Tour de France 2023 ***spoilers*** Warning in OP

Interesting day today. As a Pogacar fan it's what I feared might happen.

I am interested in seeing a w/kg comparison between today and other epic displays.

Regarding Vingegaard and his apparent descending skills - that ties into one of my main gripes with today, which no one else has mentioned. So maybe it's just me. I thought the difference in the camera work from the bike behind the main two was stark. It was beautiful work from the guy behind Vingegaard, but for ages when they cut back to Pogacar it was a helicopter shot. Sometimes it went to the guy on the bike, but the angles and focus from him were a lot worse than the other one. My point being that you couldn't really tell how Pogacar was descending. The clock obviously showed that he was going slower, but was it because of the cornering or the pedalling? I couldn't tell. It really annoyed me today.

To continue with the theme of the visuals from today, Vingegaard just looked like a different beast on the bike. The way his shoulders fold in and his spine comes up. His body shape was amazing. I presume that it is an aero shape, given the time and performance. Pogacar just looked the same as any other day.

Regarding the time differences between the top 2 and the rest - this Tour will probably be remembered as a great Tour, as it's been very close at the top from day 1. However, I think that it's been a very disappointing Tour from the rest. If one of the top 2 had gone down in the first week, what would this Tour be remembered for? Who are the other heroes? How many in the peleton have performed better than last year? Lots of them are worse. Maybe the overall level of the peleton is up, so it's harder for individuals to show up again and again. My point being, that, outside the top 2, based on everyone's performance so far, I don't think the level is very high. Therefore you are going to get huge gaps.

Today was a shock for many, but I think it will be a bigger shock if Pogacar can pull the gap back this week. He will need the ambush of ambushes. I'm personally praying for a stormy, freezing day tomorrow. Afraid to look at the forecast though.

Take JV's performance away and Pogacar's performance looks outstanding, it's only in comparison to JV's time that it doesn't look great. Pogacar may have looked uncomfortable at times, but, he still put in one hell of a time. JV's performance was just astronomical, I don't think anyone even JV himself expected that performance and time gap. Even though it took an extraordinary effort, I don't really think it'll affect him as the stage was quite short, so will have plenty of time to recover.

What was an extremely intriguing race is now virtually over, which is a pity. At best Pogacar might get a few seconds back, but, it's probably more likely JV will extend his lead or he might just mark Pogacar all the way to Paris like he had done over the last few stages.

Would be great if we could erase the TT stage and carry on from Sunday's stage-still think JV would win, but, it would be much more interesting!

I watched the TT. JV looked like the only rider possessed.. his appearance on the bike looked like a man cycling for his life..pure heart and desire

I'm in awe and shock at the time difference , didn't think vingegaard was that good a TT. My only gripe is they've pretty much done a sky on it where they just dominated the TT which I hated when sky did it. I just like tt's to be closer and leave some hope for the rest and be like the giro tt's near or at the end.

Checking out a few of the online climbing power calculators this morning, based on the times on the climb yesterday and published body weights of the riders, it looks like Vingo was outputting somewhere between 0.5 and 0.8 W/kg more than Pog on the T2-T3 section yesterday (2.8 km @ ~ 8.9%). If that sort of difference was present throughout the Tour so far a) there was (and will be) no way Pog drops Vingo and b) Vingo may have been sandbagging for the past fortnight. With that form, he could have put the GC to bed a week ago.

I can't see Pog getting this back, not without some catastrophe on Vingo's part or perhaps stealing all the Jumbo Visma bikes. Pog could go into super-domestique mode for the next few days to keep Yates on the podium

When you break down the splits between Pog and Jonas over the 4 time checks yesterday JV put 16 seconds on T1, another 15 on T2. He then puts 34 on T2 to T3 but Pog changed bike so that kind of makes sense. and Another 43 on T3 to finish when the climb flattens off and TT bike would definitely have been faster than a climbing bike.

Just like Ireland

Those numbers are scary good. I doubt very much he was sandbagging though.

But then you have Ineos fighting to get 3rd and Jumbo sitting back and enjoying the views.

I'm not sold on that myself. There's been one or two occasions where he could have gone but it's hard to judge. Jumbo have been quite aggressive over the past couple of years and if they thought Ving had the legs on Pog they would have told him to go.

To me, it's looked like he was on the limit for most of it and was just power metering his way up the climbs. Pog is the more natural racer and sometimes does things that other riders wouldn't dream of, like pushing in to the red to launch an attack. Ving seems to race by the numbers and relies a lot more on his power readings, team mates, and radio.