Grand Départ crash fest
La Grand Boushel is upon us. It's the Tour de France, stage 1. 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 chances? 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 the 2021 Tour de France and stage 1 is upon us. The grandi part was this morning and it was an action packed for stage and probably the talk on points today are for all the wrong reasons. Unfortunately it is as I said yesterday, it's the 108th edition. It's a race, obviously, that marks out the high point of the calendar for almost all the World Tour trade teams. It's a marketing stunt we see with Yumba Visma, Royden, Blue Tires to honour a new sponsor they have on board. So it's for all those reasons, the extra media attention that it just becomes this cauldron of nervous energy, especially in the first week at a grand tour and it's notorious for being a very sketchy first week. And when you marry that with the narrow roads in Britannia with the no runoff on the edge of the roads, the exposed nature of it, how nervous the peloton was going to be, I flagged this yesterday that this was going to be an absolute crash Fest and Mystic Meg that I am, I got it right. Today it was 197km, we went from breast to learn anew. We had four Ford category climbs and two Ford category climbs including that tree kilometer uphill kick at 5.6% which was topping out at 14%. Roadmen before I unpack today's action and drama, just a reminder about Patreon. I'm going to be coming to you all during the Tour de France with reaction, news, interviews, just keeping you up to date on exactly what's happening. So you don't have to go to 10 different sources. I'm also going to try and give you an unbiased, unfiltered, true, any particular lens type opinion. So in order to do that, this whole model, it works on what I've been calling a model of soundness. It's so many podcasters right now are taking their podcast and they're putting it behind luminary or they're are putting it behind Patreon and a fraction of you guys will come across to listen to the podcast behind these services but I'm going to lose a lot of the audience but it's still going to add up to a big number of cash in my pocket when people come across to listen to it but I don't want to do that because I don't want to deprive the people who can't afford a podcast, access to the podcast. So instead of me putting it behind one of these paid walls, what I'm doing is I'm giving it away for free to you guys on this model of soundness that if you can't afford it and you would be paying over on Patreon or Lumery for the podcast if it was behind this forward wall that I'm asking you to just dig in and pay for you for a month, the price of a point of beer and that way the lads who can't afford can keep listening to it for free. So that's the model and it's over on patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. So yeah, I'm appeal into your soundless lads, Royce at this stage, like what the fuck. The Force Crash, ok so we two crashes, I don't even know which one is bigger, they're about horrifically big. The Force Crash was unforgivable. The Force Crash is some like ape, ape is all they can be described as, standing out back to the race action so they can see where the the Reuters from coming from, holding a cardboard cut-out with some French saying on it. And she's only gone and brought Tony Martin down. He's no road to go round her. The roads are packed. It's nervous. He goes down and literally the Reuters go like dominoes behind them. Almost the entire bunch went down. Rog Litch included. We had one of the DSM Reuters abandoning the Tour de France on day one. And like the consequences of this piece of stupidity or some things that Reuters consents to and it's obviously my background being law, consent within sport is an interesting area.
Spectator chaos and rider consent
If you're applying a football match and someone breaks your leg with a late tackle, arguably you consent to that, you consent to their being contacted, you consent to their being a possibility that you could get damaged like a broken leg. But if you're applying a football match and you're taking a corner and the referee runs over and punches you or flattens you with the corner flag, you definitely don't consent to that. So because you don't consent to it, it gives Royce to criminal prosecutions. I would argue that on a crash like this on stage one in the Tour of France, you do not consent to this. The fan is on the road. The fan has no business being on the road. And Reuters's livelihoods are gone. Like what does it mean for DSM Reuters to not continue the Tour of France? I don't know his contractual status. Will he not get a contract next year now, can he not go on the road? The Olympics? The consequences for this stuff are fucking massive. People's lives and people's careers are at stake and it's not good enough to just go, oh shit, I had a few cans of beer and I didn't realize I was going to bring down half the bunch. There has to be an investigation into that type of stuff but it's on the army or it's going to keep happening. Fans are such a big part of this board and we love it so much but it has to be boundaries. Fans have to be accountable to each other and to themselves for that sort of conduct. It's fucking ridiculous. So crash number two with six kilometers to go, I would argue this is the sort of crash that you can send to somebody, make some mistake within the bunch and goes down. It's a massive crash, it's regrettable, frill, and god fucked in this. Everyone got nailed. It was a huge crash and it was a high speed crash, but it's a race incident not like the forest crash where that fan needs criminal prosecution. The second crash, look, it's gone down all over the road again. It's 6K to go. Quickstep are already roiding, and we've seen this time and again. It's the etiquette around. Do you start roiding, or do you stop roiding, or do you continue roiding when there's a crash? I think it's pretty accepted etiquette within the bunch. That if you're already roiding, your team is already in position under the crash, you continue roiding. And that's what Quickstep did, they continued roiding, They rode right into the base of the climb into that as I said that three kilometer long climb at 5.6% But there was sections at the start up to 14% And quick step they lit the few they lit the few is so hard and so fast into that that they caught some people out the cost we talked to a Machuve under Paul being pre-race favored yesterday that this was nailed on for him and I don't know. I think there was a combination of maybe the crash spooked them and caught them a bit far back back, maybe Quickstep played it well and took it up super early, or maybe there's just all this media pressure on Vanderpaul with the special jerseys for the day that's in us to honour his grandad, Raymond Poulidor. We know that he's heading home early from the Tour de France to Roy the Olympics. He was just so nailed on for this stage. Maybe that got him as well, but Quickstep dominated it and they rode man after man after man into bottom and then Alephaleep exploded from Man 2. There was only a couple of people that could respond. It was Pierre Lator was actually the closest to responding and then we seen Pogacha and Roglic interestingly marking each other out with Roglic unwilling to help Pogacha in the chase to try and close down Alephaleep but Alephaleep was absolutely scintillating and went on to win the stage. And you know the thing with Alephaleep is and we see this time and time again it's not just that the Alephilippe wins, it's the style that Alephilippe wins in it, it's the je ne sais quoi, it's the magic element that he has and that's why he's a household name, not just in cycling in France but in sport in France, he has panache, I call him the housewife's favourite and he is, he is a good looking bastard and look you're going to get the inevitable questions now, can he win tour overall and look he's not a GC rider, he's stage hunting but we've talked about these four days in Britannia, particularly difficult days.
Alaphilippe wins, GC dreams shattered
He's in the Yellow Jersey and he could take more time again tomorrow. They don't seem to have an answer to him and the climbs aren't as steep this year. They're longer climbs. There's only 50 kilometres of TT. We know he can TT as well. Can you win the tour? Look, I don't know. I don't think he can win the tour of France but I think it's still Bogacha, Rog Litch, Thomas, none of them last time today and you know they're still sitting in pole position for me but Arfleap could go deep into this race wearing the Moyer-John so we had crossing the line today we had Julian Arfleap taking a famous stage win and he has a new song as well so congratulations to him I'm sure double double whammy and a double celebration for him we had friend of the show my god bullying Matt she's taken seconds and Rob Litch coming in and taken toward. There's definitely people I feel sorry for today. One of them isn't that fan who stood out, I know they're going to get shock and abuse and vitriol on social media, but you know what, I fucked them. They deserve every bit of abuse to get. The mechanics are going to have such a late night after two crashes where basically the whole bunch went down. There's so many bikes to just get rebuilt today. And then there's so many dreams that are just gone on stage one of the Tour de France. Like Superman Lopez from MovieStar, Apparently his training has gone great. He's a good shell for a top five and he already finds himself 1,150 down. Guillain-Martin also 1,150 down. So it's just, it's brutal. He'll get a heart, I think another man who lost time today. So it's just such a brutal start and we want to be talking about the stage for all the right reasons. And not that because it's shit, especially the forest crash. I'm rant over on that tomorrow. It's 183.5 kilometres from Pearl to the Murda Britannia. The famous climb and we're going up to more twice. The moor is absolutely nailed on for Julian allofleep again. It's a Matthew Vanderpaul style climb as well. So look, we'll see, can either of those boys pull it off tomorrow. Looking at today, very, very hard to bet against the house wise favourite Julian Alaphilippe. Roadman, thank you for listening to stage one of the Tour de France podcast. Please do all that good stuff that helps the podcast continue. Be a true roadman because that's how this community grows and that's how this whole thing sustains. We can't compete against the likes of GCN and these big brands with huge cash unless you guys help out. And that's the small things. It's like sharing the podcast into groups. What's up groups? Facebook, onto your Instagram stories. Follow me over on Instagram, Robeman.Sidlan. It's buying me a point of beer over on Patreon and like and review and subscribe into the podcast wherever you listen to it. Robeman, I do appreciate it and I'm going to talk to you again tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in, Robeman. Right safe. 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 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 roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.