Tour de France 2025
Good first day’s racing, but plenty of spills and large time differences already. Got to feel for poor Filippo Ganna (Ineos), first time back in Tde F for a couple of years and caught up in mayhem.
No spoilers on the day please, some of us do late evening catch ups!
It’s hard to look past Pogacar at the moment, but can only hope one or two of the other teams can come up with a plan to beat him. Personally, would love to see Fred Wright win a stage, and a breakaway for Gee would crown a glorious last year and career.
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It is hard for me to watch any of it as we are away in the Van at the moment, so just have to make do with reports and the odd bit I can find on YouTube.
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I have been recording it this year ITV 4 but will see what next year brings as I may have to watch on French tv channels instead as not keen on subscriptions.
Still got yesterdays race to watch and today so will watch tonight as Monday night nothing on for me to watch.
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GB fans are steaming at TNT😡 They have opted to put adverts into live stream. You can only dodge them by using the multi screen option, which might be fine on a huge TV screen, but we only have the smallest screen you can buy. So we’d need binoculars🥴
Great days racing yesterday, these first two days have been more like watching the Belgian Classics. Jonas has been fantastic, playing to a different song sheet this Tour. Poor Lenny Martinez, the “latest hope of France” is having a nightmare start. No helped by all the hype. It was good to see Michael Matthews in the studio following his unexpected health scare. Orla was rocking some kind of Ghengis Khan look yesterday, her outfits and hair are occasionally as interesting as the race!🤭
Sprint day today🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️ Cue chaos🫣
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@SteveL if you should be thinking of signing up toTNT/Discovery, don’t just opt for the £30.99 fee (how much😱) We haggled and get it for £6.99. OH does watch some of the football as well, plus World Student Games are on later this year, and there are some good sports documentaries.
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What about todays stage win by Anna Henderson on the second stage of the ladies Giro, and taking over the pink Jersey as well!
More crashes and abandonments on The Tour today, including the winner of Stage 1, Jasper Pederson. Could it be because of the weather, more intense racing perhsps because of the greater rewards on offer, or "less" experienced riders?
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@nelliethehooker a number of factors possibly🤔 There are more riders in the actual race, as an extra wildcard team was added. The first three stages have been more like Belgian Classics, through narrow urban streets with lots of street furniture, and cross winds. The stakes have been huge as well, winner of anything on Stage 1 got to wear a jersey of course, hence the two KOM contenders bringing each other down at the KOM line. One got the jersey, the other got the Combativity award, and luckily both are still racing. Didn’t see Ganna and Bissiger go down, so not sure on that one. Cocquard was shoved out the way by Philipsson on day one at an intermediate sprint, won by Milan, but he does seem prone to deviating a bit, and that unintentionally brought Philipsson down in a horrific crash yesterday. He was in a very bad way. Cocquard was yellow carded and fined. The mayhem at the finish was the usual fight for space on a bend, but how they all got up I do not know. 🫣 It’s another expected sprint finish today, but one more for the fast finishers who can also climb. Nerves, high stakes, some inexperience, bad luck, inattention, all playing a part. Some of the riders appear really hyped up to deliver.
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I record here and watch as and when yes a good day yesterday and the scenery was great as well could do with the lens the helicopter camera operator has to get so close to Puy de Dome wow.
Rest day today and then back to it tomorrow.
Was looking at Sundays recording and thought I know that fire station and then waited for the Aire to appear on the right and it was the road from Le Blanc to Azay le Ferron where they all turned right at the roundabout been on that road many times to Obterre.
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Many years ago on our very first trip to France with the caravan we chose the Municipal site at Le Blanc to stay at. Fortunately we arrived at lunchtime in early May and the place was a right old tip so we found an alternative. Obviously, as we later learned, the workers hadn't started their Spring clean, a typical thing that seemed to happen with Municipals that had only just opened up for the season. We did return to the site once in future years and it was fine. Always good to follow the TdF around France as it brings back so many memories.
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Indeed it is @Wherenext although not long ago for us. We stopped at the summit of yesterday’s Cat 3 only a month ago. However, it was hardly recognisable on the TV as there were so many MH’s shoehorned in😂 The road was nicely resurfaced and they were even filling the potholes in the parking area. I noticed on yesterday’s coverage quite a lot of the newly resurfaced roads were covered in a white dust. Perhaps put down because the oils in the new tar were making them slippery.
I do find the lack of coverage in the UK somewhat surprising. Considering who won yesterdays stage I did expect something to be in my online paper (Telegraph) this morning, but not a mention.
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Rest day today, must be a welcome relief to many of the riders. This has been a fantastic first ten days of racing, with eight different riders claiming a stage win, and some memorable moments, particularly Ben Healy’s stage win and taking the yellow jersey, MVP and Johan Rickaert’s audacious plan and flight to get Rickaerts onto the podium, and Simon Yates climbing away from some very strong opposition yesterday. Fabulous, and more to come. Pog is looking super strong, but his team has been compromised, Jonas is going very well, and still has his fantastic team around him. Oscar Onley and Lenny Martinez are two youngsters having a really good tour. Bring it on👏👏👏
Stand out moments belong to Ben Healy though, such a strong rider.
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@SteveL depends what you read, Guardian has had daily coverage, although calling MVP “Belgian” won’t have gone unnoticed. There’s lots of coverage in cycling press. For anyone who loves all the ins and outs, who started, who didn’t finish, who came where, how long will a rider be out injured, etc……then ProCyclingStats.com website has it all. Just beware of logging in while a race or stage is on as it’s updated immediately.
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@SteveL - I remember being in the Auvergne a year after the Tour had gone through on the road from Murat to Riom-es-Montaigne and it was probably the smoothest ride on a bike I've ever had on a main road.
If only all roads were treated in the same way as those on the Tour, notwithstanding those roads used for the Spring classics, Must admit we were pleasantly surprised by the conditions of the roads in the Netherlands when we were there a couple of years ago.
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