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

They'll total has been struggling. He has maybe a little bit of acceleration, but not enough to beat Remko.

“And I think today, Remko answers the critics, including ourselves.”

We have been critical of Remko. We were just like 10 minutes yesterday.

Like, say, "No, he's not good on the steep climbs in this and that." Well, guess what? Today, he showed us wrong. Definitely proved us wrong. Everybody welcome back to the move plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernal. We're breaking down stage 15. The two-to-france won by Remko, even a poll on a tough, tough summer finish. Who didn't see that coming? With Tadipagachar's second no-time lost.

Isaac Del Toro, his teammate, third, six seconds back, in extremely eventful stage that

also saw Jonas Benegard crash out of the race with a broken collarbone before the final climb.

We'll also preview tomorrow stage 16. Take a few listener questions, but first, before we get into anything you want. I want to throw it over. Let's see what's in your rant corner today. What do we have waiting for us? Spencer, what the day they made it really easy on me to have my rant out here before we start to talk about the stage. We have to address the situation. So we started watching the race and saw on social media also that Jonas Benegard and Tadipagachar

got woken up in the middle of the night for a doping control. Jonas Benegard got woken up at 2 a.m.

and Tadipagachar at 5 a.m. which is something I have never heard.

You know, add to that that, you know, just hit the scene a little bit. The distance between yesterday's finish and today's start was 400 kilometers. What does that mean? That yesterday after the stage, depending on where the team is staying, they had a two or three hour transfer. And this morning and another two and a half hour transfer. So obviously, your rest is already very reduced. You know, I heard that Pogachar in his interview said, you know, he always goes to bed late.

He went to bed at 1 o'clock and got woken up at 5. Yeah, which makes the times way worse because potentially Jonas was asleep for one hour before he got woken up. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I wrote down in my notes here and I say, you know, doping controls for Jonas and today in the middle of the night, what the actual fuck I wrote down. Then I did a little bit of research so apparently it's not confirmed, but I heard. So it's not the UCI or not the ITA, which is what's called international testing agency.

That's like the official independent testing agency. But it was a French anti-doping authority.

“He's called the AFLD. I think it's AFLD is Agions, Agions, Française, the Lute Continental Pages AFLD.”

You know, I think this incident sponsored up till now, you know, including the situation we had with the shitty hotels a few days ago. I think probably that's probably the most disrespectful event that the writers have been submitted to so far in this tour of France. You know, the tour is not over. So who knows what else they could come up with. But you know, I mean, you know, we all know that the tour of France is very, very hard. These guys getting tested every,

Pogacha, every day, every day after the stage gets tested. A lot of times every in the morning, one time out of three mornings, he gets tested too. It's fine. You know, the rules say that between 11 o'clock 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. There's no testing. Unless there are special special circumstances, special circumstances, special circumstances is, for example, if a writer, you know, they have to give their whereabouts, they have to report their whereabouts. And you have

“as a writer, you have to give a one hour window every day. And as a writer, you are allowed, actually,”

to say, okay, you know what? Between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. for example, or for example, if you have to go to an airport to a plane, to take a plane, you can say it between 5 and 6 a.m. I'm home. And I leave, I need to leave at 6 a.m. You could do that, right? This was obviously not the case. So, then the rules also say that if there is a special reason. So, whatever that may be, me people kind of hint into the direction that if there is suspicion,

that then they can, this, these rules can be changed. And I think it's ridiculous, Spencer.

You know, and so this happens. We're talking about it. But, you know, nobody's saying anything, you know, the writers, of course, Bogacciar and Vingigar, they were both interviewed. They were trying to be as nice as possible about it. I'm sure they were super pissed. They, you know, politically correct. A.S.O. is not going to say anything. They're going to say, okay, it's not our problem. If this is the authorities, you know, but somebody needs to say something about this. We are

talking about it, you know, we can, we can rant all we want. And I will never leave an opportunity

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

“to take a stand? Are you going to bring an official position? Are you not embarrassed about this?”

Monami David, you know, because you are presiding over a sport and these incidents in my opinion, or is humanizing? I'm asking the question. He's probably going to get the question because I know he reads what I say. But, you know, my prediction is that he's not going to say anything. That's ridiculous. If he doesn't say, can you imagine another's more where the person in charge would not mention anything about this? Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, La Partien starts to look more

and more not at the same scale, but because obviously football is a lot bigger than cycling, but to me, he starts to look like this clown who presides the FIFA, you know, Johnny Infantino, who makes these ridiculous stupid decisions and just cannot be bothered whatever they say. They don't care.

“So, I think he should take a stand and not a political answer. This is not acceptable, guys.”

Just imagine, Spencer, any other sport football, the World Cup's going on, you know, Wimbledon's going on, whatever Formula 1 golf tournaments, imagine for one second that the anti-opying authorities show up at 2 am at the hotel of the racers, the football players, the drivers, the tennis guys, what would happen? They would not let them in and get you on. They would not let them in and nothing would happen to them. If it's snow, but you're not coming in, you're thrown out of the race.

That's how bad it is. This is ridiculous. They, I, yeah, I guess. I'm kind of sick of, I'm kind of sick of it at this point, though. Like the riders, they have to take a stand

because they will always say like, oh, there's what never happened in football. There's never

happened in tennis because Serena Williams would say, fuck off. You're not coming in the house at one in the morning. If the riders don't do that, nothing will ever change. And maybe not the riders, but the teams, you, a, could say, we're leaving. We're leaving. Like what do you think would happen? And also who is in charge here? Like it's unclear to me how this happens.

“Yeah, I think that's what we don't know who is giving instructions, right? I mean, it's”

asked to come from somewhere. Also, Spencer, a little side note, a, FLD, French, anti-opening association. Thank you, Gart. And we'll go, I'll get tested in the middle of the night. Why doesn't post a exhaust get a tested in the middle of the night? Well, yeah. I mean, that's, that's where

your mind goes first, right? You're like, this feels like chicaneary, but come on.

So Gio, Gio, working in the lab at a, FLD. So he, let's say he's like, you know what, I'm going to go test them at one in the morning. What's the chain of command? Like, just you have to run that by anybody, do we know how that works? Does anyone know how that works? That's the thing, Spencer, we don't know. No, and they don't know. And on top of that, they are not accountable to anybody. That's ridiculous. How could that be? That's the biggest problem. They're not accountable. So

they can do whatever they want. I mean, listen, I, I, I, this goes way too far. I mean, I could go on and on and on and on, talking about, you know, things that I have experienced with anti-doping authorities and the way, I mean, it's a completely different story, but they can bend the rules and break the rules. However, they want and they're not accountable to anything. Well, so what if

No, I think it's water. Obviously, it's probably water, who gives the instruction? That's the

“world anti-doping agency. And so water is some sort, they're like, untouchable. Like,”

they get there. They're untouchable. They are untouchable. But they're not only in touchable and cycling. That's, that's the thing I can't quite figure out. Like, they're not testing cocoa, got fit to in the morning at Wimbledon. Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah. Why are those, because cycling and cyclists are the vulnerable. You know, there's no, there's no union,

there's no, never a front, do this in Mimbledon. And all the riders, all the players are going to strike.

Well, then I, at this point though, the cyclists only have themselves to blame, because people know they'll never take a stand. No, that's not the way it works. That's not the way it works. It's a lot more complex than this, you know. It's the survival insurance of cyclists and teams is way too vulnerable to take a stand and strike or protest. It's way too vulnerable.

“And, you know, there's too many different teams, too many different interests and at the end.”

Whatever happens, whether it's teams or riders who are unhappy and they want to protest, there's never going to be unity and the authorities, whether it's ASO or the UCI or Wada, they know that there's division. It's never going to. It needs to change. Hopefully it will change, you know, we don't have a change by force. It's not going to change by itself, it's for sure. Yeah, it's been a while since we've spoken about, what was it, one cycling back in the days,

you know, that kind of has gone silent. Yeah, um, may still be going on. Maybe. So, we'll see, we'll see. I would say the only slight wrinkle in this is so the tours are all powerful, right? You can't do anything. Forgot your might start winning so many tours that he doesn't care. And he might say, you know what, I'm not going to go to the tour. If you guys are going to treat me like this, I'm not coming back next year. Like that, that I could get

interesting. If he's like, you know what, I'm going to do the tour of Austria because they're being

nice. No, that was ridiculous today. I've never heard this of this and, you know,

this is, this is not a respectful towards athletes who do their job and go day to day to, you know, in very, very hard conditions. A few days ago, we were talking already about the bad hotels. Imagine you're in a shitty hotel. No, you just keep getting worse. Insects and then you get working up like you're getting woken up and then you look at the morning, Spencer, then you look in the morning, you know, in the racebook. And you talk, I'm going to check, where does it get so

“people? Oh, huh. Today, they slept in a five-star castle. Oh, and how long is our drive?”

Oh, it's only three hours to start. Oh, incredible. How fun. I just can't believe, like if you, let's say, we all work at a place, right? All three of us on this call. If Gabriel or producer said, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to ask Lance a question. I'm going to go to his house. Oh, what time you're going to go to his house? One, I am. Like, well, maybe don't do that. That's not a proper time because someone tells like, yeah, I just don't understand how that gets past

the first step. Why, no one would be like, maybe that's not a great time to test somebody.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, sort of. Yeah. It's, uh, it's ridiculous. It's, it's, it's really, really ridiculous. It's, uh, it's not acceptable. But we say it's not acceptable. But yet, unfortunately, it is accepted. Yeah. We, I mean, it is condone. The behavior while terrible is condoned by the continuation of the event. So as long as they can do it, and there's no consequence, they'll keep doing it. So you see this with kids. You see this with certain leaders of certain

countries. They'll just get away with whatever you allow them to. But so you're on this happens, terrible. There's, there's no consequence, right? Because everyone finished the stage, healthy, and looked fantastic out there. Oh, wait. No, they did not. You want to spend a guard running and probably on two hours to sleep. Crash is out of the race. Before the final climb, immediately, his team is leading Vismo, which I do want to get into why Vismo was leading on the stage,

pulling the breakway back that had Tom Pickock in it, interestingly. Again, and they go, they kind of, if around about, if you watch it, they go the wrong way around, and it makes it a really tight press turn. A few guys get through, and then Jonas slides out and crashes, takes down a few other writers like, he's a total, but he immediately could see he had a broken collarbone. This was like, I mistake a bullet, and he's out of the race. How does this affect the race,

where you shock to see this reset? I mean, it's a bummer, of course. I mean, when you see that, it's like, oh, I mean, I had a whole list of notes, you know, like, what I thought was going to

and like, Jonas crashes out, it's like, fuck, what now? You know, it looked at Vismo feels.

“Yeah, man, it's, yeah, it happens. It happens every year. Every year, you know, a team loses their star”

writer, and the guys need to go on. You know, and to me, it looked like Vismo was kind of turning around a bit. You know, you're going to start to look better. I mean, I'll start to look better. You know, they were in the break. No, no, no, they were not. Yeah, they were in the break with two writers. And today, it looked like they had a plan. I heard after the stage, that began to only set that the plan was to try to win the stage with Jonas, which is a valid plan, still questioning

how they would have won against today, but at least they were trying. And of course, the

the strategy of Vismo, basically, made sure that the break, it was not going to make it.

There was a little, little time of hesitation after Jonas crashed and everything slowed down, okay, maybe the break can make it. Finally, it couldn't, but definitely a bummer for the rate. First of all, for Jonas, of course, that's, I mean, yeah, I don't, I mean, he was not going to win this two or anyways, but still it sucks when you have to crash out like this. And then, you know, it's in the yet another thing, I mean, he had a fair share of bad luck already this guy in the last two

“years. We all remember that huge crash in the Basque Country, a couple of years ago, where, you know,”

that that was, that was really bad. Now, the collarbone is not, is not bad, it's, but, you know, it's another hit on the, you know, on the morale, you know? Yeah, it's wasn't really physically he'll come back, but it's, yeah, it's not good for your morale. You don't feel like it. No, no, after him. No, no, and you know, already, you know, I don't know, I don't know, I hope he can recover. I mean, he's going to recover quickly. He probably won't. Now you see your race, so you know,

okay, this, this happens now. So now, if you look back, say, good thing he did the zero, he wanted you know, as it is, okay, you know, he would the zero, he has already won all three grand tours. There's not much left for him now, right? He's, I mean, whatever happens, he has, he is in that list already of very select people, whereby the weight of the people got not in yet. So yeah, that was definitely a huge bummer. Yeah, and then afterwards what we saw

was, was a strange, in my opinion, the way the stage then developed, you know, we saw Twin Simmons really strong, really strong in that breakaway. Actually, riding stronger than these climbers stronger than Adam Yates stronger than Pitcock, who did it, but a lot of work stronger than

“who was the other guy, Rubio was a Rubio? Who was there? I think it's not a Rubio. Yes, yeah,”

yeah, so when you cover all pure climbers, you know, I checked, I checked on prosikings, that's all, I don't know if it's true, when seven's a 73 kilos. And he was with guys, you know, in the low sixties, and he dropped them twice. You're super strong. I would like to see him ride a little bit smarter sometimes, you know, he just, he's super strong and he kind of, to me, it seems like he enjoys

showing his incredible strength, but that's not how you win the most bike races.

No, no, I mean, whether today you could have won or not, that's not a question with that super super hard climb, but, you know, yeah, he's in great shape, though. He's, you know, he has a stage, stage went in the legs, for sure, but he needs to ride a bit more intelligently. I mean, he finished with this team's GC guys on that climb, super impressive. He does kind of remind me of a bodybuilder, you know, you get out there, and you're like in the bikini showing

your muscles off, kind of how this type of riding is, like, for example, should he not have been in the breakaway when Maro Schmidt won on stage? Yeah, 12 for sure. Like that would that not have been a better use of his resources if you think about it. But that's, they, they, they, that's the they move. That, that they had to chase a hard, no? Yeah. Well, they only had to chase hard because they rode too hard and they blew the race up and then they put in the move and Matt's better

son at a chase alone. Normally Spencer, like a stage act, like a breakaway like today, you know, normally when Quinn Simmons is in the breakaway, it is probably because there is no chance

in it. Yeah. That's how strong he is, you know. So then, of course, when you're in the break, then by now, everybody knows how strong he is. So then, you know, everybody knows already Quinn, you don't need to show it to anybody, just save something, you know. So big debate on the set, he didn't have a team car with him, as I'm sure you noticed, because the electric one car was with Matt's better son in the Guerrero and one is with the GC guys, should they have done that

differently? I know that they can't. They can't. Because they, Matt's better son is in the green jersey. He needs the car with him. That's there, that's their main goal. Then the other, the other car needs to stay with the GC guys. So, no, they couldn't have a car with him. Well, they should, I mean, in theory, they're still, there's still a lot of people, staff people

on the road. There is always, especially when you're in the breakaway, there is the motorbike

with bottles. You know, it's probably going to be water, but still, you know, it's better than nothing.

“Am I crazy, oh, hunter? Can you not, like, tell Tudor, like, hey, can you take care of our guy for us?”

Yes. And it's in Tudor's best interest for him to be strong. So they're going to give him bottles with carbs. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they do that. Of course, they do that. Of course, they do that. So usually they do that. But, you know, nowadays, I don't know how the relationships are between teams. Back in the days, there was always the same. You know, even when there's a mechanical, you know, you, you, I remember and certain, certain races, but, I mean, not the Tudor France,

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

"Quink, can we make some pancakes? You know, he won't win as strong as." It's like, "Let's let's cook you up anything you want because you're driving this breakaway so hard. George and Gabby was having a really hard time rapping, etc. on this, but I was trying to explain during the move. If Mads Patterson is a mechanical and can't make the time cut because he doesn't

“have a team car with them, they look like frigid idiots, right? Do you have to take care of”

them? No, they have a choice. They had a choice today. They had no choice today. They had no choice. They had to be a team car with Muts and the other team car is with the main guys.

You know, as long as they had two minutes, that first car could probably go back and forth

between the breakaway and the main group. But that's not having your team car all the time there, right? I don't think it was that big of a deal for Quink. Obviously, we saw that on two occasions at a tree, he missed a bottle. I think one of the times he missed a bottle, but it was a Red Bull. He was trying to get a bottle from Red Bull and the guy from Red Bull just pulled it away at the last one. But, you know, especially when you're in the break, you have this, they call it

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

when they got to the climb. Okay, you know, we are back. I don't know what you want to talk about first. But, we should say, so, Jonas crashes out kind of things were weird for a little bit, because Visma was the one pacing, as you said, there's no team pacing. No one's going to notice this and it probably won't matter. The wheels are kind of coming off UAE. In the first week, you were like, man, they are right and hard. They're going to make it three weeks. Tim Wellen's

looked terrible. Like, they had guys dropped them before they're pulled, and it doesn't really matter, because Bob Rain and Red Bull come forward to pull for them. And it's like, oh, thanks, guys, for doing this. Red Bull, though, it turned out new what they were doing, because they're pacing

“in the rimco. I've been a pleasant, amazing climb. Like, what do you think of that?”

Yeah, I have this first of all. I had this written down here about UAE, you know, that there were teammates very early in the stage in trouble already, you know, like, there was

Novin. Wellen's was having a trouble. Yesterday, for example, McNulty and Adam Yates were never

able to do what they were supposed to do. You know, so I'm going back to my criticism from week one, you know, and the famous analogy of the bucket. You know, the bucket is getting fuller and fuller.

today, you know, they could kind of bank also on the fact that they knew that Visma was going to

“do the way. They did it already yesterday. Today, I think Visma, they had a plan, but at the same”

time, they were also basically paving the way for UAE. Because, you know, it's like, okay,

okay, now it's completely irrelevant because you and us is gone, right? But the theory or the thinking was over, yeah, you know, you and us need some hard race. You know, the harder it is, the better it has the chances on the last climb. Yeah, what about Polache? The harder it is. You know, well, it's even better for today, you know, yes, you can have a hard race without having to spend his teammates. I know, I know, but I guess the devil's advocate of that would

be if Red Bull came to us last night and said, we got a great plan, Yohan, we're going to ride into the final climb and we're going to win the stage. You'd say, how are you going to solve this tidied problem? In a worked, so I mean, I don't know, maybe Jonas, what a one-to-stage. We don't know.

“I don't think so, Spencer. I think, you know, if today, if today Visma can execute their plan,”

my prediction would have been that they've paced in hard, there's selection, and then Jonas starts the ride fast and it's just Jonas and today left. Based on what actually looks so different. Yeah, you know, and then if it's both of them together to the finish, today's not letting it win. Plus, today he's already, he was already formed, what was he four and a half minutes, four and a half minutes? He was four and a half minutes ahead of him,

but he doesn't even need to attack. He can just, you know, do a 200 meter effort and then take the bonification and then it's another 20 seconds. Right. And you don't think he let's, you don't think he would let Jonas win. No, no, he don't like so much. Now, on today, I have another, another

“theory, so if we, if we look at how then finally developed initially, so Jonas crashes, there's,”

there's, you know, a bit of the organization, people don't know what to do. It was clear that UAE was not, they were going to stay put. They were not going to do anything. From that moment on, their whole plan changed. Well, we saw a Bahrain pet pace because Lenny Martinez, 9/10 place was again under threat of some pitcock, I guess, right? Yeah. But anyways, then Red Bull starts to pick up the pace on that last climb. They have turned it around.

I mean, there's been stages early in this tour where it was just Ramco and Lippewitz and no teammates around. Today they had six riders. They had six riders there. That was quite impressive. But then what do we see surprisingly? So the break, it looks like the break, I mean, the break is split up, but all of a sudden, Pogacha starts to pace and so you see him talk to the

Delta, the Delta, and he starts to pace. And finally, what happens is only Ramco, good follow.

Six hours was dropped, I used to withdraw, Lippewitz was dropped and all the others were dropped. So you see, Pogacha are pacing, but also constantly looking behind him. And surprisingly, I was really surprised and very happy to see that Ramco was able to follow. And not just follow, he looked in control, like his facial expression, his position on the bike, his pedaling stroke, good cadence. It looked to me, it has looked all the time, even when the autoro was in second position

and Ramco was in third, that the autoro was having a struggling more than Ramco. Is that not what you saw? Definitely. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. And so Pogacha are on the radio, so I saw this clip after the stage where, that's where you see that Pogacha is just a super nice

guy. And we are always talking about the numbers, the record, stage wins.

Pogacha doesn't care about this. It clearly doesn't. He already gave one a way to the autoro. And today, he wanted to give another stage win to the autoro. He goes on the radio and he says, "Can I go progressive?" Here I'm saying that. Meaning, can I set a tempo and accelerate a bit by bit? Next thing you hear is the autoro saying, "Don't drop me." And so from that moment on, it was clear that Pogacha was not going to win the stage because if he accelerates, the autoro

to, I think, they underestimated Ramco today. They shouldn't have because we've seen already

some incredible finals in stages from him where he comes back and sprints and actually puts

time into his direct rivals. So, I mean, the fact that the autoro said, "Don't drop me."

“Pogacha are not too generous. Is he not too nice of a guy? What do you think?”

It's a good question. And we should say, Jonas being out fundamentally changes his race because none of this would have happened if Jonas was here because he would have attacked. It would have been those two guys. This is so good for Ramco that he's no one there because Pogacha didn't know it to do. I mean, is he too generous? This doesn't really hurt his ability to win the race. I'm going to say, "Yes, I'm going to say yes." Okay, he gave the stage in Barcelona.

That was really nice, but today, I mean, him started, first of all, imagine this, Spencer. This is the yellow jersey, the dominator of the Tour de France, the strongest guy in the race,

and he starts to be the superdomestique for a guy. It was amazing cyclist. He's at the Tour de

but he has shown some weaknesses during the Tour de France, which we maybe had not calculated. Maybe we had not thought of which is what happens if the Tour, right? He's still doing an amazing race to the Tour, right? But to make this a priority and him being pacing, and then, okay, you can do that and you can try and say, "Okay, maybe we go both of us." But when you see the ramps there, because they say, "Hey, okay, this guy is not, you know, they can see the body language,

they can hear the breathing. You know, it's like these guys are not amateurs. They know you know, so when, I mean, I was surprised to see that, and then on top of that, it's not like Pugachar is saying what he's gonna, he is asking permission. Listen to this, Spencer. The yellow jersey

“is asking permission to a guy, incredible cyclist, but for the moment, the only thing we have seen”

Pugachar, for Pugachar, is a 300 meter pole on the Tour Malay. There's nothing else he has done so far. And yesterday, I go to, yes, back to yesterday, Pugachar did not attack earlier because he wanted to save the Pugachar, because he wanted to save the Toro, who was yesterday. Today was, I mean, after seeing this video on the race radio, I said, "Man, come on, I'm a big Pugachar fan, you know, I love him, I love the way he races, but man, come on, can I go progressive?" And then the Toro says, "Don't drop

me and he just stays put." Come on, still a bike race, you know, it's the Tour de France. Well, let's deconstruct this. So let's say Pugachar goes progressive, drops everybody when it's the stage. What is that accomplished for him in the team? He increases the rest. Yeah, but his idea was to go progressive faster to drop ram goal. Yeah, yeah, and let's say that

“happened. Let's just like, let's say that happens. He wins. He drops them. What do they accomplish?”

He gets a little bit of time on Ramco, wins another stage. The Toro loses a bit of time. Is that what you're doing for the Tour? I mean, yeah, I think so. Isn't he just going to get more shit? The more he wins, the more shit he's going to get. What's a pretty simple equation? Also been thinking about Spencer today is the following. Good it be. It's just a question of masking. Good it be that the day Pugachar did not want to win the stage today,

that his main rival crashed out. Kind of same like it. It looked like he didn't. He could have still even if he didn't go progressive, he still could have out spring and Ramco there at the end. He didn't stand up. Yeah. Yeah. So that's maybe why he didn't win, you know, he's in mourning. And he wanted, he wanted the Toro to win, but if the Toro could win, he didn't want to be the winner of the stage at his main rival crashed out with a broken

column. It that's made out of explanation. I don't know. Maybe it absolutely looked like that. Also, also, so Ramco in the stage, Ramco's very excited. Rebels, very excited. Ramco is buzzing. He was like an atom in that post race interview. Yeah. He has pumped. He's feeling so good about Ramco. Yeah, pull right now. And he's going to come out in that third week and they're going to be on the front. They're going to be doing everything. They're

going to take control. Like maybe that's worth the investment for Pugachar. You give away a stage

win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like this. Listen, I mean, first of all, Ramco amazing.

I did not expect him to hang on there. In the last kilometer, I thought that Ramco would win.

The Toro has been struggling. He has maybe a little bit of acceleration, but not enough to beat

“Ramco. And I think today, Ramco answers the critics, including ourselves.”

We have been critical of Ramco. We win just like 10 minutes yesterday. Like, say, no, he's not

good on the steep climbs in this and that. Well, I guess what, today, he showed us wrong. Definitely, he proved us wrong. Yeah. I mean, amazing for him, you know, by the way, today, it's today is the 500 victory of a Belgian cyclist in the Toro France. We have the Belgians have 1 500 victories, but 500 stages in the tour. But yeah, now he's sitting in second man. That's in any seems like he could finish there, right? And that changes the whole conversation.

It looks completely different now. We still have to see what he does in the last week. But, you know, let's not forget, and I think I saw it as I said yesterday, Spencer, this is a guy who already finished on the podium of the Tour de France. And one of the very few one a ground tour, right? Yeah. There's not that many who have done it. By the way, yes, we're going to be talking about it yesterday. Yeah, he did. But he didn't. And also,

Seb Goose won a ground tour. But didn't finish on the podium of another one. Wait, yeah, yeah. Seb Goose is he going to win this tour. I mean, I'm just looking at, I'm looking at, it's funny you say that because that's usually setting those examples aside. It's usually a very good predictor of who does well. Like who's one a grand tour? Who's podium to the Tour de France? That's, if you like, if you did a blind test, you'd say, yeah, that's probably a

“well, if you know, that's why that's why I have difficulties with people who say, you know,”

like, well, Remco kind of blind. I mean, what, how would you mean he kind of blind? He might think if the Tour de France, he might think if they're saying that they're saying they're saying he, he does not have the, he's not showing the ability to climb. That's in it. He didn't, for like two years, the thing is he has been very irregular. You know, he has been very irregular, and he's shown, you know, ups and downs. But at the same time, to me, it looks like

I don't know Remco personally, yeah. So I don't know him at all. But to me, it looks like he is a guy who functions with the morale, you know? Yeah. This morale he has now, he's buzzing.

I think he's staying there, man. He's staying there. He's, you know, it's going to be second

third or fourth. I don't know if he, you know, but I don't know what sex sauce. You know, by the way, first little weakness today of Paul's sex sauce, I would say. You know, normally, you know, well, I mean, he's still defended really well. I'm kidding, kidding. But yeah, I was surprised by that. I thought he would be with that group. Yeah, I normally, I mean, he's, he would be with Del Toro and Remco, right? But he got, I mean, he recovered really well, but he got dropped, like the first

off the sixth guy that we're struggling, he got dropped, you know, he was dropped before lipo, it's been before I used to. And then kind of he noticed this, he had to do a huge effort at the start of the stage. Yeah. And he was saying on the radio, like, I feel great, but man, that was a big effort. No, it takes, it takes something out of you, you know, it was, again, I don't know what the final average speed was, but I think like before the last climb, I think it was 44 kilometers

average. Again, so the final was 42. It's 4,000 meters of climbing, it's just insane, then insane. I mean, Spencer, I told you, I told you privately, but you know, now what that we're talking about,

“this, I think a while ago we were talking about, did I say it on the show about the Toro Mallet?”

No, I think that was probably it. Yeah, so I was telling a story about the Toro Mallet in my first tour of France, you know, this is an example of how much this sport has changed, and it's, I mean, it's not even the same sport anymore. So when I, when I told the story of the Toro Mallet, right, in my first tour of France that I was in a break away with the Yellow Jersey Gappucci, we came over the Toro Mallet, and then since I've talked about that, somebody has sent me a video clip

of that stage I had never seen this before. And so, you see on the images, we crashed the Toro Mallet

and the stage finished in Luzardi then. So you go over the Toro Mallet and you still have to go down a bit of a valley and then Luzardi then, which is, I would, I'm going to guess 13, 14 kilometer climb, I don't know, Pyrenees. So the four of us crashed the Toro Mallet and I see in the top, we had five hours, 58 minutes of race done already. So almost six hours. So that means that we have at least

Tour Mallet was 30 kilometers per hour average. So, and I don't know which climbs we had before,

we had two other climbs before that. So it was a huge mountain stage, but still, you know, it was, it looked so slow, it looked so, we were fighting the bikes like, you know, not just struggling to make it to the top with the gears we had, 39, 23 probably back then, steel bikes, down tube shifters, you know. Now, if I see today, 42 kilometers average over a 4,000 meter stage, that's just insane man. And every single stage is the same thing.

I mean, today it was a big mountain stage, four hours, 23 minutes. Yeah, you know, like that's, that's not that long for a big mountain stage. And then just before we do the prediction. So Remkow's five minutes behind Pugotchard. Let's, let's say that's safe for now,

but he's almost a minute over Del Toro and third, a minute and a half over six us. And almost

two minutes ahead of his teammate. Look what's man, he's going to take time on them probably in the time trial. So yeah, he's looking pretty good for second, if he can keep that morale up.

“Oh, after the time drive, bro, are we going to be at least six minutes ahead of Del Toro?”

And sorry, sorry, sorry. No, sorry, two minutes, two minutes, yeah, another minute. And yeah, another minute on six us also, at least, I think the beautiful thing about Remkow is who knows what could happen? We don't know. We don't know, we can gain or lose all that.

You know, like today's success cracked a little bit, but he didn't really explode, you know,

he did not explode. He's still there. He's still there, right? He's still there. Yeah, yep. I mean, if think like one a so, really good writer, two minutes behind Remkow and then success limited it to 58 seconds. So that's not really impressive. Yeah, um, let's, let's skip questions today to keep it keep the time reasonable, but stage 16 preview. We have a rest day tomorrow. We will not be podcasting. Very excited about that. Come out of the rest day with the time trial, not

not very nice, not very neighborly. That's mean. 26k long and it's a tough, it starts in a 10k long climb for a half, 4.2% descent and then flat 8k or 10k ish to the finish kind of a technical course when you look at the map. You'd imagine this will be one by one of Remkow, Evanapole, Felipogana or Sleeper pick, Tadipogacha, but who do you consider that? That's the three names I wrote down Spencer. Remkow, Gana, Pulachar and I would not write Pagachar off on this type

“of course, you know, but I think, um, especially because it's there's a rest day, you know,”

if it would have been tomorrow after the day stage and yesterday stage, I would have been, I would have picked Gana, but hold that up because the odds, but still, I'm going to pick Remkow to in the stage. What? Well, we're just doing Bill Simmons guest the lines. What do you think Remkow is on draft kings for the stage when? Mine is 150. Mine is 230. Oh, wow. And then Pagachar is plus 175. Gana is plus 2,000.

To me, maybe sprinkle a little bit of money on Gana because what's going on here? What's with the disrespect? Spencer, you know what? If it's plus 2,000, there has to be a reason that we have overseen. I don't think they're going to take that risk, man. Just finish the day, finish the stage today. Oh, crash. He must have some information, you know, he's empty, you know, like, tired, super, you know, because it's actually a really well done time trial course, if you look at it,

“quite, quite interesting with. Yeah. I think I think Gana is probably running really low on”

energy, you know, he's done the zero. Already at the beginning of this, at the start of the tour, he said he was super tired. We haven't seen a great Gana. He's been trying to go in breaks, but he hasn't been in any. Yeah. Yeah. He does like he has, he did get shit in some, you know, probable. It has to happen that many good breaks though. Yeah. It would be the day that he the only day that probably he really should have been in the break away was the one where he won the

bunch of rent behind the break away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On stage nine, I don't know, man. And then so

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

going to get over, let's see on the up to a stage. She's got to get over a cap 2 and cap 1 climb in the break away and get the sprint points. Probably not going to happen on stage 20. The sprint point is after the colded aqua fair. So properly Phillips and will not be in the break away on an HC climb. And I would imagine Patterson will try to be, right? You will try to be one. But you know, on these stages, I also don't think he will get the maximum points. But he could

get some points. Yeah, you know, especially stage 17, which is that's I mean, he could win that stage. It's like a classic way. So abandon of dimmed leaves after his free stage when he said, okay,

that's it. Not worth it anymore. I saw him get dropped like first thing with sort of

bearish gold and I was like, that's a long day and then probably probably thought the same thing. But

“you think Remy goes going to win? Yeah, I'm going. Yeah. And then how far back is we got you?”

How long is it? 26k. 26k. So at this rate, what's that? 26 minutes? They're going to do it. Like 30 minutes, probably. No, it's not kilometers up. He'll float per cent. So I'm going to say Remy coins with 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Yeah. I mean, that's tracking with what he's been taking out of a gut chart. Other two different stone trials like this. But, I mean, it's crazy that how often on GC set pieces is anyone taking any time on a gut chart. So that's pretty impressive

if he can take any time on tablet, regardless. Yeah, he's the best time trialist in the world. You know, he's the best time world champion already. Yeah, a lumber champion. He's particularly good at staying in the T-T position on climbs. So great course. By the way, today's the first stage

when non time trial where I'm going to go. I was thinking that, yeah, that I've never seen a

down draws. It's his third stage when is it his first? No, that's not true. Because he's one vault of stages on the road. Has one of zero stage on the road or no? No, no, I don't think so.

“I think just a time trial. Well, anything else you'll have before we take off? We need to”

invent a trivia. Yeah. Yes. Let's pull it up. So the question for yesterday. I don't even have it pulled it up. Not professional at all. This is ridiculous. Yes, that it was yesterday. The bottle. That's us. Yes, it was. And it was, man, this is annoying. This is annoying here.

Search for the spreadsheet. But it was, when was it first climbed, climbed, and the two

of friends? Do you know the answer to you, huh? 1905. Yeah, 1905. So five years before the tourmer lay, I did not know that before this question. Yeah, pretty interesting. Yeah. And if you, if you want, know the answer to this question, I'm about to ask, and you want to get $5,000 toward an NS one or GS one of your choice. The NS one is the road bike brand new design much more arrow, much faster. The GS one is the gravel bike. It rides just like a road bike, but you can put big old,

“almost mountain bike tires in it now. So if you want to win one of those, go to ventimracin.com/the”

move and enter your answer. And if you don't win it, and you just want to buy a bike, use the move, use code the move 10 for 10% off a bike, which could be quite a bit of money off a bike. So the plateau, D, D, Salason makes its debut as a tour finished during today's stage. Just weeks before the tour, the same climb was the decisive background for the fake dofenet, the traditional warm-up race for the tour. I love it. I believe I'll hear, I'll try to say

it, the tour of vurn-run alps, the traditional tour is really good. Only because I heard it every day during the race of Ford Lance got it today. I was like, oh, we didn't brief him on this. He probably doesn't even know the name changed. Which promising young rider won there attacking nine cave from the top and finishing a minute clear their rivals. So if you know the answer to that

So that's it. That's a hint for you. Which shows you the difference between the tour. Also,

I don't think we set it. People that want to know, Remko Avenue pole estimated it around 6.5 Watts per kilo for 32 minutes on the final on today. British is translated to, yeah, pretty good exactly. That's pretty good. That's, notice from the guard, level climbing. So

“this was the best, maybe the best timing I think. I think we can't, you know, undervalue”

Remko's performance today. You know, he won, he got the win because there were special circumstances, but in the end of the day, he was the only rider who could stay with Pogachar. You know, the question is, what would have happened if Pogachar didn't ride for the turtle?

“Most likely answer is that Pogachar would have won solo, but still, you cannot take away this”

unbelievably nice victory of Remko and, yeah, the fact that he has today, at least shut up

all the people who were critical, including who maybe spent 20 minutes yesterday saying,

"Should he just give up on GC?" He's going to get top five. And now he might get top two.

“Also, for reference, 2024 at Platto Dubai, which I thought was a really good performance from him,”

6.6 watts per kilo. So better performance today. We saw the best Remko, we've probably ever seen on a climb. He looks great. Keep it up, Remko. Don't listen to us.

Get second at this tour. Try to win this tour. Let's have some fun.

Are you on anything else? Let's go and watch the football final. Yeah, and I'll be shouldn't give our picks because everyone will know who won and we'll look like idiots. If we say anything about it. But yes, best of luck to Spain. Get out to that pub. It's going to be fun watching it with your country. Okay. And we love to. On Tuesday, not tomorrow.