The Tour de France begins in Emilia-Romagna this season, finishing in Nice to accommodate Olympics festivities.
Starts tomorrow 4a MT.
Sepp Kuss isn’t racing this year due to illness, but another American on his team, Matteo Jorgenson is riding in support of Jonas Vinegaard.
Another American, Neilson Powless is riding for EF-Easy Post, a US based team.
And as shown in a pic above, expect Der Tuefel at some point.
Matteo Jorgenson is considered a dark horse for the podium, mostly due to Vinegaard having a terrible Spring with injuries hampering his training, and limiting his race days.
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Bummed about Sepp getting COVID. Nobody leads a climb like that guy. Maybe even more bummed by the insane decision of NBC to only have the tour available on Peacock. That said, I coughed up the $5.99/mo between now and the end of the Olympics, primarily because we’ll be traveling during a lot of both.
So far today the heat is really taking its toll, really stirring the pot for the first day. Climbing those mountains in 95F heat and high humidity is proving to be brutal to a lot of favorites.
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Heat with humidity is a killer. Hope the riders are being monitored intensely.
And I thought marching 20 miles carrying 100lbs of combat equipment through a swamp at 90 degrees was hell. These guys are doing the equivalent of a marathon a day in this.
WOW 
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The breakaway group has been dropped from the lead.
The Norwegian Jonas Abrahamsen should be wearing the polka dots tomorrow.
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Part of the traveling the wife and I will be doing is a bike tour in Tuscany, starting in Florence. Fortunately we’ll be riding in the mornings and, obviously, a lot shorter distances. That doesn’t mean I’m not nervous about the climbs.
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They are definitely being monitored.
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And if you’re used to cycling in this area, the elevation near Firenze will put some pep in your spin.
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It helps. That, in part, is why I looped around Park City and Kimball Jct on Wednesday, then did 30 miles and almost 1300 ft around the east bench yesterday. However, I’m still humbled by the 12 mile long Cat 2 climb in Slovenia last year that started at mile 20. That was a lot of work for an old guy like me.
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- The Norwegian, Jonas Abrahamsen, picked up maximum KoM points on all but the final climb today.
He secured the maillot à pois rouges for Day 3.
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