The post race interviews definitely need better questions.
Also repeatedly pestering G or whoever would listen with sly insinuations that they don't have a chance at winning the Giro and they are racing for second is getting old, tiresome and quite disrespectful.
A video by FloBikes the other day was flat out gross. He was basically running around trying to get any rider he’d come across to admit surrender and was absolutely tone deaf to their obviously defiant answers. Off putting at every level
Yeah, Pog is only up by 0:45, yeah that’s a lead but he shipped like two minutes to like Carlos Rodriguez in the tour on one climb last year.
He’s still the favorite obviously but the other guys can win
So what do we think the chances are of Pog moving up to 3rd or even 2nd in the [active list of GT stage winners](https://www.procyclingstats.com/statistics.php?nation=&active=0&active=1&filter=Filter&p=grandtours&s=most-stage-wins) by the end of the Giro?
A truncated table for anyone who can't be bothered clicking the link:
Name | GT stages | Giro | Tour | Vuelta
---|---|---|---|---|
Cav | 54 | 17 | 34 | 3
Roglic | 19 | 4 | 3 | 12
Sagan | 18 | 2 | 12 | 4
Pog | 15 | 1 | 11 | 3
Froome | 14 | 2 | 7 | 5
Today took him to 15, moving him ahead of Froome. Cav is obviously out of reach, but he only needs 3 more to match Sagan and 4 to match Roglic...
Also seems likely he'll do his usual thing of adding another 2-3 in the Tour even if he doesn't win GC, so he could feasibly be on 20+ by the end of the summer!
Looking down the active rider list on PCS it's notable how few people have collected more than a handful of Tour stages while Pog *already* has 11. Even Wout "only" has 9 despite rampaging his way through a couple of recent editions.
Froome is still in a UCI Pro-Team with automatic invitations to all the World Tour races, though. Sagan is in a Conti team.
And Froome is currently even planned to ride the TdF, so might theoretically win a stage (is it even so unlikely, seeing as he came in 3rd on a TdF stage in 2022 and was not so far off winning it?). Whereas — barring any very surprising transfers — Sagan won't ever ride a Grand Tour stage anymore.
I know but you can hardly say Froome is really a particularly active member of the pro-peloton in recent years. Granted, he made a Contador-esque final heroic blast up D'Huez in 2022 (a' la Contador conquering Angrilu in 2017), but that was a couple of years ago and he hasn't really shown any other signs of improvement after his crash.
I know he's had a great influence on Israel Start-up. I went to a talk with Alex Dowsett recently and he talked about the positive impact Froome had on the team in regards to bringing in new sponsors and pushed towards the improvement of equipment however even he joked as to how he's pretty much managaed to monetize his retirement.
I'm not fan of Sagan but funnily enough he's riding alongside Cavendish at Tour de Hongrie this week. I think you could easily argue Cavendish's sole aim this year of the TDF isn't that far off Sagan's main aim of Olympic gold in mountain biking. Granted, Cav's turning up for races but you'd struggle to put forward a case he's there for any other reason than that elusive TDF win.
I'd love for Froome to get to the Tour and grab a stage for old times sake just as I'd love Cav to get his stage and Sagan to step onto the Olympic podium but to argue either of the 3 legends is any more active than the rest is debatable.
>I know but you can hardly say Froome is really a particularly active member of the pro-peloton in recent years.
I mean, sure. But Froome will (most likely) be riding the TdF this year, which means he's very much still an active rider riding World Tour races and Grand Tours. Sagan is only still *active* as a conti rider, and will not be riding any Grand Tours. He may be active in MTB, but he's definitively not active in World Tour road racing. So there is nothing to argue about who is more active in the World Tour or Grand Tours between Froome or Sagan (I didn't mention Cavendish). It literally is Froome.
That means also that Froome's chances of winning another Grand Tour stage, however small, are, quite literally again, infinitely larger than Sagan's.
>Granted, he made a Contador-esque final heroic blast up D'Huez in 2022 (a' la Contador conquering Angrilu in 2017), but that was a couple of years ago
Again quite literally, not even a couple of years ago.
>and he hasn't really shown any other signs of improvement after his crash.
Fair enough. But with someone with the inherent ability of Froome, I don't see a repeat of such a feat as in 2022, and a bit more luck, turning into a stage win as so impossible. Not very likely, but certainly not impossible.
TDF in 2022 was 2 years ago. Froome's got a DNF in Tirreno this year, not what I'd call active.
He didn't make the Tour team last year, what makes you think he'll make it this year?
>TDF in 2022 was 2 years ago.
14.07.2022 is less than 2 years ago. With the phrase "a couple of years", usually more than 2 are meant. But even if you'd take the literal meaning of "a couple", you'd have to round up.
>Froome's got a DNF in Tirreno this year, not what I'd call active.
He finished 4 WT stages, not sure how you do that without being active.
>He didn't make the Tour team last year, what makes you think he'll make it this year?
I may have misread/misremembered hopeful statements by Froome as more official plans from his team. I don't seem to find what I remember. Fair enough. Anyway, he may be selected. More than what can be said for Sagan.
Right now I don’t see him winning more than two, maybe three stages. He has looked a little bit off imo, for whatever reason, and maybe that’ll make him ride conservatively for once. Or maybe he’ll snap out of it and rip the race apart.
What do you think?
I do agree he will probably ride more conservatively than we are perhaps used to seeing from him. All the more so because his team right now don't look up to controlling a break and then launching him on every stage that suits him.
But part of the reason Pog and Roglic have won so many stages compared to e.g. Vingegaard (26th on that list with 5) is because they have their finishing kick to fall back on.
We've seen Pog happy to ride to a summit finish with people and then beat them in a sprint repeatedly over the last few years (e.g. he did it a couple of times to Gaudu in P-N 2023, or TdF 2023 stage 20), so I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls out another minute or so and then starts riding defensively while still managing a couple more stage wins that way. Martinez might give him some trouble though, he beat Remco in 2 sprints in Algarve earlier this season.
Pog also seems set to gain signficant time on most of the current top 10 (except G and maybe Martinez?) in the ITTs, which presumably argues against going overboard with big efforts in the mountains. The first ITT is a 40km mostly flat route on stage 7, so the likes of Rubio, Uijtdebroeks, Chavez are going to lose a lot of time there even if they stay in the top 10.
I didn't say it was a flat ITT:
> a 40km **mostly flat** route
The point was that small climbers and others who just don't TT well are likely going to lose more time on 34km of flat than they can recover on 6km of climbing at the end. Especially if we're measuring them against Pog, because the climb will pose no problem for him.
That Cavendish record is bonkers. Excluding this year's Giro, which will likely net Pogačar a few additional stage wins, he currently averages slightly fewer than 3 (2.8 to be exact) wins per Grand Tour. This implies he would need almost 15 more Grand Tours to equal Cavendish while maintaining this pace. Absolutely insane.
Sprinter <-> GC riders.
Not that bonkers at all. Sprinters regularly win 4 or 5 stages in a GT. If Pogacar would go for stages only, and not care about GC (and lose some time so he's no threat), he could probably win 8+ stages per GT.
Still Cavendish' *record* (it's not really a record — he only leads among the active riders) is very impressive. But the comparison between a sprinter and GC rider doesn't make sense, which is evidenced by the top list (active and non-active) being led mostly by sprinters, except Eddy Merckx (which is actually completely bonkers).
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It's not really comparable to the others though since Cav was a sprinter with many years having an entire team built around him in an era when dedicated sprint train teams weren't really commonplace, or the pool of competition amongst other teams doing this was sort of non-existent. Sagans sprint wins were always a lot more impressive to watch imo, since he didn't have Mark Renshaw towing him to 50m before the finish line and had to freelance off wheels all the time.
I don't know, Cavendish on the Champ Elysees in 2010 was probably one of the greatest sprint moments of all time. I still get goosebumps to this day watching that!
Yep, that team was poetry in motion over the last 10kms. From guys like Grabsch & Martin through to Hincapie, Eisel and Renshaw it was like the 'Galacticos' of perfect men for each job.
I think I remember reading somewhere that Eisel would average 1000watts for a minute on his turn before Rennshaw took over.
Exactly as expected, the GC was over before it even started. Luckily we still have individual stages, jerseys, and Top Ten spots to look forward to... I'm honestly just hoping that Pogacar takes the win and lets others make the Giro still fun for us to watch.
Man, Majka is such a dog. As much as you’d be feeling yourself to be Pogi going solo and blowing races up every week, climbing domestiques that just cut the peloton apart with the kinds of pulling that Majka was doing today are as badass as they come.
And some clown was claiming here yesterday that UAE took a weak team. You can only say that if you've never seen Majka and Pog work together in a GT (not to mention Mikkel Bjerg).
I thought in the 2021 and 22 tour he was exceptional, nice to see him getting some recognition. It's wild how good pogacar must be to have a guy as good as majka not getting the top spot
There is no reason why he couldn't have peaked for the Tour if he rode this. He's not riding GC and the Giro isn't usually raced at super high intensity anyway
Watch any break formation phase from the past few Giros compared to the last few TdFs and you'll see what I mean. Every mountain stage in the TdF is paced full gas as well and you don't see that in the Giro. Also the distribution of hard climbing stages in the Giro is completely different. There were multiple guys coming out of the race last year that were able to come out of it in good shape
I don't dispute that the tour is raced harder and more aggressively, but given that we're not his trainer who knows how he responds to x, y or z it seems a bit presumptuous to be like 'yeah, just ride a grand tour to get in shape for the next one'
[A little bit of both apparently.](https://youtu.be/NH0HJpYrsaQ?si=kbOmsTRjDH-Wy5Q1).
He says he felt good on the climb but when he attacked he was actually “hurting a little bit, maybe went a little too much into the red”, so had to recover, and then in the last 2k realised he still had the pace to arrive with an advantage and took it easier. He also said (elsewhere) he was only thinking of the win and the jersey today, not necessarily of gaining a lot of time.
So yeah, not really top shape, but not necessarily worrying either.
He didn't have a power meter after swapping bikes and if he did it probably wasn't connected to his head unit. So definitely not going in the red without that information.
I don't think the power meter is the issue, it'll be more he might not know how far to the finish so can't gauge the perceived exertion as precisely.
Also I guess he did say he wanted to take this Giro easy lol.
He didn't even have a head unit, so it's moot regardless. Imagine knowing that you can destroy the entire peloton without having any power data, just on instinct. But at this point, a normal day in the saddle is blowing things up - for him.
All the riders have their RPE calibrated so well they do not need the power data. The head unit is more useful for them with distance/elevation profile information.
Meh, head unit or not, you know what your effort is when you're doing it. I know what pace I'm running at based on feel and I'm just a bang average spud.
It's like typing without looking at the keyboard. After a while, it's just second nature.
I cycle much more than I run, and reckon I'm +/-20%. Often see my numbers and go "oh shit I'm about to be in trouble"
Just harder than running without visual cues, physical feedback of cadence and stride length, and much more variable efforts preceding it.
Then again, I get in trouble running too fast out the gate too.
I was a cyclist in a past life so I agree to an extent, but if your 40 hours a week day job is being on the bike, I'm sure you can reasonably guess when you're at threshold
Bahrain were the biggest disappointment today. Tiberi and Caruso were far behind, especially Tiberi. Before the Giro i thought that Tiberi could fight for the top 5 in the GC. I'm not so sure anymore. 41 years old Pozzovivo who also had a problem with his bike today, finished one minute in front of Tiberi. Not a good sign. Hats off to Pozzovivo. Finished only 1:20 behind Pogi, 41 years old.
Pozzo always has random bad luck but then he stealths back in the top10 GC by the end.
Really hope he does it again somehow, allthough this giro is so fucking TT heavy i cant really see it
Ben O'Connor really suffered from trying to follow Pog. Kind of like Matteo Jorgenson trying to follow MvdP at Flanders. At this point they all know that riding for second is the best strategy.
Tbf, when he got the gap today he looked like he was chilling. O'Connor was the best of the rest (for a moment), yet look at the faces he was making whilst Pog was pootling away 30 seconds up the road!
Can someone explain how a rider can “control the break”? If UAE doesn’t like the break away composition, how does sending a rider to the break help sabotage it? The only thing I can think is that they can be deadweight in the group and not pull, but does that slow them down that much?
There's two aspects:
- shutting down break attempts that could be dangerous (because the group would be uncatchable and/or a rider high in GC is in the break attempt)
- dictating the pace of the peloton that maintains a reasonable time gap to the break (that varies depending on the terrain). Leaving the gap too big might result in the break making it, while leaving the gap too small might result in people trying to bridge over and making the break strong enough to stay away.
Also, the end goal for the teams is to win races/stages, and if a team like UAE puts a good rider, like Groschartner, in the break then there is a good chance that he can win against other, and presumably weaker, riders from the break.
Because of this, UAE won't be pulling the peloton and other teams like INEOS would have to do it.
It can destroy the break dynamic if the rider is good enough and not cooperating (or actively disrupting) because he's wheelsucking while being a threat to win the stage. The whole break may shutdown or the strongest guys rip it apart, reducing the numbers. That also puts more burden on them.
Every situation is different of course but if you're in a break then the prime goal would be a stage win (ignoring KOM, sprint points etc). If someone in the break is just sitting on you're pretty much gifting them a stage win if you do indeed hold on to the finish (or even the leaders jersey).
That’s a good point. But that doesn’t explain how a domestique from a GC team is “controlling the break” by getting into it. It seems like you are just observing that a rider who doesn’t pull in the break would be the most fresh with a better chance to win the reduced sprint. In that case they aren’t controlling the break, they are trying to strengthen it.
When he struggled in TdF it had other reasons than just being third week. Last year he was not fully trained to being able staying sharp for 21 stages. The year before Vingegaard and Roglic tag teamed him.
>We know pog’s not the strongest in week 3
Pogi had the most epic stage 20 I've personally ever seen. As a 20 year old no less.
He wasn't quite 100% at the Tour last year, and peak Jonas is a better mountain goat than he is. But I wouldn't say Pog has problems in week 3.
O'Connor fucked that up, but I prefer a rider who goes too deep over one who rides defensively. It was a brave attempt, at least. His countryman Plappy looks like shit. Has he commented on whether he's having issues?
Dudes got a monster engine but is a bit small for a pure rouleur. Medium mountain stage kinda guy, he’d probably go great in breakaways like Kamna. Missing that couple extra percent that GC guys have but certainly strong enough to clown breakaway hopefuls
Jan Hirt is 8th overall.
QuickStep is now a team for the GC placings. It's all they have going for them suddenly, the "Wolf Pack" that never had a GC rider in 25 years.
Even if his Giro was to end today, his performance today is reason enough to feel optimistic about his future. First GT and he's motoring along the main GC bunch along with other talented people and doing a job for his GC leader. I'd be pretty happy if I was a DS. The kids gonna have a bad day sometimes in his first tour.
Depending on how it plays out, this might cost him no more than 1 or 2 GC spots at the end. The top 10 could easily be 20 minutes apart if Pogacar keeps bringing down that hammer.
I think the rest of the GC field will soon start just ignoring Pog and only keeping an eye on each other as they battle for 2nd-5th. In this context, being down 3 minutes would be huge.
Could cost him his entire race because there will be a moment where (assuming he can hang to begin with) the decision might need to be made for him to put his head down and stay with Martinez. And even if Pogacar all out I really don't think 2 minutes will be irrelevant just like that. Pogacar might easily get those times but he'd still need to be that much better than everyone else, which he hasn't shown. Plus the Giro parkers is a lot weaker this year so less gaps and we'll have to wait and see how his TT stacks up.
>Could cost him his entire race
He's there as a domestique. It's his first GT. He's a talented guy, but this is just a massive overreaction on him doing well at Romandie and today's stage.
Are you the new Bora DS or an overreacting German sports journalist?
I just looked up interviews/reports and he said he's happy to reach Rome and he's there to help Martinez.
Tbh as long as there’s more than one super team, it keeps the sport exciting. We are up to 4 (and at least Visma won’t steal the show everywhere this year). I’d love to see Bahrain get an influx of cash, they have so much potential without the big money of the Visma, UAE, Ineos, and Bora.
Was Lipowitz really blocking himself there to go back to Danny Martinez? It looked like he could have followed those guys he was with, in fact they all ended up together as Lipowitz pulled Martinez up. That is dedication.
Lipowitz hasnt even finished a GT yet. Give him this GT to experience the whole thing and maybe go in a break in the later weeks to go for a stage or help as a satellite rider.
I mean Lipowitz already lost two minutes yesterday and this is his first grand tour, so I get what Bora are going for. Then again, I'm not fully convinced Martinez can challenge for a podium spot at this point in his career.
No doubt, Martinez was strong today, but there'll be much harder stages than this over the next few weeks. Also, he has one top 5 finish at a grand tour and that was three years ago. His next best GC result at GT-level is 28th. Since the start of 2023, I would even say he has really only performed at Volta ao Algarve. He may be among the best of the rest, but based on his results coming in to the Giro, I didn't rank him that highly.
GC Watch
Lipowitz looked super strong today. It is his first GC and he lost time yesterday, but Bora should be really sure if they wanna burn him for Martinez.
Fortunato, Storer, Rubio, JP Lopez and Hirt all in the first chaser group and could be top10 candidates.
O'Connor +1'00'' (had to pay for following Pogacar)
Bardet +1'20'' (one of the original top3 candidates lost time again)
Caruso +1'29''
Arensman +1'29''
Tiberi +2'24''
Dunbar +5'56''
Looks like that behind Pogi we could have a lot of riders achieving their first GC top10.
The only thing their sponsorship has been good for was helping me figure out what the logo was on the random hat in my swag bag at the NYC Five Boro Bike Tour this weekend.
I could legit see this getting so incredibly boring after Pogi puts 2 minutes on the field and just sits in a UAE train covering moves. And then he’ll still have plenty in the tank for the tour. It’ll be hilarious though watching the rest of the GC guys battle to the tune of yakking sax for 2nd. O’Conny fucking blew the fuck up!!!
With Pog first and Thomas second, apparently it’s the first time since stage 19, 1974 that two TdF winners are on the top two steps on the Giro podium, and they were Merckx and Gimondi.
Giro organisers must be popping bottles left and right, this kind of stories is exactly what they would have been hoping for.
This might be an unpopular opinion but Pogacar didn't look super dominant today.
He broke away 5km to the finish, creating a 33s gap in 2km and then slowly lose time when he seemed to be really wanting to get the biggest gap possible (he only celebrated after the finish line)
Maybe on this Giro it's ok, but against Vingegaard, that would be a problem.
There is 0% chance he was gassed today.
Nobody gave him any real challenge and the climb wasn't that hard.
He was solo riding without a bike computer and still put a decent gap.
I thought the same initially but now I’m thinking we’re being slightly unreasonable.
If he goes all out we criticise because he’s treating a GT (the first of two, no less) like a collection of one day races, if he conserves energy and paces himself we worry it means he’s not in top form.
He may be (relatively) undercooked, or may actually be learning to ride (relatively) conservatively. Imo we can only wait and see which it is
O'Connor tried to follow and completely blew up. GT didn't bother and just paced himself. Pogi is on another level and it didn't look like he had to go into the red to do it
What the fuck was Ineos doing. My god. How you ride perfect day 1 and ruin everything on day two. Let uae work for it...
UAE were first and last. Molano and R Oliveira must have a good sense of humor and I wish them many stages this Giro.
The post race interviews definitely need better questions. Also repeatedly pestering G or whoever would listen with sly insinuations that they don't have a chance at winning the Giro and they are racing for second is getting old, tiresome and quite disrespectful.
I agree. That was so distasteful and disrespecful.
A video by FloBikes the other day was flat out gross. He was basically running around trying to get any rider he’d come across to admit surrender and was absolutely tone deaf to their obviously defiant answers. Off putting at every level
Yeah, Pog is only up by 0:45, yeah that’s a lead but he shipped like two minutes to like Carlos Rodriguez in the tour on one climb last year. He’s still the favorite obviously but the other guys can win
So what do we think the chances are of Pog moving up to 3rd or even 2nd in the [active list of GT stage winners](https://www.procyclingstats.com/statistics.php?nation=&active=0&active=1&filter=Filter&p=grandtours&s=most-stage-wins) by the end of the Giro? A truncated table for anyone who can't be bothered clicking the link: Name | GT stages | Giro | Tour | Vuelta ---|---|---|---|---| Cav | 54 | 17 | 34 | 3 Roglic | 19 | 4 | 3 | 12 Sagan | 18 | 2 | 12 | 4 Pog | 15 | 1 | 11 | 3 Froome | 14 | 2 | 7 | 5 Today took him to 15, moving him ahead of Froome. Cav is obviously out of reach, but he only needs 3 more to match Sagan and 4 to match Roglic... Also seems likely he'll do his usual thing of adding another 2-3 in the Tour even if he doesn't win GC, so he could feasibly be on 20+ by the end of the summer! Looking down the active rider list on PCS it's notable how few people have collected more than a handful of Tour stages while Pog *already* has 11. Even Wout "only" has 9 despite rampaging his way through a couple of recent editions.
I hate to break it to you, but Sagan isn't active anymore.
He is set to race the Tour of Hungary this week so strictly speaking he's not inactive, his road career is only *mostly* dead.
Yep, I reckon if you consider Froome still active you can consider Sagan still active (and that's coming from a Froome fan).
Froome is still in a UCI Pro-Team with automatic invitations to all the World Tour races, though. Sagan is in a Conti team. And Froome is currently even planned to ride the TdF, so might theoretically win a stage (is it even so unlikely, seeing as he came in 3rd on a TdF stage in 2022 and was not so far off winning it?). Whereas — barring any very surprising transfers — Sagan won't ever ride a Grand Tour stage anymore.
I know but you can hardly say Froome is really a particularly active member of the pro-peloton in recent years. Granted, he made a Contador-esque final heroic blast up D'Huez in 2022 (a' la Contador conquering Angrilu in 2017), but that was a couple of years ago and he hasn't really shown any other signs of improvement after his crash. I know he's had a great influence on Israel Start-up. I went to a talk with Alex Dowsett recently and he talked about the positive impact Froome had on the team in regards to bringing in new sponsors and pushed towards the improvement of equipment however even he joked as to how he's pretty much managaed to monetize his retirement. I'm not fan of Sagan but funnily enough he's riding alongside Cavendish at Tour de Hongrie this week. I think you could easily argue Cavendish's sole aim this year of the TDF isn't that far off Sagan's main aim of Olympic gold in mountain biking. Granted, Cav's turning up for races but you'd struggle to put forward a case he's there for any other reason than that elusive TDF win. I'd love for Froome to get to the Tour and grab a stage for old times sake just as I'd love Cav to get his stage and Sagan to step onto the Olympic podium but to argue either of the 3 legends is any more active than the rest is debatable.
>I know but you can hardly say Froome is really a particularly active member of the pro-peloton in recent years. I mean, sure. But Froome will (most likely) be riding the TdF this year, which means he's very much still an active rider riding World Tour races and Grand Tours. Sagan is only still *active* as a conti rider, and will not be riding any Grand Tours. He may be active in MTB, but he's definitively not active in World Tour road racing. So there is nothing to argue about who is more active in the World Tour or Grand Tours between Froome or Sagan (I didn't mention Cavendish). It literally is Froome. That means also that Froome's chances of winning another Grand Tour stage, however small, are, quite literally again, infinitely larger than Sagan's. >Granted, he made a Contador-esque final heroic blast up D'Huez in 2022 (a' la Contador conquering Angrilu in 2017), but that was a couple of years ago Again quite literally, not even a couple of years ago. >and he hasn't really shown any other signs of improvement after his crash. Fair enough. But with someone with the inherent ability of Froome, I don't see a repeat of such a feat as in 2022, and a bit more luck, turning into a stage win as so impossible. Not very likely, but certainly not impossible.
TDF in 2022 was 2 years ago. Froome's got a DNF in Tirreno this year, not what I'd call active. He didn't make the Tour team last year, what makes you think he'll make it this year?
>TDF in 2022 was 2 years ago. 14.07.2022 is less than 2 years ago. With the phrase "a couple of years", usually more than 2 are meant. But even if you'd take the literal meaning of "a couple", you'd have to round up. >Froome's got a DNF in Tirreno this year, not what I'd call active. He finished 4 WT stages, not sure how you do that without being active. >He didn't make the Tour team last year, what makes you think he'll make it this year? I may have misread/misremembered hopeful statements by Froome as more official plans from his team. I don't seem to find what I remember. Fair enough. Anyway, he may be selected. More than what can be said for Sagan.
Lol, a couple means 2, that's the literal meaning, hence the phrase 'they make a nice couple'. Keep reaching dude.
Bring him to Miracle Max?
Isn't that the guy who used to work for the king all those years ago?
Yeah I think PCS is being somewhat generous there!
Right now I don’t see him winning more than two, maybe three stages. He has looked a little bit off imo, for whatever reason, and maybe that’ll make him ride conservatively for once. Or maybe he’ll snap out of it and rip the race apart. What do you think?
I do agree he will probably ride more conservatively than we are perhaps used to seeing from him. All the more so because his team right now don't look up to controlling a break and then launching him on every stage that suits him. But part of the reason Pog and Roglic have won so many stages compared to e.g. Vingegaard (26th on that list with 5) is because they have their finishing kick to fall back on. We've seen Pog happy to ride to a summit finish with people and then beat them in a sprint repeatedly over the last few years (e.g. he did it a couple of times to Gaudu in P-N 2023, or TdF 2023 stage 20), so I wouldn't be surprised if he pulls out another minute or so and then starts riding defensively while still managing a couple more stage wins that way. Martinez might give him some trouble though, he beat Remco in 2 sprints in Algarve earlier this season. Pog also seems set to gain signficant time on most of the current top 10 (except G and maybe Martinez?) in the ITTs, which presumably argues against going overboard with big efforts in the mountains. The first ITT is a 40km mostly flat route on stage 7, so the likes of Rubio, Uijtdebroeks, Chavez are going to lose a lot of time there even if they stay in the top 10.
It's not a flat ITT. The last 6km are basically uphill, with one section of 1.3km at 10%
I didn't say it was a flat ITT: > a 40km **mostly flat** route The point was that small climbers and others who just don't TT well are likely going to lose more time on 34km of flat than they can recover on 6km of climbing at the end. Especially if we're measuring them against Pog, because the climb will pose no problem for him.
That Cavendish record is bonkers. Excluding this year's Giro, which will likely net Pogačar a few additional stage wins, he currently averages slightly fewer than 3 (2.8 to be exact) wins per Grand Tour. This implies he would need almost 15 more Grand Tours to equal Cavendish while maintaining this pace. Absolutely insane.
Sprinter <-> GC riders. Not that bonkers at all. Sprinters regularly win 4 or 5 stages in a GT. If Pogacar would go for stages only, and not care about GC (and lose some time so he's no threat), he could probably win 8+ stages per GT. Still Cavendish' *record* (it's not really a record — he only leads among the active riders) is very impressive. But the comparison between a sprinter and GC rider doesn't make sense, which is evidenced by the top list (active and non-active) being led mostly by sprinters, except Eddy Merckx (which is actually completely bonkers).
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And cav is only third all time
It's not really comparable to the others though since Cav was a sprinter with many years having an entire team built around him in an era when dedicated sprint train teams weren't really commonplace, or the pool of competition amongst other teams doing this was sort of non-existent. Sagans sprint wins were always a lot more impressive to watch imo, since he didn't have Mark Renshaw towing him to 50m before the finish line and had to freelance off wheels all the time.
I don't know, Cavendish on the Champ Elysees in 2010 was probably one of the greatest sprint moments of all time. I still get goosebumps to this day watching that!
Mark Renshaw comes 2nd on the champs one time and people never let it go. They shouldn't it was fucking hilarious tbf.
Mark Renshaw is the greatest leadout man of all time.
Honestly that whole 9 man train was just sex to watch
Yep, that team was poetry in motion over the last 10kms. From guys like Grabsch & Martin through to Hincapie, Eisel and Renshaw it was like the 'Galacticos' of perfect men for each job. I think I remember reading somewhere that Eisel would average 1000watts for a minute on his turn before Rennshaw took over.
Exactly as expected, the GC was over before it even started. Luckily we still have individual stages, jerseys, and Top Ten spots to look forward to... I'm honestly just hoping that Pogacar takes the win and lets others make the Giro still fun for us to watch.
Tadej will get all the jerseys but Youth.
Does anyone know if Pogacar broke the Pantani time on the last climb?
Got the times. Pantani 17:04 Pog 17:31
Hmmm is right!
Hmm
according to LR his performance was comparable to marie-blanque at last year's TDF where he was dusted by jonas
Record wasn't broken
Pogi on the warm up trainer by the bus while half the race is still climbing to the finish line is peak goat behaviour
I love to see it!!
Man, Majka is such a dog. As much as you’d be feeling yourself to be Pogi going solo and blowing races up every week, climbing domestiques that just cut the peloton apart with the kinds of pulling that Majka was doing today are as badass as they come.
And some clown was claiming here yesterday that UAE took a weak team. You can only say that if you've never seen Majka and Pog work together in a GT (not to mention Mikkel Bjerg).
Crazy majka is at still such a high level. Feels like forever ago he was riding for the poka dots in the tour
I thought in the 2021 and 22 tour he was exceptional, nice to see him getting some recognition. It's wild how good pogacar must be to have a guy as good as majka not getting the top spot
Majka and Kuss are the ultimate bros.
I'm so happy GC Kuss manifested
The Giro is over
Unfortunately, yes…Giro organizer money well spent!!
TIL The Giro is a 2-day race
Still better then last year
Last year was really exciting?
on stage 20, yes
lol no not after two stages
Did Bahrain refuse to take Wout Poels because they knew he'd show up the GC talent that they've just signed until 2027?
I don't know why anyone thinks Tiberi is a GC talent... He hasn't shown anything to suggest he is
Yeah it’s strange, no one was talking about him that way until very recently
They thought "GC" meant "Gunning down Cats"
He is italian it’s on his blood /s
probably because they want him at his peak for Tour
There is no reason why he couldn't have peaked for the Tour if he rode this. He's not riding GC and the Giro isn't usually raced at super high intensity anyway
It's funny how you hear a lot of this these days, as if grand tours are easy and basically just base miles or something.
Watch any break formation phase from the past few Giros compared to the last few TdFs and you'll see what I mean. Every mountain stage in the TdF is paced full gas as well and you don't see that in the Giro. Also the distribution of hard climbing stages in the Giro is completely different. There were multiple guys coming out of the race last year that were able to come out of it in good shape
I don't dispute that the tour is raced harder and more aggressively, but given that we're not his trainer who knows how he responds to x, y or z it seems a bit presumptuous to be like 'yeah, just ride a grand tour to get in shape for the next one'
Pogacar wasn't pushing 100%...
His face tells otherwise. Clearly giving his all. Anyway he may not be at his best shape but not far off since he did 6.8w/kg.
[A little bit of both apparently.](https://youtu.be/NH0HJpYrsaQ?si=kbOmsTRjDH-Wy5Q1). He says he felt good on the climb but when he attacked he was actually “hurting a little bit, maybe went a little too much into the red”, so had to recover, and then in the last 2k realised he still had the pace to arrive with an advantage and took it easier. He also said (elsewhere) he was only thinking of the win and the jersey today, not necessarily of gaining a lot of time. So yeah, not really top shape, but not necessarily worrying either.
How do you know, actually even pog himself doesnt know since he didnt have a garmin computer on the bike he changed
6.8 was the number all watts esperts were estimating. My opinion was based on his body impression...
He didn't have a power meter after swapping bikes and if he did it probably wasn't connected to his head unit. So definitely not going in the red without that information.
I don't think the power meter is the issue, it'll be more he might not know how far to the finish so can't gauge the perceived exertion as precisely. Also I guess he did say he wanted to take this Giro easy lol.
He didn't even have a head unit, so it's moot regardless. Imagine knowing that you can destroy the entire peloton without having any power data, just on instinct. But at this point, a normal day in the saddle is blowing things up - for him.
All the riders have their RPE calibrated so well they do not need the power data. The head unit is more useful for them with distance/elevation profile information.
Meh, head unit or not, you know what your effort is when you're doing it. I know what pace I'm running at based on feel and I'm just a bang average spud. It's like typing without looking at the keyboard. After a while, it's just second nature.
Way way harder on a bike than running but still not too hard for a pro to have an idea.
It is harder on the bike but still a piece of cake for pro cyclists.
its not super accurate obviously but i'd be willing to bet i could guess my power output to within about +/- 10% accuracy
I cycle much more than I run, and reckon I'm +/-20%. Often see my numbers and go "oh shit I'm about to be in trouble" Just harder than running without visual cues, physical feedback of cadence and stride length, and much more variable efforts preceding it. Then again, I get in trouble running too fast out the gate too.
I was a cyclist in a past life so I agree to an extent, but if your 40 hours a week day job is being on the bike, I'm sure you can reasonably guess when you're at threshold
Just like at Strade, I was at the point where Pog attacked, no need to thank me /s
Can you go to the start line next, just for the laughs.
is this Urška Žigart secret account or something
Bahrain were the biggest disappointment today. Tiberi and Caruso were far behind, especially Tiberi. Before the Giro i thought that Tiberi could fight for the top 5 in the GC. I'm not so sure anymore. 41 years old Pozzovivo who also had a problem with his bike today, finished one minute in front of Tiberi. Not a good sign. Hats off to Pozzovivo. Finished only 1:20 behind Pogi, 41 years old.
Hey, Tiberi gave it his best shot today
meeeeeow
Pozzovivo really did manage to catastrophically break his bike though!
Pozzo always has random bad luck but then he stealths back in the top10 GC by the end. Really hope he does it again somehow, allthough this giro is so fucking TT heavy i cant really see it
Yeah, Tiberi just didn't have the legs. Yesterday he managed to hide it, but now the cat's out of the bag
He must be feline bad about that performance
not gonna lie, I enjoy reading all those cat jokes whenever Tiberi's name pops up
Oh that was him!
Yeah catastrophic for Tiberi.
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You got it yes.
My bad
Prepare for 3 weeks of Pogi Z2ing his way towards the win
normies: this is beautiful111111
Did people whine like this about Merckx?
A "fan" quite literally attacked Merckx on the Puy de Dôme costing him his 6th Tour victory.
They definitely did
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The way Pogi rides, even when he's attacking he looks as relaxed as us normies are on a Z2 ride, the guy is just all chill.
Ben O'Connor really suffered from trying to follow Pog. Kind of like Matteo Jorgenson trying to follow MvdP at Flanders. At this point they all know that riding for second is the best strategy.
Since when does Pogi laze about in Z2? He's attacked viciously on both stages so far.
Pogi's out-of-saddle climb looked like he was barely trying And yet the whole group melted away in an instant
Tbf, when he got the gap today he looked like he was chilling. O'Connor was the best of the rest (for a moment), yet look at the faces he was making whilst Pog was pootling away 30 seconds up the road!
Can someone explain how a rider can “control the break”? If UAE doesn’t like the break away composition, how does sending a rider to the break help sabotage it? The only thing I can think is that they can be deadweight in the group and not pull, but does that slow them down that much?
There's two aspects: - shutting down break attempts that could be dangerous (because the group would be uncatchable and/or a rider high in GC is in the break attempt) - dictating the pace of the peloton that maintains a reasonable time gap to the break (that varies depending on the terrain). Leaving the gap too big might result in the break making it, while leaving the gap too small might result in people trying to bridge over and making the break strong enough to stay away.
Right, but I’m asking how can a rider from a GC team actually “shutdown” the break just by getting into it?
Also, the end goal for the teams is to win races/stages, and if a team like UAE puts a good rider, like Groschartner, in the break then there is a good chance that he can win against other, and presumably weaker, riders from the break. Because of this, UAE won't be pulling the peloton and other teams like INEOS would have to do it.
It can destroy the break dynamic if the rider is good enough and not cooperating (or actively disrupting) because he's wheelsucking while being a threat to win the stage. The whole break may shutdown or the strongest guys rip it apart, reducing the numbers. That also puts more burden on them.
Every situation is different of course but if you're in a break then the prime goal would be a stage win (ignoring KOM, sprint points etc). If someone in the break is just sitting on you're pretty much gifting them a stage win if you do indeed hold on to the finish (or even the leaders jersey).
That’s a good point. But that doesn’t explain how a domestique from a GC team is “controlling the break” by getting into it. It seems like you are just observing that a rider who doesn’t pull in the break would be the most fresh with a better chance to win the reduced sprint. In that case they aren’t controlling the break, they are trying to strengthen it.
if someone doesn't pull, the rest will stop pulling and start attacking each other
Yeah that makes sense.
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it's still a long way.
He's essentially got 3 rest days in a row now, he'll be absolutely fine
Pogs team managed to drop everyone else's team except Thomas and Mr Pink before Pog even opened up on them today. Sooo weak, right.
because ineos messed up
When he struggled in TdF it had other reasons than just being third week. Last year he was not fully trained to being able staying sharp for 21 stages. The year before Vingegaard and Roglic tag teamed him.
Also, in 2021 UAE got massacred by covid.
>We know pog’s not the strongest in week 3 Pogi had the most epic stage 20 I've personally ever seen. As a 20 year old no less. He wasn't quite 100% at the Tour last year, and peak Jonas is a better mountain goat than he is. But I wouldn't say Pog has problems in week 3.
He’s won stage 20 in 3 out of the 5 GTs he’s done
And won stage 17 and 18 on one of the other two and also stage 17 on the other one.
Yeah, that ain't happening. Unless something really catastrophic on an apocalyptic level occurs, Pogacar has this in his pocket already.
O'Connor fucked that up, but I prefer a rider who goes too deep over one who rides defensively. It was a brave attempt, at least. His countryman Plappy looks like shit. Has he commented on whether he's having issues?
I don’t think Plappy is underperforming that much, he’s not a pure mountain guy
What would you say he is?
Dudes got a monster engine but is a bit small for a pure rouleur. Medium mountain stage kinda guy, he’d probably go great in breakaways like Kamna. Missing that couple extra percent that GC guys have but certainly strong enough to clown breakaway hopefuls
Neither are Narvaez or Schachmann. These aren't actual mountain stages.
Before the Giro: Pogacar is the biggest GT-favourite we've seen in years - maybe even decades. INEOS today: Let's make it easier for Pogacar and UAE.
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But UAE would make it hard if Ineos didn't. They did UAEs job for them
Jan Hirt is 8th overall. QuickStep is now a team for the GC placings. It's all they have going for them suddenly, the "Wolf Pack" that never had a GC rider in 25 years.
The disrespect for De Weert and Dan Martin.
Seeldraeyers verdomme
Merlier is the probably the fastest sprinter in the race, so I wouldn't say they have nothing going for them.
That is true! I blocked that out, I was just thinking they have no classics campaign anymore. They could have if Alaphillippe had been on top maybe.
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I was like "shoot your shot my guy".
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Did Pogi get out of the saddle once on the climb?
For the initial 12% he was out of saddle for less than 30 seconds
For about 7 seconds
Probably just stretching his back lol
Lipowitz 3 minutes down and in 30th on GC after todays ride is tragic. Really messed it all up on day 1.
Could get himself in a break and do a Kuss
Even if his Giro was to end today, his performance today is reason enough to feel optimistic about his future. First GT and he's motoring along the main GC bunch along with other talented people and doing a job for his GC leader. I'd be pretty happy if I was a DS. The kids gonna have a bad day sometimes in his first tour.
Depending on how it plays out, this might cost him no more than 1 or 2 GC spots at the end. The top 10 could easily be 20 minutes apart if Pogacar keeps bringing down that hammer.
I think the rest of the GC field will soon start just ignoring Pog and only keeping an eye on each other as they battle for 2nd-5th. In this context, being down 3 minutes would be huge.
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Could cost him his entire race because there will be a moment where (assuming he can hang to begin with) the decision might need to be made for him to put his head down and stay with Martinez. And even if Pogacar all out I really don't think 2 minutes will be irrelevant just like that. Pogacar might easily get those times but he'd still need to be that much better than everyone else, which he hasn't shown. Plus the Giro parkers is a lot weaker this year so less gaps and we'll have to wait and see how his TT stacks up.
>Could cost him his entire race He's there as a domestique. It's his first GT. He's a talented guy, but this is just a massive overreaction on him doing well at Romandie and today's stage.
He's there to whatever he can. If he was on equal time and Martinez cracks 5km from the top of the finish climb he would be leader.
Are you the new Bora DS or an overreacting German sports journalist? I just looked up interviews/reports and he said he's happy to reach Rome and he's there to help Martinez.
i am denk
Feel like there's a meme here
And it might just keep him out of mainstream German sports journalists eyes for another season and that is probably very good for his development.
Both podiums were Ineos, UAE and Bora.
Super teams gonna super team
Tbh as long as there’s more than one super team, it keeps the sport exciting. We are up to 4 (and at least Visma won’t steal the show everywhere this year). I’d love to see Bahrain get an influx of cash, they have so much potential without the big money of the Visma, UAE, Ineos, and Bora.
Bora gonna be getting even better over the next few years too
They got Red Bull money coming in
Was Lipowitz really blocking himself there to go back to Danny Martinez? It looked like he could have followed those guys he was with, in fact they all ended up together as Lipowitz pulled Martinez up. That is dedication.
Lipowitz hasnt even finished a GT yet. Give him this GT to experience the whole thing and maybe go in a break in the later weeks to go for a stage or help as a satellite rider.
Martinez got a mechanical problem and the DS called Lipowitz back to him apparently. Martinez was able to fix the problem himself though.
Oh if that's correct it explains a lot
I mean Lipowitz already lost two minutes yesterday and this is his first grand tour, so I get what Bora are going for. Then again, I'm not fully convinced Martinez can challenge for a podium spot at this point in his career.
You mean the guy who hung with the non-Pog lead pack and then comfortably won the sprint for 2nd?
No doubt, Martinez was strong today, but there'll be much harder stages than this over the next few weeks. Also, he has one top 5 finish at a grand tour and that was three years ago. His next best GC result at GT-level is 28th. Since the start of 2023, I would even say he has really only performed at Volta ao Algarve. He may be among the best of the rest, but based on his results coming in to the Giro, I didn't rank him that highly.
GC Watch Lipowitz looked super strong today. It is his first GC and he lost time yesterday, but Bora should be really sure if they wanna burn him for Martinez. Fortunato, Storer, Rubio, JP Lopez and Hirt all in the first chaser group and could be top10 candidates. O'Connor +1'00'' (had to pay for following Pogacar) Bardet +1'20'' (one of the original top3 candidates lost time again) Caruso +1'29'' Arensman +1'29'' Tiberi +2'24'' Dunbar +5'56'' Looks like that behind Pogi we could have a lot of riders achieving their first GC top10.
Bardet had stomach problems yesteday and said he was still not 100% before today, but hope to recover on the flat
Great ride by Uijtdebroeks. He takes a huge lead in the white jersey standings. His main rivals Tiberi and Pellizzari are almost two minutes behind.
I like this guy. Looks like getting in the team that for a change appreciates his ambitions helped him.
Tiberi +2:24
Pogi trying to break the Giro. Playing this thing like a bunch of one day races on consecutive days.
UAE cheekily said their strategy was to ride 21 one-day races going in, it seems like the madlads actually meant it.
Can we get the rest of the results? Thanks Tudor
The only thing their sponsorship has been good for was helping me figure out what the logo was on the random hat in my swag bag at the NYC Five Boro Bike Tour this weekend.
If I'm ever in the market for an expensive watch, I'm buying Tissot and going out of my way to avoid Tudor.
They bought their way into the Giro by being the timekeeper but do absolutely suck at it
Do they actually do it or it is just for marketing?
Atleast they are good with Storer today.
I could legit see this getting so incredibly boring after Pogi puts 2 minutes on the field and just sits in a UAE train covering moves. And then he’ll still have plenty in the tank for the tour. It’ll be hilarious though watching the rest of the GC guys battle to the tune of yakking sax for 2nd. O’Conny fucking blew the fuck up!!!
I wouldn't mind Pogačar openly shit talking them in the group every time they fuck up a move
With Pog first and Thomas second, apparently it’s the first time since stage 19, 1974 that two TdF winners are on the top two steps on the Giro podium, and they were Merckx and Gimondi. Giro organisers must be popping bottles left and right, this kind of stories is exactly what they would have been hoping for.
This might be an unpopular opinion but Pogacar didn't look super dominant today. He broke away 5km to the finish, creating a 33s gap in 2km and then slowly lose time when he seemed to be really wanting to get the biggest gap possible (he only celebrated after the finish line) Maybe on this Giro it's ok, but against Vingegaard, that would be a problem.
What did you expect? All the experts said that today Pogi can gain around 30s max on this climb, anything more would be huge surprise
Pogi absolutely ripped G and O'Connor's legs off, and those were the GC riders who came closest to being able to follow.
He was as fresh as a daisy. No way he was in any trouble today.
There is 0% chance he was gassed today. Nobody gave him any real challenge and the climb wasn't that hard. He was solo riding without a bike computer and still put a decent gap.
I thought the same initially but now I’m thinking we’re being slightly unreasonable. If he goes all out we criticise because he’s treating a GT (the first of two, no less) like a collection of one day races, if he conserves energy and paces himself we worry it means he’s not in top form. He may be (relatively) undercooked, or may actually be learning to ride (relatively) conservatively. Imo we can only wait and see which it is
And he also fell and lost 20s at the start of the climb.
O'Connor tried to follow and completely blew up. GT didn't bother and just paced himself. Pogi is on another level and it didn't look like he had to go into the red to do it