David & Aaron Stanley
2024 Tour de France at Week Two:
Point - Counterpoint
David Stanley is an experienced cycling writer. His work has appeared in Velo, Velo-news.com, Road, Peloton, and the late, lamented Bicycle Guide (my favorite all-time cycling magazine). Here's his Facebook page. He is also a highly regarded voice artist with many audiobooks to his credit, including McGann Publishing's The Story of the Tour de France and Cycling Heroes.
David L. Stanley
David L. Stanley's masterful telling of his bout with skin cancer Melanoma: It Started with a Freckle is available in print, Kindle eBook and audiobook versions, just click on the Amazon link on the right.
The premise of this post:
Polymath David Stanley and his son Aaron have sent their individual takes on the Tour de France's second week. Neither knew what the other wrote. Aaron's is posted below David's on this page.
David wrote:
Week II rest day review
Stage 10 – Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Mathieu van der Poel proves that he could win mass sprints when he dropped down a lead-out which found his sprinter Jasper Philipsen struggling to hold onto MvdP’s wheel as the sprint wound up with 200 meters to go. We, as fans, also found that relegation penalties work as somehow, Jasper managed to sprint in a straight line for the first time in this Tour to nab his stage win over green jersey hero Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty).
Jasper Philipsen wins stage 10. Sirotti photo
Stage 11 – All of cycling wondered about Jonas (Visma | Lease a Bike). Did he come to the Tour to test his fitness, recover his fitness, play spoiler and chase after mountain stage victories, or to win the race? He was horribly injured, he said he felt close to death, and his tears of joy after he outsprinted breakaway buddy Tadej were real. This is now mano a mano for the 2024 Tour de France. The only way this race could now be more compelling is if one of them showed up on the start line wearing a black mask over his eyes, and the other said “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
Jonas Vingegaard wins stage 11. Sirotti photo
Stage 12 – The nine fastest men in this year’s Tour were all out-kicked by the World’s Fastest Sprinter, 2024 edition. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) took his third stage win over a stellar field. Twelve stages, 3 stage wins, the maillot vert? So far, so good for the national hero of Eritrea. Yes, a national hero like we rarely see. I checked out an Eritrean newspaper, Tesfa News and found that 6 of the 7 lead articles were on Biniam. The 7th was a small piece about a new Italian-Eritrean strategic business partnership. The story of Eritrea is all-Biniam, all the time. And well-earned by Mr. Girmay. Kudos.
Biniam Girmay has made the Green Jersey his. Sirotti photo
On a sad note, it looked as if Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) was doing everything right. Staying close, reserving his energy, riding smart. And then, Bam! Down goes Primož! Down goes Primož! Down goes Primož! <said in a Howard Cosell-like boxing commentator voice calling the iconic Frazier-Foreman heavyweight championship bout in 1973.>
Primož Roglič finishes stage 11. Sirotti photo
Roglič would finish the stage, but was a DNS on the morning of Friday’s Stage 13. The latter stages of Primož Roglič’s career now resemble the classic Albert King blues song, Born Under a Bad Sign:
Born under a bad sign
Been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck
You know I wouldn't have no luck at all
Stage 14 – Yes, stage 14 was slated to be an epic stage, what with the Tourmalet (Assassins!” yelled stage winner Octave Lapize at the race organizers during the 10th stage of the 1910 Tour de France, as he crested the dreaded Tourmalet) and the Souvenir Jacques Goddet and the final rush up the Pla d’Adet, where Ben Healey (EF Education-EasyPost) had his stage winning dream crushed by the most dominant GT rider we’ve seen this century on what might have been his most dominant day. Poor Ben, yet looked at objectively, Jonas had an exceptional ride. Our Tadej, his ride was beyond HC.
Ben Healy time-trialing in stage seven. Sirotti photo
But you know all that because you’re a fan. Let’s talk about Sean Quinn (EF Education-EasyPost). Quinn is a SoCal kid, 24 years old, and has had a darned fine journeyman’s career since turning pro in 2020 as a stagiaire with DQS and full time pro with EF Ed in 2022. But since taking the US National Pro Champs in Charleston, WV, Sean’s quality has shown as brightly as the gaudy stars and stripes jersey he pulled on that day. Whenever possible on the flat, Sean has snuck into the breakaway. But that’s not his strong suit. His strong suit? Whenever the road has tilted up, Sean has been in the breakaway. Young Mr. Quinn, like Mr. Jorgenson and Mr. Kuss and Mr. McNulty, climbs with best of the peloton’s mortals. Without Quinn in the early moves of stage 14, Healy’s bid for glory would have been nipped in the bud. While we are all gob-smacked by the man from Slovenia, the explosion of Sean Quinn’s talent in the mountains is also breathtaking.
Sean Quinn racing in stage nine. Sirotti photo
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On Sunday’s Stage 15, I felt like the Emperor Palpatine (that’s Darth Vader’s boss) when he said, “Ah, everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.” I said to a few friends this morning, “it doesn’t really matter who goes up the road early and when. Tadej and Jonas and maybe Remco will chase them down, and then Tadej drops Remco, and later, Jonas. And oh, yeah, Alcarez takes out Djokovic in the Wimbledon men’s final.” I was not wrong.
Tadej Pogacar takes a solo win in stage fifteen. Sirotti photo
Please be aware, this is not the end of the fireworks. Sure, Tadej’s lead looks good. 3:09 over Jonas. 5:19 over Remco, but that means nothing to the UAE Team Emirates star. He loves to race his bike. He will continue to attack. He will continue to drop everyone on the climbs. Years ago, US pro Marty Jemison was in a day-long breakaway in the Tour and he just got pipped out of the top three in the small sprint. Said one commentator to Marty, “You must feel terrible. All that work, and you were right there at the end.” Said Marty, “It’s okay. I had my chance. I thought I could take it. But really, I just like to race my bike.” So does Tadej. Except he rarely gets pipped at the line. Well, there was that one time.
Road furniture. It’s a fact of modern cycling life because it is a fact of modern life. It makes for safer driving. It makes for much less safe racing. When you are in the bunch and not in the first 10-15 guys, you simply cannot see the road furniture until it’s too late. The organizers do put padding on some of the furniture, but that doesn’t solve the problem of early recognition and avoidance. It just ameliorates the impact and outcome. Here’s the solution. It’s cheap and easy. Buy a crap-ton of alpine skiing gates or similar product. They are semi-rigid, hollow, around 2 meters in length, and 4.5 cm in diameter. Or since you’re going to need a lot, have them manufactured for the all the Grand Tours and make them 3 meters long. Affix a flag to the top. Affix the gate to the top of the lead piece of road furniture. Even from the rear of a strung-out peloton, riders will be able to see the flag and understand that there are dangerous bits of road furniture or a road divider ahead.
Equipment Theft. The Tour de France has been in business since 1903. The other Grand Tours, a few years less. You’d think by now they would figure out that the team Service Course vehicles are filled with highly valuable and easily resellable bits of equipment. Perhaps these bikes were even stored in the hotel basement or underground parking lot. I tried to read the article but my 2 years of rarely practiced schoolkid French wasn’t enough. You’d think the place would be crawling with security. But Noooooooooooo <said in best John Belushi, Saturday Night Live voice>.
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Aaron wrote:
Rumors of Jasper’s demise were greatly exaggerated
After going the entire first week of the Tour without a stage win and looking ill at ease in attempting to find any success in the early sprint stages, Jasper Philipsen emphatically returned in the second week. In stage 10 Alpecin showed off the power of their fully armed and operational battle station; it’s likely a 40-something Cat 4 rider could have won the sprint with the ridiculous leadout provided by Mathieu van der Poel, so it was light work for Philipsen to nab his first stage win. Two days later, he’d show another touch of class, emerging from a confusing final few hundred meters to win by over a bike length ahead of Wout van Aert.
Jasper Philipsen wins stage 13. ASO photo.
Question marks surrounded Philipsen after week 1’s lack of success, but he answered them emphatically with these two stage wins, even though he couldn’t quite make up the ground he’d need to in order to attack the green jersey of …
Biniam Girmay
Two stages in the first week wasn’t enough for Girmay to be satisfied. He continued to display exceptional competitiveness in the maillot vert standings through week two, whether by attacking intermediate sprints or with his continued high placements in stage finishes. After coming second to Philipsen in stage 10, he took advantage of the very next sprint finish two days later to earn his third stage win of the year on stage 12. Girmay has impressed at every opportunity this year, holding on to a firm grasp on the green jersey and doing so in style, riding fast, riding fair, and riding with fun.
Biniam Girmay wins stage 12. ASO photo
Vingegaard’s Vindication
There was an air of manufactured uncertainty around team Visma-Lease a Bike coming into the Tour with the continued questions regarding Jonas Vingegaard’s fitness after his devastating crash in the spring, but if he hadn’t put them to rest yet by the time the race reached stage 11, he definitively shut the door on the doubters by winning a two-up sprint over Tadej Pogacar despite the Slovenian’s multiple attacks throughout the stage. For Vingegaard, it was vindication against those who thought he might not be ready for the Tour; for Pogacar, it was perhaps a wake-up call—was his feeding timing off? was he still fighting the demons of the Granon or de la Loze?—and for the viewers, it was hope that this Tour could become a memorably competitive one as the greatest cyclist of this generation battled against the greatest grand tour rider of this generation. One thing was for sure: Vingegaard was not going to be going away easily.
Jonas Vingegaard after winning stage 11. Sirotti photo
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Pogi at Peak
Stages 14 and 15 would be an entirely different story than stage 11. Despite the best efforts of Vingegaard and the VLAB squad, Pogacar was simply better. He and UAE had an answer at every turn, a counter-strategy for everything Visma tried, and when he decided to kick the acceleration up to 11 on Pla d’Adet and Plateau de Beille, no one had any answers for him. UAE, despite (perhaps due to?) the departure of key domestique Juan Ayuso, were operating like a well-oiled machine, and their keystone was at its best. Politt and Wellens destroyed the peloton in the low hills, Sivakov, Soler, and Almeida put in turns in the mountains, and trustworthy Adam Yates was there to put their opponents to the screws, launching Pogacar to a 39 second time gain on stage 14.
Pogacar climbing to the finish and a solo win in stage 14. Sirotti photo
The next day, he put on a simply breathtaking display of climbing skill, marking the fastest time in the history of the Plateau de Beille by nearly 4 minutes. It was a two-day-long hammer blow by Pogacar and his team after which Vingegaard had fallen to a 3 minute deficit on GC with Remco Evenepoel distanced to 5:19. What more can be said about Pog at this point? He has the palmares of an entire career at 25 years old, and any time it seems that his opponents have found a weakness, he goes out and forges it into a strength. The final week of this Tour features several incredibly difficult climbing stages, but it’s hard to imagine anyone bringing him back to reality after the strength he displayed and the ease with which he distanced all of his rivals on two of the hardest days thus far.
Remco is for real
He may be at +5:19 on GC to Pogacar, but Remco Evenepoel has been having himself a very strong debut at the Tour de France. It was expected that he would compete for the podium, to be sure, but the amount of time he has spent right in the wheels with the best climbers in the world on some of the toughest climbs this year will see, in addition to the time he’s been able to make up on descents and in the time trial, is impressive beyond compare for the 24-year-old who is still participating in the white jersey competition, to say nothing of the yellow. While his chances at winning are slim, he has acquitted himself well, and with a few more grand tours under his belt, the sky seems the limit—he will almost assuredly be competing with Pogacar and Vingegaard for years to come.
Remco Evenepoel climbing Plateau de Beille in stage 15. Sirotti photo
Team UAE
It was mentioned above that Juan Ayuso abandoned the Tour this week, but is it too strange to say that this seems to have benefitted UAE Team Emirates? They seemed better organized, better collected, better strategized over the course of week 2 despite losing one of their strongest mountain domestiques. It re-raises question marks that were discussed as soon as they announced their roster—where was the ever-steady presence of Rafal Majka? where was Brandon McNulty or Mikkel Bjerg?—and while one cannot question team choices that have led to a rider in yellow and another two inside the top 10, it is interesting to take note of how well UAE conquered the challenges presented by stages 14 and 15 despite being down a rider. Time will tell, with week 3 looming, whether the team will suffer as the kilometers mount, but it’s so far so good for UAE in their quest for GC victory and perhaps a sneaky second podium spot to boot.
Before abandoning: Juan Ayuso time trials in stage seen. Sirotti photo
Week 3: a back-loaded brute
Lastly, a look ahead. The final week of the 2024 parcours is, quite simply, a beast. Stages 18, 19, and 20 are all tremendous challenges, with 12 categorized climbs across them including two HC climbs before the mountaintop finish at Isola 2000 in stage 19 and three straight category 1 climbs throughout stage 20. The question that we will learn the answer to over the next week is whether or not it’ll truly matter. With a 3 minute lead over Jonas Vingegaard, Pogacar and UAE can afford to ride a bit more defensively, controlling the peloton without going for excessive accelerations, and still maintain a comfortable advantage; this would effectively nullify what would otherwise be exciting stages.
Profile of the beastly 20th stage.
However, Tadej is still Tadej; Pog simply loves to ride, loves to accelerate, loves the challenge of competing, so we must look forward to those days regardless of what the time gaps throughout the GC look like, because it is a near-certainty that the most exciting rider in the peloton will continue to look for opportunities to show the world what he’s capable of and to put his stamp on this Tour the way he did the Giro.
David Stanley, like nearly all of us, has spent his life working and playing outdoors. He got a case of Melanoma as a result. Here's his telling of his beating that disease. And when you go out, please put on sunscreen.