Put that in the context. I'm a 75 kilo rider at my best. I'm carrying a few winter pounds at the moment now at the COVID season. For me, that is a 75 kilogram rider. That'd be 487 watts for 24 minutes. That is absolutely epic. Unbelievable. And to put that into context, that's again, that's not fresh. That's not jumping up on Zwift. Lying about your weight and going, oh yeah, don't 6.44 kilogram in me living room with the air conditioning on. If I got tired, I can step off onto the couch. These Zwift warriors think those with this harder notes of it. If you blow up on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, you could die. If you blow up on Zwift in the middle of your effort, you're in your house. Think about that for a minute. Project are absolute beast mode. Today's stage was a classic. It does not often I'm up out of the couch and I'm actually screaming at the TV. My girlfriend was up screaming at the TV. The commentary was screaming at the TV. We had a break that just almost tried to go away so many times, didn't go away. see Ineos trying to stack the break because previous years that's what hems were doing against Ineos because Ineos had so much strength that they just roid everyone off their way on the mountains but now they're starting to stick men into the break because they know when Yumbo Visma wind it up they're gonna start losing lieutenants all over the place. Detroit and Vane Kastrovikkyo tried to go in the break didn't really happen. The break that actually went in the end was Hershey from Sunweb and he went by attacking the break. So it was a break from the break. Really, he was a story today. He was 90 kilometer solo, getting caught in the closing moment. So I get that out in a second. It was absolutely epic. But the real drama was back the road and then the drama back the road came up to Hershey. So we had, of course, looking decent, not the same as he was in the first couple of days, but he's looking decent and he was back riding the Umbo train. Spitting in the usroiders out the the back but the real drama starts with the Podgecar attack. Doomlana was strong, he followed for a little bit but ultimately it split and it was Roglic, Podgecar, Landa and Bernal and they were really the foursome Podgecar and Roglic nearly took each other out over the top. Completely Podgecar's fault. He assumed he had the sprint, it was bonus seconds available on the top of the call of the Murray Blanc. He attacked, he assumed he had it, looked over his shoulder, rubbish was coming over his shoulder, had to swear, hit him, project hard, a great save in the end to knock him down. Real go-by-the-boy-kindling for a 21-year-old. Then it was interesting because what you have is this dynamic where he's Hershey over the top of the call of the Murray Blanc, and I suppose that's where I wanna pick up the action and start an analyze, and where he's Hershey from his own web, solo over the top of the call of the Murray Blanc. He'd been out there for 90 kilometers. He had about a 15 second lead from a group of Landa Barnal, Pajakar and Roglich, who had about a 15, 20 second lead from Martin from Kofi, this Rigoberto Iran, Cantana and a couple of other guys, Richie Porte. So what we have then is almost a tree, it's a time trial, it's three different groups, time trial, and with Hershey up front, obviously gone for the stage when Foley commits it. And then we've four rivals from rival teams, Landa, Bernal, Pogakar and Roglich, all different teams, but they all have a common goal. And this is where cycling is a funny sport because their relationship, it's competitive on the way up the hill, but on the way down the hill, when they've got separation, they start being collaborative. And that's their relationship going into the line. So this collaborative relationship, where they're all in it together, no one missing Torrance, It's an unspoken sort of union they have on the way in the road because each one of them will know if they don't want to solve a pedilin and that'll feed into the overall speed of the group. So everyone fully commits the catch her. She extends the lead from the group behind the group behind again all rivals all committed again for a common goal to catch the group on front and minimise their losses and to I put a hammer into Yates, the yellow jersey, the Moyo Jean, who was distance over the top of the climb and at this stage, looking like he was going to lose the jersey. And this amazing kind of team time trial continued all the way in the line.
The front group, Katchen Hershey, who'd been out there solo for the whole day. He'd actually been solo in sort of an improvised time trial position, which got me thinking, it's like the hate scene guys on group rides doing it. Don't do it. If you're on a group ride, without mad hair sheep position, which are for no hands holding the handlebars, forearms on the handlebars. You're most likely not a professional boy grider. Don't do it if you're in the local group, especially if you're on the front. He's solo, if he hits a pothole, he's down, but he's going down on his own. He's not bringing down the whole group, so it's a little bit of respect. I see this with world horse stuff all the time. It has this trickle down effect with people descending on the top tube and this crazy arrow position of Time Child and on your forearms. But it got me thinking he was holding onto his boy computer, which was the giant boy computer, which is a piece of shit by the way. I reviewed it on the YouTube channel a while ago. It's cheap as chip still, and the battery life on it's insane. It's like our old-scale cat-wise. It looks terrible also, it's big, big, because I come on a mobile phone stuck to your handlebars. But what I was thinking was it was nearly like an arrow bar because he was able to, the wah who in the garment don't stick out as far. So because this boy computer such a piece of shit, it nearly ended up being an arrow bar for him and he was holding on to it. I was half thinking are we going to see companies designing these boy computers with a little bit of an OA2 aerodynamics of it and there is a sort of ergonomic management of it where we place our fingers around the back of it so it's a little bit more comfortable, like sort of a wild innovative idea I have. But we're seeing it more and more. Will the UCLA Bandess, I don't know, it is dangerous. And he's in France, very little potholes on the roads around there. If you're on roads around Ireland or the UK or, you know, parts of Canada where I spent a lot of time training, the freestyle action isn't great to the roads up around Toronto. Some bad potholes, you hit one of them, it's downtime, it's get down, stay downtime as we say. Coming in the road, we had our team time trial. The front coming together with Hershey sitting on the back down to the land of Bernal Poggaker train and they were just going for time. Rog Litch really shown his experience when everyone else started hesitating and looking for one eye on the time bonuses on the stage when it was sort of France. He said, you know what, I'm here for bigger things and he rode it all the way into the finish line. Confident he's a fast man but confident that this is a long game and he didn't want to sacrifice time to some gold riders behind like Cantana. So we had in the end her she nearly sprung a surprise. If you watch his sprint, this word watch for anyone to look and learn how to sprint because it was the four coming to the line and her she just soft pedal soft pedal till a little gap up and two three bike lengths from her she did a group on front and then he took a run at them with about 250 to go because he's already up to speed so he's passing them at much higher speed. So even though he's tired from being out solo all day, he has that bit of zip gone past him and it was almost enough to catch them and in the end he ended up coming toward very very close. Pajakar pulled it off the youngest ever toward a france stage winner, 21 years old, 3 days younger than Mr Lance Armstrong back in I think 1992-1993 when he won a stage. So unbelievable achievement for Slovenia, 1-2 today with Roglidge coming second. and Hershey the man of the day, combativity award, no doubt, but it's not much of a consolation prize. I didn't know Hershey, a former U-23 world champion that didn't know him before we got into this, but what a man, I'm gonna see a lot more of him. The co-hone is on this lad, our own rail. With 12 seconds back to group two, they had the time bonuses on the line as well. So that means that Roglech is the new leader of the Tour de France. That could potentially be very significant. He has a 21 second lead over Eigenbarnal who looked better today, heading potentially into a hard-toward week. You wouldn't bet against Bernal at the moment. And a Frenchman Guillain-Martin, who interestingly has written a book on philosophy. I heard that today.
Mental stuff. Love to see that because I love this idea that you don't have the sacrifice academia to pursue sport, that they can't be pursued as tandem goals. That's brilliant. I love saying this, Guillaume Martan and Tord Overall on GC. We're heading into the rest day and the rule apparently, this isn't coming from the ASO, this has been coming from the French government. If two riders from a single team test positive for COVID, that team is out of the Tour de France. So that's the rule they're going to run with. Two riders from one team and the team's expelled from the Tour de France. So we could see some real drama, we could potentially see the Tour ending and when you think about yesterday in the scenes that we had on the top of the call to Paris-Sourd, it was unbelievable because every sport in the world, fans are barred at the moment but cycling, it's not true. That one was wearing masks, they're millimeters from, you know, I don't want to get into the COVID debate and the proportionality of so many measures of COVID because I think it's as much political as it is in academic debate and and it's not one for a Tour de France podcast, but I think we'll all agree that COVID is spreading and we know for a fact that the race will be canceled if enough people test positive and teams are being pulled if two riders from one team test positive. With that large number of crowd at the top of the pair of suit, like almost spitting in the riders faces, breathing in their faces, drinking. Like it seems just stupid to this. And this is what annoys me. and a lot of people about the whole COVID restrictions. You have on the finish line, as soon as someone comes across the finish line, they're sticking on masks. They're doing interviews with masks on, on these extendo microphones. So they're social distancing with the microphone. They're already using a mask. They're wearing a mask around their teammates who are racing all day anyway. But then we get up to call the parachute. There's literally thousands of people within inches of them, shouting, you know, sweating, spitting, bodily fluids, getting spot out, everything. It's craziness up there. It's just a normal tour de France. And it's just that dichotomy. And I think that pisses a lot of people off and it pisses me off, even as a viewer. Because, you know, I get a hate listening to them interviews with the masks on. You know, I've talked about on the podcast enough that the helmets and the glasses make the people, the roiter seem like motionless and expressionless. And we can't connect with them. Now you add in helmets, glasses during the stage. and you're adding a mask after the stage. Sure, we may as we watch them robot race. You know, we're hardly getting to know the personality of the Reuters and into the mix then as all, you know, marketing companies and media strategies, grooming Reuters on, get the key messages out and be sponsor compliant in the interviews. It's turning into a fucking charade like, so it's good to see Sag and to today with a bit of personality in the interview. Guys, that is it. We're into the rest day tomorrow, so I won't be with you tomorrow for a podcast. I'm gonna take a day off for tomorrow's podcast. I'm gonna rest with the tour de France rest days. It's like when you have a toddler, I don't have any kids, but I've heard when you have a toddler, you need to sleep when they sleep. So that's kind of what I'm at for the rest day tomorrow. I'm gonna catch you up on some other stuff. I'm just back, I raced in, I watched so many stages on the Oipad. I had to drive across the country today, so I watched someone on the Oipad on the way home and caught the rest of it on EuroSport app when I got home. So this noise to actually be back on my own, set up my own little podcast in studio to bring you guys this episode. Definitely a challenge getting in on the road. I'm definitely tired now and I'm not gonna claim to be as tired as a lads in the tour, but yet now I am looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. We will be back, we will be back on Tuesday for stage 10 of the Tour de France. Thanks for joining me so far. And if you're gonna do a good little rest day deed, just go and do it now. head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh the link for that is in the boil much appreciate your generosity over again myself a beer on the rest day with your generosity guys thanks for listening and chat to you all on Tuesday.