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Tour de France - Discussion
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 02-04-2025 20:05
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 30-03-2025 04:03
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Very nice stage for us to finish the mountains. Outside of Cras, everyone ahead of Carthy is someone who should be ahead of him, and he finishes ahead of a lot of similar riders in the 8-20 range on GC. We'll take that every day. His stage 19 attack was perfectly timed, and he still managed to put in a great ride today. Phenomenal season for him. And in general, the team seemed to come into form a bit in the last week, with Gregaard especially being strong the last couple of days.
Thanks for these amazing report Ulrich! Your mountains coverage is always outstanding.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| ember |
Posted on 30-03-2025 06:17
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Thank you for another thrilling report, UU! They have been top classic from start to finish.
Definitely a stage too far for AHJ! But just like UU writes, it has been a great Tour for him. Publicity wise, he has been the main man for the race, I think, which has been very cool to follow.
Congratulations on a great stage win, jph. Clearly Faglum Karlsson must have been on a sensational day, being far and away the strongest rider in front on the day.
Congratulations also to Roman on securing yellow. What a season turner this has been for Moser in terms of rankings and points. Surely they are truly safe now? |
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 30-03-2025 06:25
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Clearly a season where the (PT) AI is all but in my favour so far, but somehow with the TDF it even got worse. Definitely not great for motivation to have it happen three weeks in a row three consecutive times 
Lopew Nolasco tried I guess, but the lack of stuff from Aular or some kind of actual cooperation between the two was a big joke, and hopefully does not turn out to be the difference between staying in and relegating.
Marin has one more chance tomorrow, but looking at his results so far it wouldn't be very wise to get my hopes up too much.
Congratulations to all that did well, and thank you for the massive reports, Ulrich!
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| knockout |
Posted on 30-03-2025 07:29
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Grand Tour Champion
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My profile pic might be a runner, but that doesnt mean that i wanted to collect runner up finishes here.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 30-03-2025 10:29
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World Champion
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Sorry for not commenting more lately, but the last stages have been really disappointed. We came here to fight for the green jersey and maybe see Champoussin get a stage win or fight for the KoM. Unfortunately, none of that came to fruition.
Congrats on what looks like a TdF win, Roman! Might not be the way you wanted to take it, but a win is a win.
Lots of drama for a C2 race.
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| tastasol |
Posted on 30-03-2025 21:28
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Just too high level for us in the mountains. Now there's one last chance for Trondsen to get something out of the race for us. He should be at his best, so hopefully he can do something. Glad to see PHL at least finishing on the podium, after how it looked a couple of days ago.
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 30-03-2025 21:39
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Fingers crossed for the green jersey
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| ember |
Posted on 31-03-2025 05:30
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Thank you for your great Tour coverage, UU! You have done superb work retelling the action, both with text and pictures. Thank you!
Another Paris win  
Had a silent hope Peak was going to be strong here, seeing how he has been sprinting very well from his first stage win and at all opportunities in the final week. To win at Champs-Elysees is quite something. He looked super strong, launching early on the left and holding it all the way and resisting also those kicking later than him. Very, very happy!
It has been a great Tour for us, with AHJ featuring in what felt like all breakaways from stage 8 and onwards, even getting that win on stage 12. Holding and winning white is great, and his fight for the polkadots has been fun to follow. Peak also getting two wins is one more than we hoped for. A fantastic Tour, seeing the expectations we came with.
Congratulations to all winners and surprising points scorers, especially to Kudus and Roman for finally getting that GT win! |
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 31-03-2025 07:46
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World Champion
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A fitting final stage for our Tour. I know we accepted that sprints don't work as they should more often than not, but finishing as the 5th best sprinter in the points rankings when being the best sprinter stats wise is still quite annoying.
Thank you for all the wonderful reports and congrats to all the jersey winners!
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| roturn |
Posted on 31-03-2025 07:51
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First of all, thanks for the fantastic reports. It was a nice read and even after couple of weird AI decisions, you kept the interest very high.
For my own team, it was very successful being hit positive by AI this time. It was a frustrating beginning with several losses on flat stages but became very nice in the second half. Cras obviously overperformed as 6th and is like 10 spots too high in addition to 3rd in KoM but he actually did exactly what I was hoping to see in this GT as leader. The others obviously allowed him too much and he proved to have quite some energy left till the end.
Congrats to all that did well here, e.g. Kudus, Peak etc. and commiserations to those, that early on lost the race or GC positions due to breaks, never ideal to experience. In especially the early crash of the Kudus/Lecuisinier fight was not ideal. |
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| tastasol |
Posted on 31-03-2025 08:10
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Congrats on finishing it off in style, ember.
Thought Trondsen looked very good with a few hundred meters to go, but he didn't quite have the last kick. Happy with 3rd, but was certainly hoping for more a few hundred meters before the line.
Gives us a little high to end a rather miserable Tour, though you could say Cort Nielsen losing three minutes and dropping several places in the GC was the real end here. Feels a bit silly.
Congrats to Roman on the win with Kudus. Can say what you like about the how, but he took his chance with both hands and got rewarded for it. Thanks for all the well written reports, Ulrich!
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 31-03-2025 08:24
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Thank you very much UU! Top quality reporting as always.
This Tour was a mixed bag. Some questionable events but also some great racing.
For Gazelle it was a success thanks to Warchol and Malecki winning stages and Warchol and Vervaeke delivering in GC. In the former's case it's a bit of a shame he dropped from 9th to 12th in the final mountain stage, but on the other hand it could have been way worse and we're lucky he stayed seconds ahead of Aular and Faglum Karlsson. Also, 12th is a fair result for him in this field.
Congrats on winning the Tour de France, Roman! Great achievement.
And congrats to ember for Peák winning his second stage on the Champs-Elysees.
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 31-03-2025 08:30
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Thanks for the nice final report, Ulrich! Oxxo with a classic GT Oxxo result in this one as well
No need to cry more, as there has been enough of that already in the past weeks. Congratulations to all that did well.
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| redordead |
Posted on 31-03-2025 08:59
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Solid Tour for us. I doubt it saves us from relegation, but maybe it leaves the door open for one more ranking update. At the very least we achieved the sponsor goal which could help us if we face budget issues down the line.
Rajovic did his job well, but nothing special when you compare him to similar sprinters at this race. The climbing team was bad. Pogacar was pretty much a non factor on all the mountain stages and never looked like doing anything. A 77 MO Ciccone can't even finish top 100 in a GT. I don't think I need to say anything that wasn't already said about the AI.
Congrats to Roman. I know for sure now I won't need to face Kudus in PCT
Thanks to UU for all the very well done reporting. I enjoyed week 1 a lot, but I felt like the race deteriorated after that. Of course of no fault of your own!
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Bikex |
Posted on 31-03-2025 09:32
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It's nice to see McNulty tried at least something in stage 19 and got back into the top 10. In general I cannot be happy with how the race went though. The first week was decent but afterwards it just became a mess.
Thanks for the great reports UU!
Congrats Roman on the victory! |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 31-03-2025 13:26
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Overall, a decent race for us because of Carthy's GC, but otherwise unremarkable. We played things extremely conservatively in terms of breakaways despite not having a top favorite, which was frustrating and means we get very few points from stages and minor classifications here. It also means our depth guys were leapfrogged by a lot of similar riders who gained back chunks of time in breaks over the three weeks. There's also the fact that Walls was awful. Just couldn't hit the sprint lottery a single day. Definitely my biggest bust in terms of additions from last transfers. I thought he would be in a good range for the PT lottery, but he doesn't seem to have it.
Still, Carthy's move to climb up to 7th on stage 19 saved our race, so it's not a truly awful finish. He has really had an amazing season to keep us out of the relegation spots. Very happy with how that turned out.
Obviously disappointing we never got the GC showdown we anticipated due to the weird early break with Kudus and the AI that followed. But congrats to Roman regardless.
And thanks again to Ulrich for incredible reports throughout the race. Even on stages where we did nothing, the coverage was amazing and great to read. Thank you!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 31-03-2025 15:21
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My boy Barnabas strikes again  he was meant to be Isostar's response once Gaviria declines, and look how he wins the most important sprint of the year already
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| knockout |
Posted on 31-03-2025 16:23
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Grand Tour Champion
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Thanks for another great coverage of a GT! Reports were great throughout the race even if the racing wasnt always.
Race wise, i feel robbed of a great duel. Lecuisinier vs Kudus should have been a thriller, its a shame that circumstances deflated the entire hype ive had and the gc became a bit of a snoozefest. I dont think i have to say any more about it.
Result wise 2nd plus two stage wins plus a few more stage podiums is kinda acceptable without the added context. But its certainly not the huge score we were aiming for and which we would have needed to be right in the title fight.
Congrats to Roman, Kudus winning is certainly a result that was in the cards and its a huge result for you that you hopefully enjoyed even with the astericks that might be there.
Also congrats to other teams that did well including but not limited to Gazelle for possibly clinching the title with a very strong Warchol and stage results from a number of guys like Malecki or Lander as well as Aker where i particularly enjoyed seeing Peak as succesful as he was.
Final thoughts: This race basically calls for Lecuisinier returning next year with a vengeance. While it is early to make a decision, im currently planning of returning with him for next season no matter the route. We will be back!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 31-03-2025 23:07
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First of all, big thanks to Ulrich for covering Le Tour! As others mentioned, the reports were great, unlike the underlying material. Sorry for not commenting anymore in the 2nd half, I felt it was the better choice in order to not poison the discussion thread too much.
This was easily the weirdest GT I've ever seen in my relatively short MG career. Of course, the Shikai upset last year was quite something, and it was the GT with the most surprising winner. But this one stage where Kudus won the race, well, it just shouldn't happen. As knockout writes, it's a shame that he (and we all) got robbed of a real duel for the win. At least the GC podium - and even the entire Top 5 - doesn't feel wrong at all. But stage points obviously were pretty low with all the breakaway madness caused by Kudus' huge lead.
Personally, I can obviously be super satisfied with Groves winning the points jersey. Our first ever GT jersey - after Bol just fell short by a couple of points in last year's Giro. It's obviously Grosu who should've easily won the Maillot Vert, being the most complete sprinter here. Feeling sorry for Rabobank, they didn't get too much AI love for their sprinters in GTs.
It was pretty nasty getting beaten by Peak over and over again, clearly the most overperforming sprinter. But in the end, Groves still was more consistent and took that jersey. Our sprint train was as awful as in Tour de Suisse earlier on, but fortunately the Champs Elysées have pretty wide roads and so Groves could still sprint to 2nd place. Also feeling for Oleg, with Banaszek holding the jersey almost from start to end, but he should still easily be the highest scoring sprinter thanks to all his bonus points 
Rohendi also did a good job for us. He joined the fun some stages too late to make a realy impact in the KoM standings; the mountain stages in the last week were just too hard for him. But a 5th and a 3rd place from breakaways is great and exactly the reason I sent him here.
On the other hand, Berthet was a huge disappointment. Not even his home GT was enough motivation to actually do some thing - missing out on the Top 100 is really bad. Well, he gained some experience, hopefully he has learnt his lessons and does better for his home team next year.
I've already talked about Chavanne and Bissegger being really bad in their respective target stages, whereas Vernon just did his job and got some additional points. GC-wise, Rohendi in the Top 50 is a good outcome, and Delco just making the Top 100 is nice.
However, Darbellay was once again disappointing. In particular looking at Cras. Darbellay is an almost identical rider, but sadly wasn't picked for doing similar awesome stuff. He tried on one stage, where he got a 6th place from the break, but that's about it. 23rd place in the end isn't good enough, and I guess it's the end of my plans of training him into a good climber. Will have to wait for the next Swiss climbing talent I guess ^^
Without the final stage, we would just have been on target points-wise. But thanks to Groves' 2nd place and Maillot Vert win, it's been a really good GT for us. Not as good as the Giro, but definitely better than expected. Let's see whether our sponsors agree ^^
Last but not least, big congrats to Roman! It was about time for Kudus to get his GT win! Always stumbling upon a stronger competitor in recent years, his time has finally come. After completing the Monument collection two years ago (I think?), getting this GT with your homegrown African superstar is quite something - hats off!
Commiserations to knockout for getting robbed of the chance to defend PHL's title, but at least he still took 2nd in the end. It could have easily been worse with all these breakaway shenanigans, good to see the best still came out on top. Which also holds for Haig in 3rd place, guess it's these 3 riders that most would have expected to see on the GC podium.
Congrats to Polar on the KoM win, to Aker on the U25 win (and several really great sprints by Peak), and Tinkoff for the team standings win. Mamykin in 11th is pretty ridiculous and about as surprising as Cras in 6th!
Thanks again to Ulrich for reporting the race, you did a great job with what the AI threw at you!
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 01-04-2025 01:49
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Thanks for the thanks and congrats to the winners.
Updated the jerseys on the first page. Really makes you feel sorry for Oleg.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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