THEMOVE - Giro d'Italia Stage 6 Analysis & Stage 7 Preview | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Kaden Groves' win in Napoli, which came after a strange and hectic day of racing, where the race was neutralized after a massive crash that took down multiple GC contenders and key domestiques. They discuss how these losses could change the race for the overall win and what Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe will have to do to make up for the loss of Jai Hindley. Before they take off, they preview Friday's Stage 7, the Giro's first summit finish, and predict who will win, how the action will play out, and which riders present the best betting value.

Well deserved victory for Groves, his first win of the season, by the way. I was surprised to hear that he hasn't won any races. Yeah, I was really surprised to hear that. Yeah, maybe I wouldn't have picked him if I knew that. But he wins a lot of grand tour stages. I think this is his eighth grand tour stage in his career.

I think it's his eighth. Yeah, in his career, but like all since 2022, I believe, which is crazy. That's that means so the since 2022, just like to pick a pick a time. I think Pagachara is 17 grand tour stage wins. Second place is Mads Patterson and Phillipson with nine. Jasper Phillipson and then Kate and Groves is third or fourth. However, you want to say that, with eight. So that's a good company he's in. Yeah, really impressive.

Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus Giro d'Italia edition. Johann Bruniel is here with myself, Spencer Martin. We are breaking down stage six of the Giro d'Italia, which just finished in Napoli won by Kaden Groves on a crash Mar neutralized stage, which feels like we've been seeing more and more of at the Giro. And then we will predict tomorrow's stage seven, just a quick recap of the stage in case you missed it. It was going along kind of as normal, Mads Pedersen and Kaden Groves were fighting it out for intermediate sprint points.

There was a breakaway up the road, three rider breakaway, Lorenzo Fortunato picking up KOM points, 71K to go, a massive crash occurs. Primoz Roglic is near the front. His teammate, Jay Henley goes down. I assume he just touched his brakes, maybe touched wheels. The roads were very slippery, very wet. He goes down.

The problem is everyone behind him then presses their touches, their brakes, and almost everyone crashes behind them. It was an incredibly bad and wide ranging crash. They eventually neutralize the race, stop everybody, restart it with no time gaps for the GC and no points on offer. So they're just contesting the stage finish. That essentially means there's just a small peloton of sprinters in the front while everyone else sits back, including Matt Sputterson, who crashed himself,

but didn't have to worry about losing the race lead or losing sprint points. The breakaway got caught a little bit later, led by Taco Vanderhoorn on maybe the skinniest handlebars I've ever seen in a professional bike race. The protesters run in front of them, kind of slow them down. I think they would have been caught anyway, but they're caught with just under three K to go. Alpecin leads it into the final kilometer. Wow.

Vinart shoots off the front. I kind of thought Olaf Coy was going to follow him and then sprint from there, but he didn't. Wow. Vinart runs out of gas. Caden groves just goes to the other side of the road. Like it looked ridiculous, like uncontested almost, and then starts sprinting.

And before everyone realizes what's going on, they're too late. Caden, or not Caden Groves, Olaf Coy probably could have sprinted out of that group, but he was pinned against the barriers by Matteo Moschetti on Q36.5, who was relegated, but the damage was done. Groves won.

Milan Fraton finished second. So my pick from yesterday and my underdog, or my wild card go one, two, Paul Marnier, third, Max Scanner, fourth, Giovanni Lennardi fifth from Pulte Vizemalta. You love to see these smaller teams finish in the top five, but Johan kind of there's, there's like two tracks of the day. There's the win and then there's everything else.

So like, what, what are you thinking coming away from this day? And a lot of boat GC contenders and key domestiques crashed and are hurt, but finished. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, Spencer, congrats with your two picks from yesterday, Caden Rose and Milan Frattan. So you got one and two. So, uh, we did really well, or you did really well. I didn't get any,

well, your two guys also had a major impact on the stage because your wild card blocked in your favorite. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, you know, your typical stage, uh, in the Giro longer stage, 225 kilometers, right? We had Visma, uh, controlling it. Uh, and then until that crash with seven decades ago, we saw Adam Yates on the floor. We don't know if he's heard Carapaz, Hittadak, Derek G and of course, Jay Hindley. I think that's the main fact of the day that Jay Hindley is out of the race with a concussion. I read an interview of Pachi Villa, one of the DS's of Red Bull Boda, after the stage.

And he said that he was slightly dizzy. So he feels like it's not going to be a big impact for the rest of the season. Still to be seen, concussions can be tricky. But anyway, it looked straight away. I mean, when you saw Jay Hindley sitting there, you could straight away see, okay, this guy's not getting back on his bike. Big blow, big blow for Red Bull and for Primoz Roglic because this was his main lieutenant, right? Ex-winner of this race, second in the Giro already in the past also.

second in the Giro already in the past also. And at the full service of Primoz Roglic, he said it himself. So this is... They will have to rethink a little bit their strategy now. Losing an important guy like this in week one is difficult for a team like Red Bull, who has the big favorite, the number one favorite, some say the only favorite. And so yeah, I mean, on top of that, if it's your second best climber, that's mentally, that's hard, you know, really hard. And from tomorrow on already, they will miss him. Because until now, I've only seen Jay Hindley and Pellizzari able to stay with Primos wherever the road went uphill. All the others, I haven't seen them. Dani Martinez will need to step up now

to the plate to fill in that role of Jay Hindley. So big pressure on his shoulders. And yeah, other than that, Spencer, we can debate about the neutralization of the stage. Obviously, we're not there. We're sitting behind our screens. We don't feel what's going on. I've seen some riders in interviews saying that it was like an ice skating track. Some DSs have said that when they stepped out of the car at the moment of the crash, it was even slippery with shoes on. So not on tires, but with rubber soles and shoes. That part of Italy can be like this. There's a lot of grease on the roads. It doesn't rain often.

And when it rains, it tends to be really slippery. So we could clearly see, you know, this one guy, I actually think it was Jay Hindley who went down first. That's what I think, yeah. And so, yeah, then it was a domino effect and then lots of people went down. The question is, okay, was the neutralization a good thing? I'm a bit on the fence. If they neutralize the stage, then for the for GC,

then you could say, well, then why have a race for the stage win? Because it still involves that riders are going to take risks. Of course, then it's up to the riders who really want to take the risk and you eliminate a bunch of riders who will take it easy because they know that they don't have to take unnecessary risks to not lose time for GC. So I can understand the position of the organization also. They have sponsors, they have a podium. They need to, but anyway, sponsors would understand, if it's for the safety of the riders. And then on the other hand, you can say, well,

was it really necessary to neutralize it? You could have, if the time is neutralized for GC, then, or if the stage happens, then you could have time for GC also. It's the other way around, right? So I don't really know what to think. I've seen an interview, for example, of Giuseppe Sarone, double Giro winner, of course, different times, long time ago. He won the Giro in late seventies and beginning of the eighties.

And he was very critical about the decision that was being made. He said, you know, why is it always that in the Giro, there's at least one or more stages being neutralized. It's also the riders need to make sure that they foresee certain situations. So I think in the end, the decision was made. It looked like most of the Peloton, the majority of the Peloton was, was happy with that situation. You can't compare, of course, what happened 40 years ago or 50 years ago to now. But, but yeah, I mean, in the end, lots of riders were on the

floor. I think the fact that it was neutralized in the first instance to make sure that everybody could come back. You can oversee the situation. You can take stock of, okay, what's happened? Who's out? Who's still in? Who's hurt? And then you keep going again. So yeah, the final didn't look extremely dangerous to me. Also because it was already, it was drying up quite a bit. It's to be seen, you know, if the whole peloton would have gone through those last kilometers, a few corners on cobblestones who were kind of dry, but not completely dry. That could have been another recipe for disaster. So I think in the end, the decision that was made was right. And yeah, then from all the

sprinters who were still there, Caden Groves had the best lead out with, with, with his Alpecin team and, uh, and he won. He's one of the fastest riders, one of the more, the pure sprinters. Uh, so, um, well-deserved victory for Groves. Um, his first win of the season, by the way, I was surprised to hear that. He hasn't won any races. Yeah. I was really surprised to hear that. Yeah.

Maybe I wouldn't have picked him if I knew that. But he wins, uh, a lot of grand tour stages. I think this is his eighth grand tour stage in his career. I think it's his eighth. Yeah. In his career, but like all since 2022, I believe, which is crazy. That's that means so the since 2022, just like to pick a pick pick a time, I think Pagache has 17 grand tour stage wins. Second place is Mads Patterson and Phillipson with nine, Jasper Phillipson and then Kate and Groves is third or fourth. However,

you want to say that with eight. So that's, that's a good company. He's in. Yeah. Pretty impressive. And then Milan Frittan, your wild card from yesterday. Second, second place. Great for coffee this. Although I'm not sure Spencer, I haven't checked, but what happens with the UCI points on? So there's no points for Chiclamino. Oh man, that is a good, in this case here, if the stage happens for the win, what happens with the points? Because this is another fight that's going on, right? So Kofi is now, I mean, if he's, if, if he's second, uh, that's how many points is that?

Like, I mean, I know that 180 points for the win, but they are, they have been like tallied. So they're on the results is counting, but I mean, this, this is like starting to underline the complications of all of this, like technically by the rule of, by the bike, by the letter of the law, you have to count the UCI points because the stage happened and finished and has a winner. If it was neutralized entirely, then they wouldn't count. But so it's a hundred, a hundred and eight, 130 points for golf. It is, but Astana gets, uh, 80 and then, um, nobody here from, uh, picnic.

So, yeah, wow. Yeah. That is, and you know, yesterday they were like, I don't know why they were one, two with 500 meters to go. And then they finished out of the points, but they, picnic needs to get better at sprinting for like 10th place. Like that's, that's where we are guys. We need to salvage every point. So maybe I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure if these UCI points are official or not.

It's on pro cycling stats. Um, but I don't know what the UCI will do with this. Uh, we need to check the official race communication. Um, yeah, I don't know. What, what were your thoughts on kind of an interesting sprint? First of all, Alpecin, their first rider goes through a corner really fast. Second rider in line loses the wheel. Do you think that they sit up?

It's hard because you can't really sit up because you have to keep groves at the front. So you can't just, yeah, well, they, they obviously what I saw, so I think it was Fabio Von Lombosia who went through that corner, got a gap. And then you have the, the, the second guy kind of that, okay, what do I need to do now? Do I go to the wheel or do I let it go? He didn't close the gap and that actually prompted what one art

to, uh, to accelerate. Uh, he accelerated a bit too fast because all of Koi was not in the wheel. And, uh, what one art himself in his interview after the race said that he made a mistake by going too early. And yeah, he thought that he thought the finish was closer. It was definitely a lead out and not an attack for himself. But you know, then you get into a situation that all of a sudden you get a gap, you look back

and then you say, okay, what do I do now? You know, what do I try? Do I try to make it to the finish? Because, uh, maybe, maybe there's a slight hesitation and you can make it. Um, I mean, ultimately it was not, uh, it was not to me, but, uh, and also Olaf Koi lost his lead out man. Um, you know, he was not in the wheel. And on top of that, then he got boxed in by Matteo Moschetti and he couldn't sprint. Um, I think, I mean, the, the, the move from Moschetti was a little bit on the limit. Um, you know,

and especially now the way they look at sprints, uh, you could see that, okay, this is going to be, this is going to be a yellow card. Did he get a yellow card in the end? Or he just got relegated. He must have gotten a yellow. Yeah. He got a yellow card. Okay. That's like pretty obvious. Cause he could feel them and he was like moving over to not let them through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, uh, we couldn't see, we couldn't see the speed of, of, of Olaf Koi, uh, because he didn't get to sprint finally, but, uh, listen, Groves won. I mean, deserved victory for him.

Well, Van Aert, when he's out there too, I call it like a reverse lead out because if Van Aert's off the front, everyone else has to chase him, which then provides kind of a lead out for Olaf Koi back in the group. Should Koi have just followed him though? Because if he sprints from, Van Aert pulls off at about 200 meters to go, could he have not just sprinted from there? Yeah. Well, as you know, it's, it's these moments, it's a moment of hesitation. It's so, it's, it's so fast. You need to react.

Um, right. Every single sprint we see, there's always, you know, there's one team that gets it right. And then the others, something goes wrong. There's so many factors and then this was even, okay, it's a bunch sprint, but it's not a real bunch sprint because some guys decided to not, like Peterson decided because of the crash that he was not going to be part of it. Um, then for some reason, picnic, picnic, uh, post NL I'm surprised they were not up there with one because maybe he crashed also, I don't know. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, it's easier to organize, right? If you, if, if, if like Alpecin, they had a great... I think they had four or five riders still there. So they did best. And of course, it would be interesting to see what happens when the moment it's decided and communicated over race radio with 58 kilometers to go. Okay.

The race starts again and there's no time for GC. Then what are the instructions from the cars? I think it's logical that GC riders and the teams with GC riders get the instruction. Okay, we don't risk anything. Tomorrow's a hard stage. Let's, you know, the last 50K or the last 40K, let's save it, yeah. Let's, you know, the last 50 K or the last 40 K, let's save it. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's not push it too hard,

but anybody who has a sprinter, and especially in the case of picnic posts and L because they need the points, this was a great opportunity to get another 100 points. If the points count, I repeat, I'm not sure about this now. Um, so I would be curious to see that, uh, the instructions from the, from the team cars, it was clear that Opposin got the instructions. Okay, guys, no whining. We get our shit together and we go for it for the stage when, you know, uh,

this is a great opportunity and they got it. Yeah, they definitely got their shit together. They looked impressive. And we should say they lost a guy, Yuri Holman. Oh, yeah. We don't want to show that picture, but that was bad. Don't put it in Gabriel. It's not safe for work, but he, uh, obviously like terrible that he's out of the race, but I was impressed at how strong they were a man down. Like they were really strong in that finale. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Why are they,

have you noticed this Johan at the intermediate sprints? So the breakaway comes through for a second. Jensen Plowright from Alpecin to Koenig is always sprinting against Mads Pedersen for points. But Gaden groves is like 13th in the point. Strange. That's strange. I don't understand that. Yeah. But I don't really want to doubt a Rudehoof. I mean, I'm sure the Rudehoof have an idea about what they're doing. They're not, they're not, they're not there. They're not at the race.

Clearly, clearly that wouldn't happen if they were there, but, um, just a few questions. I mean, we should say, so I didn't really respond to what you said about the neutralization. It kind of doesn't make any sense what happened because if it's not safe enough for the GC riders, it's not safe enough for the sprinters. Having said that, I kind of like it because it's just, it keeps, it seems like it kept the pellets unhappy, which is important. If you're, Mara Vinie, Mara Vinie, you want to keep the riders happy.

Like you have an ecosystem here that you can't let go sideways. And it made it safer because there's fewer people contesting. Like if Primoz Roglic is up there and Waniuso trying to stay at the front and not lose time and Napoli, maybe there's a big crash. So it makes it cleaner at the finish. I thought it was a decent compromise. Let's say they call the stage off or like neutralize the stage. What would like technically be the reason for that slippery roads?

Is that, yeah. Then that kind of opens up a Pandora's box that, yeah, now you're a little dangerous. This is already, this is already on the limit Spencer. Okay, there's been a crash. Okay, that's sure. A lot of riders on the ground, you can say, okay, we temporarily neutralize it until we take stock and we know that everybody's fine. That's one thing, you know, still debatable because crashes are part of the races.

Well, I guess you have to, the, I guess justification would be, you have to get ambulances to people, so you probably need to neutralize it. If there's not enough ambulances to stay with the front of the race, you have to neutralize it, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. The reason for sure. For sure.

Yeah. That's always there. That's always a concern. Um, I don't know how many ambulances there are, definitely more than three. Uh, but there were some guys, you know, like Jay Hindley was in the ambulance. Then this Alpecin, the Koenig guy was in the ambulance for sure. I don't have any wealth. Nobody else abandoned. No. Uh, Oh man, I don't think so. I was just looking at this.

I saw Jeffrey Bouchard abandoned, but I don't know when Deion Smith. I don't know if that was before today. Yeah, but he got attacked by a goat a few days, few stages ago. That was crazy. I can't believe it didn't go down. That goat was going for him. It was like a hockey hit or something. I think he used to be on Georgia's team and Cappy. I think. Yeah. Yeah. I remember De Dion back in the day, but yeah, you're right. It's already kind of on the limit. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there, right? Maybe if we were in the race, it'd be like, this is ridiculous.

We shouldn't have to race in this. I think, you know, one of the good things I also saw today in the Giro, I didn't realize, but so there are guys implicated there in the organization who are recently retired. One of them is Marco Velo, who was in the director car, I guess. And then Nibali was also part of the organization. So I saw him walking around there talking with riders. So obviously they're pretty good soundboards, you know, from both sides, uh, to listen to the riders. Um, they can give their opinion themselves

and then, you know, to relate it to the organizers or to speak in name of the organizers with some kind of view of recently retired professional bike rider. Uh, I think that's, it's good to have these guys in there. And they have to, people might be saying, why don't they just call the race off? Well, it's like logistically, they do have to get to the buses. So you've got to get to your buses, which are in Napoli. And the city is presumably paid quite a bit of money to have the race go there. So I think that's why the organization is always hesitant to, like remember last year, what was that? The ski resort was that famous ski resort. Um,

I'd see this is why they should have done the stage cause I don't even remember the name of it, but they like, couldn't start the stage there. And I'm sure that town. Was it, it was in Livigno. Yeah. Yep. That's it. Yeah. And I'm sure they had to have a make good for another year and it messes up the finances. So they really want these stages to go off with as planned because it's, it's really important for their bottom line.

But Jay J, so Jay Hindley's out. That's a problem. Jay Vine, it said he was out. He's not out. Do you know if he crashed during this stage? I haven't seen it. So I've seen him crash. Let's we don't know what's going on with J Vine.

So let's assume you have a, he has a full team, very strong team. The only problem is they have one domestic, which is J Vine. Everyone else is seemingly in the GC. Well, tomorrow it's going to change Spencer. Well, we'll get there. Yeah. That will be interesting to see, but it's going to, it's going to change tomorrow. You'll see. What, what does Red Bull do without J Henley?

Like how does this change their plans going forward? Yeah. Well, as I say, they can't be that offensive. Danny Martinez needs to step up. Well, they're lucky they have Julio Pelasari. He has a big job on his hand. Yeah, he's strong. He's strong. But listen, Jay Hindley is like a better pedigree writer, right?

I mean, has been, you know, won a grand tour. He's been yellow jersey in the tour to France. Um, so, uh, it's a big, big, big loss for them. Big loss. He's also like a tough, he's like a tough guy that doesn't get rattled, like really important person to have in your team. And then Pelasari is 21 years old. They have, they have, they don't have, they don't have many options. You know, like tomorrow is a great finish for Primos.

He needs to take advantage of it. If he can take some time and maybe some bonus seconds, he needs to take advantage of it. And then look, okay, am I back in the lead? What do we do now? Is it interesting for us to not completely defend it and really, you know, empty your resources and drag ourselves down. Tomorrow, it's the first time uphill. It's an ideal climb for Primoz Roglic.

So tomorrow they need to go for it and then look after what they're going to do with it. Well, are you done with today? Should we take a break and then talk about tomorrow? Yeah, there's not much else to say about today. Um, yeah, I mean, I hope everybody's okay. You know, uh, I mean, one, one, uh, I think one, um, honorable mention for taco, um, yes, you know, he was out for a very, very long time with, Yes. You know, he was out for a very, very long time with severe consequences of a concussion.

Has been thinking several times of, you know, quitting his career, like stop being a bike racer. Finally made it back at the end of last season and now is in his typical mode again. Um, I can still see him win a stage in the Giro a few years ago in the same way from a breakaway and finally they couldn't catch him. Um, was that 2022 or something or? It was 2021. Oh, I knew, oh, wow. Time flies.

No, it's like really weird, but, uh, you know, he's definitely that kind of breakaway specialist. So, uh, to see him up there after such a hard time that that was really nice. Did he finish second at a tour of front stage? I'm thinking about it. Yeah. The rubé one to start with. Yeah. Yeah. He unfortunate that, I mean that's like ridiculous that you have protesters running out. He really could have got hurt. They got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. He unfortunate that, I mean, that's like ridiculous. The protesters were nailing. He really could have got hurt. They got lucky. Cause there was kind of like, they would not have made it Spencer.

They would not have made it, you know, but, um, do you think it helped or hurt them that they had to stop? I think it, I would say initially, I think it helped them. Because, because if it's I would say initially, I think it helped them. That's what I was thinking. Because, because if it's the full Peloton, you know, a part of the teams that are chasing for the, for the breakaway, you have a lot more stress with other teams that want to stay in front.

So the Peloton would have caught them earlier, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. It was just, it was way less jockeying for position. Yeah. All right. Well let's take a break and then we will talk about stage seven. Who's going to win what Red Bull has to do and much more. All right, Johan stage seven tomorrow's stage first summit finish of this Giro d'Italia. The cliff notes are the stage is 180 kilometers long.

Maybe if you're on YouTube, you could see the profile right now. It's the last 168, 168. Oh, no, I misheard you. Not very, not very, uh, not very long. Yeah. I mean, that's significant because it, I mean, obviously it sounds ridiculous, but it is kind of short for switching for a mountain stage. And there are one, two, three, four categorized climbs on the route packed into 168 kilometers, which is roughly a hundred miles. So not super long. The big feature is the final climate, 12 K long, technically like five and a half, 6%.

But the last two and a half kilometers are roughly 10% average, which is very steep finish to the stage. There will definitely be attacks, definitely be GC gaps. I'll read off the favorites on bet. This is bet 365. We switch books cause it's available almost everywhere. Um, if we need to, we'll refer to something else, but it's roughly the same as Unibet. Primoz Roglic plus 275, big favorite. Tom Peacock plus 800. Giulio Ciccone plus 1600. Lorenzo Fortunato plus 1600. Juana Yusso plus 1800. Christian Scaroni plus 1800. Pello Bilbao plus

2200. Michael Sturr plus 2200. Isaac Del Toro plus 2500, wild polls plus 2500, Richard Carapaz, Richard Carapaz plus 2800, J vine plus 2800. It goes on and on, but I think the winner will come from someone I just named. The odds are clearly like tilting toward a GC group, but how do you see the stage playing out, Johan and who's going to win? Yeah, it's not easy to predict the GC or, uh, or breakaway. I think it's a bit 50-50. Um, I'm still going to go for the favorite, uh, on, on this kind of stage, Primoz Rogovic plus three 25. I think that's good enough to pick him as the winner. This is an ideal time for him. He does still, I mean, even without Jay Hindley, he still has, he still has a team and they're

not going to be the only ones in my opinion to have interest to keep it together. I have to think that UAE also has an interest to go for the stage win. So Primoz Roglic plus 325 is my favorite to win the stage. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's a crazy pick at all. I just can't believe this is a little bit closer than we've seen, but you have one rider who's a massive favorite and then everyone else is almost wild card pricing. There's like no second favorites really. I do think at a short stage, a lot of climbs,

steep final climb, motivated, two motivated GC teams. I think this is probably not a breakaway day. It just is not a ton of time actually to build up a big advantage, the advantage that you would need to hold them off on the final climb. I'm going to go GC group two. I'm going to go who I think is the second strongest rider in this race. I think we'll find out if that's true or not tomorrow, but want to use. So at plus 1800, really good price. I mean, again, I'm bargain been shopping for the second day in a row, but plus 1800 for a guy that probably isn't as strong as Primoz Roglic,

but he has beat Primoz Roglic in an uphill finish on the summit finish this year at Catalonia. So it's not a crazy pick. I'm going to go with him. Yeah. Yeah. And he has a strong team. So, you know, for Ayuso, I think he needs to focus on Primoz. And it's just to be seen what his teammates will do. You know, if they're going to set the tempo on the last climb, they do have, and especially now with Jay Hindley out, they do have the strongest team now. And if it's all for Ayuso or if they want to play several cards and maybe play with one of their other riders with Brandon McNulty or with Del Toro or even with Adam Yates.

or with del Toro or even with even with Adam Yates. So they have plenty of cards to play tomorrow. So, but yeah, I think Ayuso is a good pick. It's difficult to pick somebody from a breakaway, Spencer. I can foresee something like there's riders who are good climbers who get a little bit more freedom in the sense that they're not as supervised as these top favorites like Primoz and like Juan Ayuso. And I could see a guy like Michael Sturrer getting away on the first part of the last climb and then keep it on the steep part. You know, if it's 10, what is it? 12 kilometers. So the first nine kilometers or about four, between four and a half and 6%.

That's ideal terrain to make a move and basically, you can get away alone or with another climber who maybe not in GC and keep it on the last steep part. It's not going to be easy, but Michael Stirr to me seems to be in great condition. We saw his condition in Tour of the Alps, but he was up there, I think yesterday, or in one of the sprints, he was in sixth place. So for a climber to be up there, that means he has really good legs.

So tomorrow, I think he could potentially be one of the guys who sneaks away on the lower slopes of the last climb and keeps it to the finish. Plus two thousand five hundred on Unibet. Yes. 2200 on bet three 65. It would be, it would be shocking in one respect because they would make him probably one of the strongest riders in the race. But basically we were just talking about this before we recorded. He's like gotten so much better just in the last few

months that not crazy. Um, especially with that, what's that? Sixth place in the sprint finish. So I think if it is breakaway, the obvious one is Lorenzo Fortunato cause he's been off the front so much and you're like, oh, he's going to win, but it's very hard to go. He's going to be in the break tomorrow. It's hard to go for KOM points and the stage. I would go for his teammate, Christian Scaroni instead, plus 1800. They'll both probably be in the breakaway.

Um, but it's just so we, we, we talk about this all the time. It's so hard to split chasing the sprint at the top of every climb and then winning the sprint for the finish or even getting away to win at the sprint at the top of every climb and then winning the sprint for the finish or even getting away to win at the, at the finish. So I would not go Fortunato. I would go Scaroni if you want to breakaway rider. Yeah. The only, the only downside on Scaroni, I mean, we don't know, uh, what his current form is. Uh, he's been amazing in the spring. The first two months of the season, he was the best rider of the whole peloton, no doubt about that. And he had a pretty bad crash in Strade Bianche.

Was out for a while and you know, he's raced again, but he's not, he's not back to the level he was in the, in the, in the first few races. So, but still, you know, I think he's a good enough rider and then he's going to be on some decent form. Otherwise he wouldn't be in this zero. So, um, that's a good pick from a breakaway Spencer. I like that. And just before we go, I want to mean one thing I've been thinking about is who's going to be setting the pace on this, on this, uh, UAE team. Tomorrow is going to change Spencer. Uh, we've, we've only seen Jay Vine, but I think tomorrow we're going to see at least Brandon McNulty also. Um, and Jay Vine, Jay Vine.

Yeah. They might not need it. We don't know. I mean, we don't know if he's heard from, from the crash or if he crashed or if that was just false information. If they made maybe a mistake between Jay Hindley and Jay Vine, you know, they're both Australians. We don't know. That could be, you know, a slip of the tongue, you know, in the communication over the radio or something. We don't know. I haven't seen any physical evidence that J Vine was in a crash.

Adam Yeats was from UAE. That I've seen. Yeah, no, you're right. Maybe there was a mix up. Maybe, yeah. I mean, with J Vine, assuming J Vine's healthy, and then they have a little help from McNulty, That might be all they need tomorrow to control it. Well, I normally, normally a guy like, uh, I mean, if it's, listen, are you so, and Adam Yates ordered two leaders. So, uh, on that last time it should be Jay Vine and Nolte and Del Toro. Del Toro should also set the pace.

I think Del Toro is the wild card in this situation. Yeah, it could be. He can win. He can win races. You know, I mean he's won Milano-Turino on a steep climb. Um, not the same rivals, but still he was very strong. Um, I don't know. Carapaz was maybe there also and on, on, on don't remember if Car of pass was in the game. I vaguely remember that.

Yeah. I mean, uh, maybe he w he was there. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, that's be a good finish for the total. So, but listen, they have to, they have to make choices. They have to make choices. And tomorrow is the day that they will need to make choices and go for those two riders. In my opinion, for you. So when I'm eight,

well, the Torah wins tomorrow, it almost causes more problems for them. That's a messy situation. Yeah. Well, it's hard. It's hard to, you know, a stage, a win, a win in a team. It's hard for it to cause problems. You know, you, maybe initially you have one of the riders who's not happy, but then I tell you at the dinner table, usually it's a good atmosphere, no matter who has won from the team. You know, what it would remind me of is remember our friend, Bradley Wiggins to the France that he won his stuff. He'll finish in the Alsace won by Chris Froome. I remember that correctly. Yeah. And it's kind of like, Oh, we're excited. This is kind of awkward though, because then this guy thinks now he's the strongest rider in the race.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. You want anything else? It's a good, it's a good problem to have. That's a very good point. Um, yeah, I think most teams are just like, wow, I'd love to be able to even contest the stage.

We have multiple riders. You know, trying to decide, okay, who can we hope their hopes on to win a stage here? You know, and most, most of the teams don't have one. Most of the teams, especially when you get to the end of the race, they don't even have riders that can get into the breakaway. So having two guys that could maybe win the overalls pretty good problem to have. All right, Johan. Well, anything else before we take off?

I don't think that's it for me. All right. We'll, we'll talk tomorrow about this stage seven. I'm excited to see how it plays out and then preview stage eight. Okay. Thanks, Spencer.