THEMOVE - With Vingegaard Out, Is Remco Now Pogačar's Biggest Threat? | TdF 2026 Stage 15 | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: July 19, 2026

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin discuss the news that Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar were awoken in the middle of the night for drug testing, Vingegaard crashing out of the race, and Remco Evenepoel announcing himself as a Tour contender by winning the race's hardest climb. Johan gives his thoughts on Pogačar deferring to Del Toro in the finale, which cost him the stage, wonders how far Evenepoel can take this, and previews Tuesday's critical time trial. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code THEMOVE at https://www.oneskin.co/THEMOVE  #oneskinpod Tifosi Optics: Use promo code THEMOVE at https://tifosioptics.com/discount/THEMOVE Nextbets: Use our special link to see where you can bet in your area and claim the best sign-up offers https://nxtbets.com/betoutcomes/ Ventum: Use code TheMove10 for 10% off anything at: https://ventumracing.com/

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Visit O-D-O-D-com to book a demo. It's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. In the last kilometer, I thought that Remko would win. When they got to the last kilometer, I said, okay, they're not dropping him. Del Toro has been struggling. He has maybe a little bit of acceleration, but not enough to beat Remko. And I think today, Remko answers the critics, including ourselves. We have been critical of Remko.

We just spent like 10 minutes yesterday. Like, you know, he's not good on the steep climbs and this and that. Well, guess what? Today, he showed us wrong. Definitely, he proved us wrong. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Brunel. We're breaking down stage 15 of the Tour de France won by Rimco, even a poll on a tough, tough summit finish. Who didn't see that coming?

With Tata Pagotcha, second, no time lost. Isaac Deltoro, his teammate third, six seconds back. In extremely eventful stage that also saw Jonas Vindigard crash out of the race with a broken collarbone before the final. climb will also preview tomorrow stage 16 take a few listener questions but first before we get into anything yohan i want to throw it over let's see what's in what's in your rant corner today what do we have waiting for us yeah spencer well today they made it really easy on me to have my rant yeah yeah um before we start to talk about the stage we have to address this situation um so we started watching the race and uh got saw on social media

also that Jonas Fingerguard and Tadega Pogacar got woken up in the middle of the night for a doping control. Jonas Wingerard got woken up at 2 a.m. and Tadeep Pogatia at 5 a.m. which is something I have never, never heard. Add to that, to set the scene a little bit, the distance between yesterday's finish and today's start was 400,000. What does that mean? That yesterday after the stage, depending on where the team is staying, they had a two or three hour transfer. And this morning, another two and a half hour transfer. So obviously, your rest is already very reduced.

You know, I heard that Pogaccia in his interview, he said, you know, he always goes to bed late. He went to bed at one o'clock and got woken up at five. Yeah, which makes the times way worse because potentially. So Jonas was asleep for one hour before you go woke up. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I wrote down in my notes here and I say, no, doping controls for Jonas and today in the middle of the night. What the actual fuck I wrote down. Then I did a little bit of research.

So apparently it's not confirmed, but I heard. So it's not the UCI or not the ITA, which is what's called international testing agency. That's like the official independent testing agency. But it was the French anti-doping authorities called the AFLD. I think it's AFLD is AGOE Agenz Frenches de lute contra leopage, AFLD. You know, I think this incident, Spencer, up till now, including the situation we had with the shitty hotels a few days ago,

I think that's probably the most disrespectful event that the writers have been submitted to so far in this tour de France. You know, the tour is not over, so who knows what else they can come up with. But, you know, I mean, you know, we all know that the tour de France is very, very hard. These guys getting tested every, Pogacra every day, every day after the stage gets tested. A lot of times every, in the morning, one time out of three mornings, he gets tested two. It's fine.

You know, the rules say that between 11,000. 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. There's no testing unless there are special circumstances. Special circumstances is, for example, if a rider, you know, they have to give their whereabouts. They have to report their whereabouts. And you have, as a rider, you have to give a one hour window every day. And as a rider, you are allowed actually to say, okay, you know what, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. for example.

Or, for example, if you have to go to an airport, to a plane, to take a plane, you can say between 5 and 6 a.m. I'm home and I need to leave at 6 a.m. You could do that, right? This was obviously not the case. So then the rules also say that if there is a special reason. So whatever that may be, people kind of hint into direction that if there is suspicion, that then these rules can be changed. I think it's ridiculous, Spencer.

I think it's, you know, this borders the human rights infraction, in my opinion. You know, and so this happens. We're talking about it. But, you know, nobody's saying anything. You know, the writers, of course, Bogotcha and Wingerard, they were both interviewed. They were trying to be as nice as possible about it. I'm sure they were super pissed. They, you know, politically correct.

ASO is not going to say anything. They're going to say, okay, it's not our problem. This is the authorities. You know, but somebody needs to say something about this. We are talking about it. You know, we can rant all we want. And I will never leave an opportunity unturned if I have the opportunity to complain about this.

But, you know, who cares what I say, right? Nobody cares. So, you know, my question today, for example, after this is for the UCI and for its president, my good friend, David Lappartier. He gives me once again an opportunity to ask him a question, you know. You know, Mr. David, are you going to say something about it? Are you going to take a stand? Are you going to bring an official position?

Are you not embarrassed about this? my ami David you know because you are presiding over a sport and these incidents in my opinion or dehumanizing

I'm asking the question he's probably going to get the question because I know he reads what I say but you know my prediction is that he's not going to say anything that's ridiculous. Can you imagine another sport where the person in charge would not mention anything about this?

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, La Partier starts to look more and more, not at the same scale, but because obviously football is a lot bigger than cycling. But to me, he starts to look like this clown who presides the FIFA, you know, Johnny Infantino, who makes these ridiculous, stupid decisions and just cannot be bothered, whatever they say, they don't care. So I think he should take a stand and not a political answer.

This is not acceptable, guys. Just imagine, Spencer, any other sport, football, the World Cup's going on, you know, Wimbledon's going on, whatever, Formula One golf tournaments. imagine for one second that the anti-oping authorities show up at 2 a.m. at the hotel of the racers, the football players, the drivers, the tennis guys. What would happen? They would not let them in. And guess what? They would not let them in and nothing would happen to them. If a cyclist says, you're not coming in, you're thrown out of the race. That's how bad it is. This is ridiculous. they yeah i guess i'm kind of sick of i'm kind of sick of it at this point though like the riders they have to take a stand because they always we always say like oh this would never happen in football there's never up in tennis because serena willis would say fuck off you're not coming into my house

at one in the morning if the riders don't do that nothing will ever change and maybe not the riders but the teams yeah you a he could say we're leaving we're leaving like what what do you think would happen and also who is in charge here like it's unclear to me how this is happens. Yeah. That's what we don't know. Who is giving the instructions, right? I mean, it has to come from somewhere.

Also, Spencer, little side note, AFLD, French anti-opening association. Vingergaard and Boghyaa get tested in the middle of the night. Why doesn't Paul Sexas get a test in the middle of the night? Well, yeah, I mean, that's where your mind goes first, right? You're like, this feels like chicanery. But, come on. So, Guillaume, Guillome working in the lab at AFL the, so let's say he's like, you know what, I'm going to go test them at one in the morning.

What's the chain of command? Does you have to run that by anybody? Do we know how that works? Does anyone know how that works? That's the thing, Spencer. We don't know. And they don't know. And on top of that, they are not accountable to anybody.

That's ridiculous. How could that be true? That's the biggest problem. They're not accountable. So they can do whatever they want. I mean, this goes way too far. I mean, I could go on and on and on talking about. you know, things that I have experienced with anti-doping authorities and the way, I mean,

it's a completely different story, but they can bend the rules and break the rules however they want and they're not accountable to anything. Well, so what if WADA showed up at 1.30 and AFLD showed up at 2? Like who has, do they even talk to each other? No, I think it's Wada. Obviously, it's probably WADA who gives the instruction. that's the that's the world and the oping agency so and so wada is some

sort they're like untouchable like they get to do whatever they want I guess they are untouchable they are untouchable but they're not only untouchable in cycling that's that's the thing I can't quite figure out like they're not testing Cocoa Gough at two in the morning at Wimbledon yeah exactly yeah so why are those athletes

because cycling and cyclists are the vulnerable you know there's no there's no union there's no never a front do this in Wimbledon and all the rider all the players are going to strike well then i i at this point though the cyclists only have themselves to blame because people know they'll never take a stand no that's that's not the way it works that's not the way it works it's a lot more complex than this

you know it's uh the the the survival uh insurance of cyclists and teams is way too vulnerable to take a stand and strike or protest uh it this it's way too vulnerable and there's too many different teams, too many different interests and at the end whatever happens, whether it's teams or writers who are unhappy and they want to protest,

there's never going to be unity and the authorities, whether it's ASO or the UCI or WADA, they know that there's division. It's never going to have. It needs to change. Hopefully it will change you know. It's only going to change by force.

It's not going to change by itself, that's for sure. It's been a while since we've spoken about, what was it, one cycling back in the days? You know, that kind of has gone silent. Yeah. May still be going on, maybe. So we'll see. We'll see. I would say the only slight wrinkle in this is so the tour is all powerful, right?

You can't do anything. But Gajar might start winning so many tours that he doesn't care. And he might say, you know what? I'm not going to go to the tour. If you guys are going to treat me like this, I'm not coming back next year. Like that, that could. get interesting. If he's like, you know what, I'm going to do the tour of Austria. Because they're being nice to me. No, it's, that was ridiculous today. I've never heard this of this.

And, you know, uh, this is, this is not, uh, respectful towards athletes who do their job and go day through day through, you know, in very, very hard conditions. A few days ago, we were talking already about the bad hotels. imagine you're in a shitty hotel without the sea with insects and then you get woken up and you're getting woken up and then you look in the morning Spencer then you look in the morning you know in the race book and you say I'm going to check where to say it's so sleep oh today they slept in a five-star castle oh and how long is our drive oh it's only three hours to start oh incredible how fun I just can't believe like if you let's say we we all

work at a place right all three of us on this call if Gabriel, our producer said, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to ask Lance a question. I'm going to go to his house. Oh, what time are you going to go to his house? Like, well, maybe don't do that. That's not an appropriate time to go to someone's house. I just don't understand how that gets past the first step. Why no one would be like, maybe that's not a great time to test somebody.

But I kind of feel. Yeah. It feels ridiculous. It's, it's really, really ridiculous. It's, it's not acceptable. But we say it's not acceptable, but yet, unfortunately, it is accepted. Yeah. I mean, it is condoned.

The behavior while terrible is condoned by the continuation of the event. So as long as they can do it and there's no consequence, they'll keep doing it. So you see this with kids. You see this with certain leaders of certain countries. They'll just get away with whatever you allow them to. But so, Johan, this happens terrible. there's no consequence, right? Because everyone finished the stage healthy and looked fantastic out there.

Oh, wait, no, they did not. Jonas Findergarde running probably on two hours of sleep crashes out of the race before the final climb. Immediately his team is leading Vizma, which I do want to get into why Vizma was leading on the stage, pulling the breakway back that had Tom Pickcock in it, interestingly, again. And they go, they kind of biff a roundabout. If you watch it, they go the wrong way around and it makes it a really tight. compressed turn. A few guys get through and then Jonas slides out and crashes. Takes down a few other riders like Isaaco Toro, but he immediately could see he had a broken

collar bone. This is like unmistakable and he's out of the race. How does this affect the race? Were you shocked to see this? Where you sad to see this? I mean, it's a bummer, of course. I mean, when you see that, it's like, oh, I mean, I had a, I have a whole list here of notes, you know, like what I thought I was going to talk about, you know, about strategy and the tactics of Visma and, you know, of a sudden, it's all through the window. Jonas crashes out. It's like, fuck. What now? You know? It looked to me...

Imagine how Fisma feels. Yeah, man. It's... Unfortunately, it happens. It happens every year. Every year, you know, a team loses their star rider and the guys need to go on, you know? And to me, it looked like Visma was kind of turning around a bit. You know, Jorgensen started, starts to look better. Armiral starts to look better they were in the break

yeah they were in the break with two riders and today it looked like they had a plan I heard after the stage that Paganzoli said that the plan was to try to win the stage with Jonas which is a valid plan still questioning how they would have won against today but at least they were trying

and of course the strategy of Visma basically made sure that the breakaway was not going to make it. There was a little time of hesitation after Jonas crashed and everything slowed down. Okay, maybe the break can make it. Finally, it couldn't. But definitely a bummer for the race. First of all, for Jonas, of course. That's, I mean, yeah.

I don't, I mean, he was not going to win this tour anyways. but still it sucks when you have to crash out like this and then you know it's yet another thing i mean he had his fair share of bad luck already this guy in the last two years uh we all remember that huge uh crash in the bas country a couple of years ago where you know that that was that was really really bad now colorbone is not is not bad but you know it's another hit on the you know on the you know on the morale you know yeah it's more of a more like physically he'll come back but it's yeah it's not good for your morale you don't feel like no no no no and you know already you know i don't know i don't know i hope he can recover i mean he's going to recover quickly uh he probably won't

now you know okay this this happens now so now if you look back say good thing he did the gero He won the Gero. I know. That's what I was thinking. You know, he won the Gero. He has already won all three grand tours. There's not much left for him now, right? He's, I mean, whatever happens, he has, he is in that list already of very select people,

where, by the way, Tadapagas is not in yet. So, yeah, that was definitely a huge bummer. Yeah. And then afterwards, what we saw was, was strange, in my opinion, the way this, stage then developed. You know, we saw Quinn Simmons really strong, really strong in that breakaway, actually riding stronger than these climbers, stronger than Adam Yeats, stronger than Pitcock, who did a lot of work, stronger than, who was the other guy?

Rubio, was it Rubio? Who was there? I think so. I know, those are all pure climbers, you know. I checked, I checked on pro-cycling style zone. I don't know if it's true or not. Quinn Simmons is 73 kilos. and he was with guys, you know, in the low 60s.

And he dropped them twice. He's super strong. I would like to see him ride a little bit smarter sometimes. You know, he just, he's super strong and he kind of, to me, it seems like he enjoys showing his incredible strength. But that's not how you win the most bike races. no no no i mean whether today he could have one or not that's another question with that super super hard climb but you know uh yeah he's in great shape though he's you know he has a stage stage win in the legs for sure but he needs to ride a bit more intelligently i mean he finished with his

team's gc guys on that climb super impressive he does kind of remind me of a bodybuilder you know you get out there and you're like in the bikini showing your muscles off kind of of how this type of riding is. Like, for example, should he not have been in the breakaway when Maro Schmidt won on stage? Yeah. For sure. Like that,

would that not have been a better use of his resources if you think about it? But that's, they, uh, they missed the move that they had to chase so hard, no? Yeah. Well, they only had to chase hard because they rode too hard and they blew the race up and

then they run in the move and Matt's Pedersen had to chase alone. Normally, Spencer, like a stage like a breakaway like today, you know, normally when Quinn Simmons is in the breakaway, it is probably because there is no chance he's not going to be in the breakaway because it's so hard to be in the break that he's automatically in it. Yeah. That's how strong he is, you know? So then of course, when you're in the break, then by now everybody knows how strong he is. So then, you know, everybody knows already Quinn, you don't need to show it to anybody. you just save something, you know. So big debate on the set.

He didn't have a team car with him, as I'm sure you noticed, because the Little Trek, one car was with Matt's Pedersen in the Gruppetto, and one is with the GC guys. Should they have done that differently? I know they can't. They can't. Because they... Matt's Pedersen is in the green jersey.

He needs the car with him. That's their main goal. Then the other. the other car needs to stay with the GC guys. So, no, they couldn't have a car with him. Well, they should, I mean, in theory, there's still, there's still a lot of people, staff people on the road. There is always, especially when you're in the breakaway, there is the motorbike with bottles.

You know, it's probably going to be water. But still, you know, it's better than nothing. Am I crazy, Johan, or can you not like tell Tudor, like, hey, can you take care of our guy for us. Yes, of course. It's in two doors, it's in two doors best interest for him to be strong. So they're going to give him bottles with carbs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, they, of course they do that. Of course. Usually they do that. But, you know, nowadays, I don't know how the relationships are between teams. Back in the days, it was always the same. You know, even when there's a mechanical, you know, you, I remember and certain certain races, I mean, not the Tour de France, but other races,

for example, where there was only one car in the race, usually there's a breakaway and then you look for another team that's in the break that, for example, is also on Shimano. And you say, you know, can you take care of my guy? In the meantime, I will take care of your guys here, you know? So, so, yeah, that used to happen. I don't know if that still happens or not. If he was in a break with a rider from my team,

I would say Quinn can we make in some pancakes. You know, you want Quinn as strong as. It's like, let's, let's cook you up anything you want because you're driving this breakaway so hard. George and Gabby was having a really hard time wrapping his head around this. But I was trying to explain during the move.

If Mads Pedersen has a mechanical and can't make the time cut because he doesn't have a team car with them, they look like frigid idiots, right? You have to take care of. No, they had no choice. They had no choice today. Little track,

they had no choice. there has to be a team car with Mats and the other team car is with the main guys. You know, as long as they had two minutes, that first car could probably go back and forth between the breakaway and the main group. But that's not having your team car all the time there, right? And I think, I don't think it was that big of a deal for Quinn. I mean, obviously we saw that on two occasions or three occasions, he missed. he missed a bottle.

I think one of the times he missed a bottle, but it was a Red Bull. He was trying to get a bottle from Red Bull, and the guy from Swanier from Red Bull just pulled it away at the last moment. But, you know, especially when you're in the break, you have this, they call it Moto Frescheur,

like the fresh motorbike with bottles all the time. So I don't think it was that big of an issue. And I mean, the green, jersey is a big deal. I feel like people aren't fully understanding that. To win a leaders jersey at the tour is a big deal. So you got to, you got to take a quick break. And then we'll talk about the actual final climb of today. We need to talk about the stage today. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be right back

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After you purchase, I'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Okay, Johan, we are back. I don't know what you want to talk about first, but we should say so Jonas crashes out. Kind of things were weird for a little bit. because Vizma was the one pacing, as you said. There's no team pacing. No one's going to notice this, and it probably won't matter.

The wheels are kind of coming off, UAE. In the first week, you were like, man, they are riding hard. Are they going to make it three weeks? Tim Wellens looked terrible. Like, they had guys drop them before they were pulled. And it doesn't really matter because Bahrain and Red Bull come forward to pull for them. And it's like, oh, thanks guys for doing this. Red Bull, though, it turned out knew what they were doing because they're pacing.

And then Remcoeventipal has an amazing climb. Like, what did you think of that? Yeah, I have this, first of all, I had this written down here about UAE, you know, that there were teammates very early in the stage in trouble already, you know, like, Ramirez. Wellens was having a trouble. Yesterday, for example, McNulty and Adam Yates were never able to do what they were supposed to do. You know, so I'm going back to my criticism from week one, you know, and the famous analogy of the bucket. you know, the bucket is getting fuller and fuller.

These efforts are there. And it doesn't matter because Pelacha is so strong. But and then until today, you know, they could kind of bank also on the fact that they knew that Visma was going to do the way. They did it already yesterday. Today, I think Visma, they had a plan. But at the same time, they were also basically paving the way for UAE. Because, you know, it's like, okay. okay now it's completely irrelevant because Jonas is gone right but the theory or the thinking was

always yeah you know Jonas needs a hard race you know the harder it is the better he has the chances on the last climb yeah what about Bogachar the harder you know it's it's even better for today you know yeah yeah plus he can have a hard race without having to spend his teammates I know I know right but I guess the devil's advocate of that would be if Red Bull came to us last night and said, we got a great plan, Johan. We're going to ride into the final climb and we're going to win the stage. You'd say how? How are you going to solve this tatade problem?

And it worked. So, I mean, I don't know. Maybe Jonas would have won the stage. We don't know. I don't think so, Spencer. I think, you know, if today Vizma could execute their plan, my prediction would have been that they pace in hard, their selection. and then Jonas starts to ride fast and it's just Jonas and Taday left.

Based on what I've seen so far. Yeah. And then, you know, and then if it's both of them together to the finish, today is not letting him win. Plus, Taday is already, he was already four, was he four and a half minutes, four and a half minutes. He was four and a half minutes ahead of him. He doesn't even need to attack. He can just, you know, do a 200 meter,

effort and then take the bonification and it's another 20 seconds, right? And you don't think he let's, you don't think he would let Jonas win. No. No, he would not let Jonas win. Now on today, I have another, another theory. So if we, if we look at how then finally developed initially, so Jonas crashes. There's, there's, you know, a bit of the organization. People don't know what to do.

It was clear that UAE was not, they were going to stay put. They were not going to do anything. From that moment on, their whole plan changed. But we saw Bahrain pace because Lenny Martinez, ninth or 10th place, was again under threat of some pitcock, I guess, right? Yeah. But anyways, then Red Bull starts to pick up the pace on that last climb. They have turned it around.

I mean, there's been stages early in this. tour where it was just Remko and Lipowitz and no teammates around. Today they had six riders. They had six riders there. That was quite impressive. But then what do we see? Surprisingly. So the break, it looks like the break, I mean, the break is split up. But all of a sudden, Polachar starts to pace. So you see him talk to Del Toro and he starts to pace. And finally, what happens is only Remko who could follow. Seiksa was dropped, Ayusha was dropped, Lipuitt was dropped, and all the others were dropped.

So you see Pogacar pacing, but also constantly looking behind him. And surprisingly, I was really surprised and very happy to see that Remko was able to follow and not just follow. He looked in control, like his facial expression, his position, on the bike, his pedaling stroke, a good cadence. It looked to me, it has looked all the time, even when Del Toro was

in second position and Remko was in third, that Del Toro was struggling more than Remko. Is that not what you saw? Definitely. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. And so Pogacar on the radio. So I saw this clip

after the stage where And that's where you see that Pugachar is just a super nice guy. And we are always talking about, you know, the numbers, the record, you know, stage wins. Bogacha doesn't care about these stages. He clearly doesn't care after today. He already gave one away to Del Toro. And today he wanted to give another stage win to del Toro. Yeah.

He goes on the radio and he says, can I go progressive? We hear him say that. Meaning can I set a tempo and accelerate bit by bit? Next thing you hear is Del Toro saying, don't drop me. And so from that moment on, it was clear that Pugacha was not going to win the stage because if he accelerates, Del Toro, I mean, Remko was not going to get dropped from Del Toro. And then Del Toro tries a few. I think they underestimated Remko today.

They shouldn't have because, you know, we've seen already some incredible finals in stages from him where he comes back and sprints and actually puts time into his direct rivals. So, I mean, the fact that del Toro said, don't drop me, is Bogacha not too generous? Is he not too nice of a guy? What do you think? That's a good question. And we should say, Jonas being out fundamentally changes this race because none of this would have happened if Jonas was here.

Yeah. Because he would have attacked. It would have been those two guys. this is so good for Remko that there's no one there because Bogotcha didn't know what to do. I mean, is he too generous? This doesn't really hurt his ability to win the race.

I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes. Today, okay, he gave the stage in Barcelona. That was really nice. I know. Yeah. But today, man, I mean, him started, first of all, imagine this, Spencer.

This is the yellow jersey, the dominator of the Tour de France, the strongest guy in the race, and he starts to be the super domestic for a guy, was amazing cyclist, he said that de Toto, but he has shown some weaknesses during the Stude of France, which we maybe had not calculated. Maybe we had not thought of. Which is what happens is the tour, right?

He's still doing an amazing race Telforto, right? But to make this a priority and him being facing, And then, okay, you can do that and you can try and say, okay, maybe we go both of us. But when you see the rampos there, you can say, hey, okay, these guys are not, you know, they can see the body language. They can hear the breathing. You know, it's like these guys are not amateurs. They know, you know.

So when, I mean, I was surprised to see that. And then on top of that, it's not like Pugachar is saying what he's going to hear. He is asking permission. Listen to this, person. answer. The yellow jersey is asking permission to a guy, incredible cyclist, but for the moment, the only thing we have seen Tol Toro do for Pogacar is a 300 meter pull on the Turmalet. There's nothing else he has done so far. I go back to yesterday. I go back to yesterday.

Pugacar did not attack earlier because he wanted to save Del Toro, who was struck. Yeah. Today was, I mean, after seeing this video and the race radio, I said, man, come on. I, I'm a big progachar fan. You know, I love him. I love the way he races. But man, come on. Can I go progressive?

And then Del Toro says, don't drop me. And he just stays put. Come on. It's still a bike race. You know, it's the tour de France. Well, let's deconstruct this. So let's say Pagotcha goes progressive, drops everybody wins the stage. What does that accomplish for him in the team?

He increases his lead. His idea was to go progressive faster to drop Remko. Yeah, yeah. And let's just say that happens. That was the attention, right? Let's just like, let's say that happens. He wins. He drops them.

What do they accomplish? He gets a little bit of time on Remko, wins another stage. Deltora loses a bit of time. It's a stage for the tour. I mean, yeah, I think so. Isn't he just going to get more shit? The more he wins, the more shit he's going to get. One of the things, one of the things that I've also been thinking about, Spencer today is the following.

Could it be? It's just a question I'm asking. Could it be that Tadeepu Gachar did not want to win the stage today that his main rival crashed out? He kind of seemed like it. It looked like he didn't. He could have still, even if he didn't go progressive, he still could have out sprinted Remko there at the end. He didn't stand up. Yeah. Yeah. So that's maybe why he didn't win, you know.

He's in mourning. And he wanted, he wanted Del Toro to win. But if Del Toro couldn't win, he didn't want to be the winner of the stage at his main rival crashed out with a broken color ball. That's maybe the whole explanation. I don't know. Maybe. It absolutely looked like that. Also, also, so Remko wins the stage. Remko's very excited. Rebels very excited. Remko was buzzing. He was, he was like an Adam in that post-race interview. Yeah. He is pumped. He is feeling so. good about Remko at Mopold right now. And he's going to come out in that third week and they're going to be on the front. They're going to be doing everything. They're going to take control.

Like, maybe that's worth the investment for Pagachar. You give away stage win. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it is. Listen, I mean, first of all, Remko, amazing. I did not expect him to hang on there. In the last kilometer, I thought that Remko would win.

When they got to the last kilometer, I said, okay, they're not dropping him. Del Toro has been struggling. he has maybe a little bit of acceleration, but not enough to beat Remko. And I think today Remko answers the critics, including ourselves. We have been critical of Remko. We just spent like 10 minutes yesterday. Like, you know, he's not good on the steep climbs and this and that. Well, guess what?

Today, he showed us wrong. Definitely he proved us wrong. Yeah, I mean, amazing for him. you know by the way today it's today is the 500th victory of a belgian cyclist in the tour de france today we have the belgians have won 500 victories 500 stages in the tour um but yeah now he's sitting in second man that's that's well and he seems like he could finish there right and that changes the whole conversation we had yesterday it looks it looks completely different now we still have to see what what he does in the last week.

But, you know, let's not forget. And I think I saw it. I said yesterday, Spencer, this is a guy who already finished on the podium of the Tour de France. And one of the very few won a grand tour. Right? Yeah. There's not that many who have done it. By the way, yes, when we talked about it yesterday,

yeah, yeah. Who else did it Bernal? Yeah, Egan Bernal. Yeah. And also, Sepkus won a grand tour. but didn't finish on the podium. Yeah, didn't finish in the podium of another one. Wait.

Yeah. Yeah. Sep Kuz, is he going to win this tour? I mean, I'm just looking at Remke. I'm looking at, it's funny you say that because that's usually setting those examples aside, it's usually a very good predictor of who does well. Like who's won a grand tour, who's podiumed at the tour to France. That's if you like, if you did a blind test, you'd say, yeah, that person's probably going to finish on the podium.

That's why, that's why I have difficulties with people who say, you know, like, well, Ramco cannot climb. I mean, what do you mean he cannot climb? He was third in the Tour de France. I think if they're saying that, they're saying, they're saying he does not have the, he's not showing the ability to climb. And he didn't for like two years. The thing is he has been very irregular.

You know, he has been very irregular. And he's shown, you know, ups and downs. But at the same time, to me, it looks like, and I don't know Remko personally yet. So I don't know him at all. But to me, it looks like he is a guy who. functions with the morale, you know. Yeah. This morale he has now, he's buzzing. I think he's staying there, man. He's going to be second, third or fourth. I don't know if he, you know, but I don't know what sex us. You know, by the way, first little weakness today of Paul Seixas, I would say.

You know, normally, yeah, well, I mean, he still defended really well. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But yeah, I was a surprise by that. I thought he would be with that group. Yeah, normally, I mean, normally he would he would be with del Toro and Remko right but he got I mean he he recovered really well but he got dropped like the first of the six guys that were struggling he got dropped you know he was dropped before Lipowitz and before are you so and then I don't if you noticed this he had to do a huge effort at the start of the stage yeah and he was saying on the radio like I feel great but man that was a big effort no it takes it takes something out of you you know it was again

I don't know what the final average speed was, but I think before the last climb, I think it was 44 kilometers average again. The final was 42. It's 4,000 meters of climbing. This is just insane, man. Insane. I mean, Spencer, I told you, I told you privately,

but now that we're talking about this, I think a while ago we were talking about, or did I say it on the show about the Tourmalet? No, I think that was in private. Yeah. So I was telling a story about the Turmala. in my first tour de France, you know, this is an example of how much this sport has changed. And it's, I mean, it's not even the same sport anymore.

So when I told the story of the tourmalet, right, in my first tour de France that I was in a breakaway with the yellow jersey, capucci. We came over the tour malay. And then since I've talked about that, somebody has sent me a video clip off that stage. I had never seen this before. And so you see on the images, we crest the tourmalet. And this stage finished in Lusardiden. So you go over the tourmalade and you still have to go down a bit of a valley.

And then Luzard de Den, which is, I'm going to guess, 13, 14 kilometer climb. I don't know, Pyrenees. So the four of us crest the tourmalade and I see in the top, we had five hours, 58 minutes of race done already. So almost six hours. So that means that we have at least another hour, if not more. So more than seven hour race. And our average speed on the top of the Tourmalet was 30 kilometers per hour, average. So I don't know which climbs we had before.

We had two other climbs before that. So it was a huge mile stage. But still, you know, it was, it looked so slow. It looked so we were fighting the bikes like, you know, not just struggling to make it to the top with the gears we had. 3923 probably back then. Steel bikes, down tube shifters, you know. Now, if I see today 42 kilometers average over a 4,000 meter stage, that's just insane, man. And every single stage is the same thing.

I mean, today was a big mountain stage, four hours, 23 minutes. Yeah. You know, like, that's not that long for a big mountain stage. And then just before we do the prediction. So Remko's five minutes behind Pagachar. Let's say that's safer now, but he's almost a minute over Del Toro and third, a minute and a half over six us and almost two minutes ahead of his teammate Lipowitz, and he's going to take time on them probably in the time trial. So he's looking pretty good for second if he can keep that morale up. After the time trial, he's probably going to be at least six minutes ahead of Del Toro.

And sorry, sorry. Sorry. No, no, no, sorry, two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. Yeah. Another minute. And, uh, yeah, another minute on Seixas also, at least, I think.

The beautiful thing about Remkeld though is, who knows what could happen? We don't know. We don't know. He could gain or lose all that. You know, like today's Sexas cracked a little bit, but he didn't really explode, you know? He did not explode. He's still there. He's still there, right?

He's still there. Yeah. Yep. I mean, if think. Like, want to use so, really good writer. Two minutes behind Remco and then Sixthauce, limited it to 58 seconds. So that's really impressive. Yeah.

Let's skip questions today to keep it. Keep the time reasonable. But stage 16 preview, we have a rest day tomorrow. We will not be podcasting. Very excited about that. Come out of the rest day with the time trial. Not very nice. Not very neighborly.

That's mean. 26K long. and it's a tough, it starts on a 10K long climb, 4.5, 4.2% descent and then flat 8K or 10K-ish to the finish. Kind of a technical course when you look at the map. You'd imagine this will be one by one of Remcoe Evanapal, Felipe O'Gana or sleeper pick, Tatea Pagachar. But who does this? That's the three names I wrote down, Spencer. Remco, Ogunna, Pogachar.

And I would not write Pagachar off on this type of course. No. But I think especially because there's a rest day, you know, if it would have been tomorrow after today's stage and yesterday stage. Pagotcha, yeah. I would have picked Ghana. Well, hold that thought because the odds. But still, I'm going to pick Remkel to win the stage.

what we're just doing bill simmons guess the lines what do you think remco is on draft kings for the stage win um mine is 150 minus 230 oh wow and then pagetra is plus 175 Ghana is plus 2000 to me plus 2000 yeah maybe sprinkle a little bit of money on Ghana because what's going on here what's with disrespect Spencer you know what is if it's plus 2,000 there has to be a reason that we have overseen. I don't think they're going to take that risk, man. Did he finish the day? Finished the stage today?

Did he crash? He must, they must have some information. You know, he's empty, you know, like tired. I don't know. Because it's actually a really well done time trial course, if you look at it, quite, quite interesting with the climb the descent. Ghana is probably running really low on energy. You know, he's done the Gero already at the best.

beginning of this at the start of the tour he said he was super tired um we haven't seen a great gun he's been trying to go in breaks but he hasn't been in any yeah yeah he does like he has he did get he should be in some you know probably i mean there's not it's not been that many good breaks though yeah it would be the day that he the only day that probably he really should have been in the breakaway was the one where he won the bunch spent behind the breakaway Yeah, yeah, yeah. On stage nine, I don't know, man. And then so points class, also, if you want to bet on this next bets, go to NXDBets.com slash bet outcomes.

You get to see the best prices. And they have fun little wizard so you can just check a bunch of different lines. One of them being the points classification, Mads Pedersen down to minus 575, Phillips and plus 450. So the book thinks that Patterson is probably going to win this, which is true. because he is up by 30 something points, right? 377 minus 336. He's up by 41 points and it gets a lot more complicated from here. Like you have sprint points at the end of tough stages,

whereas Phillips and realistically going to get over, let's see, on the Alp to West stage, he's got to get over a cat two and cat one climb in the breakaway and get the sprint points. Probably not going to happen on stage 20. The sprint point is after. the cold at alcoeur. So probably Philipson will not be in the breakaway on an HC climb.

And I would imagine Pedersen will try to be, right? You will try to be in one. But, you know, on these stages, I also don't think he will get the maximum points. But he could get some points. Yeah. You know, especially stage 17, which is that's, I mean, he could win that stage. It's like a classic breakaway day. also abandoned of timmerlir after his three stage when he said okay that's it not worth it anymore

i saw him get dropped like first thing with sword yeah varrenschild and i was like ooh that's a long day and then tim earlier probably thought the same thing but uh any so on the time trial who do you think remco is going to win yeah yeah and then how far back is pagachar um hmm How long is it? 26K. 26. So at this, at this rate, what's that? 26 minutes.

They're going to do it in like 30 minutes probably. No, it's nine kilometers uphill, 4%. So I'm going to say Ramco wins with 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Yeah. I mean, that's tracking with what he's been taking out of Pagachar, other two of French town trials like this. But, I mean,

It's crazy that how often on GC set pieces does anyone take any time on Pagachar? So that's pretty impressive if he can take any time on Taday Pagatia. Yeah, but he's the best time trialist in the world. You know, he's three times world champion already. Yeah, Olympic champion. He's particularly good at staying in the TT position on climbs. So great course. By the way, today, today first stage win non-time trial over, I'm going to tour.

I was thinking that, yeah, that I've never seen a win. It's his third stage man. Is it his first? No, that's not true. Because he's won vault of stages on the road. Has he won a zero stage on the road or no? No. No, I don't think so.

I think just the time trial. Well, anything else, Johan, before we take off? We need to inventive trivia. Yeah. Yes. Let's pull it up. So the question for yesterday, I don't even have it, pulled it up. Not professional at all.

This is ridiculous. Yesterday was about the ball and Azas. Yes, it was. And it was, man, this is annoying. This is annoying here. I'm just going to search for the spreadsheet. But it was when was it first climbed? Climbed in the Tour de France.

Do you know the answer, Johan? 1905. Yeah, 1905. So five years before the Tourmalet. I did not know that before this question. Pretty interesting. And if you know the answer to this question I'm about to ask, and you want to get $5,000 toward an NS1 or GS1 of your,

choice the NS1 is the road bike brand new design much more arrow much faster the GS1 is a gravel bike it rides just like a road bike but you can put big old almost mountain bike tires in it now so if you want to win one of those go to ventumracing dot com slash the move and enter your answer and if you don't win it and you just want to buy a bike use the move use code the move 10 for 10% off a bike which could be quite a bit of money off a bike so the plateau de de salison makes its debut as a tour finished during today's stage. Just weeks before the tour, the same climb was the decisive battleground for the fake dauphiné, the traditional warm-up race for the tour.

I love that. I believe I'll hear, I'll try to say it, the tour Overn Rhone Alps, the traditional tour. Pretty good. Only because I heard it every day during the race. Poor Lance got it today. I was like, oh, we didn't brief him on this. He probably doesn't even know the name changed. Which promising young rider won there attacking 9K from the top and finishing a minute clear of their rivals?

So if you know the answer to that question, go to ventumracing.com slash the move. Interestingly, this guy broke his time today on this climb. So that's a, that's a hint for you. Which shows you the difference between the tour. Also, I don't think we said it. People that want to know, Remko Evanapole estimated it around 6.5 watts per kilo for 32 minutes on the final time. today, which is translated to yeah, pretty good. Exactly.

That's what I was. Yeah. That's that's pretty good. That's Jonas Finnegard level climbing. So yeah, this was the best, maybe the best climbing performance I've ever seen from RECO. You know, undervalue Remko's performance today. Uh, you know, he won, he got the win because there were special circumstances, but

in the end of the day, he was the only writer who could stay with Bulacchar. Uh, You know, the question is what would have happened if Pogacar didn't write for Deltro? Most likely answer is that Pagacar would have one solo. But still, you cannot take away this unbelievably nice victory of Remko. And yeah, the fact that he has today at least shut up all the people who are critical, including me. Maybe spent 20 minutes yesterday saying, should he just give up on G.C. He's going to get top five.

And now he might get top two. Also, for reference, 2024 at Plato to Buy, which I thought was a really good performance from him, 6.6 watts per kilo. So better performance today. We saw the best Remko we've probably ever seen on a climb. He looked great. Keep it up, Remko. Don't listen to us. Get second at this tour.

Try to win this tour. Let's have some fun. All right, Johan, anything else? Let's go and watch the football final. Yeah. And we shouldn't give our picks because everyone will know who won and will look like idiots if we say anything about it. But yes, best of luck to Spain. Get out to that pub.

It's going to be fun watching it with your country. Okay. And we will talk to you on Tuesday, not tomorrow.