S13 Ep97: Ghosts In The Mist | Stage 18 | Tour de France 2025

You're joining the cycling podcast in the out at the 2025 Tour de France and our coverage of the race is brought to you in association with Wahoo. Now if you want to pedal like Ben Hilly and let's face it, who doesn't? Perhaps you should get yourself a set of speed play arrow pedals from Wahoo. If you're looking for the extra edge on your ride, the speed play arrow pedals are built to cut through the wind and help you ride faster with less effort. Plus you can fine tune your cleat position down to the smallest detail so you get a set up that's just right for you. And that in turn is easier on your ankles, knees and hips. So ride like Ben Hilly, get some speed play arrow pedals and go to Wahoo Fitness.com for more. Now on with the cycling podcast. This is the cycling podcast at the 2025 Tour de France with Lano Berne, Graham Wiegoss and then France. It's brought to you in association with Wahoo. Today we're in Courchevel, Col de la Lose. Ah, so good! So good! Can I go in the car? Yeah, you can just ask, you in the mirror. I was just scrolling for Ben Hilly and he's showing some amazing legs. Days like this I don't know what about ski resort in horrible weather, it was hailing on the way up. Ben just seems to love it. He always gets the biggest and hardest winds when the weather's horrible everyone else is struggling. So I think it's such a credit to who he is the person and how hard he works and he makes it harder on himself but it's such a reward. Well, I know that was the celebrations of Luke Plap 2 in two episodes that we started the cycling podcast with some sort of celebration. No singing today, but Luke Plap J. Co. Allula of course celebrating his teammate Ben O'Connor's win with a trademark bold brave solo attack on perhaps the hardest climb and certainly the most big stage of the race, the Queen stage. Yeah, absolutely the highest finish of the race, the highest point of the race and for Ben O'Connor and another high in his kind of love hate relationship with the Tour de France, which we'll talk about a little bit later on but a really, really impressive stage win for Ben O'Connor very well thought out from start to finish and saw it through on the Col de la Lose, which is a difficult climb as we all know. I mean, I was up there. We'll get into that too and it was it was brutal and it's one of the most brutal stages of the Tour de France that I can remember. Tadeh Pagatier early mentioned for him too because he has laid rest to a few ghosts today on the climb where he fell away going mono on mono with Jonas Vingagore a couple of years ago, 2023. Also an early mention for Oscar only because what a ride from him he closes in on the podium we will get into that too before we do where are we. Well, we're down in Les Alloes which is a little village in sight of Corsureville really isn't it? Corsureville is kind of like one long town going uphill stretching up and up and up to the out of port really and yeah, we're going to quite a busy bar. It's a what night of the week is it Graham? I think it's Thursday. I think but I'm not the most reliable witness at this point. Thursday. Good. And well, we've got ourselves a beer. I think a pizza is on the way. I love a mountain pizza. You've already had your pizza. Let's not let's not talk about. We did save you some tonight though. Well, where is it? It's on the bar they've taken it away. No, I think Simon's eating it. He's rubbing his stomach. Photographer Simon Gill. So you went back to the team car. You got me a music and then you gobbled it before you even got back to the club. The good news is tonight that more is available. Shall we get on with the tale of the attack because it was a big one and it was a thrilling one. It didn't disappoint but it didn't necessarily go the way we thought it would. It more or less went to plan but there was a surprise winner. Well, it was one of those days where it was always going to be in the balance between the breakaway and the GC riders. And there's some reasons why it didn't all come back together for the GC riders. But it was a very, very big day out. The Queen stage as you say going over the cold of Glanda on the cold of Madeline and then up to the cold de la Lose. And the first news of the day that we got was that Carlos Rodriguez of Ineos Grenadiers lying 10th overall this morning. He is out of the race non-starter today because he came down in that crash a kilometer from the finish yesterday in balance and he has fractured his pelvis. So a painful exit from the tour for Rodriguez and the early business was the intermediate sprint wasn't it? The lead-al-trep kept it all together as we expected they would for Jonathan Mieland who got 20 points, crucial 20 points. And then it was a case of who was going to get in the break and how many riders would make the final selection as they went over first to Glanda and then the Madeline. So we saw, I'm going to fast forward to 81 kilometers to go and we saw Aaron's Mon, time Aaron's Mon for Ineos and Matio Dorgensen out front for Visma Lisa Bite. They had about three minutes on the peloton at that point. The Primoz Roglic group for Rebel Ballura, Ansgar just behind them. Then we saw Watt Van Art take off for Visma Lisa Bite. He took 40 seconds off the Roglic group in very, very short order. And so it was a case of where we expect in Jonas Vingagore to go from long range and perhaps try and put some time into Tade Pagaccia early and try and sort of stretch the elastic to the point that it snapped. I mean, it's very similar tactics to what we saw with Simon Yates and Watt Van Art in Maggiro. That didn't happen. No, but I think the key thing was that the break away had a lot of power in it, but it also had well placed riders on GC. Primoz Roglic, you mentioned this was in the kind of the final selection of 14 really, which was the real meat of the break. Primoz Roglic, of course, well inside the top 10. He was in there. Felix Gal also going for a top 10 finish. He was in there with his teammate Bruno Armourite of the Catalan Azure Desire. But then horse power in there. Aaron's menu of one estate already. Jorgensen, as you mentioned, Tim Wellens was in there. Police policeman for your AET team emirates really. And then the other rider that kind of interested me was Alexey Lipsenko, because he does a relatively quiet tour. Riders that we knew could get up the road and then would have a chance even on a steep climb. But it was Ben O'Connor, who well he rode very conservatively. He just followed, followed, followed. Really, until the group started to split down. I think it split next into seven and he made that split. And then it was over the Madeline and on the descent that he revealed in the press conference that he had a chat with Matt Haiman in the team car at that point, Jacob Allula Sports Director. And they had a conversation about, right, how do we win from here? And they decided that they had to go from pretty much the bottom of the valley and try and get up the road. Element of surprise, obviously. And then basically time trial it to the top of the cold and the lows. And that was what it was really. It was kind of a mass start time trial from the sort of midpoint in the stage. But there was so much else going on that it was one of the real edge of the seat days where I went to the bathroom or I went to the buffet to have some lunch and when I came back the whole complexion of the race had changed. Yeah, almost felt like it kind of those few groups on the road, the handful of groups on the road almost kept switching out. But we had the battle for the stage. We also had the battle for the GC. We had the battle for the podium to between Florian Lippewitz and Oscar only. And at one stage, I think Florian Lippewitz had two and a half minute, three minutes, maybe on picnic post-an-el Oscar only. Yeah, but before then he'd been in completely the wrong position on the back chasing. And I couldn't work out quite how that had happened. It was one of those strange things where is that bad legs or bad positioning or just caught inattentive at the wrong time or had he tried to get a feed at the wrong time. But he was chasing hard. And then before you knew it, he was back in front of the GC group and gaining time on the first two and sort of cementing his place on the podium. But did he overextend himself because as we look at the GC tonight, Lippewitz is now only 22 seconds, only 22 seconds, only 22 seconds ahead of Oscar, only. I won't labour that one anymore. I think you're allowed. Oscar only has earned it. But it was the foot of the climb really when Ben O'Connor started to stretch his legs. The Yellow Jersey group was catching at that point, but O'Connor just seemed to get out and sustain the gap. And in fact, he started to streak away and put more time into the Yellow Jersey group in the first few kilometres of the climb. That was the point that Vismalisa bike seemed to go to work. Simon Yates and Cep Kus on the front working for Jonas Vingogl. You still had Florian Lippewitz going off the front of that second group, hanging in there. But the whole time O'Connor seemed to be sustaining the pace. Lippewitz seemed to be sliding further back towards the Yellow Jersey, but O'Connor managed to keep the gap and he rode further away from Ina Rubio, who was then second man on the road. The solo movie made was about 16-17k to go on the final climb, but it happened before that on the right at the start of the valley road, really. About 41, maybe to go. O'Connor lifted the pace through a bit of a nothingy bit of road, a little kind of a spend. I was knocked. quite downhill but certainly not uphill. It was a weird little move really but it was clearly the strategy. Heiner Rubio of Mobystoy reacted and then Mateo Jorgensen of Visum Elisa by reacted. And again in the press conference afterwards O'Connor said that the ideal strategy or the ideal outcome was that when he moved Jorgensen would go with and so that they would have kind of a powerful alliance. Knowing that, there'd be not much interest in particularly Vingogore sort of chasing up from behind because at that point they were still thinking will that GC group come back? I mean it wasn't close in the end but if it really kicked off in that GC group it might have been a factor. So well thought out by O'Connor and when he got to the line he still had a minute and 45 over, a raging today pagatra who matched everything that Jonas Vingogore could throw at him and then picked him off at the end. Visum Elisa might did try though didn't they? Setkus did a big turn. Simon Yates was there at a certain point. Jorgensen was up the road as well but again pagatra just has an answer to absolutely everything. He did and he had Adam Yates and Jonathan Norvayas working for him on the front. Norvayas for his punch and Adam Yates was just able to tempo him up to the point where he was ready to launch in the final few kilometres. So Worth mentioned for team Picknick Post-NL who came steaming through like a train with Oscar Onley on the back at the bottom of the climb too to put him back into contention with that GC group. Yeah because he'd lost ground as well hadn't he and so was coming back on and crucial work by team mates and this battle for third place now is really alive and will be very exciting tomorrow on the way to La Palanya. But a big stage win for Beno Connor the second Tour de France stage win of his career. His first came in his debut tour in 2021 at Teen when he entered the rest day. That's second place overall that year and then kind of slipped back a bit but ended up fourth overall. A very impressive debut at the Tour de France. I think we've been kind of waiting for him to back that performance up and as he said in the press conference again he's had terrible luck. The opening days of the Tour de France are not his friend. In 2022 he crashed on stage two in Copenhagen and eventually pulled out of the race midway through as a result of just struggling on for eight days and he crashed on stage one here in the final five kilometres of the opening day. Pretty badly banged up but he's recovered well and obviously taken his chance today but he said you know crashing twice through no thought of his own and wrecking a previous tour. He thought the same thing was going to happen but he saw it through today and it was a great great win. As I say one forty five ahead of Pogaccia who stretched his overall advantage a little bit more. Bingo Gort was nine second behind him then came only then came Ina Rubio, Felix Gale, Primoz Roglic, Adam Yates, Caviris Hallandjo, Hanneson and Seth Kuss rounding out the top ten. Crucially Florian Lippevitz was eleventh, three thirty seven behind Beno Connor. Kevin Valkyrie was twelve and the other GC rider from the top ten Ben Healey was 17th, 928 behind the winner so overall there's only actually two changes in the top ten. Felix Gale jumps above Valkyrie into sixth and Beno Connor is up to tenth as a result of Carlos Rodriguez's withdrawal this morning but like I say that battle for the podium now very very close. On the man of the day Beno Connor and I think you spoke to his sports director Steve Cummings at the finish. I did on the way back to Simon Gill the photographer van which I was very grateful once again to get into this time because of the absolutely filthy weather I mean it was hailing at the top of the climate one point. I ran past one of the J. Co. Allula cars and sort of scampered back because I thought I saw Armand Steve Cummings in there it was him very pleased to see him. I should also preface this interview with the fact that it was cannonballed very briefly by friend of the podcast Adam Blight. Well done Steve, phenomenal stuff mate. Why didn't we do anything? I'm not the type to do anything. I'm the u-cook. What's that going to do for the team? It's great you need to test what every team wants I think. What can I say? I think we really deserve it. It seems to be amazing. They've been in every group possible. We missed one day. It's just super intense. It's just super. It's what we need it. The chances we're running out. Yeah, no exactly. Great. We'll toss up it. It's not like a bloody grail. Steve, hold on. One more crit. What did he think to Ben? He deserves it. He's typical. In his characteristics, he might describe him as a persista and he did the perfect stage. He entered the break, really smooth, smart and then he had big balls to attack when no one else would in the valley. And then finally he's just so strong as well. He deserves it because that crash isn't pretty hard to be honest. Brilliant. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks again to Steve for climbing out the car to talk as he was putting Luke's bike on the roof. Adam Blight was good to see you in slightly unusual circumstances. Did you get on the telly? No, I didn't. Next time. So Steve Cummings mentioned the fact that Ben O'Connor had crashed early in the race too. It sort of said that it was a classic Ben O'Connor win and he did it in only the style that he could and kind of echoed Luke Platt's sentiment that kind of picked the hardest day and went hard and went long. Yeah, and bear in mind this is his first year with Jacob Allula after several years with the AG2R, now the Caffron AG2R team. And he said he was really enjoying himself in the team, mixing in a kind of English-speaking environment I guess. But he didn't say that it was a bad thing to be in a French team but he definitely gave the impression that he was feeling very comfortable in the team and also felt a sense of relief I think that he had managed to deliver a big win in the Tour de France. We should probably throw to Matt White, our tactical guru here, of course, sports director, at Jacob Allula until May just before the duo and was quite involved in the transfer of Ben O'Connor to the team over the winter. And I wanted to know from Matt three things really, one, what was playing Lippe Vitt's doing, you know, why was he behind and then the head and then behind again. But he started off by talking about Ben O'Connor and how he pulled off that major victory. The Queen stage has been run and won, what an intriguing day it was. And there was races within races there. Finally pulled off by Ben O'Connor and a brilliant move actually, brilliant move. First, make the big split of the day and then the timing of his attack in the valley there when you can see that the two leaders, the two big stars of our Tour de France were watching each other. He knew that he needed time before the final climb because he knows he couldn't go ahead to head with those guys. So perfect timing to take away with the movie star rider and Jorgensen and he had just enough time to hold off a fast chasing Tade Pogicare. So big win for Ben, big win for Jacob Allula and then the other story of the day was our intriguing battle for the final spot on the podium. Now Lippe Vitt's looked very, very strong today and unfortunately for him got caught in between groups at the wrong time on a couple of times and then tried a solo move as well but the problem was he probably spent the most time out of any rider in the bunch in the wind. And ended up paying for it on the hardest day of the Tour de France. Now that has now narrowed the gap between Oscar only to only 22 seconds. Oscar only at one stage was two to three minutes behind Lippe Vitt's and then they pulled out a big chunk of time on him across the finish line. Did who got the tactics right? Well, I think I think Oscar only didn't panic. I think he had a big benefit of a couple of teammates came back in the valley, Vandenbruck, Bargill. They came back and made a big difference on the approach to the final climb and at the end of the day he had the best legs on the final ascent to the person himself in very good position for a life-changing experience with the possibility of arriving on the podium of the Tour de France. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities every order matters but when it's for a hospital system they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers millions of products in fast dependable delivery so you can keep your facilities stocked safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRanger-click-ranger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. As over great to hear from Whitey, point on Roglic and Lippewitz who were well they animated the race for much if not all of the day. Primo's Roglic was still hanging on in that final GC group, yo-yoing back and forth a few times, but still hanging on in there. It felt to me, though, Lionel, that even though they were, they were riding for the same team, Red Bull Borough Handsgrower, didn't feel like they were riding together. They were just two normal men who happened to be riding in the same colors, but they certainly weren't, there was no communication, and it was just the case of whom ever had the strongest legs today, was gonna hang on until the end. But there wasn't any cohesion. Yeah, normally at this stage in the race, you see teams cooperate to protect a GC position, don't you? And Florian Lippavitz is the man holding third place. He's a young rider, and he's obviously a very big talent. Premise Roglitch is kind of the old timer, who's been around the block. He's won Grand Tours, multiple Grand Tours, very experienced. I don't know whether it's realistic to expect Roglitch to kind of babysit Lippavitz through a day like today. Because if Lippavitz had blown, which could have happened on the final climb, or at any point really, early in the day, especially when he was behind, you wouldn't sacrifice Roglitch's chances of being the best bet for the podium. So you wouldn't sacrifice, no, an experienced rider, who probably has got the horsepower and the engine to see this through. There's still another big day to go up to La Plania, and Roglitch is only what is that 148 off Lippavitz. And we see this with younger riders at the Tour de France every year. Sometimes it's the case of one day too far. So they wouldn't want to necessarily compromise Roglitch's chances in the event that Lippavitz, and I don't want to say fell apart, but in the event of him having a difficult time. So I can kind of understand them having their own free reign to do their own thing, rather than Roglitch's trying to, like I'd say, nourish him through to the finish. Lippavitz, of course, is still in the young rider's white jersey, but hot on his heels, not just for that, but for the podium, as we mentioned, Oscar only. He just keeps getting more and more impressive as the race goes on. - Well, again, they were the point where he was the only rider that can go with Pogatria and Vingegon, and no, we should not take that lightly. I mean, an exceptional performance again today, not just by him, but by the team, no panic either. In the wrong position at a certain point, losing time, but really held it together, and treated the whole stage as a whole, rather than thinking, "Oh, well, out of it now." And again, I've said it a couple of times, but the key on stage is like this, especially when it's such a hard final climb, it's just keep moving forwards as best you can, because you never know how other riders may be misjudged, it will go on a bit into the red. And so, you know, he came up to the line there, just off the back of Pogatria and Vingegon, and well ahead of everybody else in the GC group, exceptional riding by him. - I was in the scrum on the top of the cold, a little loose to try and get a few words with Oscar only. I didn't, but happy to say, press record, while our colleague, Daniel Fried, did. - Oscar, is it? Was it a dark moment on the Madeline, or did you make it keep you cool and know that you could come back? - Oh, I wouldn't say I kept my cool, but still felt good, just, I know the level of those guys were in the attack, and they showed it the end, or they showed it the end that they went pretty hard up there. Team did great job for you. - Yeah, they were really good. - They were so good. - You're 22 seconds from the podium now. I mean, you must be excited as to go go in the last mountain stage. - Yeah. - Yeah. I don't know. That's not much, so we'll give it everything tomorrow. - Thanks guys. - Thanks everyone. - Just to highlight the kind of chaos of the day, really Graham, Enwick Mass was a non-finisher, and yet early in the stage, he was up the road in groups, moving away, and I thought, well, he's come up short in the mountains on the big one, Monvon II, when he was looking great with a few kilometres to go and got real back in. Just an exceptional day of unpredictability, really. And just, like I said at the start, this sense that they were all just trying to get to the line as quickly as possible. They're almost no cohesion between any of the riders or any of the teams. Enwick Mass, getting in a move early on, and then not making it to the finish, disappointing end to the Tour de France sport, him, and Moby Star, who are despite Ina Rubio's ride today, are seriously misfiring, underperforming compared to what we've have expected from them in the past. - It was chaotic on the top of the cold, the La Lose as well, at the finish. To the, because it was raining and hailing so hard, everyone gets their water proofs on. No one is necessarily in the right place. You get a few fans mingling with the press. They tend to keep the TV separate from the podcasters, from the traditional written press too. But everyone ends up mingling together, and then you're told, well, you shouldn't be here, a couple of colleagues from Cycling Weekly and Reler were marched out of an area that they were asked to leave for an area they weren't supposed to be in. I was marched out of the TV fit, but kept my pass, I'm happy to say, Oscar only in amongst all of that. I mean, I don't know if this came across in the interview, but he looked and sounded exhausted. And you almost, you almost wanted to sort of put an arm around him. He's still, I mean, the ride has still had to, they still had to descend six Ks back to team buses, although As Luke Platt at the top of the episodes said or made clear, he was getting in the car, along with at least one other teammate. But it was, it was a real kind of, it was on the road, it was shifting everywhere, quite chaotic in terms of formation of the race. On top of the climb at the finish, utter chaos, you could barely tell who was who, and it felt like riders were popping up everywhere. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to break it to you, Graham, but the Tour de France can be quite hard someday. It's can't it for everyone, but I think when you look at the results, right? So only 18th place, Santiago Retrado with the last rider to get within 10 minutes of the winner. And then the gaps open up massively. And by the time you get down to 35th place, it's over half an hour. And then by the time you get to the Grapetto, well, there wasn't really a Grapetto. It really was 2s and 3s, 3s and 4s. No significantly big group, even right back in sort of 45 minutes down. And I'm sure there was a little bit of concern about the time cut. I think they got in comfortably in the end about six minutes, was it? Correct. I actually spoke to Jake Stewart on my way down to Simon the photographer's van. He had a word on what it was like at the back end of the race. How ridiculous was that, Jake? Six minutes inside of time, because, yeah, hard day. Yeah, we're getting a little bit nervous at the end there. It's fine, cut voice. No, no, not really. I think, you know, it was with the green jersey. I think a few guys were getting a bit twitchy, but we're not how this game works. So, yeah, got to receive. What, I might you lift a fight another day? Thank you. That's for sure. So Jake Stewart confirming their line-alts, six minutes, quite comfortable in the end. If couple of guys in their bunch getting a little bit twitchy, but they were with the green jersey as good an indication as any, really, that things were going to be all right. They were going to get in under the wire. Yeah, I mean, Jake Stewart actually nudged ahead of the green jersey group by a few minutes, but that's probably because of final sections are so steep and they, once they knew they were going to make it, it's about saving legs, isn't it? But when you look at the results, the biggest group out the back was probably only about eight riders, no groupetto. And I can't remember many stages like that in the Tour de France. Normally, there's a big group at the back of the race, you know, 40, 50 riders sometimes, but not like that today. A real tough, tough day. Tadeh Pagature was probably already on the podium. He'd done with his podium duties by that stage. I'm going to reintroduce, if I may, Gilliver's travels at this point, because in conversation with Simon on the way back down the mountain, he took a few photos of Pog on the podium. And he said that what stood out was the fact that Pog catcher celebrated like he'd put a few ghosts to bed. And that it almost felt like, well, that was part one of his celebration, kind of eyes closed, head tilted back, arms are loft, you know? And that, it was, he's so used to being on the podium. And we're so used to seeing him kind of, you know, collect the accolades and the bouquet, et cetera. And it's a kind of business as usual sort of thing. Today, it was not anything like that. It was markedly different. His celebration kind of gave his emotions away. And, you know, put those ghosts to bed, kind of felt like he might have won the tour today, or he felt like he'd won the tour today. Well, yeah, I mean, he was, that was the first question he was asked in the press conference. Did he feel like he'd laid some ghosts to rest from the collapse on the cordola lows a couple of years ago? He said, yes, he did, you know, he's super happy with how they rode today. And, but he did say it is not over yet. There's one more big day to go. He actually said, three days left. So I'm going to try my best tomorrow and the day after, and the day after. And he is counting the kilometers to Paris. He don't often hear riders admit that. Maybe, you know, just giving an answer. to the press. It doesn't necessarily indicate a sort of deep state of mind, but he looked tired. He did look quite tired. I mean, they always look more tired when it's cold and they're wrapped up. He's wearing the beanie hat and the jacket, but he did say, "I can't wait until it's over. I try to enjoy every down the bike as much as I can, even though it's very hard. I'm tired. I'm annoyed by more or less everyone around me, and you want to go home. But the crowds on the climbs give you something, and if you have good legs, it makes everything quite good. I think we can all empathise with that sentiment, can't we? Everybody around us are knowing us. Maybe just me and Pog. I don't know. Probably the only thing I've gotten common with him at this point. But he said about the race because they had a hard day actually, and he said that Vingigoor attacking on the Madeline meant that they kind of had to rip up their tactics a bit, and he had to go with. That meant that it was quite hard to then go for the stage. It was all about containment, sort of throw a fire blanket over it, dampen down what Vismalisa bike we're trying to do. At this point, he said, "I'd love to win stages and he referenced Monvon 2 as well." He said, "But the priority is just to defend the jersey." It was a marking job for him again today, a man marking job. I think Vismalisa bike, and I've seen a little bit of criticism for them already, but I think Vismalisa bike deserve a bit of credit for the way. Trying something. Yeah. We often criticize teams for just riding around and settling for what they've got in the final week, and they're not doing that. It's not therefore that they're not able to come up with something that's going to rock Pagaccio. I mean, who knows, maybe tomorrow, but it's such a big lead. They're only going to dent it if that, and I can't even see that, to be honest. No sign of the aforementioned, well, yesterday's arrogance from Pagaccio today. No, he looked too tired to be arrogant, to be honest. But we should see. I mean, no, they've still a fair bit of racing to do, but I think he will. He's so pragmatic, isn't he? He races when he needs to and wants to, but also he knows that there's no time to be reckless in the Tour de France. It's just about getting the job done now. I tell you another man who's famed for his pragmatism. So much so that we've got people writing him to ask him for the answers to some very important questions. Absolutely. Is it time for any other Bosniss? Absolutely. Excellent. This is Curtis Yivar, title sponsors, Wahoo, and we have a question for Ian. And this question is a simple one, actually, and it relates to the cycle computers that Wahoo make, other companies make cycle computers as well. But this question is, what are the riders looking at on their bike computers when they are racing in the Tour de France? And that question comes from Riley. And this is Ian's answer. Hey, Riley. Very timely question given the recent blog done by Michael Woods during this year's Tour. I am a big fan of writing with a bike computer regardless of where or what I'm doing. And in the World Tour, yes, every rider has a bike computer on their bike. This is really important for collecting data from the stage, but more importantly, most riders have their bike computers set to the map page. This is something that I learned in 2015. I was in a descent in the Vuelta and I was behind me how Cuyah Kowski and he was flying down this hill. And after the stage, he said, of course, he's a much better descender than I am. But I was so curious is how he knew what was coming. And that was the first time that I realized he was using a GPX file on the bike computer to follow the GPX route down the hill. So he knew what was coming ahead of him despite not being able to see a lead car or a motorbike. So most riders are, yes, looking at the map page, they can put some data fields up at the top, whether they want to see power, heart rate, speed, distance to a queue. Oftentimes now teams are putting in cues into GPX files so they know when the aid stations and feed stations are coming up. So that's a key point for riders to also be reminded of eating, drinking, you can set all sorts of little alarms on your bike computers in this day and age every 20 minutes to pop up and say, hey, eat, drink or climb coming up. It's become very customizable. Personally, I don't think it's a huge distraction. If anything, it's a tool to help keep riders safer to know what's coming up because there's no way anyone can actually remember all the roads over the course of a Tour de France. Wahoo have got a Tour de France and Tour de France Fam sale, which is running whilst the tour is concluding and through next week when the Tour de France Fam is on it runs until Monday the 4th of August. It's available to listeners in the EU and the UK and you can make savings up to 800 euros or 700 pounds across both outdoor and indoor cycling products. Check Wahoo Fitness.com for details and get yourself a great bargain on some of their kit and equipment. If you work in university maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip-off. In Granger, is your trusted partner offering the products you need all in one place from HVAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more and all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRanger-visitgranger.com or just up by Granger for the ones who get it done. Last night's dinner. Why not? Classic. I don't know, dinner's doing a lot of heavy lifting here. We did it around Granger and we ran right up to the time limit. I mean we were six minutes inside the time limit. Won't we? Just, yeah. We ended up in a cafeteria type place. I had a burger, which was fine, but the salad had come straight from a very cold fridge. So it was a real weird experience. I had a microwave meal that served in, well, a slightly more presentable dish. It wasn't presentable. No. It was Ravioli with the thickest blue cheese sauce. Ravioli stray out of the freezer in the thickest blue cheese sauce I've ever chewed through and I didn't finish. My DNF. My DNF, my dinner. Yeah, I mean it wasn't a classic was it. We've not done too well the last few days, but there we go. It was better than a missed dinner, but only just. I know what you really want to talk about. Well, we went back to the hotel didn't we? And a young man from the UK over in France on business got chatting to him and we ended up playing pools. We'd moved away from the pool table so it didn't disrupt our recording session. We didn't want the clacking of balls, but we had a great game of pool and I think I saw evidence of a misspent youth there, Graham. You're not too bad with a pool queue. Thank you very much, but I was going to say exactly the same thing about you and our listeners can judge for themselves on your Instagram, so I'm in Gills' Instagram and the cycling podcast Instagram. So somebody is quite one of his shots with me. Somebody posted it three times. I don't know why. We played a game called Killer, which I have to say. I'd never, I played Killer at Darts, but I'd never played it on a pool table. I'd forgotten about this. You didn't know the rules. He was never played Killer before. I'm a very serious, I was a very serious young man. When I played pool in a pub as a teenager and in my early 20s, I liked to play best of 35 frames. We should probably do the scores on the doors of this because Luke at the fourth, the fourth man to our party came away with two wins from Killer and I came away with one. And do we play four games or three games? I think it was I think I thought it was three. I might have to flat out for a bit. I think I had shot of the night. That's that will do me. But yeah, it was it was it ended up being quite a pleasant evening didn't it? Actually, very nice to just have a little bit of downtime on wine. Do something slightly different to covering the Tour de France and working. It was it was nice indeed. It was back to business this morning though, wasn't it? We had a busy one and I kind of had my eyes off the race a little bit because I've been working on this kilometre zero episode for a few days. About Dave Browseford's comeback to team Ineos and this story that has kind of been haunting them since the start about the head-cara of the team, David Rosman and well, it's been like nailing jelly to a wall this story to be perfectly honest and there was a significant development this afternoon when I was in the press for him working on the final episode because Ineos Grenadier's released a statement, a longer statement and I mean it's kind of thrown the whole story wide open really as far as I can tell. So I'm not going to read the whole statement. It's in the kilometre zero episode which is out now. Some people may already have listened to it. It's on the free feed so everyone can hear it and it's kind of it's a sort of story of two halves really. It's about Dave Browseford's return to the cycling team at the Tour de France. The scene of his greatest glory is seven tour wins in eight years as we know. Then the difficult experience working at Manchester United Football Club, another part of Jim Ratcliffe's sporting empire and then he's kind of slightly sort of moved back to the cycling team after not a terribly successful time at Manchester United and then this story about David Rosman has blown up on the eve of the tour. Now earlier on in the tour Dave Browseford told me that he wouldn't be commenting at all on the situation. It relates to these text messages allegedly sent between David Rosman and Dr Mark Schmidt who was already a doctor linked to a doping scandal at the Gareth Steiner team in 2008 and then subsequently was jailed and served at least a couple of years of a nearly five-year sentence. for doping practices. So it's murky, it's unclear, there are questions to answer. And until today really, in your screen of years, a given impression that they don't have anything to say at a news. So the previous statement given said that they had not been presented with any evident via formal body. Today's statement is slightly different. It says that team member David Rosman was informally contacted in April 2025 by the International Testing Agency star who asked him about these alleged historical communications. Now it then goes on to say that although David was not under investigation, Ineos promptly commissioned a thorough review by an external law firm. So everything we've been told throughout this tour, which is, well, what are the allegations that we don't know with nothing to kind of see here? All of a sudden it turns out that back in April Rosman was contacted informally and at that point Ineos launched an external investigation with a law firm. I mean, an extraordinary development really. Now a bit of a non-secure if not completely contradictory. Well, there's some information that was definitely omitted when we all went and asked Brailsford and Team Ineos about this situation. It was kind of like brushed away and now it turns out that maybe there was something to say a week or so ago. Now we understand David Rosman has left the tour to France. I believe it was on the rest day in Montpellier but I'm not 100% sure about that. He certainly hasn't been at the tour for several days and now he's been invited to have a formal conversation with the International Testing Agency. And because there's now a kind of formal investigation, Team Ineos are saying that they cannot comment any further. Unsatisfactory really. My episode, kind of meanders here and there, it features a conversation with David Walsh about why this matters. What it means for Team Sky's legacy, Chris Froome's tour wins are kind of dragged into all of this because Rosman was Froome's carer, you know, kind of his personal carer during those years. And it's just a rattling of skeletons from the previous era and it adds to a list of things that have not been satisfactorily explained, not just to the media but also to official investigation by the British Government and the UK anti-doping agency. Dave Browseford is very good at kind of swerving the issue and I'm not sure on this one that he should. It can be easily explained away, they should do it, they should come out and say exactly what happened, are those text messages genuinely between Rosman and Dr Mark Schmidt, what did they mean? And if they can come out and say there's nothing, there is nothing here. Well, let's hear that too but this kind of grey area that we find ourselves in is not great. Anyway, the kilometre zero is online now, people can listen to that and make up their own minds I guess. The timing is extraordinary with Browse's return. On to timing of a slightly different more celebratory sort and an anniversary, one of the several anniversaries that this tour seems to have heralded. My birthday. You're all 50 years birthday. No, I'm actually a few days younger than the Polkadot jersey because I think the tour started in very late June in 1975 when they introduced the Polkadot jersey. Earlier in the episode we didn't talk about how that competition is going in the tour. Lenny Martinez of course was leading this morning, looking resplendent in his Polkadot socks. He went over the ground on first and hoved up some points there but because there were significantly more points available on the cold dole lows at the finish line, today Pogaccia is now leading on 105 points ahead of Vingigor on 89 and then Martinez is back on 72. There are 60 points available tomorrow and then Saturday and Sunday they're just 13 available over those two stages. So tomorrow it will be decided and I suppose the tour de France has got a situation where at least the best climbers in the race are first and second, the best climbers in the world are first and second in the classification because there has been criticism in the past that the Polkadot jersey is kind of awarded to the, well the best attacker, the best breakaway rider in the mountains rather than the best climber. Now Graham if you will permit me I'll give you a bit of a history lesson on the Polkadot jersey. It's one of the most recognisable jersey in world cycling isn't it? It's probably more recognisable than the yellow jersey because it's so distinctive the myo aqua rouge red peas. And the most, I mean the most popular bit of merch thrown out from the caravan are the, the Polkadot T shirts and the Polkadot bucket hats aren't they? I mean so that's possibly part of the reason why it's so recognisable but the reason it began. Well let's hear from François Thomazot about the origins of the Polkadot jersey like lots of things in cycling sort of lost in the midst of time. So like many other things in the history of cycling and especially the tour de France, the origins of the Polkadot jersey are the subject of lot controversy but uncertainty for many many years it was believed that the Polkadots came from the the rapings of the chocolate bars by the first sponsor of the Polkadot jersey. It was the Poulin chocolates and I can testify personally that when I was a kid there was the Chocolat Poulin I used to eat Chocolat Poulin like many kids and the rapings actually had dots and they had a kind of Polkadot. It was not red dots on a white surface it was more like silver and red but it might be true but then in recent years another theory has appeared which is also quite possible and maybe it's a mix of both and the other story is there was a French trackwriter before World War II in the 1930s and 1940s called Henri Romain and he made a reputation for himself as the Polkadots writer or more true to facts and the nickname the man with the piece because in French the Mailleux-Apois means the jersey with the piece with the piece you eat and green piece and and actually when Le Moin in the days of six days cycling and track and everything you had to you had to be different to be noticed and apparently Henri Le Moin to be noticed decided to have Polkadot of Polkadot jersey and a white jersey with red dots and he had a partner called Marcel Granbeaux-Tier I think and he was there were pairing in six days races and then this guy had a white jersey with blue dots anyways Fedix Levitton who would later be the director of the Tour de France in New Henri Romain well he organized six days races and he knew how popular Henri Romain was the the one you know rode in his Polkadot jersey all over the planet in six days races all over Europe and even Australia and the US and he may have been influenced by the Polkadot jersey of Henri Romain when he decided in 1975 to reward the best climber of Tour de France with a distinctive jersey and and it chose the Polkadot as the color and was it reminiscent of Henri Romain or was it because the sponsor the sponsor the main sponsor Schokolapoulin had Polkadot rappings who knows we call it the King of the Mountains the French don't call it the King of the Mountains Louard de Montagne or whatever that would translate as the competition is called the Meyer-Grampeur the best climber and like I say we can debate whether it's the best climber or just the person who targets the points but the competition has been going since 1933 but it wasn't until 1975 that they created this distinctive jersey and as Francois as explained it could have been because of the chocolate wrappers or it could have been because a six day rider was inspired by a jockey the jockey's silks we don't quite know but it's been much copied across loads of other races and when it was first introduced in 1975 it really divided opinion Lucian Vanimpa the Belgian rider one of the best climbers in the world at the time and the man who would eventually win the jersey in Paris that year he completely dismissed it as a clownish costume and said that if he was leading the competition he would refuse to wear it he thought he was a joke but that was until he saw how the crowds reacted to it interestingly the crowds loved it Lenny Martinez is doing well he's doing the law's work in that sense and he's doing it all sorts of favors you don't agree with the the full on Polkadot's from head to toe particularly the socks back in 1975 they wouldn't have had matching shorts and socks but the jersey was first up for grabs on the second day of the 1975 tour there've been a prologue the previous day and then on the second day there was a short road stage in the morning from Shalowak to Mullinbeek in Belgium and the following stage in the afternoon was going to go over the cobbles of Roubaix now there was only one One categorized climb on the route, a very small one, called the Côte de Bomére. And that came after five kilometers. It was short, not particularly steep, but the first riders at the top would get the honour of wearing this first novelty jersey. And you, Zotomelk, who's father-in-law, worked on the race, you'd think there'd be a grand unveiling of this amazing new jersey. There really wasn't. But Zotomelk saw it and thought, I want to be the first guy to wear that. He attacked Eddie Merck's, tried to beat him to the line, couldn't, so Zotomelk wore the Polka dot jersey the first ever time. Ironically, on a cobbled stage, I mean, the mind's blown, isn't it? I've got a quiz for you. Go on. The rider with the most king of the mountains, title wins. Who's won the Polka dot jersey the most? Ah, well, Rishavironk, because he was never stripped of the ones that he might possibly have been stripped of. I don't can't think why. Correct. Can you name any of the other sponsors of the jersey after Poulan, the chocolate company? There was Campagnolo, Coca-Cola. And for the past 30 years, it's been three supermarkets, Shumpion, Carifor and now Leclerc. Carifor and Leclerc, I could have told you anything else. I'd have been scraping the bottom of the Supermarket trolley, I'm afraid to say. Now, you know Leclerc, they started sponsoring it in 2019. And the boss of Leclerc is a gentleman that we've met. He's, I think, his French is third richest man. Francois was kind of knows him. And we met him at Leviscos once, Kelcepries. And he explained, because I'm complained about the Leclerc jersey, they've straightened all the dots up. It used to be kind of haphazard dots. They've made them much smaller and they're now in rows. They look like a game of Connect 4, if you remember that from your childhood. And I don't like that. I normally like common sense and order. And I'm a bit of a neat freak of that. A bit of a rogue when it comes to the King of the Mouset. But he explained that he wanted the iconic jersey, but he wanted it to be, he wanted to put their own spin on it and have something that they could own. And I suppose in that way it is effective. What else can we say about the King of the Mouset jersey? Other than it's only really in recent years that the Tour de France winner has been in with a shout. Winning it with Froome, Pogaccia, a couple of times, and Vingigor, Carlos Sastre, when he won the tour in 2008, also won the King of the Mouset title. But that was only because Berna Cole was stripped of the King of the Mouset title for doping. But there we are. That's a little history lesson on the Dottie jersey. The one my daughter loves the most. It's good to swat up. Any other business. Oh, it's time. A bit of housekeeping I think. Yeah, just a couple of things, Graeme. The Tour de France fan starts on Saturday and the team have released their preview episode. It's online now. So if you're going to be following the Tour de France fan, and why wouldn't you be with our daily episode, of course, but also watching it on TV, get across all of the detail in our preview. And as I mentioned, that kilometer zero about Dave Browseford, Timmie and Eos, and the Ghosts from the Past is also online now. And I think tomorrow morning, we'll put out our camping expedition on Monvon 2. Now that everyone knows we survived it, we can release that. One wild night on Monvon 2. Yes. Well, I think that pretty much wraps us up a less wild night ahead. One more big day to go. Anything could happen, but unlikely to. Well, we'll see, won't we? Whether-- I mean, Janus Vingigor has not won a stage. So there's big climbs on the way to La Plania. And we will see whether that is the switch of their focus for Vizmeli's right. Because let's face it, not going to claw back for it and whatever it is minutes. So maybe they will go all out to try and win the stage at the top of La Plania, having gone over-- the Cormédre Roseland. And what's that one? Cormédre Saisy first. It's the Cat, the first Cat 1 climb of the day. Then we've got the Cormédre Roseland Cat 2 climb. And then we swoop down into the valley for the final sent to La Plania, the HC climb at 7.2%. Yeah, I mean, the Cormédre Roseland is a hard climb. The reason it's second catagre is because it's basically their turning off the road after the cold of prey. And then up over the Cormédre Roseland. So I mean, that is a lot of climbing in the middle of the stage. And then a bit of recovery time before the final rise up to the line. And we will be there tomorrow, Graham. Almost 4,700 meters tomorrow, 5,600 today. But looking forward to getting up one more mountain before Paris. 10,000 meters climbed in two days. Savage, isn't it? The cycling podcast was created in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Fried and Nigel Bunn. 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