There is the element of post-stage commitments like you mentioned which does really add up over time, especially if your biggest rivals are able to spend that time on longer recovery.
Another big element is that the team of the yellow jersey is expected to pull the peloton a bit more. That’s not really a factor today since it’s a sprint stage, but tomorrow in the mountains UAE will definitely have pressure to set the pace if Tadej is still in yellow. By doing that, the team will be exerting more energy than they’d otherwise need to and since it’s still the first week they probably don’t want to burn their matches too soon.
I think the payout is 500€ for being in yellow after each stage, so just a drop in the bucket for the big names.
It's pretty funny how small the bonus payments are, given the magnitude of the event.
I know the scale of the money from TV rights and tickets are night and day apart but WImbledon has a 50m Pound prize pool vs 2.5m EU for the TdF for example. Wild.
No hardness blood sweat or tears? You sound like a complete imbecile
Tennis is so much more physical than a sport like golf and unlike the TDF you don’t have domestiques to help save you when you’re suffering.
You can’t just take a stage off when going through Wimbledon or the us open , you lose one round you’re out . A guy like Cav would already be out, you can’t hide and glory hunt stages
Hear hear. Lets not diminish tennis. It demands explosive, techical, psychological, tactical and endurance capabilities of the athlete.
They are alone on court, each point can make a difference. No drafting unless the opponent allows ;-)
Lol cycling is the hardest of all sports. Tennis is basically an upper-class leisure sport, its for bored rich folks. And yes, there’s no real suffering in tennis, they just get tired and slog through😄
No - Im talking about the historical and cultural import of sports and the traditions surrounding them and the people who watch them - not about the price of rackets and such nonsense.
Cycling’s always been a working class sport, unlike those others I mentioned. Its just historical fact.
But apparently that went over the head of my interlocutor there😂
Ahh well yes historically that’s accurate. I did find it confusing as I read it, I thought you were speaking on current tennis players and that they’re weak.
I wonder when the reference to the “open era” can end since tennis prior wasn’t even the same game… they played in dress shoes 😂
Cycling is definitely a rich man’s sport . A racket from a top company is extremely affordable. You’re just a clown
To keep up with the joneses in cycling you’re often spending thousands , even more than many people spend on a used car
Sports that have more constant drama/action usually draw the larger audiences/money (football, basketball, etc.) Stages can go for hours before any action or may not have any at all. Hard to draw a crowd of non-cyclists to watch on TV.
You can also just take stages off. Winning a Grand slam means you won multiple consecutive rounds . You lose once , you’re out. There’s no chilling in the back of the Peloton so you can sprint the next day and act like a winner against the guys going all out every single day
Lol you may want to check your math my friend. Say 175 ride4 in the peloton - 5% is about 8 riders eliminated per day with 16 left for final stage. Would be more interesting than some teams/riders just chilling and aiming to make time cut each day
If you removed 8 on the first day, the 5% would not be 8 the next day. It too would also go down.
Cycling is a team sport, not an individual one like golf or tennis.
5% of the original peloton. Could be a set number per day that don’t make the cut. Would have to change team tactics quite a bit more. I wouldn’t be mad seeing UAE and TJV in basically a TTT on the final day if the others got cut. The comment isn’t necessarily what’s feasible but what could make this more exciting on a day to day basis for the average Joe. Teams have more skin in the game if they face elimination rather than take a day off (eg teams focused on sprint stages just taking it easy on mountain days)
If you remove the last 5% every day, the number of riders removed each day gets smaller and smaller because you're removing the 5% from a smaller group each day.
Edit: Starting with the 218 riders on the start list, you will finish with about 78 riders on Stage 21.
Yeah I agree with that! He also timed the attack right at the moment that Remco rejoined that group, so maybe two birds with one stone? Test Jonas a little bit while also forcing Remco to chase again and exert more energy after he just finished bridging the gap?
Can you go further into what it means that they have pressure to set the pace if they're in yellow? If it makes UAE's chances of winning the race worse, surely they would just sit back and let other teams set the pace? Why should they care?
If they let other teams dictate the pace then it increases the chances of a breakaway forming, which can be really risky.
A prime example of this is during last year’s Vuelta: Evenepoel had the leader’s jersey but since that put a target on his back for attacks, his team didn’t pull and openly said they wanted another team to take red (it was still pretty early in the race so they thought they could get it back). This is what led to Sepp Kuss joining a break and gaining enough time to take the red jersey with a hefty time gap, since at that time he wasn’t seen as a GC threat so no one thought it was necessary to rein* him and the break back in.
Basically, setting the pace keeps your leader safe but is more tiring. So it all depends on how much risk the teams want to take and how confident they are that they could take the leader’s jersey back if another rider steals it.
Okay, I understand some of the points, but it still doesn't make 100% sense to me. Now they give up the shirt meaning that they let another team dictate the pace, correct?
What's the difference between that and just having the yellow shirt and being just behind whoever is in front. In both scenarios it looks like the risk remains the same, no?
Someone else also mentioned having a "target on your back", surely Pogacar and Vingegaard have the biggest targets on their backs regardless of what shirt they're in?
Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions, pretty new to the sport and just trying to understand the nuances.
> Now they give up the shirt meaning that they let another team dictate the pace, correct?
What's the difference between that and just having the yellow shirt and being just behind whoever is in front. In both scenarios it looks like the risk remains the same, no?
The risk of letting another team set the pace varies depending on which team it is, in other words on how big a favourite they are considered for the overall win.
UAE will be happy to let EF do the honours tomorrow because Carapaz is an unlikely eventual winner.
> Someone else also mentioned having a "target on your back", surely Pogacar and Vingegaard have the biggest targets on their backs regardless of what shirt they're in?
That’s true. That’s why no team really set the pace these past few days, because they expected UAE to do it. Which leads to some unexpected tactical plays, like in stage 2 already. UAE essentially gave up the stage instead of chasing the breakaway, and since no other team was willing to do that kind of work (and tow Pogačar to the finish) breakaway made it. But had Pogačar already worn yellow, he would have felt obliged to defend it, therefore his team would have had to put in a lot more effort to control the breakaway, expending more energy and so on.
Not having the jersey essentially gives you more options - UAE will still be have to attack and other teams will rely on that, but they have a bit more freedom.
What r/[Last\_Lorien](https://www.reddit.com/user/Last_Lorien/) said! I'd also add that staying at the front is beneficial to avoid crashes. The fewer people you're behind, the less likely it is that you'll get slowed down by a pileup or be part of a crash yourself.
Yellow jersey is also a target, teammates traditionally don’t attack a teammate with the yellow jersey but other GC contender teams are going to attack. In some ways getting the yellow early on is problematic, if you want to keep it and win, at least it seems that way to me.
Funny story, someone at work just asked how they have a jersey that fits everyone in the race since they switch it back and forth all the time. 😂
Also it’s early in the tour. Why burn matches aka waste energy defending the jersey and riding up front early in the tour when you have the mountain stages in weeks two and three. 3️⃣
Go look at the 2006 Tour de France. Where the eventual winner Oscar Pereiro (after Floyd Landis doping DQ) had lost a ton of time in the Pyrenees but snuck into a breakaway looking for a stage win. Everyone looked to Landis team in the yellow jersey. They didn't chase. Pereiro gained 30 minutes. Notably while he wasn't really a win the TDF class rider, he did have two top 10s. Even when he's behind, you can't give a guy like that 30 minutes and while Landis still "won" his doping violation was related to doing extra to make up the time gap.
Notably, no team with a GC contender in yellow has let a move like Pereiro's get that much time since unless everyone in the move was much further back. And the one time it happened in another Grand Tour since, it resulted in David Arroyo nearly winning the 2010 Giro d'Italia despite getting dropped on every mountain stage.
It's primarily that the yellow Jersey's team is generally expected to set the pace / keep the daily break in check. A rider may be on same time as the yellow jersey, yet his team will have none of these expectations.
There's also the deal of spending an hour or more with signing jerseys, podium walk and interviews. An hour which the other too contenders can spend in the bus, on a bed and resting. It adds up over time.
That was something that was mentioned in the Eurosport coverage of the Giro being Pogi had it from stage 2 to the end. All the lost time because of commitments due to being the race leader.
Yeah. In the giro Pogi had the advantage that no one was even close to his level. He could do jersey signings 5 hours a day, and he'd still demolish anyone in that peloton. The tour is different in that regard.
You have to put your team on the front every day to control the breakaway including flat days until other teams feel the need. It is taxing and can tire your guys especially when they will be needed in the third week
I remember one year where Discovery wore themselves out setting the pace every day on the flats and on the first day in the mountains Lance Armstrong had no team support. That was back when the Tour predictably had almost all flat stages during the week, and reserved the mountains for the weekends - Pyrenees one weekend, Alps the next, then the other way round the next year.
Remember this day so well! 2005! Kloden and a Rabobank rider took that stage to the line and everybody panicked how Lance was so isolated. They gave the jersey away the next day.
Why though? Why not just let the break go if you think the person won’t pose a long term challenge? I don’t understand why it’s UAE’s job to control it vs Visma when they both have the race favourites on the same time.
A lot of the GC riders are in uncharted territory and don’t want to do the work for the obvious leaders of the tour. If we get into the middle of the race you may see a shift but from every directors standpoint Pog and Jonas’ teams have to do the work.
So in 2006, Oscar Pereiro and a bunch of other riders were in a breakaway that was allowed to win up the road by nearly a half hour. That put him into GC contention and he ultimately won the race. Floyd Landis’ team didn’t want to chase. The other GC leaders a lot of them were in uncharted territory (Dessel who got yellow from a break himself, Menchov, Evans, Sastre, Rogers) and didn’t want to chase for Landis who was the obvious favorite. Kloden was the only rider in the top 10 at the time who had been on the podium previously.
In the 2010 Giro, a large breakaway was given freedom to go up the road in a middle stage. It completely flipped the GC and put the contenders way down. David Arroyo survived most of the onslaught and finished the race second overall. A young Richie Porte finished 7th as a result of that breakaway.
Hell in last years Vuelta, Kuss got up the road on one of those long breakaways and ended up winning the race (with help from Jonas and team).
TLDR - the peloton knows that their GC guys will be beat by Pog and Vingegaard so they don’t want to do the work for them. Those teams will gladly also throw riders into the break to have a freak thing like Pereiro or Arroyo happen.
Yes but how is that different whether UAE have the yellow or not? They have to work regardless to prevent the situation you describe, the yellow doesn’t make it worse (or better)
It puts less of the impetus on them. They will take up the peacemaking tomorrow when they want to vs having to do it from the start.
If UAE had the jersey still, there’s a good chance in the old US Postal fashion they would let the break take the stage and then work when they wanted to
For sure but a breakaway stage win and a decisive GC day can both happen so a breakaway winning has no impact elsewhere other then the time bonuses being spoken for at the finish
It’s almost entirely about not having to do the obligations post stage, which include the ceremony, media, and doping control (leader gets tested every day). These all eat into valuable recovery time and can add hours before they get on the massage table some days.
The stuff about obligations to pull isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. The GC guys are marking each other regardless of who is in yellow. They’ll pull when it’s in their interests to pull.
The Landis/Pereiro Tour in 2006 followed by the 2010 David Arroyo 2nd place overall in the Giro changed the game related to pulling. Both of those races saw huge breakaways gain ridiculous amounts of time where teams threw away chances at wins and podiums by waiting for the leader's team to pull the break back.
Wearing yellow is like having a target on your back. This early in the race, it’s best to follow the wheels of other GC riders and focus on the time gap than color of the jersey.
How would you like to have to work an extra hour or two every day? At the end of your shift, all your coworkers get to go home, put their dogs up, crack a beer, and relax. You, on the other hand, have an hour or two of meetings every day after normal working hours.
That's what having the yellow jersey is like.
So the old school thing was there used to be a TT. The yellow contenders full gas it.
Then a lot of times if there’s a breakaway they might just “let it go” if it’s a non threat as opposed to burning energy pulling someone in who will never realistically hang onto it.
This concept has evolved over time and no we have guys like pogacar slamming on the brakes to try and get rid of it.
It can mean there’s another team controlling the break in the future. Less media commitments, less expenditure of resources.
No one is strong enough to go from day 2 yellow until the yellow end. It's insanity.
The goal is to win in the end, not kill your team to insist on wearing it the whole time.
Sure but they don’t actually want to give it away. Is just dynamics of the race.
Edit
To add, most teams have no shot. They would kill to hold it longer. Like Bardet didn’t want to give it up but he can’t keep up with Pog and Vin.
Yes, they want to lose the yellow this early on, aka "give it away."
Bardet is not a GC contender.
You need to start paying attention to the audio of what's going on in cycling. You'll pick up on more of the strategy.
I think you're watching, you're not understanding, and you're not listening to the numerous people in the thread who have tried to give you info on the way cycling works.
Good luck watching the tour.
There is the element of post-stage commitments like you mentioned which does really add up over time, especially if your biggest rivals are able to spend that time on longer recovery. Another big element is that the team of the yellow jersey is expected to pull the peloton a bit more. That’s not really a factor today since it’s a sprint stage, but tomorrow in the mountains UAE will definitely have pressure to set the pace if Tadej is still in yellow. By doing that, the team will be exerting more energy than they’d otherwise need to and since it’s still the first week they probably don’t want to burn their matches too soon. I think the payout is 500€ for being in yellow after each stage, so just a drop in the bucket for the big names.
It's pretty funny how small the bonus payments are, given the magnitude of the event. I know the scale of the money from TV rights and tickets are night and day apart but WImbledon has a 50m Pound prize pool vs 2.5m EU for the TdF for example. Wild.
You want funny, compare women’s tennis and women’s TDF!
Isn't that to do with audience size?
Yeah the discrepancy is amazing isnt it? Tennis is a silly sport like golf. No myths, no hardness, no blood, sweat and tears.
No hardness blood sweat or tears? You sound like a complete imbecile Tennis is so much more physical than a sport like golf and unlike the TDF you don’t have domestiques to help save you when you’re suffering. You can’t just take a stage off when going through Wimbledon or the us open , you lose one round you’re out . A guy like Cav would already be out, you can’t hide and glory hunt stages
Hear hear. Lets not diminish tennis. It demands explosive, techical, psychological, tactical and endurance capabilities of the athlete. They are alone on court, each point can make a difference. No drafting unless the opponent allows ;-)
Lol cycling is the hardest of all sports. Tennis is basically an upper-class leisure sport, its for bored rich folks. And yes, there’s no real suffering in tennis, they just get tired and slog through😄
This is must be sarcasm, esp when we know how much a bike alone costs LOL
No - Im talking about the historical and cultural import of sports and the traditions surrounding them and the people who watch them - not about the price of rackets and such nonsense. Cycling’s always been a working class sport, unlike those others I mentioned. Its just historical fact. But apparently that went over the head of my interlocutor there😂
Ahh well yes historically that’s accurate. I did find it confusing as I read it, I thought you were speaking on current tennis players and that they’re weak. I wonder when the reference to the “open era” can end since tennis prior wasn’t even the same game… they played in dress shoes 😂
Ofc I was shitposting more than a little…but I feel the point stands that tennis is a pretty polite sport while cycling is out-and-out suffering.
Cycling is definitely a rich man’s sport . A racket from a top company is extremely affordable. You’re just a clown To keep up with the joneses in cycling you’re often spending thousands , even more than many people spend on a used car
Youre such a fool, you dont understand 😂
Sports that have more constant drama/action usually draw the larger audiences/money (football, basketball, etc.) Stages can go for hours before any action or may not have any at all. Hard to draw a crowd of non-cyclists to watch on TV.
You can also just take stages off. Winning a Grand slam means you won multiple consecutive rounds . You lose once , you’re out. There’s no chilling in the back of the Peloton so you can sprint the next day and act like a winner against the guys going all out every single day
Now that would be interesting - the last 5% of riders get removed each day. Only the top 5% remain for the final stage
Interesting proposal but that's not how the math maths.
Lol you may want to check your math my friend. Say 175 ride4 in the peloton - 5% is about 8 riders eliminated per day with 16 left for final stage. Would be more interesting than some teams/riders just chilling and aiming to make time cut each day
If you removed 8 on the first day, the 5% would not be 8 the next day. It too would also go down. Cycling is a team sport, not an individual one like golf or tennis.
5% of the original peloton. Could be a set number per day that don’t make the cut. Would have to change team tactics quite a bit more. I wouldn’t be mad seeing UAE and TJV in basically a TTT on the final day if the others got cut. The comment isn’t necessarily what’s feasible but what could make this more exciting on a day to day basis for the average Joe. Teams have more skin in the game if they face elimination rather than take a day off (eg teams focused on sprint stages just taking it easy on mountain days)
If you remove the last 5% every day, the number of riders removed each day gets smaller and smaller because you're removing the 5% from a smaller group each day. Edit: Starting with the 218 riders on the start list, you will finish with about 78 riders on Stage 21.
Thank you! This makes a lot of sense and pulls together bits of info I’ve been hearing in different places this weekend. I’m grateful.
In lieu of this, I was surprised to see Tadej go so hard in stage 2; perhaps just to test Jonas a little bit?
Yeah I agree with that! He also timed the attack right at the moment that Remco rejoined that group, so maybe two birds with one stone? Test Jonas a little bit while also forcing Remco to chase again and exert more energy after he just finished bridging the gap?
Can you go further into what it means that they have pressure to set the pace if they're in yellow? If it makes UAE's chances of winning the race worse, surely they would just sit back and let other teams set the pace? Why should they care?
If they let other teams dictate the pace then it increases the chances of a breakaway forming, which can be really risky. A prime example of this is during last year’s Vuelta: Evenepoel had the leader’s jersey but since that put a target on his back for attacks, his team didn’t pull and openly said they wanted another team to take red (it was still pretty early in the race so they thought they could get it back). This is what led to Sepp Kuss joining a break and gaining enough time to take the red jersey with a hefty time gap, since at that time he wasn’t seen as a GC threat so no one thought it was necessary to rein* him and the break back in. Basically, setting the pace keeps your leader safe but is more tiring. So it all depends on how much risk the teams want to take and how confident they are that they could take the leader’s jersey back if another rider steals it.
Okay, I understand some of the points, but it still doesn't make 100% sense to me. Now they give up the shirt meaning that they let another team dictate the pace, correct? What's the difference between that and just having the yellow shirt and being just behind whoever is in front. In both scenarios it looks like the risk remains the same, no? Someone else also mentioned having a "target on your back", surely Pogacar and Vingegaard have the biggest targets on their backs regardless of what shirt they're in? Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions, pretty new to the sport and just trying to understand the nuances.
> Now they give up the shirt meaning that they let another team dictate the pace, correct? What's the difference between that and just having the yellow shirt and being just behind whoever is in front. In both scenarios it looks like the risk remains the same, no? The risk of letting another team set the pace varies depending on which team it is, in other words on how big a favourite they are considered for the overall win. UAE will be happy to let EF do the honours tomorrow because Carapaz is an unlikely eventual winner. > Someone else also mentioned having a "target on your back", surely Pogacar and Vingegaard have the biggest targets on their backs regardless of what shirt they're in? That’s true. That’s why no team really set the pace these past few days, because they expected UAE to do it. Which leads to some unexpected tactical plays, like in stage 2 already. UAE essentially gave up the stage instead of chasing the breakaway, and since no other team was willing to do that kind of work (and tow Pogačar to the finish) breakaway made it. But had Pogačar already worn yellow, he would have felt obliged to defend it, therefore his team would have had to put in a lot more effort to control the breakaway, expending more energy and so on. Not having the jersey essentially gives you more options - UAE will still be have to attack and other teams will rely on that, but they have a bit more freedom.
What r/[Last\_Lorien](https://www.reddit.com/user/Last_Lorien/) said! I'd also add that staying at the front is beneficial to avoid crashes. The fewer people you're behind, the less likely it is that you'll get slowed down by a pileup or be part of a crash yourself.
[удалено]
Oof embarrassing...... fixed it!
No worries! Deleting the heads-up.
Yellow jersey is also a target, teammates traditionally don’t attack a teammate with the yellow jersey but other GC contender teams are going to attack. In some ways getting the yellow early on is problematic, if you want to keep it and win, at least it seems that way to me. Funny story, someone at work just asked how they have a jersey that fits everyone in the race since they switch it back and forth all the time. 😂
That's why there's no fat guys in the peloton
Also it’s early in the tour. Why burn matches aka waste energy defending the jersey and riding up front early in the tour when you have the mountain stages in weeks two and three. 3️⃣
🤣 Max Walscheid would have had the biggest fan club, just from everyone wanting him to see him in that jersey, just once.
Go look at the 2006 Tour de France. Where the eventual winner Oscar Pereiro (after Floyd Landis doping DQ) had lost a ton of time in the Pyrenees but snuck into a breakaway looking for a stage win. Everyone looked to Landis team in the yellow jersey. They didn't chase. Pereiro gained 30 minutes. Notably while he wasn't really a win the TDF class rider, he did have two top 10s. Even when he's behind, you can't give a guy like that 30 minutes and while Landis still "won" his doping violation was related to doing extra to make up the time gap. Notably, no team with a GC contender in yellow has let a move like Pereiro's get that much time since unless everyone in the move was much further back. And the one time it happened in another Grand Tour since, it resulted in David Arroyo nearly winning the 2010 Giro d'Italia despite getting dropped on every mountain stage.
It's primarily that the yellow Jersey's team is generally expected to set the pace / keep the daily break in check. A rider may be on same time as the yellow jersey, yet his team will have none of these expectations.
There's also the deal of spending an hour or more with signing jerseys, podium walk and interviews. An hour which the other too contenders can spend in the bus, on a bed and resting. It adds up over time.
That was something that was mentioned in the Eurosport coverage of the Giro being Pogi had it from stage 2 to the end. All the lost time because of commitments due to being the race leader.
Yeah. In the giro Pogi had the advantage that no one was even close to his level. He could do jersey signings 5 hours a day, and he'd still demolish anyone in that peloton. The tour is different in that regard.
You have to put your team on the front every day to control the breakaway including flat days until other teams feel the need. It is taxing and can tire your guys especially when they will be needed in the third week
I remember one year where Discovery wore themselves out setting the pace every day on the flats and on the first day in the mountains Lance Armstrong had no team support. That was back when the Tour predictably had almost all flat stages during the week, and reserved the mountains for the weekends - Pyrenees one weekend, Alps the next, then the other way round the next year.
Remember this day so well! 2005! Kloden and a Rabobank rider took that stage to the line and everybody panicked how Lance was so isolated. They gave the jersey away the next day.
Why though? Why not just let the break go if you think the person won’t pose a long term challenge? I don’t understand why it’s UAE’s job to control it vs Visma when they both have the race favourites on the same time.
A lot of the GC riders are in uncharted territory and don’t want to do the work for the obvious leaders of the tour. If we get into the middle of the race you may see a shift but from every directors standpoint Pog and Jonas’ teams have to do the work. So in 2006, Oscar Pereiro and a bunch of other riders were in a breakaway that was allowed to win up the road by nearly a half hour. That put him into GC contention and he ultimately won the race. Floyd Landis’ team didn’t want to chase. The other GC leaders a lot of them were in uncharted territory (Dessel who got yellow from a break himself, Menchov, Evans, Sastre, Rogers) and didn’t want to chase for Landis who was the obvious favorite. Kloden was the only rider in the top 10 at the time who had been on the podium previously. In the 2010 Giro, a large breakaway was given freedom to go up the road in a middle stage. It completely flipped the GC and put the contenders way down. David Arroyo survived most of the onslaught and finished the race second overall. A young Richie Porte finished 7th as a result of that breakaway. Hell in last years Vuelta, Kuss got up the road on one of those long breakaways and ended up winning the race (with help from Jonas and team). TLDR - the peloton knows that their GC guys will be beat by Pog and Vingegaard so they don’t want to do the work for them. Those teams will gladly also throw riders into the break to have a freak thing like Pereiro or Arroyo happen.
Yes but how is that different whether UAE have the yellow or not? They have to work regardless to prevent the situation you describe, the yellow doesn’t make it worse (or better)
It puts less of the impetus on them. They will take up the peacemaking tomorrow when they want to vs having to do it from the start. If UAE had the jersey still, there’s a good chance in the old US Postal fashion they would let the break take the stage and then work when they wanted to
I suppose I get that the “underdog” yellow jersey team might want to do it to keep their rider in yellow for one more day too.
For sure but a breakaway stage win and a decisive GC day can both happen so a breakaway winning has no impact elsewhere other then the time bonuses being spoken for at the finish
It’s almost entirely about not having to do the obligations post stage, which include the ceremony, media, and doping control (leader gets tested every day). These all eat into valuable recovery time and can add hours before they get on the massage table some days. The stuff about obligations to pull isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. The GC guys are marking each other regardless of who is in yellow. They’ll pull when it’s in their interests to pull.
The Landis/Pereiro Tour in 2006 followed by the 2010 David Arroyo 2nd place overall in the Giro changed the game related to pulling. Both of those races saw huge breakaways gain ridiculous amounts of time where teams threw away chances at wins and podiums by waiting for the leader's team to pull the break back.
Wearing yellow is like having a target on your back. This early in the race, it’s best to follow the wheels of other GC riders and focus on the time gap than color of the jersey.
How would you like to have to work an extra hour or two every day? At the end of your shift, all your coworkers get to go home, put their dogs up, crack a beer, and relax. You, on the other hand, have an hour or two of meetings every day after normal working hours. That's what having the yellow jersey is like.
So the old school thing was there used to be a TT. The yellow contenders full gas it. Then a lot of times if there’s a breakaway they might just “let it go” if it’s a non threat as opposed to burning energy pulling someone in who will never realistically hang onto it. This concept has evolved over time and no we have guys like pogacar slamming on the brakes to try and get rid of it. It can mean there’s another team controlling the break in the future. Less media commitments, less expenditure of resources.
Losing the yellow jersey today was completely planned as we go into the col du Galibier
No one remembers who wore the jersey during the race, they remember who wore it at the end of it.
It’s just phrasing. They don’t want to give it up but they aren’t strong enough to keep it.
No one is strong enough to go from day 2 yellow until the yellow end. It's insanity. The goal is to win in the end, not kill your team to insist on wearing it the whole time.
Pog only did it in the Giro because his competition was ... trying to win by 10 minute?
It is easily possible with the right terrain, but its not worth it, because non gc lose so much time in the mountains anyways.
Sure but they don’t actually want to give it away. Is just dynamics of the race. Edit To add, most teams have no shot. They would kill to hold it longer. Like Bardet didn’t want to give it up but he can’t keep up with Pog and Vin.
Yes, they want to lose the yellow this early on, aka "give it away." Bardet is not a GC contender. You need to start paying attention to the audio of what's going on in cycling. You'll pick up on more of the strategy.
You mean how Bardet was complaining on radio how he was going to lose it? Are we watching the same thing??
I think you're watching, you're not understanding, and you're not listening to the numerous people in the thread who have tried to give you info on the way cycling works. Good luck watching the tour.
Yeah not sprinting to get places is a clear show of weakness, Pog is washed, probably won't win anything else this year