Tour de France 2021! (spoilers)

DQS got Cav through the stage safely - 32:06 - so well inside the time cut. So barring a crash, it looks like Cav will win the green jersey, and most probably break Merckx’s record

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Agree.

Not so fast. That’s why they race the stage. LOL :slight_smile:

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Note the qualifier “most probably”. With two chances to break the record, and the sprint field decimated, I’m ~90% confident Cav will get at least 1 more win.

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I don’t think he’ll win the final stage.

If he takes tomorrow, he won’t have to… who is to say today wasn’t his rest day for a run at tomorrow, with other sprinters trying to keep in the peloton his team calculates the time cut then pads a bit and he "rides the day easy (relatively) " lets the intermediate sprint go tomorrow and has it together for the win.

Who is your bet then? Unless it isn’t a bunch sprint, I don’t see anyone beating Cav.

Or are you going for WVA?

Yep. Good plan. I’m just not a big Cav fan (not being cantankerous just a fan of the sport with opinions) lol :laughing:

Not WVA (although that would be awesome). With a thin sprint field, he deserves to be the favorite.

I think it will be someone who hasn’t taken a stage yet. Only thing that makes me hesitate is that I’m betting against Deceuninck–Quick-Step, and I’m almost always a fan of those guys.

Maybe Mørkøv forgets to sit up?

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As far as sprinters are concerned, Ces Bol and Mathews are still in the Race I think? Not that they really challenged Cav at any stage. The only one who came close is indeed WvA. So it´s probably gonna be a battle between those two, with Cav as favourite, for the remaining two sprint stages.

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Anyone know what that symbol that was all over the roads today was?

Looked like:

/ >–D

Edit - the less than symbol makes it go to a quote. Ignore the forward slash…

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From Stephen Seiler on Twitter.

# of TdF riders able to reach first climb of Stage 17 and sustain about or thereabouts 5.4 Watts/kg for 30min = ~60/144. Able to then produce equivalent of 5.6 Watts/kg for 22min = ~32. Able to THEN average ~5.9 Watts/kg for 49min = exactly 3. The selection process in numbers.

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Yeah that’s the symbol I meant bottom right.

But the emojis at least it’s clear what they are - I can’t figure out what the >–D thing is at all!

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Is it a former phallus? They have a man to over paint offensive things before the helicopters arrive.

Could be - but it doesn’t look like it’s been painted over to me. There have been dozens of them on the road across multiple stages exactly the same, seems odd that they would paint them all over exactly the same

a fish ?

When the Tour started in the UK in 2014 my wife was a volunteer helper and was assigned to a point in Keighley*, a local town. Apparently the live feed went to adverts as they passed through, the reason was that someone had written the C-bomb across the road!

  • if you are from northern England then you probably know of Keighley’s reputation. Not sure what the equivalent American town/city would be. As Bill Bryson wrote: “The army spend millions shelling the rough land on the firing ranges in Northumberland, what’s wrong with Keighley?”

Surely that wasn’t written specially for the tour, given Keighley’s reputation :smiley: :wink:

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I kind of miss seeing all the syringes, knobs and tits painted on the road when the tour went close to Italy.

I mean, that was offensive and incredibly immature no one was amused by it.

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They guys in the gigantic Inhaler costumes, running alongside Froome during the Salbutamol stuff, was one of my all-time TdF highlights :joy:

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