Tour de France

(19-07-2019 16:58 )Charlemagne Wrote:  Alaphilippe is looking a great contender for this years tour.

How is he on the mountain stages

Not usually great on the highest mountain in the Alps next week. His team ia also not great so The Tourmalet tomorrow could see him lose time as he won’t have the team to help him by the end.

Presumably the French Press will be casting all sorts of aspersions over that performance. Oh wait a minute, he's French

Also today was "La Course" the annual insult from the ASO to Women's Professional Cycling.

If holding it on a Friday morning with minimal publicity wasn't enough of a slap in the face, Marianne Vos, probably the greatest Cyclist of her era (male or female) attended a post race Winner's press conference to be faced with a room full of empty seats. Only 1 journalist showed up.

A fucking disgrace.

Stage 14 is 117.5 km mountain section between Tarbes to Tourmalet Bareges

The GC guys trailing Allaphillipe, including Geraint, surely have to attack him on the Tourmalet today?

If Allaphilipe remains in yellow after today and with a sizeable time advantage then he's got to start believing he can go all the way to the Champs Elysees?

^ I think Ineos will put the pressure on him today and remember that his team DQT is not set up for the GC - it's split with sprinters to support Viviani. That means Allaphillipe is going to need to follow Ineos at some point as he won't have the DQT team power to support him.

Ineos over the next week will try to isolate him and squeeze the strength out of him. The Alps next week have much higher mountains and Allaphillipe does not usually do as well on that type of stage. He's better on the shorter punchier climbs. The Tourmalet today is 19km In his favour is that he could try to ride defensively and limit any losses to a few seconds.

It's a great tour so far. Having a Frenchman in the lead is a big plus.

We've reached that point in the race where Carlton Kirby does his annual recital of the story about a Rider fixing his forks in a Blacksmith's shop and getting a penalty because someone else operated the bellows.

Alaphillipe looks good for Paris now.

Still not there yet like someone has said its the alps and can he sustain it without a team

Stage 15 is between Limoux to Foix Prat d'Albis. It's a 185km mountain race.

Overall Thomas is now 2mins 2secs behind Alaphilippe