Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2025 Tour de France Stage 14

Introduction 

This year’s Tour de France started off really well, with an exciting first couple weeks. I’ll recount those as part of today’s albertnet coverage of Stage 14, a day of massive climbing in the Pyrenees. I’m not going to lie: Tadej Pogacar (UAE – Team Emirates XRG) is once again making the GC (i.e., overall) competition boring AF. (If you’re not familiar with the abbreviation “AF,” go ask a teenager.)

If this is your first time reading one of my blow-by-blow reports, be advised that I am not a professional journalist, which means I don’t worship brevity, I don’t always stick to the point, I never bite my tongue when a rider is doped or being dopey, and I’m not bitter about being poor. And today, during a lull, I plan to have the uncomfortable conversation (okay, monologue) about whether Pogacar could possibly be clean.

Tour de France Stage 14 – Pau to Luchon-Superbagnères

As I join the action, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) is cresting the hors categorie (i.e., goes-up-to-11) Col du Tourmalet, solo. You can tell he’s a great climber because a) he’s rocking the polka-dot jersey of best climber, and b) he’s first atop the Tourmalet, duh! He’s either starting to put his jacket on, or plans to ride the entire stage no-handed as a stunt, determined to make this Tour interesting.

The big news the announcers are recapping is that the rider sitting third on GC going into today, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), was dropped and decided just to abandon the Tour. This is called grit. This is called humility. This is what it means to have a work ethic. Wait, I’m getting confused. Actually this is the absence of these things, obviously. In this replay, Evenepoel waves off the cameraman.

Rumor has it Evenepoel is abandoning because I hurt his feelings in my coverage of the Dauphiné last month. Is there anything to this rumor? Well, it’s been well established that most of these riders do read albertnet, some of them even while riding or racing. (By “well established” I mean I assume this to be the case.)

Behind Martinez, a couple minutes back, is a group of sixteen riders including the American Sepp Kuss (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) and Valentin Paret Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step). As Martinez takes this wet descent very cautiously, Kuss and Peintre drop the rest of the chasers and start closing the gap to Martinez pretty quickly. I guess descending no-handed just isn’t very aerodynamic.

Martinez reaches the base of the Col d’Aspin, still riding no-handed. You gotta admire his pluck. He must have made a bet with someone he could pull this off, and is sticking to it even at the risk of losing the stage.

The two chasers are working well together and have the gap down to less than a minute now.

Just over a kilometer from the summit of the Aspin, Martinez  is still riding no-handed.

Back in the main peloton, Pogacar’s UAE team sets tempo at the front, keeping this gap down. They’re apparently worried about Tobias Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), the highest-placed rider on GC, who sits in eighth place overall, “only” 10:36 behind Pogacar. Is it that that’s not enough of a gap to protect Pogacar’s yellow jersey, this group being about four minutes behind? Or is it that UAE has decided Pogacar needs to win every single remaining stage of this Tour, just to further ridicule the sport after his total domination of this Tour, the Dauphiné, and the classics season?

Martinez summits the Aspin and gets max KOM points, plus a €9,000 bonus.

Kuss and Paret-Peintre catch Martinez on the descent and the three begin the Peyresourde. Martinez has evidently given up on his bet, and has his hands on the handlebars for the first time all day. He looks pretty dejected. Meanwhile, Kuss fights with something stuck in his teeth. I hate it when this happens. Your tongue gets all sore trying to get that food particle out. It’s distracting.

Most of the rest of the chase group has caught the three leaders. Not far behind is Simon Yates, one of Kuss’s teammates.

Now Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) attacks the group! Only Martinez and Johannessen can stay with him. And now they’re dropped.

Back in the main bunch, UAE continues to drive the pace, with their rider Pavel Sivakov really suffering. They’re bringing down the gap to the chase group considerably.

Arensman takes the summit solo, unless you count my cat who is clearly jealous of the attention this race is getting.

Martinez beats out the others for KOM points, experimenting with riding one-handed to see how fast that might be. Seems to be working for him.

Behind, the chase group has split in two, with Kuss in the second group.

As the riders take the final descent before beginning their assault of the Luchon-Superbagnères climb, I’ll fill you in on what’s gone down in this Tour so far. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the first stage, which was one designed for the sprinters. Stage 2, also a sprinters’ stage, was incongruously almost won by Pogacar, whose lust for wins is insatiable. Only Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was able to best him, and barely. Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) won stage 3, and then in stage 4—a lumpy route that should favor a breakaway—Pogacar overhauled Van der Poel in the final sprint and won, which isn’t at all weird for the best climber in the world. Stage 5 was a 33-kilometer (20.5-mile) time trial which Evenepoel handily won, with the big news being that Pogacar took second, just 16 seconds behind, utterly destroying his main rival (to the extent that he even has one), Team Visma - Lease A Bike’s Jonas Vingegaard, who finished all the way down in 13th, 1:21 behind the winner. This result put Pogacar in the yellow jersey. The next stage was won by Ben Healy (EF Education-Easypost), who is a total baller. Pogacar won again on stage 7, just ahead of Vingegaard. Stage 8 was flat and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) took it. Stage 9 was also flat, and unexpectedly exciting because Van der Poel broke away with a teammate over 100 miles from the finish, and then went solo with, I don’t know, ten miles to go. He almost held off the chase but was caught less than 700 meters from the line. Heartbreaking! Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) took that stage.

Things got interesting on stage 10, with a group of five riding clear and staying off to the finish. Its best-placed GC rider, Healy, couldn’t manage a second stage win but took enough time to snare the yellow jersey, becoming the first Irishman since Stephen Roche in 1987 to wear it. Simon Yates (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) won that stage. The commentators were questioning why Yates didn’t drop back to help Vingegaard in the GC battle behind, but I think the answer is obvious: nobody can beat Pogacar anyway, so the team might as well go for stage wins when it can. This is of course sad, for a team built around the GC, but it’s the reality of the sport right now.

Stage 11 was cool too, because a two-man breakaway barely managed to hold off the peloton, in addition to Van der Poel, who went after them solo and very nearly overhauled them in the last kilometer but fell tragically short. You should check out the finale not only for its nail-biting finish (my spoiler notwithstanding) but also because the Eurosport announcer yells, “A stupid, stupid person on the left!” referring to some crazy fan who ran out into the road waving a flag, and who gets chased out of the way and then full-on tackled by a race official. It was one of the real high points of this Tour. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) took the stage, a first for his rinky-dink Norwegian team.

Back to the action: as Arensman tackles the final climb solo, Mark Soler (UAE) drives the pace for Pogacar. They’re not far behind the chase group now, and on a climb this long they may well catch everybody, so we can be treated to another boring and devastating attack from Pogacar. It’s almost impossible to imagine Vingegaard even trying to attack him … the Dane hasn’t had the legs at any point during this Tour. That’s not a dig against him, by the way. His legs are great, they’re just not superhuman-space-alien.

Getting back to my recap, Stage 12 was the official start of the boring AF phase of this Tour, with Pogacar predictably attacking and soloing to victory. Remember how that used to be exciting? Before it became rote? He took over two minutes out of Vingegaard but it might as well have been twenty. The next stage, a 10.9-kilometer (6.8-mile) uphill time trial, was super boring, with Pogacar winning again, taking another 36 seconds out of Vingegaard, who not only showed the futility of his GC hopes but wore a breathtakingly ugly helmet.

This helmet became the big news of the day. Lamenting it, I texted my online race correspondent, “Vingegaard needs to be punished for that awful TT helmet. What a disgrace.” My correspondent replied, “Loser helmet.” I responded, “Yes, and a failing rider. Sad.” Then a friend emailed our bike team saying how his wife, seeing a bit of the race footage, “said [Vingegaard’s] helmet reminded her of a cartoon character from Fat Albert , which show she watched as a kid,” and attached this photo:

Another guy on our club replied, “That character is Dumb Donald.  And, well, Jonas looks dumb in that helmet.” Fair point. That being yesterday’s stage, this concludes my recap. 

And now the yellow jersey group has both chase groups in its sights, and will surely catch them. I’m not sure 2:33 will be enough of a gap for Arensman by the end, if things heat up in the GC battle.

The chase groups now merge, with only 20 seconds on the main group.

It’s time to talk about doping. Could Pogacar possibly be clean? Last year he won both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, which is generally considered impossible in the modern cycling era; the last rider to achieve this was the famously doped Marco Pantani all the way back in 1998. This year, Pogacar rode a full classics schedule, winning the Tour of Flanders, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, La Flèche Wallonne, and taking second in Paris-Roubaix, second in the Amstel Gold Race, and third in Milan-San Remo (a true sprinter’s race). Then he absolutely dominated the Critérium du Dauphiné, taking the overall and three stage wins and making it all look easy. His improvement since 2023 has been astonishing. This year he did the Hautacam climb almost a minute and a half faster than Vingegaard did it in 2022, and only 30 seconds off the all-time record set in 1996 by Bjarne Riis (aka “Mr. 60%,” referring to his ski-high EPO-fueled hematocrit). My rule of thumb is: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

But that’s not my entire case against Pogacar; for that we need to look to his UAE team director, Mauro Gianetti, who was investigated for doping as a rider after having a major health breakdown during the 1998 Tour of Romandy and spending ten days in the ICU. A teammate of Gianetti’s at that time, Stéphane Heulot, speaking to a reporter ten years later, spoke candidly about Gianetti, who had retired and moved on to managing the Saunier Duval team: “Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like Gianetti, that they can't conceive of cycling any other way.” Ironically, Heulot asserted this while serving as the PR manager for the Saunier Duval team. (Presumably not for much longer.)

As described here, Saunier Duval’s results bear out Heulot’s skepticism: “In 2008, [Gianetti’s] team’s rising star, Riccardo Riccò, was arrested after testing positive for EPO, the blood-boosting hormone. Gianetti’s Saunier Duval team quit that year’s Tour and Riccò landed a 12-year ban.” Another rider on that team, Leonardo Piepoli, who’d already been kicked out of that Tour for “ethical violations,” tested positive for CERA the next year. Then, in 2011, Gianetti managed the Geox-TMC team, whose unsung leader Juan José Cobo came out of nowhere to win the Vuelta a España (beating no less a doper than Chris Froome), only to have his victory stripped years later due to “irregularities in his biological passport.”  So you do the math: a rider whose exploits seem extraterrestrial rides for a team whose manager had been investigated for doping as a rider and went on to head up two different famously doped teams. Hell, Gianetti even looks like a villain.

Okay, back to the coverage. Félix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team) attacks the yellow jersey group! It’s a good move, but unfortunately he looks like a jackass because his handlebars are so narrow. It’s like something you’d see in a cartoon.

Gall goes straight past the chase group.

Gall sits ninth on GC, 11:43 behind Pogacar. So UAE might give him some leash, if they decide they can’t set up Pogacar for yet another stage wine. Did I mean win? Yeah, but I’m going to leave it. Even the word “win” has become boring. Adam Yates leads the chase for UAE.

Gall has 26 seconds on the group behind. He’s about two minutes behind Arensman, with five kilometers (three miles) left. He may have a shot … Arensmen looks like he’s really suffering, shoulders rocking.

One of the commentators just mentioned how strong Arensmen is on the long climbs, citing his “diesel” engine. This is commentator shorthand for how diesel engines, designed for compression ignition, utilize a much higher compression ratio (typically 14:1 to 25:1) compared to gasoline engines (8:1 to 12:1). This higher compression is crucial for igniting the fuel without spark plugs. Glow plugs, however, are typical in diesel engines. The metaphorical implication for cycling ought to be fairly obvious to just about anyone.

Back in the GC group, Vingegaard attacks!

I’m not sure it deserved an exclamation point because he’s already looking back, just assuming Pogacar easily handled it. You can always tell when an attack is in vain, when the attacker is looking behind instead of ahead.

Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull – BORA – Hansgrohe), who started the day in fourth overall, is trying to match the pace. Lipowitz is a baller, having taken third overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné last month and getting second in this year’s Paris-Nice. And with Evenepoel out, he’ll most likely make the podium and get the Best Young Rider award in this Tour.

Lipowitz is dropped, and Pogacar takes the front. And just like that, the two GC contenders overhaul Gall. Gall must have detonated.

Now it’s a matter of Arensman hanging on for the win. He should do it, as he’s got plenty of time, and if Pogacar is content to sit on Vingegaard, the two will just blob along until the end and not make up so much time.

As Arensman reaches the 1-kilometer-to-go kite, it looks like he’s peeing.

Arensman gets the win and does the “I can’t believe it” victory salute.

Now Pogacar will wait for the right moment to crush Vingegaard, who continues to look back.

Ah, and there Pogi goes. He easily overtakes Vingegaard and demolishes him in the run to the line.

Now Vingegaard is being interviewed, before he’s even had a chance to climb off his bike and put on a big puffy sweatshirt.

INTERVIEWER: Well, you attacked at least, which I think is kind of cute.

VINGEGAARD: To be honest, it was a hard day. One of the hardest mountain stages I’ve ever done.

INTERVIEWER: What do you mean “to be honest”? Do you normally lie during interviews? And would you expect me to doubt your assertion that it was hard?

VINGEGAARD: Congratulations to Arensman, he had a great ride today, and it’s nice to see somebody distinguish himself in some way, as opposed to what I did, which was just a half-assed attack with a lot of looking back, which you can see is all I’m capable of.

INTERVIEWER: Since you referred to today’s winner by his last name, instead of “Thymen,” I’m gathering you two aren’t friends? Would you say you lack for friends in the peloton in general? Kind of an introvert? Do the others bully you?

VINGEGAARD: If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to go find a big puffy sweatshirt.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, go be alone now. Go find an armchair and a throw blanket and bury your face in a literary novel.

If you’re new to this blog, I should caution you that I tend to play fast and loose with these interviews. When they become boring, I tend to ad lib a bit. But Vingegaard really did say “to be honest, it was hard,” and did congratulate Arensman. Though not to his face. So maybe he is shy.

Now they’re interviewing Arensman.

INTERVIEWER: So, you won today. Obviously. How did you do it?

ARENSMAN: Well, I had good preparation—

INTERVIEWER (INTERRUPTING): Meaning you doped.

ARENSMAN: It’s my first Tour, I had to be patient, it was already amazing to be second on the Andorra stage—

INTERVIEWER (INTERRUPTING AGAIN): No it wasn’t.

ARENSMAN: Come again?

INTERVIEWER: It wasn’t amazing when you got second on that stage. It was perfectly inevitable. Somebody always wins, somebody is always second, etc. Had you won, I guess that would have been, well, remarkable, though really probably not amazing. Now, Martinez trying to do the whole stage no-handed, and managing to move into the KOM lead in the process … that’s amazing.

ARENSMAN: That’s not even true. You talk dog farts.

Here are the stage results. You can see Pogacar took four seconds out of Vingegaard in the final sprint.

And here is the new GC. Everyone moves up a spot because of Evenepoel abandoning. Lipowitz is now solidly in third, having taken around 40 seconds out of Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) today.

Now Arensman mounts the podium. I have noticed that the ASO is gradually returning to the podium girl tradition. For a good while, there would be just one podium girl, usually a fairly plain one in a very modest outfit, and not very close to the podium, with a dumpy middle-aged man on the other side, closer to the podium. It was like the organizers were distancing themselves from the tradition. But they’ve been gradually moving the podium girl closer to the stage, and putting a male model on the other side. This podium girl is watching Arensman and trying not to look perplexed, but he’s just standing there, not knowing what to do … she’s surely thinking, “Dude, aren’t you going to put your arms up?”

For the most part, they’ve also abandoned the tradition of the winner getting kisses from the podium girl. The rider instead just accepts the flowers with an awkward little head nod. The exception is Van der Poel, who either didn’t get the memo or can’t be bothered to comply. Each time he’s been on the podium in this Tour he’s given the podium girl kisses, and she hasn’t seemed to mind, and has in fact looked, to me, pleasantly surprised. The last time this happened the cameraman, thinking quickly, panned to a flashy blond woman in the audience, presumably Van der Poel’s girlfriend, to get her reaction. She was pretty chill about it.

Pogacar gets another yellow jersey and another stuffed lion. This podium girl is a real professional, managing to look legitimately happy when she must be freezing her arse off in that sleeveless dress while the podium dude is in a wool suit and Pogacar has a nice thermal cap.

And now Lipowitz gets his white jersey for Best Young Rider. I hope he doesn’t get signed as a domestique by UAE or Visma … I’d like to see him challenging the perennial favorites in the years to come. Note the mismatched blue of the podium guy’s suit vs. the podium girl’s dress. Funny story there: that’s actually a bridesmaid dress she almost threw away but saved for some reason, and now she got to wear it here!

Now they’re interviewing Pogacar.

INTERVIEWER: It looks like you practically phoned it in today, until your sprint where you once again humiliated Vingegaard.

POGACAR: The team did a super good job, I’m really really happy.

INTERVIEWER: When I asked you last year about carbon monoxide rebreathing, you denied any knowledge of it and replied, “I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m just uneducated.” But then a day later, after your team admitted doing it, you seemed to suddenly remember and said, “I didn’t quite understand the question. It’s not like you’re breathing exhaust pipes in a car. It’s just a simple test to see how you respond to altitude training.” Doesn’t that seem like backpedaling?

POGACAR: Arensman deserved this victory with a super good race.

INTERVIEWER: I see you’re not going to answer my question. Next I suppose you’ll be talking about the weather.

POGACAR: If my nose were a little less clogged I would be really happy with today’s weather but when you’re a bit under the weather it’s kind of, this kind of weather, it doesn’t help, but always, when it’s like this, I have the legs.

INTERVIEWER: Are you literally claiming to be absolutely dominating this Tour even while you have a cold? Seriously?

POGACAR: I think I hear my mom calling.

Obviously I made up a lot of that, but a journalist really did investigate Pogacar’s (and Vingegaard’s) practice of carbon monoxide rebreathing, and you should click that link above. Note that in this case I recorded Pogacar’s words as close to verbatim as I could (until the end). He really did say he’s under the weather. Sheesh.

Well, that’s about it for the 2025 Tour … barring some catastrophe, Pogacar will win it in boring AF fashion. Best case, Vingegaard can at least get a stage win. Or a stage wine. Or maybe just another stage whine.

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Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2025 Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 7

Introduction

Bicycle road racing has gotten harder to watch. Part of this is due to the poor TV (or shall I say Internet) coverage in the U.S., with various pay-for-me networks, each carrying only a few races. But the bigger problem is boredom: a few riders are so dominant, the victories tend to be blowouts. Particularly troublesome is Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates XRG), who seems to win everything in sight: stage races, classics, the World Championships … he wins all season long and he makes it look easy. Thus it is with great trepidation that I cover today’s queen stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné. I promise I will do my best to make this entertaining, even if that means bagging on riders I don’t like, and on their equipment, and even on myself if necessary. Hence the “biased” blow-by-blow.

(If you haven’t been following this Dauphiné thus far, fear not: I will recap the first six stages as well.)

Critérium du Dauphiné Stage 7 - Grand-Aigueblanche - Valmeinier 1800

As I join the action, it’s 5:40 a.m. Pacific time and my kettle hasn’t even boiled yet. The riders are cresting the Hors Categorie Col de la Croix de Fer. There’s a breakaway with only about 20 seconds over a depleted peloton. I’m not going to bother with the riders’ names other than a couple standouts: Sepp Kuss (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) and the French favorite Romain Bardet (Team Picnic PostNL). Kuss is American, so I naturally favor him, plus today is Flag Day in this country (so I hope you hoisted Old Glory!). Bardet, meanwhile, is in the last bike race of his career, obviously looking for a stage win to go out on a high note. For more on Bardet, including his saliva, click here. What, what? Saliva? Yes! As Google’s AI Overview helpfully explains, albertnet “includes observations on other aspects of races, such as rider’s saliva issues and podium presentations.”

Speaking of AI, here’s a fascinating hallucination. While watching the time trial a couple days ago I thought I saw last year’s Dauphiné winner Primoz Roglic (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe), but only fleetingly. I checked the results later and didn’t see him listed. So I asked Google if he dropped out. Here’s what the AI Overview had to say:

What’s remarkable is that Roglic didn’t even start the race, as he’s still recovering from injuries he sustained in the Giro d’Italia. It’s also worth pointing out that nobody has won the overall 2025 Dauphiné classification because the race doesn’t end until tomorrow. Granted, it would be permissible for AI to declare that Pogacar has already won, since nobody can stop him, but Roglic? No. He has about as much chance of winning this race as I do.

The Peacock coverage today started too late for me to see these guys go over the first two climbs, starting with the Hors Categorie Col de la Madeleine. “Hors Categorie” is French for “Whore’s Category,” which means the climb is a total bitch. Naw, just messin’ with ya. It’s “beyond category” meaning, “This climb is so hard, there is no way to categorize it. The human mind cannot conceive of a category like ‘hardest’ or ‘even harder than what we’d normally call hardest.’ Words fail us.”

The great thing about the Col de la Madeleine is that, in accordance with the strong tradition and culture of the sport, the riders ride up it in two straight lines. Hmmm. I think it’s too early in the morning and I’m confusing this race with the children’s book about the little French girl who gets her appendix out. I apologize.

But seriously, these climbs are horrific. I’m not just relating what the commentators are saying (because after all, they could totally exaggerate). I am speaking from experience, having ridden both of these climbs myself, also back-to-back, the year before last. You can read about that here. Suffice to say the Madeleine kicked my ass. And, in a crazy coincidence, so did the Croix de Fer. They’re just brutal. In fact I think I still haven’t recovered. You should probably click that link and read that instead because today’s race will probably be boring.

Can you tell there’s nothing to report right now? It’s just a long-ass descent (with a couple short climbs) before the Whore’s Category Valmeinier 1800, a climb about which I know basically nothing except that it’s 16.5 kilometers (10.25 miles) long at an average grade of 6.7%. So it’s gonna be a smackdown.

The breakaway is stretching out its lead a bit on the fairly straightforward descent toward Saint Jean de Maurienne, a town notable mainly for its excellent pizza. At least, that’s what I remember it for.

Now Bardet has dropped the rest of the breakaway. The peloton will hang him out to dry for a good while before wadding him up in a ball and tossing him halfheartedly toward the wastebasket.

Here’s what’s been going on so far in this Dauphiné. The first stage, designed for the sprinters, was actually kind of exciting because Pogacar and the other GC favorite, Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma - Lease A Bike) were in a small breakaway with a very narrow lead heading into the final kilometer. It looked like the break would ultimately get caught but it just barely held on, to where its slower finishers were actually passed by the fastest sprinters of the peloton. One rider burst out of the mêlée, and at first I couldn’t tell who it was, but it ended up being—Pogacar. Huh? A stage racer launching a hellacious sprint and beating out big strong rolleurs like Mathieu Van Der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step)? Yep. To put this in perspective (if you’re not a diehard cycling fan), this would be like if for some reason a football team sent its quarterback out to kick a 65-yard field goal and he nailed it.

Anyhow, some bike racer won Stage 2, who cares who won Stage 3, and then in the time trial Evenepoel, the Olympic time trial and road race gold medalist, stunned everybody with a big win. His helmet had this really goofy visor that covered everything except what was right in front of him, where there was this big gap, so it was like an anti-visor. So many of the time trial helmets were so ugly, it just overshadowed everything else and made me want to curl up in a corner and try to sleep it off. But the good news was, Vingegaard took 28 seconds out of Pogacar in the TT, giving us viewers hope that maybe he’d have a chance in the GC.

Stage 5 was another for the sprinters and a sprinter won, some guy named Stewart. It was only in Stage 6 that things got insanely boring, with Pogacar absolutely destroying everybody. He dropped Vingegaard (and everyone else) without even getting out of the saddle. It was demoralizing to watch: you’ve got Vingegaard, a two-time Tour de France winner, out of the saddle thrashing like he’s in a final sprint, and Pogacar looks like some bored commuter on an e-bike pulling away from him. Pogi took just over a minute out of his so-called rival on a mere Category 2 climb that wasn’t even two miles long. So today is really unnecessary, like that soft-serve cone you unwisely decided to eat, for reasons you cannot yourself understand, at the end of your thorough drubbing at the hands of the Sizzler buffet court.

They’re interviewing Evenepoel, who got shelled yesterday and lost his yellow jersey.

INTERVIEWER: You got shelled yesterday and lost the yellow jersey. How does that feel?

EVENEPOEL: Well, I wasn’t going as hard on that climb as I had in the time trial, so that was a mistake.

INTERVIEWER: Are you actually telling me you forgot to hammer?

EVENEPOEL: I am using this race to learn and to study the values and the team is [undecipherable].

INTERVIEWER: Well that’s just bullshit. But before we discuss how badly you blew it yesterday, I want to back up a bit and talk about your Olympic road race victory where you crossed the finish line, stopped, climbed off your bike, and stood there at line, flexing because you were far enough ahead to do this, except what if you weren’t and caused a massive crash among those sprinting in for second as they tried to steer around you?

INTERVIEWER: And then, still standing on the finish line like an idiot, you pantomimed hanging up a phone, almost like slamming it down. Totally over the top and it doesn’t even really make sense. Who were you angrily hanging up on? And do you expect young fans, who’ve never even seen a landline phone, to understand what you were miming?

EVENEPOEL: You’re kind of hurting my feelings.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I’m just getting started! I haven’t even asked about those giant goofy sunglasses you’re wearing! What the hell are those about?

EVENEPOEL: I have to go.

I have to confess, Evenepoel’s interview was so boring, I had to freestyle a bit there. Most of what you just read is pure fabrication. Evenepoel really did say, though, that he “wasn’t going as hard on that climb as [he] had in the time trial, so that was a mistake.” He makes it sound like a tactical decision, but I saw what really happened … dude got shellacked.

Bardet is still solo but his lead is coming down. There’s really no way he can stay off. The descent is simply too long. Now he’s starting the final climb but has only 40 seconds or so on the GC group.

I left for a while and now I’m back. With 12 kilometers to go, the GC group is on the final climb and Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates XRG) is drilling it on the front, setting up his leader, Pogacar.

As they overhaul Kuss, who I guess must have attacked at some point when I wasn’t looking, Sivakov pulls off, clearly blown.

And now, of course, Pogacar attacks. Oh my. This is blistering. But Vingegaard was ready for this and is right on the wheel!

It’s a crazy attack! Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe), the German rider in the white jersey of Best Young Rider, who was third yesterday, is immediately gapped!

Can Vingegaard respond? No. Of course not. Nobody could. Look at this gap open up. It’s like an adult beating up a little kid. The peloton, of course, is shattered.

Evenepoel is off the back. I guess he’s “not going as hard as in the time trial” again. That is, he’s just not trying. And I can’t blame him. I mean, why try when Pogacar is taking all his marbles and going home, again?

Pogacar fiddles with his bike computer. Maybe he’s bored, or has realized he might set some sort of PR today for power output or something. Behind, Lipowitz has clawed his way back to Vingegaard. He’s having an amazing Dauphiné, sitting in third on GC after yesterday’s awesome ride.

Vingegaard flicks his elbow for Lipowitz to take a pull. Lipowitz doesn’t come forward. He probably can’t due to being on the rivet already.

I will say that Vingegaard is holding the gap down fairly well. He’s a fighter, for sure. But of course he needed to attack Pogacar today, not the other way around.

As Vingegaard buries himself, Lipowitz gradually comes unglued from his wheel.

With just over 9 kilometers to go, Pogacar is only 14 seconds behind Bardet, whose ride will be a footnote at best to this stage.

Oh, wait, my bad. While I wasn’t looking, Bardet was already overhauled. The 14 seconds is over Vingegaard, and I don’t think it’s accurate. He seems a lot farther back than that.

My online correspondent says, “😴😴😴.” I see his point.

I feel really bad for these professional commentators. I mean, I share their struggle to describe this race in an interesting way, but I’m just a rank amateur—my livelihood isn’t at stake. And at least I get to make shit up if I want.

And now Pogacar falters! He slumps over the handlebars, his bike careening this way and that! I don’t understand what I’m seeing! Oh, wow, you’re not gonna believe this, but Pogacar has actually fallen asleep while riding because this is even more boring for him than for us! Yeah, okay, I confess, I’m lying right now. Disregard this entire paragraph.

Pogacar does look bored, though. His official gap is now 20 seconds, though the essential gap—that being between a cyborg and a human—is insurmountable. He looks over his shoulder. Note his expression. He’s not worried in the slightest that Vingegaard is making any ground. He’s just curious. “I wonder what’s going on back there in that different galaxy. Maybe Jonas is actually bearing down on me and I get to attack again. That would be fun. Nope … can’t even see him.”

Bob Roll, one of the Peacock commentators, is talking about the beautiful little village at the top of this climb. That’s probably where he should focus his commentary. Let’s go inside one of those cute little cafés! Let’s interview the proprietor!

Lipowitz has lost 25 seconds to Vingegaard so far. Like you care. Like Vingegaard cares. Like Lipowitz cares.

Vingegaard gives another flick of the elbow. Is he hallucinating that somebody is still with him? No, probably just a tic, or a minor muscle spasm. It’s what passes for news on a day like this.

Do you think Team Visma - Lease A Bike has a big enough budget to hire some thugs to kidnap Pogacar before the Tour? Maybe they could hire some real dumbasses on the cheap, who screw it up in various ways, such that high jinks ensue. Or maybe Visma could hire a sexy actress to come on to Pogacar, a femme fatale, like Nancy was to Sid Vicious, who could derail Pogacar’s training? This is what has become of our sport ... leading me to fantasize. I can’t believe I paid for Peacock Plus in advance so I could watch the Tour next month. Maybe I’ll see what other programs Peacock Plus might have that would be more interesting, like NASCAR maybe, or old episodes of “The Office.”

Vingegaard, despite being off the back, is big-ringing it up this 7% grade. In any other era he would still be a champion. And actually he’s doing really well at keeping this gap down, which would be more useful if he didn’t start the day 43 seconds behind already.

The commentator Christian Vande Velde speculates that Pogacar isn’t even going all-out. It sure doesn’t look like it; his expression is the same as mine when I’m reading the paper or doing the Wordle. I’ll bet I could beat Pogacar at Wordle. Maybe Vingegaard could as well. They should just cancel the Tour and set up three weeks of puzzles.

What was Pogacar looking back at earlier? He had to know his lead was almost half a minute. Did he see some kind of interesting animal? A pika, maybe? Pogacar is an animal himself of course, but not an interesting one. Actually, I just did some light research (with nothing better to do this close to the end of the Dauphiné’s queen stage) and it turns out there are no pikas in the French Alps. The animal that Pogacar may be looking at (but let’s be honest, probably isn’t) is (or would be) a marmot.

Blah blah blah Pogacar has only one kilometer to go, who cares, la la la. He looks even more bored than I feel.

Pogacar wins again, and he’s pioneering a new victory salute, looks like. Is he miming something? Playing a banjo? Shooting a rifle? Or scratching his armpit like chimps are purported to do?

Vingegaard heads for the line. He looks really bad.

As he crosses the line he looks like he may actually collapse.

The phone rings. My mother-in-law is calling. Normally, when I’m watching a live sporting event, I would let the call go to voicemail, but whatever she has to say will be more scintillating than this. I won’t share any of her tidings here ... why steal my own thunder?

Lipowitz comes across 1:21 behind Pogacar. He looks absolutely miserable. He’s questioning his life choices, surely. But he’ll be happy later, I think ... with this ride he has solidified his podium position on GC, and he’s only 25 and it’s his first Dauphiné. He has a bright future ahead (if he can be content with second place at best).

Evenepoel lost another 2:39 to Pogacar today, 2:25 to Vingegaard, and 1:28 to Lipowitz. Hang up on that fool, he’s done.

What expression is Vingegaard wearing here? It looks kind of obscene, actually. But I like his sunglasses. They don’t cover up half his face like so many modern styles do.

Pogacar is being interviewed.

INTERVIEWER: You must be unhappy because you didn’t get to the finish in time to see [unintelligible].

POGACAR: Yeah, that sucks.

INTERVIEWER: Do you like my shirt? I got it at a thrift store.

POGACAR: Today we wanted to take control. Visma tried with all their tricks. I am happy with how I rode. Sort of defense today. I launched it and maintained a good pace.

INTERVIEWER: You never worried even though you were outnumbered?

POGACAR: Toward the top of Croix de Fer I think they wanted to drop me on the downhill. I did not like that but it’s modern cycling. And then we were in control again.

INTERVIEWER: I though “modern cycling” consisted of a rider being so totally superior to the others, he just makes a mockery of the race, and the sport.

POGACAR: Jonas was pretty strong but I also didn’t want to go too deep  myself. I was lucky I had enough time to ease up in the last few meters.

INTERVIEWER: Your eyelid keeps twitching. I think that means you’re lying. Do you want to come clean?

POGACAR: Fine. I admit it. I stole the bus money.

Let’s play a game. You try to guess which part of that interview was legit, and I’ll tell you if you’re right. Ready? Go. Okay, the answer is, Pogacar really did say, “Yeah, that sucks,” “I was lucky I had enough time to ease up in the last few meters,” “it’s modern cycling,” and “Visma tried with all their tricks.” That last bit sounds like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Bardet is nearing the line, over 12 minutes down. The cameraman pans over to Bardet’s father watching from the sidelines and looking pretty pissed off, honestly.

Bardet’s dad will have strong words for his son, I’m sure. “It’s Father’s Day tomorrow ... is this what you call a gift? I bought you your first bicycle! I drove you to all those races! I came all the way out here to watch you today ... and this is the best you can do? Your mother and I are very disappointed.” Bardet will retort, “At least I don’t wear cycling sunglasses when I’m not cycling. You dork.”

The commentators keep talking about how Pogacar was loafing in the last kilometer or two. How boring is this sport when the guy who solos to victory doesn’t even have to ride hard? This is like Mike Tyson pummeling a smurf. Which I’d actually really prefer to watch, to be honest. I would buy Peacock Plus for that. I wonder if I can get a refund?

My online correspondent declares, “The scenery is always good but super boring racing ... it’s like watching some Cat 3 race.” Hear, hear.

Pogacar mounts the podium to celebrate his stage win. The sport, which had eschewed podium girls entirely, is gradually bringing them back. Today we get only one, offset by an old white guy just to make sure the ceremony isn’t too pleasant.

Pogacar looks pretty baked, actually.

Whereas top professional cyclists used to have to specialize, Pogacar actually leads almost all the competitions: maillot jaune (GC), maillot pois (mountains), and maillot vert (sprints). The only one he couldn’t nab is the maillot blanc (young rider). So really, the only thing I have in common with Pogacar is that neither of us can deny the march of time … we both age. But he’s a mere 26 years old and (weirdly enough) went through puberty just a couple years ago, so he’ll have many years ahead to rack up the most distinguished palmarès in the history of cycling.

Here is Pogacar getting his green jersey. Look at his eyes. He really does seem stoned. Perhaps after the race he took some hits off a big ol’ stinky bong. Maybe that’s his secret?

Now he gets the polka-dot jersey. Climbing the steps to the podium is probably more work for him than dominating the stage today. Look at him. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open.

Lipowitz gets his white jersey. Man, he looks wasted, too! Was he pulling tubes with Pogacar right after the stage ended?

One more rider gets to mount the podium: Bardet, for the the Combative award. Some little kid is there and hands Bardet ... what? It looks like a toy skunk. Let’s assume it’s that. “Here is a skunk because you stink,” the kid may be saying.

And now Bardet’s dad has joined him on the podium. It looks like he’s about to whisper something in his son’s ear. “You suck,” perhaps.

Tomorrow has six categorized climbs, but it’s clear that Pogacar has the GC in the bag. That goes for the Tour, too. Even so, you should check back in July for my Tour de France coverage … because you never know, something interesting might happen with a rider’s saliva.

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