O'Connor's Breakaway Masterclass
There's so many top performances today, it's hard to even know who was top of the top performers. It's stage 9 of the Tour de France, roadmen, 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 on this podcast, we'll give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to stage nine of the Tour de France from Cruz Tatina. 144.9 kilometers and it is the first summit finish of this year's Tour de France. We all probably remember last time we went to Tatina. We actually didn't get there. That was back in in 2019 and we had those crazy mudslides and they elected to take the time at the top at the last climb and we've seen all this sort of chaos and run for the cars and ultimately I think that push, if I'm remembering correctly, that push, Eggam Bernal, into the Yellow Jersey Alifelique was in at the time. I think Bernal took the jersey that day and he obviously went on to win the 2019 Tour de France and it was the start of Eggam Bernal but we had some huge rides in here today. It was a good stage to watch although it pissed Rain all day. Like bitter west of Orland called Soydway Rain coming down on the fellas for the day. Yeah, with some big rides in there. We had a huge day obviously for a bent corner from Aasidou de Sittron who was virtual leader on the road and then he wasn't leader on the road and then he was and then finally he wasn't. But he sold out to a stage when over five minutes today and I'm glad that lives out in Jerome and you know I know a lot of trying to roll these on so yeah chap oh great right super super and he's put himself up to second on GC now which is absolutely massive he was in the break with Hegita and Quintana today and Quintana seemed to succumb to the cold if I'm honest. Quintana just seemed to fall apart a little bit on the last climb. Now look, there's a couple of reasons for him falling apart. It's not straight out of the cold. He was going for early King of the Mountains points and he did take those early King of the Mountains points and he's in the King of the Mountains jersey now. But the cold is also a factor. Quintana obviously from Colombia, not super used to the cold. So look, that's going to be a a big factor in forum as well and then we had this other lad, Higgita. Now Higgita looks like a lad who would play football in Dublin, like he's built like a barrel. We call him Barreler if he lived here in Dublin. He's some chest on him. He's borderline a little bit rotoned but I don't know if he is rotoned because he's such a huge chest. So yeah, it's just hard to know how Barreler was failing. We'll look at the Benelconner roadway from pretty easy and Pogacha wasn't affected at all but a cult. Pogacha was a lad who was just I don't want to say he was on a mission today because I don't think he wanted to take the L of Jersey today. I think he was happy for his team UAE Ruikost, David Formula, Rafa Mica. I think he was happy for him to Roy Tempo up that last climb until UAE came to the front and they dropped all his teammates and I think that pissed him off. Every champion has this little edge about them and I think that pissed off the Tour de France champ and the Tour de France champ elect we're gonna call him. He just gave this little bit of a demonstration then and said oh you think you're holding on that now watch what I'm gonna do he is pricks and he just rolled away. He almost went true to do a tournament on the front, a little bit of a gap on the front, looked around and then he just gave a gas and he's like gone, I'm gone. It's super impressive.
Cavendish Beats The Time Cut
He looks like he's nose-breathing and insane. So, Pogacha, I'd be tempted to say isn't the Royal of the Day just because of Ben O'Connor, Donald DeRote, Pochaf, did have the Royal of the Day again because if this is true, if this is true, which it is true because I verified it. Cav was with the group of Arnold DeMarr, they got time caught at the bottom of the last climb. And he had to ride full gas with his two teammates on the last climb and he made the time caught by 90 seconds. Now we've seen a video of him crossing the team, I think it was not sure if it was the clerk and Michael Markov. We've seen a video of him crossing the line together, a three-order quick step guys. have resplendent in his green jersey and have noticeably emotional and embracing his teammates on the finish line like tears in his eyes. It was a massive win getting sure that for Kav. But there's going to be more days to come like that. So Kav potentially could be right today, Pogacha could potentially be right today, Ben O'Connor could potentially be right today or Sony Kav Barely could be right today. Sony Kav Barely the sprinter was toward him today is melting the stage with a hilltop finish and this probably doesn't shock us so much because we see Sagan doing this with such frequency but that's a really really big ride from the Italian champion and you know he's on super form when that sort of thing is happening. For me the kind of big mystery of the day was why did UAE not give the jersey away? They're riding their nuts off. They could have given their way for a week to Beno Conner. They had ample opportunity to just ease back a little bit. H2R or Azure does there, if you want to sound kind of cool and cultured, they would have rolled themselves into the ground for the next week to protect that. Bogatia could nearly take it back at will. So for me, there's only like two options here. They're crazy, crazy confident or they're very naive. And they've Alan Pepe as their director sportive. and I don't think he's a naive man. So I think they are just crazy confident in Tadei Pogacha. It's gonna be a long, long final two weeks for them. Obviously heading into the rest day tomorrow. It's just gonna be some tired bodies going into the rest day tomorrow because we had like Greg Van Averma made the Time Court by five seconds today. And the Time Court, it's something I briefly mentioned yesterday, but it's something that annoys the shit out of me because it seems like they enforced this time cut. You know, it's a percentage of the winner's time, but there seems to be a discretionary element in it as well. It's like how big is the group you're coming in in? Who is it coming in? How does the commissar feel? I don't know how they exercise this discretion. What I do know is when there's a big group, a group big enough, they won't disqualify them all. Yesterday 90 lads made it with two minutes to spare. If they didn't make it, they would have put them back in the race. And you might think no big deal, It's very hard for Sonny Cabrelli, for Bling Mathews, for Peter Sagan, the sprinters who go full gas and they just about hang on. They just about hang on with their claws to that group over the top. They go so deep, they burn so many matches. Contrast that now to the sprinter, like Cavendish, you know, I like Cavendish, but this is unfortunately him. And they just pull the parachute on the climb. drift back to this huge group and they have a much easier day. They're obviously going to be fresher and have more pep in their step for the next day and this has the same ramifications all through it. You know you can have guys you know Greg Van Avermert who sit up and don't have to fight and then all of a sudden they're on the attack tomorrow and maybe they're starting to influence GC, young roader classifications, mountains classifications etc. So it seems like if we have a time call, So, enforce the time-core or else come up with a different way of assessing it because this middle ground at the moment is fucking stupid.
GC Settled, Roglic And Van der Poel Exit
They didn't cut people yesterday. Now today because they came in smaller groups, people are cautious. That seems to be the differentiator. But you can't have a 90-man group that doesn't make this high. You can have a 90-man group that doesn't make this time-core and send them home. Because if they know they're going to get sent home, trust me, 80 of those 90 lads will make that time-core. gonna have 10 lads to go home, fork them, send them home, they didn't make the time cut. It just needs to be a hard line rather than the discretionary line is my thoughts on that. Anyway, the general classification after today, it is Taje Bogacha, two-minute lead from Ajito's area Citron, Beno Conner, second overall for Beno Conner. That's a royal for the Australian. The Roberto Oran is in third at 518. The young Danish writer from Yumbo-Vizma, Johnus Vindegard is at 532. Richard Carapas is at 533. This is what I mean when I said to yesterday, GC is gone. There's a different race going on here. The Tour de France was a one week race this year. We had Machu van der Poel and all that entertainment, Alaphilippe, the drama I have. Ajay Pogacha, burn an accident illness injury or act of God won the Tour de France yesterday. Now it's just, he's the champ elect and he has to do two weeks rolling into Paris and you know for me it's not great entertainment value in that and I'm not going to dwell on that because we talked about yesterday in those dangerous stages. We did have two noticeable or high profile lads that didn't start today and there were two of my favourite riders, Primo's Roglage and Machuve Wonderpaul both elected, not to start focusing on the Olympics. You know, Yum Bovizma were right to take Roglage out and not let him go on suffering. He can go now, focus on the Olympic World race, focus on the Vuelta, maybe win both those. Machuve Wonderpaul, after an amazing debut toward the France, made it for Albus and Fenix, him and his teammate Timelier have both gone home. and Machuvander Paul is going off to prepare for the mountain bike race in the Olympics. That's how versatile this rider is. Roadman, we're into the rest day. I need the rest day as much as anyone. I was a good gravel ride today. Got almost five errors. I'm just figuring out how to link up the gravel road to the moment and go with the fun today. Put up loads of stuff on Instagram stories about that. That's over on roadman.cycling. That's one way you can help spread the good love in the podcast. Screen capture the podcast, tag us on the podcast, Rolman.Soyklan and I'll share that on my stories. Another way is over on Patreon. Go over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch by me, the price for point of beer once a month for bringing you this podcast free of charge. That means I don't have to put it behind a paid firewall and everybody can listen to it for free. about it, Rollman, thank you for tuning in and I'm gonna catch you again on the first side of the rest day. Right day for Rollman. 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 Rollman 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 gonna be the catalyst for making it faster and making you 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 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. roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.