the whole thing. We have have ambulances following people on training rides. We run a five-hour gravel spin through the mountains today. You can't have ambulances and defibrillators around all the time. It's a risky game. The question then becomes, what level of risk is acceptable? For me, when we strap on the numbers and we go into a boy grace, I do it knowing and I do it conscious that there is a level of risk. whether it's our local Criterium getting cancelled or it's Cavendish deviating from his lion, stop trying to fucking sterilize everything because life is sometimes risky and you can't wrap people up in padded jackets all day long and hope they don't have anything bad happen them because that's not what real life is. So that deviation is one thing that's kind of on my mind at the moment. The second thing is Appison Phoenix, they're doing such a great job, Quickstep boss to lead out, they only want to challenge it on the fireside of the This actually reminds me of Kav and the High Road days, the High Road days, where we had this dual lead out and we had Alpelson-Fenix with the yellow jersey, Machu van der Paul bringing them up and it was brilliant to watch the Mauschon on the front of the Tour de France bringing up his sprinters.
Alpecin's Sprinter Dilemma and Stage 7
But they can't seem to agree who is the sprinter. Tim Lee is the sprinter, but Philipson for some reason is getting a dice every now and then. There's a couple of problems with it. It's the belief thing we talked about. When you sprint every day for Cavendish, the team is all in for Cavendish. The team don't know who they're all in for. And if Malia's lead now, Phillips and Izzy all in, I don't know, there's a different dynamic and there's a different momentum when you're not sure who your number one sprinter is. Tim Malia has won a stage already. Sprint for him, what's the problem? He's won a stage. We don't need to, I don't know, it just seems like they don't want to hoard Phillips and his feelings, but maybe they're trying to assess it and say there's certain sprints finishes that are more suited to him. but it just looks like indecision and indecision doesn't break confidence, belief, momentum. So, Mark Calvinist refused to be drawn on it, but he is only two wins away from the great Eddie Merckes' record. Will we see him getting this tour de France? I don't know, I would love to see it, but who knows? Tomorrow, I do know he won't be getting it. It's stage seven, it's 248 kilometers from Verizon Le Crucile. We've two Category 4 Climes, two Category 3 Climes and one Category 2 Cline close enough to the finish. Are we going to see Machuvexner Paul holding on to the jersey? It may be a little bit of an ask, but I think he will hold on to it as long as we don't see serious GC action and Pagache going on the attack. Are we going to see Garan Thomas Roglich losing more time? I don't know, there's a lot of answers that the road is going to answer for us tomorrow. Robeman, thank you for tuning in to another Robeman podcast and please do all the good stuff that helps the podcast because it really makes a difference. Subscribe and over on Patreon. We've talked about this model as sound list. The podcast is free and it's free because people are choosing to subscribe and sponsor and buy the price of a point over on Patreon. The link is in the bio to go and do that. Share the podcast on Instagram. Share it. Take a screen, capture it on your Spotify and or Apple or wherever you listen to it and Stick it up on your Instagram stories and tag me on it, Robeman.Soyglen, follow us on all the usual places. And if you're listening to it anywhere, like it, give good reviews, all that stuff. There's these magic algorithms in the background and all that stuff matters, I promise you. So I do appreciate it. Robeman, thank you for listening to another Robeman podcast and we will definitely be back tomorrow because this stage has drama written all over it. Right safe. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join I argue 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 roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.