2021 season, Tour de France, Tweets of the week

Tour Tweets of the Week : Ain’t no mountain high enough

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So much going on in the Tour de France Twittersphere over the past week. Mountains were climbed, stages were won, and records were equalled. It’s a mix of the heartfelt and irreverent, as always, in the one, the original, Tweets of the Week.

Let’s start with this:

Jumbo Bees gotta buzz

Jumbo-Visma had a subtle and cunning plan for Stage 15 (that worked), with three of the five riders left on the team up the road and their GC guy back in the yellow jersey group with the remaining teammate. They took the stage with Sepp, Wout took some pox points and got most combative, and Jonas moved back into third on GC (thanks, mainly, to Ineos’s subtle and cunning plan that might not have worked as they had wanted).

Our Stage 15 write-up is here (full of tweets too)

When Sepp was a pup

Jonas Vingegaard has been a bit of a dark horse – always with the yellow jersey groups but stealthily. Well, they’re paying attention to him now. He was the only one who looked like he could get the better of Pogacar on Ventoux.

When Jonas was a pup

And of course, Ventoux was when Wout van Aert put on his zombie face and vanquished the mountain. And then evened his pedals and stood on them for his salute. The abs that man must have. Our stage 11 write-up is here.

When Wout was a pup

Showing some class

I always love it when riders show respect for each other and are gracious in defeat as well as victory. Here are some examples from week 2.

For the write-up of Nils Politt‘s stage 12 victory, go here.

Alejandro Valverde had tried to chase Sepp down the mountain to the finish on stage 15, but didn’t get there. This is what he said: Thank you all for the love and the messages! Today we tried it in a very tough stage and we stayed very close. @seppkuss it was better, so it’s time to congratulate him.

It was a hot hot day in Andorra, with roads melting and riders wilting. Sometimes you just need someone to pour water over your head.

I love this.

I think it’s time for a sing-song, don’t you?

So far … it’s tied

As this is written on a Tuesday, we don’t know if Mark Cavendish has surpassed Eddy Merckx with his 35th stage win, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

For our Stage 10 write-up, filled with even more tweets, go here; for Stage 13, go here.

Now that’s how you use your platform. You say stuff out loud.

Subtle and cunning plans

Ineos have been at all sixes and sevens this Tour because they aren’t/can’t dominate and they also just can’t make any traction on Pogacar. Which, as Carapaz has been hovering just outside the podium for awhile now, seems to be a plan that doesn’t work. But they keep drilling it on the front, burning all their matches and don’t have a lot to show for it (at time of writing – watch, Carapaz is going to ride a blinder today).

And here’s a plan that worked like a dream. Go here for our stage 14 write-up

Climbs before the calm

More hot hot hot stuff

Who’s left

Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of guys leaving the Tour this year, some as planned (Nibs isn’t starting this third week due to Olympic stuff, for one), some just couldn’t get in on the time cut. And some got picked up by the broom wagon. And of course Mathieu van der Poel had planned only to be in for a week, in order to wear the yellow jersey before he left. That one definitely has left riders and fans with very mixed emotions.

People fans thought had gone home, but in fact are still in the race.

It’s always a shame when a rider has been dropped and dropped and dropped again so that it’s only him and the broom wagon driving slowly behind him. That happened to Nacer Bouhanni over the weekend.

I always have respect for riders who know they are going to be WAY over the time limit but they ride the entire stage out of respect for the race. EBH did that this weekend and that’s just pure class.

The Gruppetto

I guess we could call the entire peloton the gruppetto as Lachlan has made it to Paris first.

Brad on the back of a motorbike has been quite the viewing experience. The wild gesticulating and aggressive pointing at the camera almost brought the peloton down at one point. His strange, impassioned Tom Simpson speech on the Ventoux stage. Oh, and his utter rudeness about his motorbike driver every chance he got on Saturday, which was really uncalled for. That was #unclass.

Controversial jersey talk?

Controversial kit talk?

The last word

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