THEMOVE - Tour de France Stage 15 | The Sir Wiggo & Johan Show
Episode Date: July 20, 2025Johan Bruyneel and Sir Bradley Wiggins peel back the curtain on the tactics, strategy, and pivotal moments that shaped Stage 15 of the 2025 Tour de France, offering sharp analysis and insider perspect...ive you won’t hear anywhere else. JOIN: Your #1 cycling training app. You can now test JOIN 30 days for FREE! Download JOIN today and improve your ride. https://Join.cc/themove Ketone-IQ: Take your shot: Get 30% off your subscription, plus a free gift with your second shipment at https://Ketone.com/themove Ventum: Enter Ventum Trivia of the Day for a chance to win the Grand Prize: $5,000 of store credit towards any Ventum bike. Don’t want to leave it to chance, 10% off sitewide using the code THEMOVE10 or 20% off any NS1 road bike build with code NS120 https://ventumracing.com/themove/
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Do you remember the last Belgian, the last rider to win in the Belgian national
championships in Tour de France?
Probably Wout van Aert.
Mon Ventoux.
Yeah.
Wout van Aert, Mon Ventoux, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
Yeah, that was vintage.
I mean, there was the Wout in his prime, you know, he won a big mountain stage,
he won the time trial and a bunch of things on the Champs-Élysées.
That's crazy.
Crazy. I'm the 2012 Tour de France winner, Sir Bradley Wiggins. You won a big mountain stage, you won the time trial, and a bunch of wins on the Champs-Élysées. That's crazy.
Crazy.
I'm the 2012 Tour de France winner, Sir Bradley Wiggins.
And I'm Johan Brunel.
I directed my teams to nine Tour de France victories.
Welcome to the Sir Wiggle and Johan show,
our daily show where we dive deep into the tactics
behind every stage of the Tour de France.
Hi everybody, welcome back to our show. behind every stage of the Tour de France.
Hi everybody, welcome back to our show as every day presented by Ketone IQ. We're going to talk about stage 15 of this year's Tour de France from Murée to Carcassonne,
a transition stage, I would say 170 kilometers, 2,500 meters of elevation.
Before we had speculation, could it be for sprinters, would it be a breakaway?
We're going to talk about that, all that with Bradley Wiggins.
Bradley, what did you make of today's stage?
What's Bradley's take of the day?
Well, I mean, there was a lot to speak about today, but obviously mine is combined.
The win of Tim Wellens and the complete how in control you are now in this whole Tour
de France, especially with Tim Wellens victory today.
But combined with that, what appears to be the complete disarray of Visma and their tactics
again today, you know, with the crash that happened, which put Jonas out the back.
The lack of, you know, communication maybe between those guys when that was happening
and while Van Aert was trying to get in the break, Matteo Jorgensen was still trying to
get in the break.
Tadej was trying to tell Visma that Jonas was out the back and that complete disarray.
But you know, that combined Tim Wellens attacking, sitting in the break, not doing any work and
then attacking 47k to go wherever it was and winning the stage.
So the two contrasting big teams in this race and, and how in control UAE are
and what appears the complete disarray of Visma and their tactics.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
Agree.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, yeah, I mean, UAE is really in a great position.
And on top of that, I mean, you can see that the pressure is really off there. They are on a high and, you know, it happens
sometimes that, you know, teammates go and breakaways. I heard you guys on the show talk
about that. George forgot his win, for example, in 2005, he was in exactly the same situation.
It was a mountain stage, you know, he was in break, also had the excuse of not having to pull.
And then finally he won on top of Platte de Huy against Oscar Pereiro, for example.
But yeah, no, I agree.
Tim Wellens, what a performance.
I mean, after his incredible performance in the Belgian Championships, you know, and the level he has shown
here in this Tour de France since day one is really, you know, he deserves to win this stage.
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Okay, Bradley. So the stage starts. We all thought, yeah, okay, let's wait until we are
in the middle of the stage. Not much going on, but we had this big crash early in the
race, as you said. And a lot of riders went down. It was full on, full on, full on race
for the breakaway. Again, I mean, I guess this is standard now, no, every, every stage
we do the first two hours, it's 50 kilometers per hour.
Um, but Jonas and Lippowitz were the two main guys involved.
And as you say, it was, it was chaos.
Um, you know, we thought they was in front.
Uh, he tried to, to slow down the race a little bit.
But you can see, even in the case of a guy like Pogacar, he's in yellow, but it's a three
week stage race, the danger is really behind every corner.
Anything can happen.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah, absolutely.
And when I turned it on, it was, I saw, obviously, Mathieu van der Poel was in the front again.
I mean, that guy's...
Yeah.
And of course, he won that first intermediate sprint,
which now really puts him in prime position
to potentially win that competition.
That's going to be a really good fight the next few weeks,
well, the next week.
And I do fear for Milan now that that competition is over for him,
and it's just a matter of time before either
Matiu or Tade now assert their leadership on that jersey.
Yeah, I think I think that, you know, if Milan and Little Drek look back,
you know, not being there that first stage,
that's going to be expensive.
Yeah, that's going to be very expensive.
He would probably have been top three in that first stage.
And yeah, I mean,
Mathieu van der Poel, what a writer.
I mean, still, you know, it's not going to be easy.
I think personally that probably the biggest calipers is Tadej,
because although there's less points in the, in the, in the hard,
in the hard stages of the mountain, but he's going to score points in all of them.
You know, you know, there's still, so there's the Ventoux, there's Col de la Lose, there's
La Plagne, right? Those are the three main, main hard stages we have left. Then there's,
there's Paris where I think Bogacar and Van der Poel have more chances to score
points than Jonathan Millan.
And then the other two stages are probably going to be breakaway stages.
Maybe the stage after the Vontoo could be maybe a sprint.
We don't know.
I mean, they kind of have to, right?
I mean, Little Trek will have to make sure.
Yeah, they've got no choice, have they?
They have no choice now.
They have to commit everything to this green jersey.
They've got to this point.
But the same as De Kurnick, you know, Alpecin,
they're going to have everything
towards this green jersey competition
and the intermediate sprints.
Of course we got the Vontu stage.
There's an intermediate sprint of 112 kilometers, which is a long way to try
and control the peloton for that.
Yeah.
But you know, that's their big priority and it has to be their priority in the
running to Paris is that green Jersey competition.
But it's going to be interesting.
It's a great fight.
We've got the best GC rider in the world, the best classics rider in the world,
and one of the fastest sprinters in the world, all fighting for green.
That's quite unique. That's quite unique.
Yeah, it's very unique.
Yeah.
I mean, it would be amazing also like for Alpecin, right?
So they won two stages now, Philipson and Mathieu.
And then Philipson crashes out.
If they could still win the green jersey with Mathieu, that would be quite something.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Anyway, back to today's stage. So, you know, finally, there's this break forming, there was
a lot of confusion, as you said, Bradley, with the crash. And, you know, we had, we had Wout
Van Aert and Victor Campenaerts, who obviously had the mission today
to go in the breakaway and try to win the stage.
And so they were there with today,
obviously crashes, you cannot plan for that, right?
And I think, okay, as soon as they saw,
I think that Jonas was okay.
I don't think he went down.
I think he was just held up.
Yeah, he was.
Or somebody ran into his bike or something because he had to do a bike change afterwards.
But as soon as you see that that's okay, I kind of can understand that they didn't call Victor and
Wout Von Aert back. It also is telling, I think, that they're focusing now on stage wins.
Yesterday with Sepp Kuss and Simon Yates in the break, today with Van Aert and Victor.
Does that mean in your opinion that they have given up on winning the Tour de France and
that they focus on stage wins?
No, I don't think that they've given up.
I think, apart from it, I just think they have
to try and deploy a different tactic now and, you know, give riders that have committed
themselves and sacrificed their chances to win the stages a chance to just get up the
road and see what happens, you know. We know how difficult it is to, you know, your odds
of winning a stage from being at a break are very slim even if you're in the break.
You know, it's one of the hardest things. You don't get too many opportunities either, which makes Tim Welland's ride today even more
impressive because, you know, he's done an incredible job for Tadeu this whole Tour de France.
And yes, he got to sit on a marshall that break today, but regardless of anything, you have to be there.
You have to be in a position to win, but he attacked
Probably the place you least expect someone to attack and they didn't let him go away that he they rode
I think was Bargui was it Bargui was the
Yeah, he was hovering, you know free meters meters, five meters, five, six meters, seven meters
for a good kilometer.
And then he sat up after the hairpin bend.
Then you know, Quinn Simmons tried to and so and Tim just did not stop going and going
and going until eventually the elastic broke.
So he did it in the hardest way and no one can accuse him of, you know, slipping off the front unnoticed. So, you know, and he took his opportunity and he
did 45, 46 kilometers solo and put timing to him all the way to the finish.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, he, it's a copy of what he did in
the Belgian Championships with Remco and with Philips and also, I mean, Bradley, you know, people say, oh, you know, he was, um, and, and also, I mean, Bradley, you
know, people say, Oh, you know, he was sitting on, but, you know, I mean,
people, I don't think, I don't think people really understand how tired
these guys, I mean, the, the amount of work Tim Wellens has been doing since
stage one, you know, he, these guys are tired, man, like super tired.
And, uh, and you're right.
I mean, you know, when he took off, he just broke everybody's legs, man.
It was, it was pure on power and it was, it was telling to see.
But Gil, you know, he was trying to, all of a sudden he just had to sit down
and then you could see, I thought personally, I said, maybe Campagnolo
is going to try now he just was on the limit or he had to stay where he was.
You know, uh, Quinn Simmons again in the breakaway,
uh, that guy's on some form, right?
And he's, you know, he's very aggressive.
He gets himself into the, you know, I mean, again, going back to the breakaway, just to
make the breakaway as often as he does is something in itself.
Yeah.
You know, we talk, we often talk daily about, you know, guys want to try and make the breakaway, teams
that miss the breakaway.
Quinn Simmonds is, I forget, I actually forget how many breaks he's been in in this Tour
de France.
Many, many, many.
He's very, very consistent.
And he just doesn't seem to be able to pull it off when it matters in the end, when the
attacks go.
We saw it the other day with Ben Healy.
We saw it today with Tim Wellens.
But you know, it's a learning experience, isn't it?
You know, it's a learning experience getting in those brakes
and learning, you know, how to decipher the winning move
and where to expend your energy.
And if you are riding through and someone's sitting on you,
where to anticipate them attacking.
And so, you know, Quinn has got many years ahead of him,
but no one can fault him for his aggressive riding in this tour. anticipate them attacking. And so, you know, Quinn has got many years ahead of him, but
no one can fool him for his aggressive riding in this tour.
No, I spoke with him briefly at the, when I was at the tour, you know, and I told him,
I said, man, you have to believe you have a stage win in your legs. You know, you just
need to be a little bit more calm, you know? And I think that's, I mean, I'm not going
to say mistakes. It's, it's, It's kind of normal because this is completely new for him,
but he's so strong and he's showing too much his strength.
Especially if you look at,
rather you look at some point there were eight guys, right?
So first of all, it was Quinn Simmons, Michael Sturr,
Victor Campenaerts, Tim Wellens.
Already there, having Campenaerts and Wellens there,
that's like a red flag.
You need to say, okay, I need to be careful here.
I need to really, really, really be conservative.
Then after that, you know, Warren Barguil,
Lulzenko, Carlos Rodriguez and Vlasov joined.
I mean, those eight riders,
that's like top, top, top of the world.
And Quinn is so strong that, for example,
when Sterner went on that steep climb,
he was the guy who tried to close it down.
I mean, at that point, I think he should probably have a little bit more, maybe be more cold blooded and say, okay, hey, you know, it's still far to go.
I'll let Campenaert because you know, Campenaert is going to take his tempo.
He's going to come back, you know, especially after seeing how good he climbs yesterday on the Superbarniera, right?
So, they's still...
Do you know what?
It was actually funny, Johan, watching Tim away.
I was reminded of my teenage years
watching Ludo Dierksen, God rest in peace,
who died this year, win in a very similar manner
in the Belgium Championship Jersey.
Yeah, and it's always a special
to win as national champion in the tour, isn't it?
Man. Yeah. I think it's a nice thing.
To display that jersey is incredible.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now for listening for Tim Wellens, this is great. You know, this is
amazing, but to win it in the, we call it the tri-color, you know, the tri-color, I
think it's probably one of the best championship jerseys in the peloton.
Yeah, you're right. Ludo Dirksen won, was it 2000 or 1999?
98 I think. 99 maybe.
Not 99, not 98, 99 or 2000. Also a solo attack, I think about 30-35k from the finish.
He was riding for Lampre.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you remember the last Belgium, the last rider to win in the Belgium
national champion jersey in the Tour de France?
Probably Wout van Aert.
Mon Ventoux.
Yeah.
Wout van Aert, Mon Ventoux, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah. That was, that was vintage. I mean, there was the Wout in his prime, no one, no one too, wow. Yeah, wow. Yeah, that was vintage.
I mean, there was the Wout in his prime, you know, he won a big mountain stage, he won
the time trial and a bunch of people on the show.
That's crazy.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
But also, I mean, Bradley, you know, what we see is, I mean, this is how much all of
this has changed and how much the level of everybody is unbelievably high.
Like a stage like today, normally.
Let's say you have those four or those eight riders, right?
That's like, normally that's like game over.
Everybody knows, okay, these eight guys are gone.
We're done.
We're done.
We're just, you know, sitting up.
Nobody's sat up.
You know, you'd have rolled in 20 minutes down 20 years ago.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
And here, here we still have, you know, because the group behind, behind them,
I mean, like, Wout and Alaphilippe, I mean, they came back
very late in the stage, you know, they just keep going.
Incredible. It's amazing, doesn't it Al?
How much it has changed. You know,
yeah, when you think that this whole Tour de France so far, the
break that has got the most time in a breakaway to the finish
line is probably the day Ben Healy was that right? Was that
probably probably that was, you know, they rolled in three
minutes down four minutes down.
Yeah, yeah. And at some point, at some point, I think they got
like five minutes,
five or six minutes, but no break has gotten like a lot, a lot of time.
Uh, we'll see what happened, but I mean, the way this is going, the there's,
there's in theory, there's two other stages where a breakaway can, can go.
I mean, a part of mountain stages, of course, but you know, like the two
other stages, it could be a breakaway breakaway day.
And I'm, I'm, I'm going to guess they're not going to
get a lot of time. They're going to have to really, really fight for it. Before we go on about
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with the code The Move. Tim Wellens, let's talk about him
for probably for the rest of the show,
because he's in that break.
He goes with 44 kilometers from the finish.
And as we said, he basically, he went and at that moment,
I heard an interview of,
did you hear the interview of Victor Kampenard
after the finish? He said, you
know, Tim Wellens, you know, he says, as soon as he knew that
Tim Wellens was there, he said, I'm really getting along with
Tim Wellens, you know, off the bike. But on the bike, I know
he's one of the strongest opponents and also a sneaky and
crafty guy in breakaways, which turned out to be the
case. The guy knows how to, how, how to race, right? Um, I, I, I thought, I
mean, finally, you know, Campenaerts comes in second, um, and he's, you know,
he's showing incredible, incredible form, but man, Wellens, uh, he just, he
just went faster and faster and faster. And then, rather, I just want to talk, talk a little bit about the relationship with Tadej Pogacar.
We heard him several times on the radio, right?
Yeah.
So obviously he got the information that Tim was away.
Yeah.
And...
Yeah, I mean, you can see that they're...
How close they are.
I wonder if they're rooming together on this Tour de France.
So, well, you know, cause they seem to have a very, very good relationship and you could
see how happy Tadej was that Tim Wellens was off the front.
And he said, was he something along the lines, zip that Belgium champ's jersey up, show it
off.
He said, well, what did he say again?
Does Tim tell Tim he looks fantastic or something like that.
I mean, it's nice to see how the leader wants one of those loyal, great teammates to win,
you know how much it means.
I mean, we already saw early in the first week that today actually wanted Tim to be
on the podium in the pocket of the league.
It seems a long time ago.
Yeah, it was a long time ago.
Yeah, I mean, that's actually how much in control UAE is, right?
We hear Tadej over the radio asking information about his teammate who's up the road.
So how nice is that?
Was it their fifth stage win of the race now?
They already won four, right? So he, uh, did he win four? Four. I think so. Yeah. It's their fifth is there and it's not finished. It's not finished. No. And it's funny, you know, I saw how in control
you are now of this race as a team as well And they seem very calm collected and they really recovered well
From they looked a bit disorganized a week ago when they lost Almeida
We were a bit concerned about them that they were short on numbers
Yeah, but my god
They've stepped up in the last few days in the Pyrenees and it helps when you've got a leader like Tade winning as he does
But yeah
Novars is that is that that how you pronounce it?
Narvájs.
Narvájs, sorry. He's excelled without Almeida there. Tim Wellens has been a rock this last
couple of weeks. But Siakov, he was doing a great job in the mountains yesterday, going
back, getting the rain capes on the Tourmalet. Soléa has stepped up as well. They've all
stepped their game up. the tourmalet. Soler has stepped up as well. They've all stepped their game up.
Neil Spollett.
Neil Spollett, yeah, another one.
But you know, I think that is also the mark of someone like Tadej.
How vocally he is on the radio with everyone.
He makes everyone else feel 10 times bigger.
And his demeanor as a leader around those other guys has brought them up.
That's a sign of a good leader, isn't it?
Yeah.
And I think sometimes, you know, there is a difference between Jonas has a different way
of leading, very quiet, very, you know, leads by example on the bike and stuff, but there is,
it's just his interest. There's no right way of leading a team. I think everyone has their own
styles and it's reflective of your personality and your character. but Jonas has definitely made everyone around him feel 10 feet taller.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tadej you mean, Tadej.
Tadej, sorry, Tadej. Yeah, yeah.
No, no, I mean, I think it's the secret of a team with a guy, first of all, who's in the
yellow jersey. You know, I mean, Bradley, you've been in that situation, you had the yellow jersey and your teammates were in front of you, you know, and especially the last week,
man, the last week of a Grand Tour and even in the Tour more, I mean, you know, after two weeks,
everybody's dead. They're all super tired. We know there's a difference between suffering
and, you know, being in the race and actually, you know,
having to undergo what another team decides.
And then there's the difference between being the teammates of the leader.
They're all suffering, but you look back and you see that yellow Jersey in New wheel.
It's a different way of suffering.
It's different.
And, um, and you can see this, you can see this with UAE.
To me, one of the guys who impresses me the most is Niels Pollet, Bradley.
That guy, he was pulling the whole Tourmalet yesterday.
You can clearly see, there's many different objectives in the race, but for a mountain stage,
there's probably 20 guys who want to do a good performance
and the rest is just hanging in there.
And when it really starts to hurt,
they're getting dropped or they're looking for a group.
But yeah, I mean, with the guy like Pogacar,
it's a different, I mean, it's a pleasure to suffer.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I was going to ask you actually, speaking of leaders, what has been the reaction
in Belgium of Remco's withdrawal from the race yesterday?
I've seen a few things in the British media and stuff, but more importantly in Belgium,
what's been the reaction to his withdrawal?
I mean, you know, obviously, first of all, it's disappointment, right? Everybody was
hoping that he could at least be on the podium again. And of course, because I've seen a
fair bit of criticism on other networks about his withdrawal and about really questioning
his character as to whether he climbed off too early, whether he needed
someone to just tell him to get on with it and things like that. So that's why I was
asking. It's interesting to see.
I've seen those comments too, even from some people who are commenting on TV, ex-professional
cyclists.
Yeah, I think that's the same one.
Yeah. I don't, I mean, listen, there's only one person who knows or his team who knows
what's going on. And, you know, there's obviously something going on with his, with his fitness.
If he's sick or getting sick, whatever, or not recovering, you know, we cannot, I think
we cannot judge on that. Listen, and the way, the way I can see it in three days in a row, really, really having a bad day,
I think he did the right thing.
I think he did the right thing.
It serves nothing that he stays in the race to be in the groupetto.
I mean, you know, especially Bradley, the way things, the cycling has changed, it's
not like, it's not like all of a sudden you're out of GC and you, because you're a little
off, you're not even good because you're a little off.
You're not even good enough anymore to go and breakaways and try to win the stage.
It's the level so high that the stage wins are unbelievably difficult.
For all the criticism and people pitching in and saying what they think, only Remco
knows how he's feeling.
Exactly.
And who are we to question him really? He'll make the decision, it's his career,
and he'll make the decision and again, eight weeks from now, nine weeks from now,
we could be talking about him as just winning the world title and it's all forgotten.
Exactly. Well, it often, I mean, like big champions.
And I mean, and especially guys with a champion mentality, which Remco is, right?
Sometimes they get knocked down and then they come back like, you know, like.
OK, say, wow, you know, this is this is just amazing.
He's that kind of guy, right? I mean,
I think a lot depends, especially for the World Championships in Rwanda
about Polacar's intentions, how he recovers.
I mean, I'm assuming he wants to go to the World Championships again,
to make it to the end of the row.
I mean, I wonder, is there any possibility he might do the Vuelta?
You know, there is, I mean, one thing is for sure, any possibility he might do the Vuelta? Or is it, you know...
You know, there is... I mean...
One thing is for sure, I mean, of course,
and it can always change after the tour,
but from the beginning of the year,
Jonas has the Vuelta on his calendar.
So...
Pulácsar has been talked, it's not been confirmed,
but there's been talks that he was going to do the Vuelta.
Yeah. Pogacar has been talked, it's not been confirmed, but there's been talks that he was going to do Vuelta. I think Pogacar is in this to check out, check off little objectives. So Vuelta is the
only ground tour that he's missing right now. He's won the Giro, he's won the tour, he's probably
going to win a fourth time now. So having the Vuelta as soon as possible, but obviously check that box.
And you know, what would be better than doing the Vuelta against his biggest
rival, right? I mean, if, if today goes to the Vuelta and Jonas is not there,
well then, you know, then, okay, well, it's not, you know, it's not going to be a
race. Yeah. Yeah.
But I personally think he's going to prioritize the worlds.
Yeah.
Speaking of prioritizing, I get the sense that Tadej has had Mont Ventoux on his radar
for a while now, this last few days.
And as we were saying on the main show, if there's one stage you want to have on your
Palmares in the Tour de France, it's Mont Ventoux, isn't it?
Mont Ventoux.
It's epic.
It's, you know, it's the monster of a climb.
And as we said in the other day, Bradley, you know, I mean, it looks to me like Taddei
has chosen the stages where he has been beaten to make a statement.
Yeah. where he has been beaten to make a statement. I mean, at least that's, I mean, maybe I'm wrong,
but I think it's, I think it's Vantho and Calderla-Lose.
Those are his two main goals in my opinion,
because that's, he got dropped there from Jonas,
and I mean, didn't lose the tour, but it was, you know,
he was dropped and then Calderla-Lose, of course,
he lost the tour there.
So-
Do you know what would be interesting, Johan, if he has indeed marked Mont Ventoux and in
the way he races and he has raced on these climbs all year, Dauphiné the other day on
Hotecum, if he goes early on Mont Ventoux, and we know how hard that is up to Chalet-Renault,
I mean, it's an average 10%, something like that.
Yeah.
I think you can say the possibility of how much time do
you think he could take on Mont Ventoux if he goes early? We
could be talking minutes.
Yeah.
But it also suits Jonas, this climb as well, we have to say.
Yeah, the question is, you know, is it necessary? It's not
necessary to go early, right? I mean,
I've said Bradley since many months, you know, the way Pogacar is racing this year and the
level he has, if he races conservatively and makes no mistakes, there's nobody who can
beat him. So I would definitely recommend him to not do anything stupid. There's no need to go
from early on and set the fastest time of Ventoux because it can backfire. Ventoux is a very strange
climb. I mean, we've all done it, but to me it's a climb that it's the most difficult to understand.
You have it's like 10 kilometers, 10 percent, 9-10 percent. You get out of the forest and then you
have these six and a half,
seven kilometers where... With the wind, depending on the wind direction as well.
You can feel like you're riding against a wall all of a sudden. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So,
I mean, I have no doubt that he can win on Ventoux, but he doesn't have to attack early on.
He does. He does for our entertainment.
he doesn't have to attack early on. He does, he does for our entertainment.
No, I mean, listen, with this guy, it's crazy.
Anyway, back to Tim Wellens.
I just wanted to point out also before, I mean, first of all,
Tim Wellens wins the stage, Campenaert second, Julien Alaphilippe.
You know, he comes back very late, beats Wout Van Aert in the sprint and thinks he has won, which
was strange to see.
So afterwards we hear the director say that since the crash, his radio was beat up and
didn't have any radio communication anymore.
But I mean, that's where you see how much these, I mean,
and if you look at the images, right,
no radio communication, so he's in that group.
Wellens, for example, it's possible,
he couldn't have seen it,
but Campenaerts was just in front, no?
Yeah, yeah.
But he comes from behind Wout. So it's possible
he didn't, he didn't see him. Um, I mean, what a comeback. I mean, he was, when he,
you didn't see the, did you see the crash? I saw the pictures afterwards of him late
sitting on the floor and looked like he did holding his shoulder. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Um, but anyway, Tim Valence, uh, I, I, I did a bit of research. So he is not the first writer
in the first person in his family to win into the France stage. So his dad, his dad is Leo
Wellens. He was a professional cyclist, wrote for some Spanish teams. Then there's Johan
Wellens, that's his uncle, who was a professional.
And then Paul Wellens was the best of the three.
So his uncle wrote for Raleigh, the big Raleigh team.
His uncle won two stages in the Tour de France and also won the Tour of Switzerland and many
other races.
So he keeps the family tradition of winning Tour de France stages open. So anyways, nice,
super nice win. Bradley, anything else you want to add?
No, no, I think I'm just looking forward to Mont Ventoux now. It's going to be an exciting stage.
Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, flat-h. I mean, you cannot, you can never say flat, you know, because we know how,
how, you know, up and down it is over there, but you know, it's, it's, it's, uh,
they call it a mono Puerto or uni Puerto.
So just one climb, right.
Um, but what a climb.
Yeah.
I mean, and on top of that, I mean, in the Tour de France, the amount of people
there are on the Ventoux, I really mean, in the Tour de France, the amount of people there are on
the Ventoux, I really mean, I'm pretty sure you remember the moment you take that left
turn, what's it called?
Saint-Esteve.
Saint-Esteve.
The little village.
You take a left and it's like, up here, like straight and people, people, people everywhere.
Before we talk about, I mean, tomorrow's the rest of the day,
but let's do our daily Ventum trivia, Bradley.
Yesterday's question was about the Tourmalet.
The Queen of the Pyrenees needs no introduction.
The Tourmalet is the most climbed mountain.
In what year was its first feature in the Tour de France?
The answer was 1910.
So very early, after the seventh edition already,
they went on the Montsouris.
Imagine, but that must have been with those bikes badly.
I know, it's hard to imagine.
That's what's so great about the Tour de France, isn't it?
That we still go over this pass and nothing's changed
other than the road surface.
It's what makes it such a great race.
It's the same with Mont Ventoux, you know, in two days time, Mont Ventoux, you know,
it's 60 years this year since Tommy Simpson won the world title.
And of course, two years after he won the world title, he lost his life on Mont
Ventoux. So, you know, and we're going up it again and the riders are going up in
the same manner that Tom went up trying to do, win the Tour de France and he lost his life that day.
And it's, um, that's what makes this race so special.
It's why we love it.
It's because of the people that have gone before us.
Can you imagine in 1910 going up the Tour de Malais with those bikes?
So no derail you.
I can't.
No, no, no.
It's hard enough with the bikes today.
I mean, it's crazy.
It's just unbelievable.
Yeah.
Question for today.
Stage 15 question.
Which rider holds the record for the longest successful solo breakaway starting from Carcassonne
in 1947?
So in 1947, there was a stage starting from Carcassonne.
Who's the rider who holds the record
for the longest successful breakaway?
There's four choices.
So there's a multiple choice question.
A, Louison Bobe.
B, Albert Bourlon.
C, Jean Robic.
And D, André May.
So one of those four writers has the longest successful solo breakaway.
Send your best guess to Ventumracing.com slash the move and you can enter into this year's
contest a grand prize of $5,000 store credit towards any Ventum bike you want to purchase.
If you don't want to wait until the end of the tour,
Ventum is also offering a standing discount for the remainder of the tour.
On the whole side, 10% off with the code
the move 10 and 20% off if you want to purchase an NS1 road bike with the code
NS120.
All right, Bradley, rest day tomorrow.
I've heard in the show that you're going to ride up Independence Pass tomorrow with your
NS1.
I'm going to try on my Ventum NS1, yes.
Give it a run out.
My only motivation for climbing, Johan, is to enjoy the descent back down. That's good. That's good. Anyway, listen, anybody who has won the Tour de France
will go up that climb. I mean, you won the Tour, so, you know, as long as you have time and you're
not in a hurry, I'm sure you will have a blast. Yeah, it'll be good.
Okay, Bradley, we'll be back for the Mont Ventoux tomorrow, the day after.
Thanks, as every day, and speak soon.
Speak soon, man. See you later.
