2025 Tour de France thread

ilnadi

ilnadi

Well-Known Member
I thought I'd start it by complaining.

Nothing harder than Cat 3 until stage 11.
They really don't want Pogacar to wear yellow the first week.
 
Kind of on the same topic but in case you’re looking for TDF coverage:


Escape Collective

Riding is Life
escapecollective.com escapecollective.com

A week to share (free) Escape Collective​

By Caley Fretz



Hey there Escapee,

What's better than the start of the Tour de France? Sharing the best Tour content on the Internet (if we may say so) with your friends.

Next week, the week before the Tour de France kicks off in Lille, we'll be removing our paywall on all new stories. The reason is pretty simple: Interest in our little bicycle website spikes around this time, and we want as many folks as possible to discover what makes Escape Collective different.

In addition to dropping the paywall on the site, we'll have our members-only podcasts (and Spin Cycle's After Dark segment) available for free. The paywall will be back once the race starts.

What does that mean for you, our lovely members? It means next week is the best week all year to share Escape stories with friends who will love the insider reporting, great writing, and clean, ad-free experience at EC.

There's some great stuff coming. Next week's newsletter will detail our content plans for the month, across both the TDFand TDFF. It's quite the list.

Folks often ask us what they can do to help support EC, beyond becoming a member. Well, this is one easy way. Share a piece that you see go up in the next week. Review and share a podcast. This sort of person-by-person growth is incredibly powerful for us.

So thanks for being a member, and thanks for helping us find new ones.
 
I miss the days when I could come back from a long weekend group ride around 11-12pm and either catch the end of the days ride or wait and watch the full replay on NBC free TV. I’m probably showing my age with that one but 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
trener1 said:
Free is great indeed, but I signed up for Peacock last month, I think it was like $25 for the year, so that is pretty good and well worth it.
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I was going to say, peacock is basically free

That being said, if you don't care about live there are a ton of recaps a couple hours later
 
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The only time I could imagine motor-doping being used in the pro peloton is by sprinters during the mountain stages. While these guys are made to look slow by the top climbers in the race, they are still much stronger than the average cyclist. The hidden motors don't really offer a lot of assist by e-bike standards, but those extra few watts could be just enough to allow a heavy sprinter to get over the mountain stages within the time limit. And in the interest of making sure the sprint stages are more interesting, I could also see the organizers looking the other way...

Now this just means I think the use of motor-doping is plausible. That does not mean I think it's actually happening. The UCI have scanners that are pretty simple and I don't know how a frame builder could hide a motor/battery assembly from the scanners without compromising the effectiveness.
 
Jeremy said:
Greg must be suffering from lead poisoning from from those shotgun pellets still in his body from when he got shot.
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He is talking about some of those past instances where a rider falls and the wheel continues to spin well after hitting the ground. With today's tech it is very feasible, also given that winning a single grand tour stage can change a riders life. It is kinda like doping, people are doing it, it is just a question of how many and if any of them are getting caught.
 
stb222 said:
He is talking about some of those past instances where a rider falls and the wheel continues to spin well after hitting the ground. With today's tech it is very feasible, also given that winning a single grand tour stage can change a riders life. It is kinda like doping, people are doing it, it is just a question of how many and if any of them are getting caught.
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I have a hard time believing this happens today. I remember that video of the tire spinning. Even then, these mechanics use such low viscosity grease in the bearing to get minimal drag that they will spin forever.

This is why some pros will spin their cranks and they go on for a long time. It works when you clean and reapply the grease after each race but it wouldn’t last for more than a couple rides.

Disclaimer- I didn’t listen to the podcast so there maybe more conclusive evidence which I’m ignorant to. 🙂
 
scott62 said:
Be the first in your local road riding group.


Vivax Assist – Goat Bikes

goatbikes.com goatbikes.com
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The Vivax has been around for years (and apparently went out of business in 2020)... a 9 AH battery is not going to power a motor for very long. According to Google, that seat tube motor has a max output of 200W with a perceived assist of around half that or so. The voltage is 30V, so the seat-bag 9 AH motor has 270 WH. Translation - it isn't going to assist much or for very long.

To me, an interesting application of the Vivax system would be in a touring bike, combined with a front hub dynamo to recharge the battery when descending or on flat terrain when the motor isn't being used. The battery would be more of an integrated unit that would power other things like lights, GPS units and USB ports for charging other devices. The purpose for the motor would not be to fly up climbs but to give a bit of help when lugging a loaded touring bike up a long climb. I'm basing this on what I apparently do during long climbs and my output is rarely higher than 200W. Adding another 50% of power to that would greatly reduce the effort, although I definitely wouldn't be moving very fast.
 
The ideal way to use something like is just like a nitrous (noz) button on a climb or sprint, hit button, get 200 watts plus what you have left when you need it.
 
NJ-XC-Justin said:
Id love to see an American on the podium but I guess that's not realistic with the two best Americans serving to deliver Jonas a win.
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I am a big Sepp fan (think screaming obscenities at the screen when Jonas left him behind) but I think he's in the Rafael Majka territory of past winning but amazing domestique.
Matteo is obviously an investment for the future but needs to wait his turn behind Jonas and Simon
Oh, I kinda agree about McNulty but the money is probably hard to pass up
 
I lasted zero minutes with peacock. I opened it up and tried to stream and it told me I needed to upgrade. So f that. It’s the least used streaming app I pay for.

Instead I canceled peacock and instead bought a month of express vpn and watched the Ant and Nico broadcast on Flo (which I pay for). So much more watchable.
 
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