After four-and-a-half hours of brutal Pyrenean Tour de France action, ascents of an HC and first-category mountain and battling to stay alongside Tadej Pogačar, David Gaudu, Mattias Skjelmose, Simon Yates and the rest of the best riders dropped by Jonas Vingegaard's dominant attack, you probably just want to get back on the bus, have a shower, lie down and eat some proper food.
Quite far from the top of your list of 'things you'd love to do', I'd imagine, would be... getting knocked over by a backstepping sound guy...
Buen susto de Carlos Rodríguez @INEOSGrenadiers al terminar la etapa #TDF2023pic.twitter.com/veUWmxalJL
— Robert Marcé ⛰🚵🏻 (@robert_marce) July 5, 2023
Too cynical to suggest Netflix creating their own drama for season two of Unchained? There's a whole overspilling car park's worth of broadcasters at the Tour so perhaps unfair to blame the docuseries makers just yet. Surprising the guy didn't hear Rodríguez coming... sorry, there was absolutely no need for that atrocious brand of 'comedy' this early in the day...
Moving swiftly on...
Great piss-boiling work from Adam here...
Why doesn’t he have a bell?
— Adam Guest (@adamguest) July 5, 2023
I mean I know there’s marginal gains and all that jazz but safety first. Something like this would have saved him a nasty fall here pic.twitter.com/a8wVXxBLln
— Adam Guest (@adamguest) July 5, 2023
Stage 7 of the #GiroDonne23 is underway. We sadly miss Antonia Niedermaier at the start, but the team is determined to fight for success in the next stages 🙌@PaulienaR is 12th on GC at +7:51
Broadcast starts at 13:00CEST on GCN, RAI & Eurosport. pic.twitter.com/QvxCzh7rKC
— CANYON//SRAM Racing & CANYON//SRAM Generation (@WMNcycling) July 6, 2023
Thankfully the extent of Giro Donne breakthrough stage winner Antonia Niedermaier's injuries from that terrible crash yesterday is some now-repaired damage to her teeth.
Canyon-SRAM confirmed: "At Cuneo hospital, she’s been cleared of any fractures. She has some damage to her teeth, which has been repaired. "She will return home to Germany tomorrow. We're sending our best wishes to Antonia, who's bitterly disappointed to leave the Giro."
Jayco-AlUla's Urška Žigart was also involved and "suffered a light concussion and skin abrasions" and has also left the race.
A big ol' climb today...
Thanks to the good folks over at Strava, that's what the ascent looks like, what sort of time we can expect, and all the vital stats...
— Strava (@Strava) July 6, 2023
A fun fact for you as well, 75 per cent of the peloton (131 out of 176) are on Strava, here are the best of the bunch to drop a follow and track their progress...
> Tour de France 2023: The best pros to follow on Strava during the world's biggest bike race
Nice one @seppkuss@JumboVismaRoad#TourDeFrance2023@DeRodeLantaarnpic.twitter.com/0i3FCA7esr
— Joris (@jtbroekhoven) July 5, 2023
Less impressed by those grates...
Some reaction...
Matthew Acton-Varian: "Of course when people keep up cycling, they are not going to keep the perfectly good machine they are currently using, and go out and unnecessarily buy a new one. In the middle of a financial crisis. So that must be why bike sales have dropped. I can't imagine the financial crisis, or the fact that more people actually now have a bike they bought only a couple of years ago to ride actually being the reason..."
Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?
cyclisto: "The bike boom is measured by bike use, not bike sales."
OmarCuoreMatto: "People who went back to cycling in recent years generally bought a bicycle once and are going to stick to it for many years to come. Measuring the success of cycling from the sale figures for new bicycles makes no sense."
There are no more borders in the European Union.
However, you will always know where the Netherlands begins. pic.twitter.com/ip58D9lgdY
— Harman Idema (@HarmaninToronto) July 5, 2023
Cycling was back in The Telegraph again on Monday in a very on-brand way...
'So how did Britain's cycling boom go bust,' I hear you ask...
Well, according to the national broadsheet, the 'golden age of cycling' seen during the pandemic has dropped off a cliff with bike sales down (they've fallen to the lowest level in 20 years, to be fair), plus all the supply chain and component shortage issues we've heard a thousand times before in the past few years.
Even Roger Geffen, a policy director at charity Cycling UK, admitted to the newspaper's reporter "we do seem to have lost sight of that silver lining" cycling enjoyed during the pandemic. "Some of the people have carried on – long may that continue – but we did miss an opportunity," he suggested.
However, has the bike boom gone bust? Sharing the piece on social media, Geffen's Cycling UK colleague Sarah McMonagle highlighted a different point from the piece... there are still 11% more bikes on the road than there were pre-pandemic...
And as @WeAreCyclingUK's Policy Director @RogerGeffen says, cycling's popularity will only increase given it can help tackle the climate crisis, obesity crisis, mental health crisis & cost of living crisis!
I might be biased but... more people cycling is a no brainer 🧠 2/2
— Sarah McMonagle (@SarahMcMonagle) July 5, 2023
P.S. see evidence of Britain's bust state of cycling below...
🇳🇱 This Amsterdam street is designed so that users have to cycle on the left.
🇬🇧 Or, it’s actually proof that if you build a well designed, safe cycle network, not just one lane, it works in the UK. (It’s London btw)#Edinburgh can do this too. pic.twitter.com/D83WyrSsiW
— SW20 (@SW20Ed) July 3, 2023
Col de Marie Blanque (7,90km; 8,49%; 671m)
2023 | 20'58min | J.Vingegaard - RECORD
2020 | 22'27min | T.Pogacar, P.Roglic#TDF2023pic.twitter.com/KSDouNDyuI— MF Naichaca (@NaichacaCycling) July 5, 2023
> REVIEW: Trek Émonda ALR 5 2023
The tyres hold it back a bit, but underneath is a comfortable alloy road bike with a great performance...
How many stars did Stu give it?