Tour de France 2025 Recap | Lanterne Rouge x JOIN Cycling

In this episode Patrick Broe and Benji Naesen recap the 2025 Tour de France.

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🇦🇺 Patrick Broe – Host: https://www.youtube.com/@LanterneRougeCycling & https://www.instagram.com/the_lanterne_rouge_/ & https://www.twitter.com/lanternerougeyt
🇧🇪 Benji Naesen – Host: https://www.youtube.com/@BenjiNaesenTV & https://www.instagram.com/benjinaesen/ & https://www.twitter.com/benjinaesen
🇳🇱 Luc Grefte – Producer: https://www.twitter.com/lucgrefte

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*Timestamps:*
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:08 Week one recap
00:14:37 Week two recap
00:28:53 Week three recap
00:33:45 Visma & UAE discussions
00:55:00 Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe
01:02:26 GC Top 10
01:08:12 Other teams
01:15:29 Breakout riders
01:21:10 Evenepoel transfer discussion & Red Bull DS’s leaving with immediate effect
01:27:52 Favourite stages & rating the Tour de France
01:33:40 Outro

Welcome back to Lantern Rouge Cycling Podcast. For the recap, the entirety of the tour to France men’s race being recaped as we normally do it. We’re going to go through all the stage winners, the weeks, what do we like about the weeks, discuss the parkour, some of the additions, malatra, I think the numbers for that say it all. We’ll go through things like that, what our favorite or at least most memorable and least memorable stages were, and then talk about the big topics. And I think the big topic really was UAE and Pagatcha against Vizma uh and how that maybe boiled up and then peted out during the race. We’ll talk about other GC riders, some breakout riders which we had quite a lot of in the top 10 on GC. I must say a lot of new top 10 GC riders in this year’s tour to France. The points classification discussed that as well as some odds and ends from this uh tour to France. This episode is brought to you by our show partner Join Cycling. Big credits to Join Cycling being with us throughout the year. Just want to give them a shout out given that we’re recapping the tour also to you know they make all our tour coverage possible. Benji coming to Andor possible etc. How are you feeling Benji? Uh 4 days on from the event. Pretty good. Pretty good. It feels like it never ended because the tour of France Fift is ongoing. So it’s like there’s still a tour in France going on just a different one at this point. So, it’s not like it’s a we’re retired for a week. Doesn’t happen that way. But, um, just overall, I think I’ll give my opinion on the whole tour to France by the end of this. But, I can’t wait to get into the recap because sometimes we record the full recap of a Grand Tour the day after, which then sometimes you don’t have enough time to like process every part of it. Now I feel like I’ve processed every aspect of it and I uh I feel like deep diving into what could Vizma have done better what could what’s what’s with UAE did they have weaknesses throughout the race the breakout riders like you mentioned where do we see them going in one year two year three years what are the possibilities of Ramuan in the future hypothetically if he goes to that Bora Hansa with Lipovitz already podiuming the to France there’s so many questions that I do want to dive into today and I can’t wait to get started but Patrick kick us off by going through uh the week one stage winners first, my friend. The rapid fire recap of the stage winners. I want to see if people remember what happened. See if I remember what happened. Stage one, we’re in the northeast of France that we had no cobbles. Maybe it would have been I think it I’ll start off straight away, Benji. I think it’s wrong they went to the northeast of France, had 17 different permutations of the exactly the same punchur stage and didn’t have a cobble stage. I would rather have seen another cobble stage instead of another punchy hill finish. Personally, it still would have suited the same riders. It just would have added variety. But stage one from Lu Metropol, we had Crosswinds, Remco, Lipovitz, Ragglitch get put on 30 seconds. Pog enrichy mass, Kevin Vocal, and Vingard make it up. Vingard pulls an Echelon, but Yasper Phillips of course Alperson don’t miss. He wins the first stage, takes the yellow jersey, takes 50 green jersey points. Johnny Milan and Meria miss it. So, Philipsson strikes a big blow for Green there. Stage two, Bologon sme punchy finish. Uh, some of the versatile sprinters teams pulled, but then it was too hard for them when Pogy and Vanderpool went. Vanderpool wins the sprint against the the GC riders. Uh, stage three classic sprint. Tim Meria wins ahead of Johnny Milan coming out of the wheel. Stage four to Ruant. We had the Santair punchy finish. Vizma tried to split it on the descent into it, but Paganta beats Vanderpool in the uphill sprint after Almea does a magnificent job keeping it all together after Vizma kept attacking with Jorgensson and Co. Stage five, the TT. We’ve not had any real GC gaps except for stage one crosswinds. Remco wins, of course. Uh, Pagatcha comes second. And the big news was Vingard losing a minute to Pagatcha. A minute he will never get close to making up for the rest of the this year’s tour to France. Pagata also goes into the yellow jersey which he’d only he would relinquish a couple of times. He’d lend it out from there on. Stage six to Via Normondi. Ben Healey gets into a group first break stage hilly stage and uh just straight up ruins everybody in that break was just way stronger. Vanderpool just holds on to the yellow jersey by 1 second and Pagacha wasn’t too happy after the stage because Vizma did pace uh to yeah make it hard slash where they trying to put him in the jersey. Stage seven murder Bratana. Pagatcha wins the sprint. Johnny Naray does a fantastic job again doing the lead out coming back. Remco was caught in two mines. Pogy takes yellow back. Vanderpool dropped. Vanderpool kind of finished for the rest of this tour from there on. Stage eight classic sprint. Milan wins. Stage nine classic sprint. Melier wins. No cross wins really. Although I think one day Vizma tried. Stage 10 breakaway. Ben Healey goes for yellow out of it. Simon Yates profits from that and wins yellow from the break. Vizma try to isolate and attack Pagatra again. Doesn’t work. Adam Yates brings back Jorgensson. That’s the end of week one. Benji, how do you feel about it? So, in general, I feel like there’s a few pointers here. First of all, obviously, Yonas Vingal losing a minute on that time trial, the con time trial. That’s a massive impact for the race. That’s the rider that is the challenger in this tour of France. Because let’s be honest about it, Pagacha came into the sto of France with clear favoritism. If the challenger then loses time on the first time troll with a bad day seemingly then that’s that’s a feeling of okay I we wanted this race to be close this is the first indicator that it might not be by the end but then later in that first 10 days we see Almeida crashing out which we don’t like it let’s be clear but it does put the pendulum a bit to the other side where you then start to think okay how is this going to impact UAE in week two and week because that’s the best Thomas in the mountains for T Pogachar in this race. So that’s a a potential impact there. So that’s what evened out the odds a little bit I would argue in the first week. But there’s so many other things that happened in this first week like Remising Diamond in that stage one was a first indicator of the thing we’ve seen all year Patrick that the team support of Quickstep and the Remco’s ability of positioning himself. just those two things he doesn’t get the right position before important moments 60 70% of the time before small hills before an echelon segment for example in stage one stuff like that the team fell asleep and they didn’t react enough and at the end of the day both him and Merier end up losing the split on that first stage so also potential stage win gone there now another factor then is I do want to mention that there are a few sprint stages in this first week where we where we noted that either the runin or the sprint itself was dangerously made by the organizers. So, I want to convey that criticism again that there was one sprint finish where there was literally a chicane with 250 m to go and a corner on the finish. That’s literally asking for riders to deviate from their line because it’s fastest the fastest way through that chicane and through that corner at the finish is by deviating through your line. So that that’s something I do want to bring up again that the tours the biggest race in the world who has the financial capabilities to figure [ __ ] like this out should be able to make sprint finishes safer than what it was in week one because there were a crash in those sprint finishes. Now the last thing also when it comes to the green jersey Patrick we let’s be honest about it we both kind of already knew that much of the pool wasn’t the kind of guy that would jump into bench prints and go for the green jersey but just in general Yasper Phillips crashing out in these first few days and and not being in the race for the rest of it that’s a massive hit for the green jersey battle right yeah it just it just uh really dampened that that battle I mean maybe Milan to be honest, I don’t think he would have been close. I don’t think he would have been close because with Alperson’s strength with rulers, they would have got Philipsson in breakaways to take 20 point deltas. I mean, look at Groves. They got Groves, Rickard. I mean, Rickard and Vanderpool pull a in this on the was it stage eight or nine? They pull a Trofeo Baraki. They pull a team time trial of two for nearly the whole stage. And so I think yeah, it should have, would have, could have. I would say week one of this tour to France was the best week. It was a long week, 10 days. Uh it does go to show Benji that like you put more mental credence into whether someone gets put on a 1 second gap or not on a punchy hill. And at the end of the day, that’s irrelevant for GC. It’s more or less irrelevant. I mean, if Paga had taken 5 seconds cuz he dropped Vingal Santair and then Jorgensson pays full gas with Vanderpool and then Pagata takes 5 seconds plus some bonies. It would have felt in the in the moment as meant as important emotionally for the spectators as almost a TT. But the reality is, Benji, I got a hot take for you. 1 minute 4 seconds is more than 15 seconds. Really? And and so losing more time is worse. Even though it feels less climactic than seeing someone physically get dropped. I get that. I 100% get that. But also in general, when it comes to the the Visma Lisa bike strategy in week one, got a lot of criticism on social media, let’s be honest, about it. And the way I saw that strategy personally was in in a three-fold manner. First of all, we know that Pogachar Fresh is much more explosive than Yonas Vingo. Let’s be honest about it. So firstly, if you make the stage harder, you would argue that the delta of explosiveness, so the difference in explosiveness between T and Yonas would reduce because they’re both getting more tired. Now on the road we I feel like we did notice that because Yonas was able to follow Ton on multiple rather punchy finishes in this first week. Then on the second hand, it also led to the likes of Nervas being dropped earlier or uh a few domestics from UAE being dropped earlier, reducing a potential lead out of UAE in those punchy hill stages, reducing the chances that Pugachar attack can drop finger instantly. And we see in week two what happens if Pogacher does have the lead out on auto. So that’s uh that’s an indication there that this is an important aspect of trying to not lose as much time against Pugachar. But I think the most important part Patrick is the following. You try to throw [ __ ] at T Pogacha every single day hoping it results in either weak moment him forgetting to a bad day anything because in the grand tours that t Pogacher has ridden also the jurro last year there’s always a day where Pogacha did not have the best day of his life and was potentially vulnerable the gravel stage last year I’m still of the opinion that that was not his best day of his life in the Jirro last year so we we’ve not seen this be super effective in in terms of like okay he’s not going to lose four minutes as a consequence but that’s also something that Vizma in my opinion was looking for and I think the criticism that they got then in return was okay you’re being so aggressive it’s going to backfire in week two and three sure that’s a possibility riding aggressively in week one can lead to you capitulating in week two or or for example being aggressive in the first four days can lead to a slightly worse time trial or or autoam losing more time than you expected do. But at the end of the day, the way I view it personally is if you’re Vismal bike, you don’t try to create a strategy to lose by the least possible time. You try to create a strategy to increase your odds of winning, acknowledging the risk that it could lead to losing by more time if it fails. Does that sentence make sense? Yeah. And I think that’s what some like even Remco himself like missed in that if the strategy was to beat Remco and Lipovitz then of course it would be completely different. Um you ride more conservatively. You know Vingard has better WS per kilo. You don’t do anything crazy and you just go to the final clan do a sky train lead out ramp it up and then he attacks. Okay you do that. You’re just the domestics of Pagacha for three weeks. And if Paga is the best all round rider in the world, then I mean we saw what happened on Plateau to Bay last year and on Isla we all everyone saw that. I think if if Vizma just started doing the the like high pacing strategy. I mean there was no stages for that. I think it’s more the criticism and maybe it’s fair Benji is did did going too hard in week one blow up the team? Um well the way I perceive that is on one end yes that can have its consequences and it might have had it on autocom which I feel like is a a valid criticism but on the opposite side what is the alternative strategy just riding to week two conservatively not attacking Pagachu in week one in doing so you will lose in week two on anyway but by less time is that your goal losing the two fronts by less time no I’m sorry but that’s not the goal here the goal is to put pressure on Pagacho on multiple days throughout two weeks hoping that one day it pays off because inherently T Pogachar is the better rider. Yeah, he just he pushes the most watts of any of the GC riders by a lot. So yeah. Um but that was the first pardon. The best study Pugacha is a better rider than the best Yasving based on the stats and races we’ve seen in the last two years. Yeah. And he hasn’t had a really bad day the last two years. Um, so if you ride conservatively, you’re going to lose it to the France if you’re even if even if on Haltan they’re the same. The reality is Pagata takes all the bonies. He then is going to so he’s going to win every sprint uphill or down or flat. And then the flat TT he’s pushing way more watts cuz he’s heavier. So even if their world was peculiar the same, you still can’t win unless you try to do something different or fatigue him or fatigue the team or create unpredictable situations where we’re going to get to that stage now. Uh stage 11 to to lose, Jonas Abrahamson wins. He attacks out of neutral uh behind the the jury car, gets in the break, and that break goes all the way. It was a huge fight. We saw Vingigard attacking across the brake. the break eventually goes uh I think Neil’s Polllet or oh no it was like was Pagata Pine can’t remember when Vingard attacked and in the final Vingard attacks on the on the hill Jorgensson goes again and what we were just discussing Benji Vagatcha crashes and is it bad luck yes Johannes chops the [ __ ] out of him don’t get me wrong Um, but why was he on the radio? Because Navage was making a mistake and made a mistake after the same race situation had happened 17 different times across the doofen and the tour to France. Like because of the rolling attacks of Jorgensson and Vingard, the solution is you just set a tempo and chill out. And Pagatch was going on the radio to be like just ride a tempo. Why are you attacking? And as he did that, he got chopped. And that’s the closest Visma we got to winning this tour to France, Benji, is as Pagach’s falling down. Yep, that is true. That’s reality. Like, by the way, just to addition, it sounds harsh, but that is literally the truth. That that is true. That is correct. I do want to add Pagacha was actually already back from pissing when the uh Helen Yona’s attack went. So, just to add on to the conversation there, but also towards the end. Sure. Yes, that’s true. Obviously, I think we’ve already uh brought this point across a few times. Uh we’ve done it both of us. If you want to win a grand tour or have the best chance of winning a grand tour, the first step is finishing the grand tour. So, for crashing at the end of a stage like this has a consequence and then the question is okay, first of all, what are the consequences physically? And secondly, what happens on the road when the crash happens? And that second part we see Viz Malis bike waiting the rest of the front group also waiting every team taking uh accountab no not accountability every team trying to take credit on social media Sean Ben Healey like I made he Ben everyone claimed that they were the reason why they stopped in front that was really funny in my opinion stopped you know how embarrassing it would have been the next day it would have been crazy to imagine if Malisai goes all in. Yas and Mateo go to the front, start hammering it. Takes 17 seconds or something and the next day they lose 2 minutes on auto. Jesus, they got lucky the stopping. They got lucky stopping. Although, who knows? Maybe if they p Pogy would have been so tilted he would have had a worse cam. Who knows? Um, and before we get to how to cam, if you want to ride up the Halteram as fast as Tatip Pagacha, you know what you need? You need join cycling training plans. And you say how you can build up to it. You may start with a recovery plan, which I did. You can progress then to the Lantern Rouge plan, which is a great one. And with these plans, it’s not really like one sizefits-all. Like lantern rouge plan is is the same difficulty for everybody. You have the lantern rouge plan that is adjusted for your ability level whether novice, amateur, intermediate, advanced for your availability, how many hours you have each day. So it’s the same type of plan, but it’s it can be adjusted for you. That’s the beauty of these plans. So then you can progress up to criteriums, grand fondos, there’s specific plans for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of events. And I would really recommend you check it out if you got something especially if you’re in uh if you’re in Australia now. That’s what I’m peing for. Benji TDU is not far away. It’s just around the corner. TDU, we’re about to tick over into August. It the prep starts now. And uh that’s the attitude you should have when you have events for in the future. the the longer you start preparing with more consistency with a joint cycling training plan, the better your results will be. The less crazy you have to go with um trying to crash do do training that’s in like the last 3 weeks. If you prepare further out, you can prepare really really well with one of Join’s plan. So, go and check it out through the link down below. 30-day free trial. You don’t even need a credit card. Just download the app off the app store. 30-day free trial. You’re flying. and you see if you like it and you see if you 30 days is the long enough time to build a habit. So that’s why we have the 30-day free trial. If you like it, get a discounted annual plan afterwards. So thanks to join cycling as always. If you’ve got a goal coming up, the best time to start preparing is today. And uh we can see Benji, I mean he’s smashing the how to cam every night that I can see. I think Benji just like Benji’s bad a bad example cuz he just ignores what Join tells him and just like does a smash fest. I have a proposal for Jordan Sai. I need a Benji Nawson content plan. The Benji Nawson plan is zone five every day. That being said, zone five every day. Was that what was happening on AutoM Patrick? Because I’m looking at that was what Jonathan Navas was doing. And this was the the end of the tour to France GC more or less. Uh we had a very similar stage to PLA day last year where Pagata put 30 seconds into Vingard on the Sulor Vizma tried to start hard pacing. Camponaut’s paces drops Remco even drops Kevin Vla looking good drops Matteo Jorgensson and so when Seep Cous took over Benote had been in the break UAE got Wellins ahead when Cous takes over he slows down. He slows down just just as Jonathan Navis is being dropped. He slows down. But the alternative was Yates was off the back. Johnson was off the back. They slow down. Yates starts pacing. Next climb Yates paces again. JSON drops again. And then how to cam the teammates didn’t really matter anymore cuz at the bottom Tim Wellins who’d been in the breakaway he does the domain nuclear lead out and him and Navi finishes it off and just launches Pagatra at 40 kph uphill. Pagata gets a gap. Vingard collapses and the the gap completely explodes. In fact, Livitz starts coming back to Vingard. He takes two plus minutes and that’s it. Before we continue, I do want to linger on the stage a little bit because there’s a few things I do want to talk about. And Patrick, maybe you can remind me. Well was in the breakaway for UAE, but was there any rider for Vizma in the breakway here? Right. Ben. Okay. Okay. So, if I see a breakaway formation where Ben is in the breakway and Well in the breakway, Wellins has the upper hand there. Should Vizmalis bike because Vizmalis bike going into a stage like this is thinking okay we need to try and get a satellite rider up the road to get over Sulor that if we can do something on Sulor we have a rider over the top there that might not make it over the top otherwise that they’re there for the final climb some some idea like that. Should they also think about how can we prevent UAE from having Wellens in the breakaway as well as a second aspect there. So they’re also partially controlling break formation while trying to get in the breakaway themselves. It’s kind of impossible to be honest. It’s complicated. Trying to get in a break and then select who will not be in the break with you is very very difficult especially when that rider is Tim Wellins who yeah to be honest is like the MVP of UAE this tour to France as a helper. He’s he’s stronger than Benote. He’s stronger than Venard. He’s stronger than Campon uh in all around. Maybe not pure climbing but all around. So to stop him getting in a break, if you’re also trying to get in the break yourself, I think it’s you kind of have to pick your poison and accept it. I’m not sure Wellins was necessarily trying to get in the breakaway. I think he was following moves, happened to get in and then UA were like, “This is fine. This is a good situation.” And yeah, he really he made a difference in that valley because then Navvice didn’t have to pace the valley and cuz wasn’t there, Solair wasn’t there, and Plet wasn’t there. and uh Almeida wasn’t there. So actually they needed Wellins in front. To me this was the first potential tactical mistake of his Malissa bike though as in not the the breakaway formation stuff. But if we get to the cold sudor the on the road decision for me where we see Jorgensson dropping in the GC group and we see then who’s slowing down that is a thing in the coughing especially in hindsight towards the final climb where Nirva surviving plus Wellins being up the road is what leads to such an explosive start to come in the first place and I wonder if Jorgensson is dropped and then Kuski keeps spacing and Samades does not wait for Jorgensson in this hypothetical scenario. Do we see that Vice getting dropped on Solor and potentially not coming back before Otakam? Because if that situation happens, Hogachar does not have that explosive lead out maybe just Wellins then which is a better situation in my opinion than the one that was created on the road. And then the question is did Vizmiss try to protect co-leership of Jorgensson too long past its potential deadline because I saw maybe Mandor as the last potential opportunity or stage 11 to use Jorgensson as co-leader because at the end of the day inherent climbing ability I didn’t see it before running into this France for it to still be useful past stage 12 or past stage 11. Yeah, I agree. This stage probably the the next two clients was where it would have been useful prehalter cam. I think the problem was Benji rather than protecting co-leership. It was also that Yates was off the back. So is Coup going to do Yeah, he did wait a little bit but he was also not so good. Um, so are you going to do all of top sulur descent sul the next climb the valley with cous that was more the problem is cous going to be able to keep nari behind is he but you’re right Benji being isolated vingard being isolated at the bottom of howam is a preferable outcome if not optimal it’s preferable if pagata also is isolated from another and well that’s as long as Pagasha doesn’t have those and then and because we saw that on uh on Superman. Yeah, we saw that on later now. Maybe Pagata just wasn’t as good on those climbs. I don’t know. But he was good today. He takes 2 minutes on on Vingard. He does a very good climbing performance in line with his alarm or pla day. Maybe a bit below, but who cares? He went from like 11ks out and Vingard. We’re thinking, is he going to lose second if uh he completely if he’s like sick or something? But yeah, Jorgensson has a bad day. He lose a lot of time. Uh the next day, stage 13 was the TT. Pretty different. Uh Pagata still wins the stage, but the gap is smaller. Vingard takes loes 36 seconds. Rogich third was really good. Uh but Remco gets caught, loses 2 minutes, and that’s the beginning of the end of his tour to France. Stage 14, we begin the very, very weird mountain stages. Hard mountain stage. Aaron wins from the breakaway. Pagatcha. The team kind of pace for the stage. They run out of climbing domestics. Uh, Dathlon start pacing. Vingard tries with 5ks to go. Pagatcha marks him. Kind of looks disinterested. And then Aaron just wins. Very, very strange stage I must say. Um, this felt like the first day where the the maybe mindset or writing style of Pogach switched in this to France because after the Pedagu troll is when we noticed him writing more defensively. Shockingly after doing an interview where he said that he was going to go for stage. So that was the ironic funny part about it. But he started riding more defensively. He started not looking like he was going all out for every stage victory. For example, here with Arensb. I think part of it is also that UAE was struggling a little bit maybe with controlling break formation or they they overcontrolled to the point that eventually a large breakaway would go which Pulit then couldn’t hold within a an an achievable gap. I still think Pogachar peak Pogata at his best can still win and ride past that breakaway past etc by the end of today’s stage. today’s stage being stage 14. But um that was the first indication there. But did you also feel like this was the start of the the mope Pacho interviews as in the the slightly more sadl looking Pogacho interviews? Cuz I feel like there was a a switch at this point in the race. Yeah, maybe he was sick. Maybe he was starting to feel the effects of the crash. The crash was only 3 days before this in to lose. So maybe it was that. Maybe without Almea he didn’t enjoy being isolated. Maybe it was cuz Yates wasn’t as good as he expected to like control for the stage win. Maybe he was just over it. I don’t know. Um maybe he got bored of people telling him to like take it easy or he’s just bored. I don’t know. He’s been been in good shape since her feet. Like it’s a long time. and it’s like 6 months um being racing and in good shape. So, it seemed it definitely was a change. Uh stage 15 was a breakaway. Tim Wells wins to Kakasant second rest day. Uh Vingard on the second rest day says he’s still going to go for it. He still thinks he can win the tour. We have the Monvon 2 stage which in my opinion was the best stage of week three uh because there was a fantastic break battle. Valentine Perry Panchcha works over Ben Healey wins the sprint but we see Vizma get satellite riders ahead launch to Shelley Renard the only grimace Pagata has in the whole tour to France maybe was on that first attack from Vingard tries another time off another time off camps Pagata marks him Pagatra even counters him but then they get into deadlock and they don’t get to the breakaway uh stage 17 was a sprint won by Milan he really needed that for the green Jersey stage 18 the Loza stage Vingard goes on Maline gets to Jorgensson Jorgensson does the descent full and uh then nothing happens on the lows again another very strange finish where the break wins O’ Connor stage 19 even more strange UAE pace all day on the shorten stage uh shout out to the cows and it was 92ks long goes crazy UA set up a train at the bottom blows was a part Adam Yates in Navi’s legs. Nothing happens. Aaronman attacks after yeah the deadlock. And then Vingard refuses to relay with Pagacha and Aronson wins by 2 seconds. Stage 20 breakway Kaden Groves just stronger than everybody as well as smarter. And in stage 21, Shamza finished Vanard in the GC neutralized rain drops Pagatcha who I must admit was um still very very strong and attacked every single Matra. That is correct. Now you mentioned loads of stages here. I think Mra was a fantastic stage to watch, but I actually agree that Mulvon 2 was perhaps one of my favorites. Maybe a an odd comparison, but if we take a look at the modelland stage for example, we see Jorgensson being ahead, Vingar attacking to Jorgensson. That’s a tactical play from Vismal Isis in the hopes that Pogachar gets in trouble at some point and then Jorgensson can ride away with Vingar. It’s that that’s the idea behind the plan, but didn’t necessarily work out that way because Pogachar his legs are pretty good. Spoilers. Then we’ll move on to we see a tactical play where we have Benot and Companyards being up the road. You mentioned earlier where they’re up the road etc. Is it a coincidence that the stage on which we see the tactics of Bismalis bike the riders having the legs to pull out the tactics it being the uniperto stage cuz I feel like on the really hard stages wenat was not necessarily good enough to be a relevant part of a tactical plan because he couldn’t necessarily be in the breakway on a mountain stage etc. So the it feels like the legs were too limited in the hard mountain stages from some of the domestics to get into the position to try something in the first place sometimes. No, I don’t agree because on the cold medal stage they did. Yeah, but that’s just one rider Jordans which is fine but in other stages that didn’t camp drops vocal. Simon Yates reduces the group to 10 and then Seb Cous does a lead out and reduces it to the two best riders in the race and Lipovitz can’t get back to him. Fair. Then if we take a look at the obviously stage 19 that’s the lost stage. I I don’t necessarily look at that stage and see okay cuz if the first climb is present in that race then you’ve got a climb on which you can set up satellite riders before then you have to pray after some fatigue. Then the breaks already formed. There’s already been the break formation on the se and then the call to pray is completely different and then but yeah that stage just turned into a joke frankly. Um but I think the the problem for was just more ving couldn’t drop Paga. I think if Vingar drops Pagatra on Maline everyone’s saying Septus shocker best do in the world he’s back. What a lead out. He dropped Li but he didn’t. And if he gets across to Jorgensson and then Jorgensson pulls the descent and valley full and takes more time out of Pagatcha. Everyone’s saying best all round climbing domestique like work. They forget about the sickness. It’s the reality is it just was Vingar couldn’t drop him on Maline and that was it cuz like hypothetically let’s say we get over Maline etc. and Jorgensson does have the likes to try something of Lao. It does not make Cord Lao a better climb to attack on either. But at least Jorgensson might have had the legs to be ahead, stuff like that. But then the sickness is what caused him to have [ __ ] legs in week two in the first place. So that that’s a good reason for that. But then if we look at Sapkus, I got to say I actually saw a pretty good Sepus in this race. I I was actually happily surprised when week two started. In week one, I’m sorry, but I don’t expect Seap to be good in week one. But isn’t that the problem? I don’t see that as a problem. I’m sorry, but five years ago, white pools were [ __ ] in the first week of a grand tour as well. And Adam, there’s riders there’s riders that are more specialist than they are versatile. And that’s fine. You’ve got specialist domastics for the high mountains. You’ve got versatile doastics for the medium mountains. That’s where on paper I’ve I’ve said it already. We mentioned mater fantastic stager, super strong in that stage. But in my personal opinion in the 20 days that became before his best stages were the stage that he wrote for himself and the stage in which he wrote for Yonas Vingga he was not part of the top x amount of climbers in the pelaton and therefore didn’t have the same ability of potentially getting into that breakaway in the way comparts did stuff like that cuz arts was a better domestique in this race than routed and it wasn’t close. So yeah, and same with Well, like Tim Wellins had the domestique level tour to France that everyone said Vanard had in 2022, but Wellins maybe added even more value because you know, you forget all these random moments where [ __ ] can go wrong, where it doesn’t go wrong. But the right hand corner, the pivotal right hand corner on stage, the one where Vanderpool was in the break with Rick right hand corner. Everybody knows the wind direction is going to be cross tail out of this corner. Everyone’s fresh. It’s the first time they hit the cross tail. Who’s first through that corner with Pog on his wheel? Tim Wellins. It’s not Nils Plet. It’s not Navi. It’s not Solair. It’s Tim Wellins. Who’s doing the Murder Bratana lead out? Because Navvice was out of position and Ala crashed. It’s Tim Wellens. Tim Wellins who’s in the breakaway on Otagon being there for the final. Tim and he wins a [ __ ] stage two. So like Tim Wellins was the best on mystique in this tour to France on any team like the most valuable because he did it on all terrain. He even I mean talk about La Plan stage. Tim Wells must be like are you serious? I just pulled for 70ks full. I controlled Rog Witch and then you guys just need to make Aaron not win and and pace for Pog. So yeah, Tim Wells was unbelievably good and that’s the thing Benji if I think this tour shows and you know your point about Seep Cous if it has a start like this the allrounders like Jorgensson got sick in this tour but still Jorgensson provides a lot more value because he can attack in the heel class heel classic stages he can ride on the crosswinds he can get in the break on Matalen and then pace enough to keep Libitz behind and he like the all round riders They count for almost two. But in the fasten days of the soda france, Jorgensson did play a card of a co-leership. I I may not have believed in it for the mountain stages, but Wacho was responding. It attack chased him even when he was out of GC. Exactly. So that was still a relevant card to play on Mondorf for example where multiple times Droenson attacks in so doing forcing Pagato to respond to that in so doing Vingal’s in the wheel of Pagachu while technically Pogata has to close more in the win than Vingal does that’s the idea behind it then I assume now that’s fair but does the second week and the third week of the sto France do you think impact the way Jorgensson will be seen next year by UAE as a potential threat? No. Okay. Because I I just think Pagatcha does not want a Vizmarada attacking going ahead. And it’s not like agree. It’s not like a power it’s not like a blacklist thing either. He just doesn’t want a more complicated scenario happening that can create a longer period of controlling or pain. If he can just snap onto the wheel, the climb ends and then it’s over and he can solve it in 10 seconds. I half agree, but I still think there was more focus on Jorgensson than on a ton of other riders where where if Venard was attacking or a company artist was attacking, they got more free reign than a Jorgensson did, which also is because Jorgensson on paper is more helpful in a breakaway situation over a mountain etc. than a Companards or a Wenard on paper would be. Compan of course full credits as well. Wellins might have been the MVP of UAE, that’s for sure. But company was for me the the MVP of Visma Lisa bike in this race because he was pretty strong. And again, I’ll say it again, Sepus looked actually quite solid to me in this race. Would you say how do we feel like the dual participation impacted Ward and Sam Yates? Obviously, it’s hard to judge, but it does feel like Simon Yates was not as at his best level ever in the Studs and Ward definitely was not as at his best level ever. And there’s Aeni coming out of the Jurro, too. So, that’s three Rs coming out of the Jurro. Adam Yates coming out of the Jurro, not at his best ever level either. And I think that’s Pagacha came out of the Jurro last year at his best ever level. I I still think doing the Jurro before, it’s not the optimal prep. Yeah, that was the case for two decades before Pog. Pog doesn’t change that. It’s still true for most of the other riders the exception. Now about UAE for a second, you mentioned Wellins. We also got to mention that Vaz was super strong on etc. But outside of that, he also had great strong climbing performances. His best level S climbing ever. When it comes to no spoillet, yes, we might have found this bullying strategy and break formation not fun and uh annoying to watch, but at the end of the day, he he was pretty strong when it comes to break control. Even though when the large breakaways happened, he was losing control of them. But to me that also feels like the same feedback we gave after Milano San Andremo Patrick where in Milano Sanremo he was put in a position to try and position UAE before the chipa started a job that nil spoolled would never have been able to do based on what we’ve seen from Neil Spid before that and now when it comes to the sto France we see Spoolid being put in a position where the rest of the team Wellins Soler etc somewhat over control break formation in doing so suddenly creating a 38-man group a 30man group it’s kind of lowkey impossible for nil spool to control that as well you know so for example the stage on I don’t remember which stage it was but it was a stage it was the bullying polit stage where eventually the break we ended up winning the stage might have been van 2 and then I’m thinking okay if you chose to put another rider with bid that would have had the break being able to be controlled and Pagacha could have won the stage quite easily then, but everything was on the when that was an impossible task. Does that make sense? Yeah, that was the weird I think they they had Civicov in the break, but it was a paper tiger and it would have been more more useful just to drop Civicov out of the break and just pull with Per if you want to stage. Um, he had a [ __ ] tour in my opinion. I think he was sick. I think he was sick before the tour came in and Civicov they made race through sickness a lot in spring as well from memory he was he was got sick after he won under Lucia and then he had to race maybe paraneise or something and um same with wellins in the classics and but wellins came good out of it but yeah it’s I think both teams had some overperformers like well navas like camparts and then both had riders that you kind of didn’t see very much or didn’t affect didn’t just affect the racing in any tangible way. Like I think of it in terms of how does this dostique affect win probability of GC not stage win stage two but win probability each day and each action they take. And so when Tim Wellins makes sure Pagata is in the right position for a specific corner, that increases Paga’s win probability by 0.05%. And he does that hundreds of times throughout the race, increasing his win probability and then some riders and then other domestics just don’t change it at all. Y um and so that’s that’s a fair way to look at it. Yeah. But I do have this overwhelming feeling when it comes to this Grand Tour that I would like to see some changes in the roster of of both UAE and Visalisa bike need a refresh towards next year. A refresh like you mentioned it because Wat needs to be at his best level to be valuable for Yonas Vingar and he can be at his best level to be supportive of Yonasar but I didn’t see that in this tour of France. So his stage win might have been fun, but Thomas Stewise, he wasn’t the most valuable. And I went, you’re you’re pointing fingers. You’re putting fingers in the air. Why are you putting fingers in the air? You’re starting to count. I mean, 1 2 3 4 5. What are we counting, Patrick? That’s what UAE did. When UAE lost when UAE lost in 2022 and 2023, you know what they did in 2024, Benji? They changed five of They changed five of the eight tour to France riders for their 2024 team. They changed. So they had in 2023 they had Burg Gartner, Langan, Micah, Trenton. Now one left Trenton and I would have probably kept him in frankly but regardless they changed five of the eight and then they brought in Almeida Auso Polit Civico Wellins and then this year they brought in Navis but otherwise kept it the same and I think you just got to it’s not like Sky where you just roll out the same team six years in a row. So I think yeah I agree but who do you then see that becoming because right now I obviously have to work off I yeah but I mean about Vismalisa by then because oh yeah sure UAE I look at UAE and I’m saying okay they’ve won the tour of France they they might want to refresh a certain aspect of their riders and Del Toro coming in as an example or a revitalized Auzo in a few years they won in dominant fashion last year so they didn’t refresh this year it was just Nava as in for whoever Micah maybe um I don’t remember actually I don’t remember but the point is yeah they they didn’t do a refresh and now they win again so is the motivation are they are they going to do the refresh next year despite winning again I don’t expect a full refresh but I do expect a slight change because there are potential co-leaders within the team which won’t be a co-leader at the to France but an Isaac del Toro he might want to step into a Twitter france role or maybe he thinks okay I still want to do the other grers etc. It’s also what the preference of those riders when it comes to people management will be within the team because it’s not an easy situation that they’re in right now. Even when we look at the the we haven’t spoken about it yet, but is said to be skipping the official communication came a few days ago and instead we see Ala and Yuzo going. I off topic question. Do you think Auzo leaving and the agent situation where he took up an agent I think it was Nardi to potentially look into the the release clause which I don’t believe that release clause is very valid but regardless do you think that’s actually a ploy to get out of the team or do you think that was perhaps a method to put pressure on the team to put him in love? Yeah, I think I think so. like they can’t send him to these classic Torres de Lre one ons because if you don’t send him to the Welter after having to abandon the Jirro what else is there for him to do some the Canadian classics and yeah China but I’m sorry he’ll just he’ll just hold out so I think that was part of it putting pre and also like there is isn’t a yuso faction in UAE so there’s the matchin camp which like matchin would rather a yusso podium him the tour than Pagacha win the tour is how I interpret it like okay um almost so like he definitely would rather Ausso won the tour than Pagacha that’s for sure so um anyway back to but yeah who would you rather want to see I cut you off Ben who would you want to see then in the Vizma team first of all I’d like to see Brennan at the VA this year just something I’m putting out there. Now I do have to refresh myself with the Velta parkour. I um what? Sorry, there’s a lot of sprints. Ooh, then I do want to see Brandon at Lava, my friend. But um for next year, I’m looking through the list of riders that Vizma currently has. And I’m thinking through, okay, there’s been rumored signings of Armir, of Fiorelli, of of certain riders towards the team. I don’t see massive names popping up in those rumors that I’m like okay these riders will be 100% in the to France team like Simon Phil yeah I I see possibilities of if Armidai steps up etc then maybe he can be a a role somewhere in like a maybe a von Bara style role where he was two three years ago in the in the early clims in the tour just vaguely thinking about a potential war for a ride like that but hypothetically you’d say that Afini does not make the tour to the France team if every single rider at his misa mike is at their prime level. That’s an example and Afini was good at the Jurro and in moments in the tour of France he was valuable for the team where he can be valuable but he’s also not he’s not valuable enough to the point that I see him as like an essential roster spot for the tour of France for this team and I’m pretty sure he was also a late late addition to the team. So that’s an like on paper a peak Kristoff Laport is a much better option there cuz he’s slightly more versatile as well. Yeah, like Clap would have been mutant in week one on those hill stages positioning. Um yeah, but he was he’s been sick. Clap. Did you just call him Clap? Yeah, see that the door is such a much better nickname, bro. Clap. I think there’s just something about how ownorous the pro the preparation is for the tour to France now in that it begins in February and riders need most normal humans need variety need a different stimuli and I think when you bring in a new rider into that navas campernuts for the first year Brennan Matthew Bren. I mean, imagine Bren after altitude. It’s just un It would just be unfair. Um win the tour. Why not? I mean, he’s small. So small. Not that explosive, is he? The fast. He would have walked green. He would have walked it. The He would have taken yellow stage one, too. No way Phil beats him in that sprint. Um I just think you need new variety and so yeah like Pronhanez Benji can he do the Kristoff Leaport role I think yes in the doofan and paraneise he was excellent in that all round ruler role is it going to be as good as Kristoff Leaport I don’t know but Ben Tulllet will he could he take into the like mountain domestique role cuz he’s going to be motivated for it cuz they want to make this their first tour to France they’re going to be like Campernut’s mental mode, you know, and I’m not saying that other riders weren’t. I’m just saying that yeah, like I think you almost when you’re not the favorite like Vizma won’t be the favorite again next year most likely if Pogy starts. So then you got to take more of a risk maybe on the younger guys to so that they then when you maybe are the favorite again have have two tours to France under their belt. I agree on that sense but I also see it as in if I truly look at the roster of Vizmalis bike and I think about UAE in the sto of France for example we did not see the best possible UA in the st of France either we mentioned already with numerous riders but Adam Yates was not as at his best in the st of France imagine del Toro being added to his list imagine alo not crashing out in the first 10 days you got to try and prep yourself if you’re vis Malisike to try and fight the best possible UAE and then ideally they’re not at their best possible UAE once you get to the tour to France and then on Vismalike side I’m looking at the team and I think okay Sam wasn’t at his best imagining him at his best possible level at the tour to France sure imagining Sepkus at his level I don’t imagine him being at a tour of France at any point I hope for that we see that again but I haven’t seen the the possibility of that yet. So I expect him to be at this level then for next year’s soda fron hypothetically. If we if I look through the the rest of the list here, then I just see in their current roster at the end of the day, UAE has a a higher budget and that does show that is portrayed in the amount of GC grand tour GC level riders that they have in their team that could potentially be at a Grand Tour like the Toyota France as helpers for Pogachar and they can all Visma is not that luxurious. Yes. And they can all climb. Like you look through UA’s roster, everyone can climb pretty much. Yeah. Um so except Milano except like Yeah, except a couple of guys like even Evo Alivera can climb. Yep. He can actually climb. So I agree Benji. Um although I actually don’t think I don’t think Ala would have changed Pagach’s win probably at all. I think on how to cam he’s already not there for the lead out. I think the TT would have been good and I think um I think on the Mal before he he did he did but I’m saying on on like Malin oh yeah if he’d been there he’s not following the cous lead out he’s sitting on the wheel of Lipovitz or with Onley protecting third maybe but I do see a possibility that if hypothetically he does ride for Pagacha in situations that Pagacha gets decided histo France with six stage victories instead of four. Yeah. So on super banier and on laplan if our maid is there pog wins the stage there’s two stages perhaps nah when when cous does a lead out then vigard attacks he just goes on to lipitz wheel and then rides for his third but on superb and llan I think he starts to ride tempo and then Paul win Patrick maybe rainy gobles well made at his peak maybe uh let’s talk about red bull wars growing lip it’s one the breakout riders. I mean, this would have been a big story. It’s a big story in Germany. He comes into the tour to France after a good doofane, although he wasn’t good on the final mountain stage. He takes the white jersey third. If you look at the this tour to France from Red Bull, Bora Hansro, Benji, you I mean they it nearly would have been a definite success. If Mayos jumps early, they win a stage in third. That is a successful tour to France. The expectations coming in was third was the highest possible. They achieved the highest possible. They achieve it also probably with the rider if they had to choose. I think they actually would rather it was Libitz, their man of the future and also German market. Money, money, money. So, um, but it it just feels weird because in week one they were getting they were in like crisis mode. Like stage one it was like crisis mode. It’s not just stage one, but I’ve got this overwhelming feeling in week one that I feel like we saw on the on the stage where company nailed that descent behind the motorbike where the group ended up splitting. I feel like it was Lipovit’s pacing the chasing group with Rog with Roga in his wheel. So in week they might have already been looking at themselves, but it was certainly Lipovitz doing more of the work to try and come back in those stages than Rogich was. If I was and listen, did did the Red Bull team as a whole perform that well? No. But like they brought a sprinter with Van Poppel. Van Pppel then left before stage 17 for the birth of his child, which was unfortunate timing, but fair enough. Um, it better bro after the last sprint stage. Yeah, the they brought the van uh Van Djk Py to help the GC guys, but you’re trying to babysit two GC guys who aren’t that good in positioning. One’s horrendous in positioning. If I was piffy, Benji and I just tried to babysit Roglitch for the whole of the first 10 days with mixed success and then he throws away three GC positions on Llan stage. I would be super pissed. Yeah. It’s like probably you’re getting chewed out after stage one for losing 30 seconds. Like it would have been on the bus after stage one after they lost 30 seconds in the crosswind wins. I’m sure the rulers it wasn’t it wasn’t a happy time. And I’m sure Rolex probably wasn’t happy either. And then on stage 19 he’s like [ __ ] it. I’ll just lose 12 minutes. I fully agree with you. But I will confess I was slightly zoned out because I was looking at a website where I could subtract 9 months of July 20th to figure out when the conception of Danny from Pup’s baby was and it was mid-occtober. So that makes sense. Just after the end of It’s always off season. It’s always off season cuz their bodies recover and they’re not like um so physically stressed. I’m doing the more important work here, Patrick. Come on. But it’s actually true though. It’s actually true when it comes to um when it comes to Rogich. fully agree that him throwing away a GC for him. It doesn’t matter perhaps. Yeah, but it’s disrespect not just to your teammates, but also what do you what do you think your sponsor thinks? Like yes, his aura attacking that day was great, but definitely wasn’t a great look for a for the sponsor throwing away a top five position in the Grand Tour at the Tour to France as well, but and not helping Lipo. That’s in addition to it. Like I I saw some people say, “But but Benji, but Benji, they were trying to put pressure on Oscar only by attacking with Rogich.” That’s never going to happen. That’s the most naive tactic. That is correct. But the team of picnic will never start pacing on a stage like stage 19, nor will only cuz UAE will control the bel. So yeah, that’s but also there were some moments I think you pointed it out a few times as well maybe on the Mondor stage also on stage 18 where Rogich attacks and then Lipovitz closes to the wheel when Rogich is off with two riders the gap is minimal but Lipovich should not be closing in those moments and I don’t actually think it’s from a a selfish I need to make sure Rogich doesn’t get a standpoint. I think it’s from the same standpoint that we’ve pointed with Lipovitz before that, no offense, but his inra decision making is not the best. No. And like on Saxon X in Doofan, he did it like when he rode in front of Wells for 10 seconds and they repeat the same mistake with on the Lo stage and at the time in the valley everyone’s like, “Oh, what?” You know, Vizma, they’re just letting lip of us right away. Yeah, but but I was like, you have to look at you have to look at the profile. He rode he rode the whole half Melan himself, chasing the two in front. He rode the whole descent on the hoods himself while Jawson was pushing. He ran attacks in the valley as soon as he gets back, rides the whole valley himself. And he’s going to do a 26k climb on 5% himself. Like, no, it’s it should have been either Rogich pacing in the valley or Roglish attacking. It’s okay to attack attack with the worst the worst place GC contender. But anyway, I actually think Red Bull Bora, they got no credit for it. It wasn’t on TV. They did almost identical tactics to Vizma on Vonu with the satellite rider. In fact, slightly different. They had Van Djk there for the 6% section headwind which vonu Vonto Van Djk was pulling as a satellite rider. He climbed really well. You never saw it and it was lipo only roglitch and then they started rolling only again and they rolled him on Superman. Yeah, they and they rolled him and that’s how Lipo gets his third place. Yeah, but that’s like the rolling attacks on only which is fair. That’s good. That’s good. But you pointed at Lipovitz attacking in the in stage 18 for example in the valley, riding ahead for a while, stuff like that. That should also come from the team car. Like at the end of the day, a team car should be in control of their riders. And if they see that they’re riding into a a hopeless, let’s be honest, pretty much suicide mission in the attack there. And at the end of the day is a team card that should also be aware of the ongoing situation, be able to predict that he’s going to blow up if he if he stays in the situation and even further have the ability to call them back and the rider to listen, which I’d like to believe that Lipovitz would listen if the team car in that situation says, “You’re riding to your doom. Wait on the group behind you. This is useless. You’re going to explode on the last climb if you do this.” But it looks like from what I could perceive that that decision never came from a team car. So that was a team car mistake in my opinion mostly. Yeah, possibly. What do you think, Patrick? Possibly. But still, yeah, Liitz does need to be reigned in very aggressive rider like he would attack a lot in break formation too, which is cool to see. Um, where’s the ceiling? Because we look at Lipovitz now podium in the tour front. But if he goes to the Jurro next year, is he a contender for the victory? It depends on the competition, but depends. Yeah, if Vingga and Pogach aren’t there. Yes, I think you have to say yeah, weird. He has a good He has a good TT. His punch is like okay. His climbing is really good. He’s like pretty robust looking. He’s not a scrawny like weakling. Like he looks pretty robust. I think he’s obviously pushing a shitload of watts because he isn’t 58 kilos and he’s climbing this well. Um I think if he was in the in a jersey he’s pretty exploitable tactically um because he might make the wrong decision but that’s a better place to be in at least you’re in a leading a race. When I look at the top 10 of this tour France Patrick, I see Lipovitz in third place. I see on in fourth place, Phis G in fifth place, Toby Johannes in sixth place, Voglan in seventh place, I see Rogich in eighth, which we were away in the top five in the last few days. Then in ninth place, I think it was Healey. And in 10th place, we’ve got uh Jorda. When you look at that top 10, Patrick, then my initial reaction is that’s a pretty light top 10, which is that an actuality, a fact that it’s a pretty light top 10 or if we compare it to other years, were what’s necessary to be on the top 10 lower or higher? Cuz if I look at last year, for example, MQL gets a podium, etc. Is it MQ’s podium in 2024 more valuable than Lipovitz’s podium in 2025 in terms of future proofness of those performances even though fell through this year? Like how do we compare one year’s top 10 top three top five to another year’s top 10 top three top five? I mean the time gaps are the same as last year like Almeida was fourth last year on um seven minutes further from Pog than Onley was. Now admittedly, Pog rode more agging performances across more stages last year, but still like they raced full gas every day this tour to France as well. So who’s to say that it’s just the names are changing and these are the new names. Oscar only, Florian Lipovitz, maybe Felix G like go descending has improved. It has improved. It is still not great, but it is not absolute dog [ __ ] Like when Jorgensson was pushing on Malendescent, he was never really on a gap. And a year and a half ago, I’m telling you, it would have been night night. Like he would have been shot shot through the ice. So I just think the names are changing. Benji and of course, yeah, Almeida, Aanapool, Carropazer, Simon Yates in good shape, Adam Yates in good shape, Lander, these sort of guys you maybe expect to be in the top 10, but are they actually are they really better than Onley? I don’t think so. I don’t think’s Watts are good. They’re better than Aordon Jag. Don’t want to take away from Jagal’s amazing stage 20 breakaway raid. Love that [ __ ] These guys getting dropped on the first of three climbs of the day. So you’d expect the Jagot to land in a top 15 Gil Martan position of the past. That’s what you’d expect to happen like a a Steph cross situation, stuff like that. And that’s why I feel like a 10th place this year is less than what I perceive in other years sometimes. And I think that’s part of the fact that we saw MA crash out. We saw Demco implode and not have his abilities of climbing of last year. We saw London not showing up at the s of France because of injury. We saw the aces of the world not being at the level they were in the past or not necessarily at their best possible level in this race and also having the ability to go for their GC individually. Uh we don’t necessarily have a peak sepus that also next to being a doig also tries to stay in the top 10 like he might have done in the last couple of years a few times. those the combination of those factors I think also leads to it being perceived like a lighter top 10 P7 to P10 then I just think these guys are improving and you know you can say okay Jordan he’s he’s never top 10 a world tour stage race before this tour to France and he’s scraping you know a tenth of a Lula tour or something and now he’s top 10 the tour but this guy wasn’t professional 18 months ago three years ago 18 months ago he wasn’t professional He was at Na. Okay. It is actually like really a professional team. There’s Conti teams and there’s Conti teams. But you know he he’s don’t want to be that guy. Patrick told Lotto to sign him in 2023. Yeah. Look at And that’s what and then his progression. Okay. He’s 26 but Neopro last year already pretty good results. Second year professional. He’s still improving and that’s um yeah. So maybe he’s just a better rider than what he’s shown yet and he’s still improving. I don’t know. Um I think that there’s definitely a truth to that. Yeah. He’s just not It’s like if if Enrich had come ninth, you’re like, “Oh, that’s like a well podium guy.” If Carropaz is in eighth. I think there’s also the reality that these big guys Benji don’t give a [ __ ] Like look at Rogich. So like Enri, Carropazich, they don’t care. They do not care about defending seventh or defending eighth. And really, why would they? They don’t get a bonus for it. They’ve podium grand tours. They’ve won grand tours with Carropaz and Rogich. They’ve won Grand Tour stages. And so, they’re like, I want to go win a stage then. I don’t care about if I drop to eighth. Whereas for Jordan Jaga, for Johannes, for Healey, for Vocal, all these guys in the top 10, they were defending their top 10 position with their life. when Voclan was dropped on the descent on the off um called Dup Prey, UNOX pulled with their whole team when he was on a 5-second gap to try and flick him and they and it succeeded and um we we didn’t speak about Unex and Hennison, but they got to be happy with his his position on GC. He backs up from the the Doofane with a great what sixth a pro team with a sixth position in GC for Toby Holiday and a stage victory of Abrahamson. probably one of the most overperforming teams in this tour to France in my opinion and there’s a there’s a lot of winners and potential losers as well in this tour of France because when I look at opposite the kerning yes Philips crashes out but then I look at the team and they still score three-stage victories vonpool Phillips both having yellow jersey for a few days then gross taking it on stage 20 a we call it a car on the of the tart what do you call that uh uh something on the on the I don’t [ __ ] know of the tart a cherry very on top. That’s that’s the vibe that I was going with. But um Sud Quickstep, yes, their podium is a failure. Let’s be honest about that. But they end up with four stage victories with three different two of which are Merier, Barantra, and Rimco TT, of course. Yeah, the the most obvious one, but uh are there other teams that are like winners in this race that we might not have mentioned? You think you say EF? I did not. Go ahead. Yeah, EF Education Easy Post. I mean, this is a magic tour tool for them. Winning a stage, taking the yellow jersey, being close on other stages. They were the best team getting in every They were in every breakaway stage, represented. Sweeney had a go, you know, he was very, very good. So, even though yes, Venberg had to DNS uh Asgren and I mean, even Alanu Benji, even he was okay. Was in a was in a break. Like I think I think they probably yeah combination they were just excellent. The combination of a stage win plus a top 10 in GC plus super competivity plus yellow jersey for a few days is that combination of it all. If it was just a stage win then you’d say okay that’s the expectation for because I do expect Healey to potentially take stage in this to then also take the yellow jersey top 10 GC. I’ve already set my thing. I I still think his climbing was at a higher level than I expected in this tour of France. So that is something we do have to point out. Bill Trek for me is a difficult one. Spoken. Go ahead. Bear in mind they also were supposed to come here with Carropaz and he couldn’t come because he had um he ate a dodgy bit of food 3 weeks before the race. Maybe extended his contract and he had gastro and I swear to God he’s like I’m not doing the tour. The announcement came like two weeks before the tour. Um, and and when you watch Race TV, the first episode, they’re kind of in Regelius is trying to be like they they’ve had to rip up their whole plans for the tour and they’re like, we got to try to make the best of it was their vibe and then to come away with this results is is for them will be unbelievable. So, sorry Trek Penji cuz he was rumored to have signed an extension before the tour, right? Or was it confirmed already? No, I just I just made it up. I’m pretty sure it’s true though. I mean, you think Carab has by now is signed an extension after that, Jira. Yeah, with Anyway, that to the side. I was uh trying to dive into the points classification for a bit and talking about Little Trek, bit of a difficult team to judge because yes, Simmons was strong in breakaway formation. No, Simmons was strong in breakaways. Then we saw Yonatan Milan winning two sprint stages taking the green jersey but also nobody else really tried for the green jersey. Yeah. So Milan wins 372 points ahead of Pagacha who refused to win at 294 points. Binium 232 Vingard 182. Anthony Turgis who I didn’t see outside of the intermediate stakes 182. I don’t know. It’s not the most prestigious green jersey. This was the worst green jersey competition that we ever covered. Yeah, I think I think that’s true. Um I don’t remember the 2020ish ones though, but I assumed they were better. Yeah, it just felt weird. I think Trex’s team construction like they thought T-Bone would um be competitive for the week one stages. He wasn’t. I think he crashed in training before the race. Julian Bernard would have been a better addition to the team all around. Yeah. Don’t know if he’s doing the welter. I think the lead outs were pretty good. Pretty like they were pretty good. Um I I think they got unlucky on stage one. They were mostly in good position, but I mean you take their goal would have been green jersey in a couple of stages. They win green jersey in a couple of stages. Shel Mosa crashed himself again. What are you going to do? So I think they should probably be happy after this and they should obviously Milan should be happy that they won the green jersey. I just view it as one of the least prestigious ones I’ve seen in a while because nobody else really hardcore also because Pog is trying to win the to France and I don’t think but there was a like he just needed to roll through some intermediates. I just don’t think he gives a [ __ ] Yeah, but it’s it’s you only you only have to win it once and this is probably the only year he can win it. Like if Pugachar like Machin said I think in an interview maybe yesterday or the day before that Bugattacher’s tiredness led to him riding more defensively led to him being reduced in motivation. What can inspire motivation? A different competition where you’re losing like the green jersey. Exactly. It’s not like this opportunity will come along every year for Pagacha to take green because in this tour 50 points on a hill stage doesn’t happen every year. I haven’t seen that maybe ever at a tour of to France. So it was a tour to France where it’s weird cuz on one end yes 50 points on hill stage is very good for the von pools and pogach in the world and again they both don’t bunch sprints but on the other hand the intermediate sprints were then placed in the first 25 km of mountain stage on the flat. So then it highly inspires sprinters to be the advantageous group of people going for green. So it the idea of green kind of countered each other which I’m not sure if that correctly balances it out. I don’t know felt like an odd point system this year. KM jerseys won by Pagatcha. I think this was even less of a competition. He wins with 119 points ahead of Vingard in 104 points. Lenny Martinez on 97 points. Went for it. It could have been a KM breakaway rider if someone 100% went for it and had the durability to get over one climb in a multi- mountain stage with Lenny Martinez, which Lenny Martinez didn’t have. I think Aaron, he could have not been Pogy. They got to take away the double points. I think Aaron could have won it. He’s that sort of climber you’re talking about that he went for stages. He wins two stages. So, but yeah, the the K the KM jersey competition, they got that. We say this I almost feel like every year needs a bit of a revamp. Liver wins white jersey ahead of only by one minute 12. Visma win teams ahead of UAE. The very poor housekeeping Benji. We didn’t even run through the GC top 10. But um I did I did don’t worry. Don’t worry. So who are the who are the breakout riders then? I would say Onley Lipitz kind of already had. Yeah, Vocal who’s and then who’s out of Healey? I think we’re just waiting to see confirmation then. Only I don’t need only I don’t need to see confirmation. Liis there’s no confirmation whereas I feel like with Healey Johannes and Vocal I kind of need to see it again. For me for only and and etc. For me this was kind of the confirmation only and Lipovitz. Yeah, because with Liovitz we had a VA last year that already showed that he could ride for GC over three weeks and Roman would have won. Yeah. And only here going into this race I was like okay he’s done it in one weeks now at to the Swiss etc. Can he do it in a a three-week race? This was the confirmation for that possibility in my opinion. Vocal I somewhat agree with you that I said it before P7 to P10 in this in this grand tour ranking outside of Roglish them because Roglish could have top five top five this tour Front I think if he wrote the race differently then uh P7 to P10 so Vocal Helen Ja them being in that position doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to do that again next year directly vocal did ride better in the mountains than I expected yeah I agree but I need a little bit of confirmation like you said and um it’s also because I feel like usually P10 and P until P15 in the last few mountain stages are closer to P10 allowing for potential top 10 back doors and now there were massive gaps outside of Joa and Ben O Connor being P P 10 and 11 on on stage 20. So that that also feels like an indication that like summon eights you can’t tell me that 15th place summon eight really tried for GC. No. So it’s not like there were more than 12 people maybe 11 people actually trying for GC here. Yates was literally chilling in week one like not really trying to make splits. Same with both the Yates brothers. They were like just chilling waiting for the mountain stages. So Oscar only the perverse thing Benji is he’s performed so well here taken so many UCI points across the season. He has locked himself into his contract with Picnic Postnel who won’t get relegated. He’s contracted through end of 2027. He signed that extension quite a while ago. So he’ll be like yeah they’ll have to break it open or he’s way underpaid. Explain to the people that are maybe new to the story of France and new to the point system. Why does this tour France lock Oscar only into his contract with the team? So, picnic personnel were in danger of relegation from the world tour at the end of this year, but they um they had a plan and the plan was to like perform with their best riders in the biggest races, which also offer the most points. Estana have the opposite plan where Aana were going to farm in the minor calendar and then Astana were actually terrible this tour to France. Um and then in this tour of France, Bitner and Lund Andreas sprinted for like a quite a few points and then only this year has taken 2,700 points more or less. He’s a top five rider ranked on PCS and 25. He has a long-term contract um which as I understand he signed like himself without an agent which dangerous writers listening you know the agents who now I have to sit on the other side of they still the agents generally speaking they earn their money um from whereas the the writers that negotiate themselves sometimes lock themselves like look are you or or if your dad’s doing with Ausso and Ramco just yeah probably don’t do it yourself don’t have a family member do it um anyway only is signed through end of 2027 if they’d been relegated they wouldn’t have a world tour license that contract could then be terminated without a buyout by only in theory if he wanted to leave that’s also there’s no guarantee he would have wanted maybe he would have if they had invites would have would have stayed there who knows but in theory if they’d been relegated he could have uh left his contract without paying any like termination clause but that won’t happen now um because they’re not being relegated because picnic uh not just not a risk. I think they’ve leaped they’re back over on top of Aana and it’s actually wanty below them. So, and then there’s the merger of Lotto and whatever that’s more weekly show stuff but yeah only is not on the market for 2026. Well, Remco is also not on the market for 2025 and he’s being potentially conveyed to that Bora Hanskrew at the moment. So what stops well obviously what stops a team from trying to rob Oscar Ronley from picnic pastel or is he worth robbing at the moment that’s also a question cuz yes he might have top fourth the tour to France but it’s not like he’s suddenly a a certainty for a party in a grand tour either we we forget that this robbing and leaving is when the right the rider is also an autonomous individual idual that has to want to Oscar only just came forth at the Twitter France. Oscar only signed a long-term deal with Picnic Personnel because he obviously likes the team. He’s performing in that environment. He has a an English or British DS with him that presumably they get along well with. He’s having a career breakout season. Maybe he’s perfectly happy where he is. And the Renco situation is kind of often described in the media like Red Bull or these other teams are trying to poach him and he’s just like a third party non-acctor. Ah, that’s not true. It’s like no, he is in these talk he wants to leave or is entertaining the idea. Of course he’s entertaining the idea because you see that the fact that we’ve had these rumors for three years like that’s a reality but to that point Patrick Lipovitz has just ped the Grand Tour the Twitter France Remco podium to Twitter France last year this year was a failure primos true way as top five but also has the capabilities of top fiveing in Twitter France perhaps without the Jirro going all out for the tour to France he could also fight for a podium just hypothetically thinking How in holy hell is this game team potentially people managing? If Ramapool goes to Bora Hansro and has to compete between quotes with Lipovitz, how is the team going to people manage those three GC riders? That is a a question that I actually don’t think I have an answer to. Sen Vanour. Well, that just got announced. So Ralph Aldark has been by mutual agreement the DS in the tour to France is leaving the team. He’s been there for a couple of years. Sven van Torrenhal is coming in it sounds like a sporting director. So with the overview of DVO team, junior team, world tour team, scouting, recruitment, race plans, stars, everything. So that’s what he’s doing. So they’re bringing him in and he’s going to solve it. Benji. Okay. I’ll be honest, when it comes to a sports director role itself, I wouldn’t have had big confidence in San Fon, but I’m willing to go into the sporting director role idea of him with a more open mind because I don’t know how he’s going to do that in that role. So, I’m curious how that will fair. He’s had the relationship with him for the last three years which didn’t start off on a great foot when he when he was uh with the love and world championship drama tweets abusing Renco. Yes, he was liking tweets abusing Remco about some articles about Remco etc. that were negative about him etc. So that was a very bad look for Santorout that day. I would assume that those conversations have happened between the two within that year of Leven and that they’re on a a good path forward since then because they they’ve had success since in my personal opinion more thanks to the individual strength than anything team related there but that relationship is important but does that not does Font and Mqu having a relationship not impact act the potential if you’re F Lipovitz and you see Fon Tunard coming in and then Mquipool coming in in the year after you podium the to France you must not be feeling and overly happy either and the full entourage yeah I agree like you’d be like why is why is his buddy the main director at the tour to France like when class Live’s doing the race plan for the tour to France and they both go Ramco and Libitz. Yeah. You think he’s going to like human nature he’s not not going to wait them equally. Who pays class of X salary if he goes there? Well being there Remco apool is why he has the job. And so that makes it a lot harder then for Livec to be like hey Remco actually I think Lipovitz is way better than you. Um but I do think Remool needs people around him that are not yesmen and to in Van Toural’s defense Belgian Federation one of the best organized federation like as an overall structure don’t know I don’t know how much he is to credit for it but the federation functions really really well so compared to other federations so it’s just a lot of changing parts a lot of staff movements and Red Bull’s changing a lot but you’re right Benji like are they like oh should we have just stuck with Lipovitz and um doubled down on him. I don’t I mean there’s a lot of races if you’re van I see it more a problem in Dan and and the van hills of this world being like what the [ __ ] like um I didn’t come here to be a domestic leage bast in the last one and a half years when it comes to bull boy hans grind the way that team has changed we’ve spoken a lot about them forming a classics team them getting von hills we’re seeing them getting lots of riders that are very good individual riders but throughout this entire year we’ve seen in almost every single race that this road that the chemistry between those riders and the way they ride together is not in a way that can conclude with success. And in the classics that was because half of the team wasn’t riding for each other in situations where they should be riding for each other. They chose the wrong leaders depending on the races. So that’s also a team management issue in those races. Here at the tour to France in week one there’s co-leership but Lipovitz was doing more of the work there. Then in week two we we see moments where where they’re working well together rolling attacks on only in week three we see we see I’ll be honest Patrick we we mentioned it before but in stage 18 and 19 red bull pura Hansra was doing their absolute best to lose the podium with lipo. I think that’s the best way to describe it tactically in those two days. Yeah. But just in general, I’ve got the feeling that just because you get the best riders doesn’t mean they all work well together. And that’s the thing they need to figure out for next year. And if Senon can figure that out, holy [ __ ] he deserves double the amount of money he’s probably being paid for for this because then they’re going to have massive success. There’s a lot of talent. There’s a lot of talent there. Um, like we said, Peladari, Fisher Black, these are still young guys in their 20s or approaching their peak, Py. Um, so yeah, and then they got Finn coming up. So that it’s one of the most talent stocked rosters and like you say, they got just got to find a way to make it work. Uh, how would you rate this tour to France, Benji, out of 10? Oh, oy Patrick. Might this be the lowest tour to France I’ve rated in the last few years? I feel like this might potentially be the case. Like we’ve had some great tour to Frances. 2020 comes to mind, especially because of the final. 2022 was a a pretty good tour to France. 2023 was then the the the confirmation of Vingal, but was kind of a walk in the park for Ving more than it was an actual rivalry in that year. Well, 2024 was then the the revenge of T Pogachar and him destroying the field and towards week three absolutely destroying the field. Well, this year also was once again Toga kind of destroying the competition. That’s how I perceived this. But I went we went into the to France 2024 with Vinga was from an injured position at Bass Country going into the to France as an underdog because that despite in previous years destroying TD Pagachar but also knowing that TD pagera could potentially be better in the areas where he had potential weaknesses but there wasn’t certainty yet at the start of the TTF 2024. While I’ve got this mixed feeling about this year’s tour to France Patrick where going into the race I actually was pretty positive. I thought okay week one’s going to be explosive regardless of the action in GC. Week two bismalis bike will regardless of the situation in GC always keep trying and I felt the same when it comes to week three. Now, week three might have left a bit less in the plate than I necessarily hoped for, and I kind of felt a bit zoned out from the tour of France in week three more than I would have hoped for. So, I’m leaning towards five, five and a half, six out of 10. Probably five, five and a half. Is that too harsh? I get a five out of 10. Yeah, it was. How many like historic memorable stages were there? Not a single one. Von two was good, but Von was good, but it still went to the break. Still went to the break. My favorite stage was stage four. Uh, we still had hope. We had Pog drop Vingard. Vingard comes back. Vanderpool comes back. Almeida get Jorgensson attacks. I think Visma launched the climb before. I think it was a really exciting 20 minutes. Uh, it was kind of like a mini San Ramo. Then Pog beats Vanderpool in the sprint. That was my favorite stage. My least favorite stage was probably the Llan or Lao stages. They were awful. I thought in the like the the feeling at the end of those stages on the final climb was not one of excitement. I agree. And I think Codal Lo, if we had the actual Codal Lo, not the not this side of Codal Lo there, maybe that stage would have been a lot better. I’m also trying to ask the score of Luke if he can open the chat because I want to hear his opinion on this Twitter France as well cuz he’s also a part of this podcast. And we also should thank Luke, by the way, cuz we are like the the people on screen, but he’s doing all the dirty work at the moment trying to trying to make this a viewable experience for everyone. So, thanks to Luke as well. And his score for the Sword of France is a four out of 10. So, he’s even more uh depressed after this than we are, Patrick. But do we feel like we have hope towards next year that it might be changing? No idea. Depends on the parkour. I think they got to bring back some more sprinting stages. Just when everything is special, nothing is special. And the general tenor of the riders after this race is this tour was overall just so hard that then to they were just [ __ ] by week three. They were just [ __ ] everybody, Pog, Vanguard, the teams, the guys trying to go in the breakaway. Everyone’s just cooked and then you get kind of the damp ending on on the final mountains, which is not the writer’s fault. They’re just cooked. So, I think they got to bring back some more pure pure sprinter stages. I don’t need to see like the tul stage is just overkill like another of the same stage. Just have a sprint or I don’t know. I want to see I want to see or there is a TTT but they’re always pathetically short. I want to see long individual flat time trials. Um give Ramco something to work with. Is it time Patrick? Is it time for pl to come back? So yeah sure. How long has it been? Um years. 22. Yeah. I think it’s time Patrick like as a TT I just appla stage I’m miss I’m starting to miss it I’m just missing sprint stages there just were not enough sprint stages um in this tour to France in my opinion there needed to be another one in week two and when you especially when you take out Sham 75 km team time trial Patrick it’s happening that’d be sick and you can’t just say it benefits the rich teams cuz also Jacula would want that. EF would want that and Moyar would probably want that. But as a whole on average it would benefit the rich team. On average it benefits the richer teams but you can still construct your team around it. And I would say the richer teams are able to buy better climbers that the the mid packs cannot and have more climbing depth. But actually a little not they are a rich team. I don’t know, like a an FDJ has a lot of good rulers. They could put in a TTT. So, I I would like to see a TTT. But that was our recap of the tour to France. One more thing that I would like is it weird that I the scent finishes the sport is kind of trying to step away from even though in like a day or two days we have one at the to France Zift. Maybe as of recording that is the case, but when this goes live maybe it’s already happened. But um I do feel like I kind of miss like a mountain breakaway stage that is has a flat finish of like 20 km of flat after the last mountain like proper mountains in the first 70% of the race and then it tunes out a little bit towards the end cuz then you have an obvious breakaway stage and not the tension between Pelaton and Breakaway or do you think that would take away from So you mean like the Bill Ba Müllberger Simon Yates It’s uh 2019 one. 2019. Let me take a look here for a second. Stage 12. Uh stage 12. I’m opening it as we speak. By deor is the one you go for. I would say half. Yes. But I’m leaning more towards actual like massive mountains in the middle of the stage more than just two in the last 30%. Oh, like stage 15 of the Jirro this year that was won by Carl’s Verona where you have like they did Bant they did Monte Graa and the Dory clim. Yeah, I I would like to see that too. Anyway, apparently you can just win from the Pelaton against Patcha now on a 90k stage on an uphill finish. So that’s great. Oh my god, Patrick, the transfers are coming in. We’ve we’ve had three transfer already, so we’re going to need a a weekly show in a in a small week past week. Are you okay with that? Yeah, we’ve had a few transfers on the 31st of July. Crazy, huh? Extensions or transfers? Well, transfers as in people from deaf team going to the actual property. No, do not. Hey, we’ve got one. Matias Scopetski from Novo Nordis to Unibet Rockets. None of the team the only team that realized somehow none of the teams realize you can announce you could announce um the transfers as soon as you’ve agreed them. You could do it on January 1, but why would you on the 31st of July? Does it benefit you to do it at late as possible? I think it doesn’t help to do it for the rider on their incumbent team. you know, remember the Axel Zang Lour to France omission not omission last year. You won’t maybe want to avoid stuff like h like that happening. Um, but yeah, I think people should have done it straight after the tour like Luke says. So, all righty. That was our recap of the tour to France. Uh, we’re going to have the women’s coverage later, of course, and uh then we’ll have a big transfers roundup after the women’s tour to France finishes next week. So until then, cho.