Pro-cycling thread

Maximum elevation tomorrow: seventy four meters.

It will be dull AF (I am from around there originally).
Hope for crosswinds

Someone will lose the tour on the easiest of stages . Remember le tour on the Belgium coast.

Haha yeah that caught my attention too

Great stage

Looks like more corners in the final 3 kms than in the previous 170 kms.

You have to feel for whichever Bardiani/Androni/Eolo riders get told to get in the break.

It'll probably be the easiest break to get into, ever.

Fabulous. I love watching them hoon it uphill in winter kit.

that was excellent thanks.
nice couple of cameos from number 44, our new hero Taco.
also loved the massive family portrait looming behind the commentator that was working from home.

The last spoken line in that RVV docu was a proper “oh shit yeah” moment

Nice to see MVDP broke another Canyon that we didn’t know about.

Tour De France femmes in 2022 - https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/may/11/tour-de-france-organisers-reveal-womens-race-will-be-revived-in-2022

Great watch, perfect timing as I was home alone last night and had Belgian beer in the fridge!

It’s weird to make an announcement with no details on the length of the race. I expect they’ll try and bury the news that it’s going to be four days when there’s something bigger going on.

I think they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The positive news is that they are going to put together a stage race, even if Prudhomme sounds ambivalent on it.

ISN owner Sylvan Adams treading carefully today:

https://twitter.com/jeremycwhittle/status/1392200261167427586?s=12

It's always important to mix politics and sport, especially as a team owner.

Not great to hear that the women's races that they run all lose money, even with sharing the setup from the men's racing.
I wonder how they might make the women's tour sustainable.

I believe that only the Tour makes money for ASO, so all the other men’s races they run are loss making.

Don't know if there are up to date numbers but INRNG did an article about it a while back. Even a race most fans are aware of like the Dauphine makes almost zero profit (10k on 2.3M revenues) and they say of the 220M the ASO made in 2016, 55% is TdF revenue.

There was not a fight to be in the breakaway today

As predicted by @andyp

Quest having a mare yesterday. Reshowing Stage 1 instead of Stage 4...
Saved by Tiz who had it under control!

Prudhomme comes across as being really annoyed in his quotes. Why is he talking about it failing at this stage?

Same vibes as my dad reluctantly accepting that there is no reason you shouldn’t have female officials in men’s sport.

Eolo not in this break? I’d be livid if I was a sponsor.

Pretty inauspicious start for them in general this year.

Prudhomme comes across as being really annoyed in his quotes. Why is he talking about it failing at this stage?

My guess is managing expectations. They've got no idea what sponsors they'll attract, what start/finish towns, it's a big coin toss that they could even make it break even given the scale of the event. They won't be able to get away with a Giro Rosa style event where TV coverage is sparse at best.