Tour de France 2021! (spoilers)

Did Movistar and UAE merge? Or did they forget that the yellow jersey Roglic is wearing is just a regular yellow jersey?

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What happened to Carapaz? I thought he had more than enough gap on that group.

Movistar chased him down. Maybe they are still mad he left them lol

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Powless doing a little cyclocross back in the group.

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Looked more like downhill MTB’ing to me!

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What is it with Americans always trying to cut the corners on switchbacks right?? ( - LOL - )

On Edit - Great stage. Superb entertainment. Shame about Roglic.

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Really enjoying the race so far and how unexpected andf varied the racing has been. I often think the TdF is far too forulaic and can be really quite dull until it hits the high mountains, but this year its all been turned on its head.

Really looking forward to how it all shakes out over the weekend :smiley:

Would you say MvdP has accumulated enough fitness to survive his 1hr race in Tokyo in a few weeks? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I wonder if this will change rider development and have people telling juniors to focus on cross? Not discounting the athleticism of Van Aert and Van Der Poel but cross racing is nothing but intervals and skills, of course it will produce amazing racers.

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No, those guys just ā€œhave itā€ and would be at the top of their generation regardless.

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Alaphilippe also did CX!

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More classics stages in GTs please!

It turns out it will get raced like a classic except that there are all the underlying team strategies for stage races as well. This first week has been extremely entertaining and I hope it continues. Usually mountain stages bore me with the ā€œtrainā€ tactics but this year who knows!

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Movistar hitting the front confused me so much. Ineos, Jumbo and UAE all had more to lose than them on the stage today. Mas ended up falling even further down the rankings and none of their riders were in the top 10 on GC at days end. I was baffled by why they chased Carapaz. If anything UAE should have gone after him because he was their closest GC threat.

Lots of odd tactics to unpack today, but one thing is clear. Rogla is done for GC. Pog is in an impeccable spot now and I think the Carapaz attack actually says a lot about Ineos being all in on Thomas.

It really did Look like movistar were just angry at carapaz for leaving.

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It was like a mafia movie…

Movistar tactics are almost always meme worthy.

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What a bizarre finish…Carapaz goes on a giant attack and then gets reeled back by the peloton at the line with no time gained!

Great day of racing again. Easily the best tour i’ve seen in years. Hope it keeps up.

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Carapaz burned a whole bunch of matches today for absolutely nothing……Pog kept his cool, knew that there was no need for him to chase Carapaz and just let the race play out. Showed a lot of maturity and calm today.

JV needs to consider pulling Rog…he is clearly hurting from the crash and with the stages this weekend, there is nothing to be gained keeping him in the race. Better to defend the Vuelta at full strength vs keeping him in the Tour for maybe getting a stage in the last week.

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Awesome stage. Poor @hdas who only enjoys the high mountains - today was such a great day of bike racing!

Agree with @Power13 they should pull Rog, nothing to be gained

Really curious how today’s efforts are going to impact everyone tomorrow - huge effort from everyone today. Think Pogacar played it very smart, got a little lucky with Movistar’s pacing, but still sitting in was the right move either way

Loved the attack from Carapaz, at least he was willing to race for the win even if it came to nothing

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A reasonable question is whether Pog not reacting was smart racing or a moment of weakness…my gut says ā€œsmart racingā€ but could really be either.

We’ll find out more this weekend, I guess!

Today was an awesome stage…great racing across the board…for the stage, for the (temporary) yellow jersey and for the GC. More stages like this, please!!!

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