A Stage for the Ages
More drama on the roads of France, it's stage 7 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 and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman, Cycling Podcast. It's stage 7, 248 kilometres and it was a stage for the ages, one we're going to remember for a long time, from Verizon to Le Crucet. The longest stage we've had in 21 years and it definitely didn't go to plan, it didn't follow the formula. And we're seeing this over and over, this new breed of roiter, a new age of roiter, your Machuvanderpoles, Wout Van Aertz, Pogacha. These lads don't have a respect for tradition and that sounds offensive because they're respecting the good parts of it, but they don't respect this idea that the race has to be formulaic, that the Yellow Jersey can't attack. And today's stage was just absolute courage on the road. I can never remember a break as big gone in the fourth week of a Grand Tour and I really don't know what UAE, we're up to UAE. It's you need a road captain and you need a road captain who makes a decision and says this group is too big. We cannot let this go because it's gonna put us on the back foot all day. They let a huge group go 28 men lent up the road and UAE then film themselves because you know Pogach does not lead in the race at the moment or going into the stage. He's not leading the race but he's definitely leader in the clubhouse because no one expects Fandor Paul to finish the tour. no one expects them to get across the Hoi Mountains. Similar to Wout Van Ert, we don't expect them to get across the Hoi Mountains. So Pogacha is the leader in the clubhouse in the sense that he's the fourth GC-roider on the classification at the moment. So everyone knows this and everyone leans on UAA and they try and control this group who has Vincenzo Nibali, Wout Van Ert, Casper Asgreen, Machu van der Poel, Machué Mothrich, like huge, huge names, Jasper Stoy from the winner of Meilan and San Remo, he's let them all go up the road, including the green jersey of Mark Cavendish, who cunningly got in there and took more intermediate sprints. So it does look like he has an interest in trying to hold this green all the way to Paris. He wrote super today. The group worked super well together, and UAE born through every single road they had, and the other teams let them, and they lent on them heavy. And in the finale we see Maté Morridge springing out of the group and you know if you think Pogacha and Roglage are the only two Slovenians. Think again Maté Morridge is a roiter who was a highly taught of junior roiter and he's come through in recent years and now he is a very well respected member of the senior peloton. And he's like at a young age now he's early 20s and he already has a full collection of a stage win the tour this year on the Vuelta and we seem to see him time and time again he's able to win the super long stage it's a 248 kilometer stage today if you remember back to his Vuelta stage win last year it was the longest stage in the Vuelta as well. I wrote man before I go any further just a little nudge about Patreon. Patreon's how we fund the podcast it's this idea of soundness or reciprocity we could gate the podcast there's a big move that Russell Brand and a lot of other big podcasters now they bring their podcast across the platforms like Luminary and you pay subscription each month to listen to it and the alternative to that is something like Patreon which I'm doing where everybody gets to listen to it which you depend on your audiences good will and soundness and reciprocity that if they can't afford to pay the price of a beer once a month they do so and by doing that they let everybody else listen to to the podcast, I can't afford it.
Mohoric's Masterful Long-Range Attack
So I like this model better and we're going to stick with that for now. And you know, we might supplement down the road with the show sponsor if a fitting one comes along. But who knows, we'll go with the model of soundness for the moment, lads. That Matti Moharich attack today. I just, I love it. And it's a great one to watch for if you're a young rider or you're, you know, just getting into sport and tactically, you're unsure. It's knowing your relative strengths and weaknesses relative to your peers in that breakaway. He knows he's not going to get over that last Category 2 climb if the attack starts with the really good climbers. So he plays to his strength, he can go long and he does go long. He gets out ahead of the race and so he doesn't have to respond to these attacks because he's out ahead of them. And it's just brilliant to watch. My heart bled for a Primo Sroglage on the Category 2. He's obviously suffering the effects of the crushes. I think did he crush twice? Yeah, I think he did. He went down in the crash with the girl with the sign who was subsequently arrested and then released this morning. We're hearing. He went down in that crash and then he went down again the day after. We've seen the pictures of them very well bandaged, felt from your drop, but he came in the big loser for today over three minutes down on the Pogacha group. We had Woutfonart and Machuveh Vanderpaul chasing hard together and getting across to a Kaspar ice cream which was a splinter group from the main breakaway the day and day close to cross and MVP tactically done it brilliantly today because if he doesn't go on the attack his team is on the defensive plane chase all day and instead he puts that board onto UAE he goes up the road he's a boy crazy and he loves to race his bike and he's in the break all day it's taking the pressure look he didn't have an easy day in the break he's 240 ak roid and true and sprinting to the death like he ended up fought on the stage like so we matay moharich he is the hundredth-roydder to win a stage and complete that collection of Jirov, Welta and Tor stages which is pretty cool for the Slovenian and a great win for Bahrain victorious. Jasper Stuyvens, Milan Sanremo, winner from TREC, second Magnus Court Nielsen toward MVP Ford Casper Ascrain fifth. Carapas tried a cheeky little move over the top of the cat too and he went full gas he'd 18k full gas into the finish line but relationships matter and dynamics matter and we've talked about this before a costume in the Vuelta last year the fashion that he left movie star and how petulante he was and how he treated Reuters and staff there before his move to Ineos. That comes back and it bites you and it bit him again today because he went 18 kilometers all in used a lot a lot of energy and movie star hunt them down and he gains zero seconds on that Pogacha group. He finishes with them so that is a shocking waste of energy from Carapaz. The big winner today in my view is Vincenzo So, Nibali. Vincento Nibali was a 500 to one shot to win this tour. Maybe a bit disrespectful, considering his pedigree is a previous winner and previous just all around legend. But he's up to sixth overall now. So, I'll run through GC because it's GC is on its head now. Like I had an all manager and we take the piss out of him that he was interviewed by a national broadcaster here, RTA, about our local race, the Ross.
GC Shakeup and Roglic's Farewell
And he said, you take today's GC, you turn it upside down, that could be tomorrow's GC. Well that's pretty much what happened in the tour today. We have Machu Van der Paul still holding on to Yellow, which is epic. I don't know if he's gonna get, we're into the high mountains at the weekend, so I don't know if he's gonna get through it. We've wowed Van Art, he's at 30 seconds. We've cast Brass Crane, now open to a podium position at 149. Mahay Mohrich is up to four on GC at 301. Pogacha is still calling on the leader in the clubhouse, a 3-43. Nibley's back, Nibley has the dance shoes on, Niebli is at 4.12 and Niebli is not going to make Pogacha's life easy for the next two weeks of racing. It's absolutely fascinating. Roglicious balls was the big loser today. Garand got distance on the cat too when he got back in. Roglicious was the big loser losing three plus minutes to that Pogacha group and it looks like his GC battle. His GC hope is over for this year's Tour de France. But I love the class of Roglicious. He had such a horrible tough day on the boy. No doubt just wants to get home and share it and into the hotel and rest and get away from the media. And he has the the kindness, the generosity, the emotional EQ on the finish line to stop and to give a kid his bottle on the finish line. And I think that summed up a lot about what a great champion Rog Lijerz. So I think today we've seen the birth of this new style of racing and we've seen probably Kiska Boy 2 Primos Roglic as a GC contender for this year's Tour de France. It was a fascinating stage. We're heading into the mountains over the weekend. If you are going to catch the highlights of the stage today, it's definitely one word checking out. Thanks for tuning in, Roadman, and please do us a favor and do all that stuff that helps the podcast grow. Share it over on social media, screen capture, Spotify, your iTunes, tag me at roadman.cycling in your Instagram stories, share it into WhatsApp groups, the episode links where you're listening and liking, subscribing and all that stuff. Roadman, thanks for listening and I'll 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 guess walk out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through 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 at roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.