I liked the comment on the move Podcast. To the effect of, make SD Worx clean their own dishes!
(It was along the lines of someone who’s mum kept saying to clean the dishes to daughter, but then did the dishes, until one day she didn’t do the dishes, and there were no dishes - make SDW pull, or they will keep knowing you’ll pull the break back for them)
This was Chloe Hosking on Twitter:
So good!
I wanted to just paraphrase, but was worried it would read as a sexist comment without the context/story.
Following up on coverage complaints–I, and I guess a lot of people, didn’t even know this one happened at the time. I tried searching out any information about the incomplete coverage, but even commentary like this is hard to find.
So tomorrow’s stage has to be an uncomplicated stage for the sprinters, right? Right…?
Theoretically. But at least SDW’s most peculiar tactics will continue to spice things up 
It is a shame that the the TT is not until the final day, as the race will likely be locked up after the Tourmalet. Imagine if they had the TT tomorrow and then the Tourmalet…save the flat sprint stage for Sunday.
I think its wild that the “GC contenders” are all about 1 minute down with only a few stages left. It seems that they are expecting to gain a massive advantage against the field in the single remaining mountain stage.
Annamiek gets a gift from the commissaries….
I think this was the right decision, BTW….Vollering was within the caravan. At that point, the onus should be on the rider to hop from car to car. No one would have cared if she was drafting then……but the amount of time she spent behind the car was a bit ridiculous and the speed was insane (and dangerous).
Good call by the commissaries.
Man sdWorks is really trying to loose this race… They again didn’t manage the attacks and breaks and got no bonus seconds. What they did with the team car bringing Vollering up was just dangerous and the penalty is deserved.
@SDen147 the riders in front currently will loose a lot more then a minute on the tourmalet stage… they are not climbers.
Don’t know if it’s not being caught on camera but any time we see the brake away they’re never looking super aero.
There doesn’t look to be many narrow bars or canted in shifters and the riders weren’t really seen in the 90 degree bend aero position.
The gear modifications are pretty well known (lots of comments on the narrow bar thread) so it seems like easy wins are missed? Of course this could just be the highlights missing people with these setups.
Can we talk about team cars? Good grief, one just nearly killed people, another got their rider disqualified, and another got their rider a time penalty.
SD Worx team manager sent home by ASO following the Vollering incident…again, I think this is the right decision. His driving was reckless and endangered others.
Whilst a 100% correct decision in my book, GCN I think said that the UCI reacted emotionally to his text after the 20s time penalty!
Man, at this point you have to wonder what some of these team managers are thinking in terms of strategy and such. It’s actually kind of embarrassing to watch this same thing happen day after day.
It’s exciting for us, and GREAT for the riders who pull it off, but these big teams that have the high powered sprinters continuing to let breakaways get to the line or within a hundred meters of it is nothing but poor execution by these teams (as well as spirited riding by the individual breakaway winners, of course!)
I honestly wonder if some of the DS’s are ust using “standard” strategies from the men’s races and trying to apply them to the women’s races.
The old saw of “1 min per 10km” neing the obvious one…IOW, they are just giving the breaks WAY too much line to run out and not realizing that the women’s fields don’t have the same horsepower to bring them back.
Similar to what happened last year for UCI Gravel Worlds…they just let the time gap get too big without realizing how much work was gonna be required to close down what was seemingly a small enough gap.
Goes back to the common (incorrect) thought that women are just small men in so many ways. You’d think there’s enough women’s racing at the professional level now that they’d be able to manage some of these thumbrules a bit better.
Seems like depth in the field is a big issue. The protected riders kind of seem like the only ones with the horses to pull these breakaways back, but common tactics say they need to sit in the whole time. And you end up blowing stage after stage.
That said, the impact on the GC is minimal so maybe they don’t really care?
And maybe some if it is that the other teams are getting it “close enough” and then looking for SD to finish off the chase…
Agreed - the 1 minute per 10k isn’t working here. There just isn’t enough horsepower for sprinters teams to pull it back. Also, I’ve noticed a difference in that when the gap gets close, it spurs on attacks that disrupt the chase, only to result in letting the break continue. Still, the racing is excited but it sure is driving Kopecky mad as she’s seems to be the fastest finisher in the bunch but can’t get a damn run-in into the sprint if her life depended on it.
