No, it was a joke.
After she was caught, I was immediately pulling for Vos to take the sprint…that didn’t work out too well either.
Damn.
The commentators do seem to have been told to add the “avec Zwift” bit nearly every time they say it, sounds really clunky to my ears but maybe I’ll get used to it!
Really felt for Van de Velde, phenomenal ride and deserved more. She was absolutely all in on that move - don’t think I saw her look round a single time until the last few hundred meters when the catch became inevitable.
You won’t get used to it. It sounded clunky last year and it does again this year.
I felt SOOOO bad for her!!!
Daaaaaaaang!
Really wanted her to make it to the line for that one!
Perfect example I suppose why the women’s peloton are loathe to let breaks get much gap. That was nail bitingly good.
I thought Vos was going to get it until the final few metres. Got to love zero line deviations 
.
Haven’t watched all that much women’s cycling but compared to the men it does seem that they are usually reluctant to let a break get very far up the road and that a break that does get a decent gap has a good chance of staying away. Thinking of Paris Roubaix this year as well.
Is that a factor of wind resistance and lower speeds maybe? I.e. Wind resistance increases exponentially, so the faster you’re going the more it would favour the bunch with the draft benefits over the break. Slower speeds of the women mean that a break is dealing with less wind resistance so is less disadvantaged to the bunch.
And/or less strength in depth than the men? I.e. A bigger gulf between the top third and bottom third of the peloton meaning it’s very hard for domestiques to bring back a break unless some of the top riders get involved. That seemed to be the case yesterday - gap was holding up really well for a long time and then SD Worx hit the front with about 4km to go and closed it pretty quickly (though that would also be the point at which the speed would start ramping up for the finish anyway).
I’ve never thought about the wind resistance relative the speed. That does make sense.
I think it’s mostly smaller teams, smaller number of teams and depth of field.
I think it was DSM that burned through their team in the chase, leaving no leadout for the sprint.
It’s partly depth of field in terms of the teams as well - so many of the strongest riders are concentrated in a few teams, so there’s not as much sharing of the load, and the slightest bit of ‘poker playing’ between the big teams can mean the whole thing stalls and the opportunity to pull it back disappears.
A couple of other factors:
- Generally shorter courses means less opportunity to ‘give the break its head’ and still have time to pull it back
- Often more aggressive riding, with riders attacking the peloton at regular intervals throughout a stage, even when there’s already a break established (you almost never see this in the men’s peloton), which then shrinks the gap to the original break, or obliterates it altogether (I think Van de Velde was about the third attack of the day yesterday, and only went with about 55km to go?)
Not to spoil too much, but at last other teams have been doing something other than giving SD worx what they want on a silver platter. In this case they have not been willing to work.
Also if the hashtag is watch the femmes, broadcasting the stages from the start would surely help (sigh).
I’ve been irritated by this. It’s a shorter race with shorter stages, can we at least watch the entire stages?
Indeed. And since we KNOW that women’s racing is [1], on average, relatively more intensive and full-on-from-the-gun than men’s GT racing, I think emphasising the intensive side would be its best selling point.
[1] Or used to be before Jumbo/UAE battles.
Good morning, stage 4 looks like a tough one!
The broadcast starts and there is a break 10 minutes up the road, would have been nice to watch that develop.
Saw Eva Van Agt is relatively OK (concussed, bumps, bruises and stitches). That’s good news.
Kastelijn is working hard off the front, great racing so far
Great race today. Loved seeing the attacks by AVV and Vollering covering it late in the stage. Vollering looked very strong today.
Man, Vollering looks to be in immense form! She’s going to romp away with the GC when it tips up properly!
Im on vacation so I only get to watch part of it in the evenings when the kids are asleep. But it was quite entertaining until now.
Man how did Vollering not know she didn’t win yesterday… The SDworks team car has to be really bad… The tactics were just super quetionable just lead out Vollering on the last or second to last climb and let her go… And bridge to the breakaway rider…
I’m also not convinced that Vollering will be better on a climb like the tourmalet, but now she better be because the gap is really small.
Yeah, SD worx were all over the shop yesterday. Vollering could have gained some GC time plus bonuses if they had just ridden the stage very hard a la Jumbo and attacked hard with her and kopecky at the end.
I think van Vleuten will club the others pretty bad on the Tourmalet. Yesterday was not her terrain but she defended well anyway.