Tour de France Rest Day Review

Le Tour’s turning out to be a vintage edition, a three week game of snakes and ladders with riders going up and down almost every day. Julian Alaphilippe’s looked brittle yet leaves the Pyrenees with more of lead than he went in with. Thibaut Pinot’s had the best weekend, taking back more time on Saturday and Sunday than he lost in the crosswinds to Albi. Steven Kruijswijk’s strong and the longer Alpine climbs should suit him more plus his Jumbo-Visma team look very strong. Ineos aren’t out of the race either with Geraint Thomas still second overall and Egan Bernal was the last to hold Thibaut Pinot’s wheel on the Prat d’Albis. Then come a list of riders with nothing to lose and as we saw yesterday on the Mur de Péguère, riders like Landa aren’t waiting for the final climb to launch raids.

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Tour de France Stage 15 Preview

This surprising Tour continues with a new summit finish in the Pyrenees after a hard final 60km with tough backroad climbs. Julian Alaphilippe’s spell in the yellow jersey continues but he’s got little support and rival teams want to work him over.

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Tour de France Stage 13 Preview

A time trial to shake up the overall classification before a series of mountain stages. If watching a TT on TV isn’t your thing then don’t miss La Course this morning.

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Tour de France Stage 12 Preview

The race heads into the Pyrenees with two hard climbs, this should give us a fight for the breakaway but the main GC contenders will aim for a steady introduction ahead of tomorrow’s time trial

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Book Review: One Way Ticket

One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels by Jonathan Vaughters

Jonathan Vaughters has written an autobiography that covers his start in cycling, the rise up the ranks and his move into team management. I’d been looking forward to this book for some time as there few books from senior team managers, the only other contemporary one is from Marc Madiot.

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In A Roundabout Way

Nobody knows how many roundabouts there are in France, only that their number has soared. The image of the peloton parting like a school of fish to navigate a roundabout has become a televisual staple and they sometimes form tactical features of the course, ask Jacob Fuglsang and Thibaut Pinot or see Edvald Boasson Hagen exploit one to get away for a stage win in 2017. They’ve become an unloved feature of France and even political. Let’s take a tour…

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