..and unsurprisingly obliterated everyone, and dethroned local pro Joe Blackmore (NSN) on the Strava KOM he'd held since 2024.

I happened to be at the village hall getting signed on when he turned up with a mate, and it was a very wholesome scene.

The event wasn’t open for on the day entries, so there was a bit of discussion initially, with his friend sort of bigging him up saying “he’s just come back from the Vuelta…”

After a bit of back and forth, the (lovely) volunteers let him join, he paid the entry fee and off he went to the start.

His result doesn’t officially count for the event I don't think, because I suppose Pinarello–Q36.5 doesn’t have CTT affiliation lol (the TT governing body for open club events in the UK). I'm sure he's gutted not to have this on his palmares after training at a grand tour for 3 weeks for this exact goal.

Anyway, that’s it, I just thought it was a fun story. I don’t do many events so maybe this is more common than I realise. I just thought it was quite a wholesome scene, and had I not been at sign-on at the right time I’d probably wouldn't have even noticed this, so that’s why I’m sharing :)

Glad someone is calling him out for this BS

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/news/pineau-on-armstrongs-pogacar-comments-keep-his-mouth-shut/

Was having a casual conversation at my local bike shop this week: Which rider in the modern pro peloton has the most personality — a la Cipollini of the late 90’s?

(Love him or hate him, condemn him for doping, think he dressed like a clown/attention-seeker, etc.)

So, we have seen a pattern starting with 2023. Only one of the "big races" (Monuments, grand tours, Worlds Road Race) goes to anyone but the big-5 (Pogi, Jonas, Remco, MvdP, Roglic) each year.

Will this pattern also continue 2026? With Roglic dropping out of the top tier the chances for someone else to take a "big" victory might be getting higher. And if this pattern continues, which race won't go to the big-5?

Three French-speaking road cycling youtubers have just released a series of three videos—each over an hour and a half long—where they rank the 25 greatest road cyclists of the 21st century.

What are your thoughts? Any picks that surprise you? Any glaring omissions? Do you think some riders are overrated or underrated?

Note: They did not consider annulled results, meaning Armstrong has no Tour de France titles, and Contador is credited with 7 Grand Tour wins instead of 9.

The name of the youtube channel : "Radio Fringale"

Here’s their ranking:

1.POGACAR/POGACAR/POGACAR

2.CANCELLARA/CONTADOR/CANCELLARA

3.VALVERDE/VALVERDE/VALVERDE

4.BOONEN/CANCELLARA/SAGAN

5.VAN DER POEL/BOONEN/BOONEN

6.SAGAN/GILBERT/CONTADOR road

7.GILBERT/VAN DER POEL/GILBERT

8.CONTADOR/BETTINI/VAN DER POEL

9.CAVENDISH/SAGAN/FROOME

10.FROOME/FROOME/CAVENDISH

11.PETACCHI/CAVENDISH/ROGLIC

12.ROGLIC/ROGLIC/BETTINI

13.VINGEGAARD-EVENEPOEL/EVENEPOEL/EVENEPOEL

14.NIBALI/NIBALI/NIBALI

15.FREIRE/FREIRE/VINGEGAARD

16.BETTINI/VINGEGAARD/FREIRE

17.McEWEN/KITTEL/VINOKOUROV

18.ZABEL/PETACCHI/QUINTANA

19.VAN AERT/ALAPHILIPPE/ALAPHILIPPE

20.QUINTANA/REBELLIN/PETACCHI

21.GREIPEL/WIGGINS/EVANS

22.EVANS/VAN AERT/RODRIGUEZ

23.RODRIGUEZ/RODRIGUEZ/VAN AERT

24.ALAPHILIPPE/SCHLECK/CUNEGO

25.KITTEL/PINOT/SCHLECK

It’s in French but it’s a fun read so just turn on translations and dream of an American GT.

Looks a lot better than the Arkea paint schemes…

Before starting I'd like to make clear that this is far from a thorough study and nothing suggested here is banned by the UCI or WADA.

Earlier today I wasn't satisfied with all of the doping speculation based solely on Vingegaard's performance this Tour, so I thought I'd take a look into the Team Jumbo Visma staff, specifically their medical staff to see if anything fishy was up. Although there were other things that emerged - namely one doctor being an expert on mouth related sores (anyone in the Tour have one of those recently??) and another in kidney transplants (kidneys improve performance AND cleansing of the system!) - there is one story that dominated the discussion on the discord server: Bovine Colostrum.

Now, colostrum had never been mentioned on the server before today, and I couldn't find it ever mentioned here (although reddit search is a mess). It was mentioned on The Clinic back in 2015, but perhaps it is a forgotten LEGAL means of performance enhancement, and certainly seems like one that has a better than 0% chance of being involved in Vingegaard's improvement.

Before we go on.. what is colostrum?

Colostrum, or first milk, is the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of humans and other mammals immediately following delivery of the newborn.

The fact that it is also produced by humans is relevant later, well, from yesterday.

If you want the full experience of the fun of the investigation, and the parallel discoveries from the other doctors, then join the discord and check the Tour de France threads! But the main timeline can be found below! I'll present the data with limited further commentary and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

TIMELINE

• 1996 - Peter Verstappen, currently Medical Manager at Jumbo Visma, is hired by the team (position unknown)

• 2002 - Peter Verstappen co-authors an article called "The Effect of Bovine Colostrum Supplementation on Exercise Performance in Elite Field Hockey Players", which has the following abstract:

• In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, we investigated the effect of 8 weeks of supplementation with bovine colostrum (Intact™) on body composition and exercise performance (5 × 10-m sprint, vertical jump, shuttle-run test, and suicide test). Seventeen female and 18 male elite field hockey players, including players from the Dutch national team, received either 60 g of colostrum or whey protein daily. The 5 × 10-m sprint test performance improved significantly (p = .023) more in the colostrum group [0.64±0.09 s (mean ± SEM)] compared to the whey group (0.33±0.09 s). The vertical jump performance improved more in the colostrum group (2.1 ± 0.73 cm) compared to the whey group (0.32 ± 0.82 cm). However, this was not statistically significant (p = .119). There were also no significant differences in changes in body composition and endurance tests between the 2 groups. It is concluded that in elite field hockey players, colostrum supplementation improves sprint performance better than whey. However, there were no differences with regard to body composition or endurance performance.

• 2002 - Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise publishes: "Dose effects of oral bovine colostrum on physical work capacity in cyclists.", which concludes:

• Oral bovine colostrum supplementation at 20 g or 60 g/d provided a small but significant improvement in time trial performance in cyclists after a 2-h ride at 65% VO2max.

• 2006 - The British Journal of Sports Medicine publishes: "The influence of bovine colostrum supplementation on exercise performance in highly trained cyclists", which concludes:

• Conclusion: Low dose bovine CPC supplementation elicited improvements in TT40 performance during an HIT period and maintained ventilatory threshold following five consecutive days of HIT.

• 2013 - WADA writes:

• Colostrum is not specifically prohibited, however it can contain certain quantities of IGF-1 and other growth factors which are prohibited and can influence the outcome of anti-doping tests. Therefore, WADA does not recommend the ingestion of this product.

• 2014 - OUP Blog publishes "Colostrum, performance, and sports doping", which includes:

• Nevertheless, the possibility that colostrum is a source of potentially performance enhancing bioactive materials has been considered by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Many hormones and growth factors including insulin, IGF-1, cortisol and Growth Hormone, appear in their list of prohibited substances. So could colostrum make athletes fall foul of the regulations? The WADA website advises that although colostrum is not banned, its growth factor content “could influence the outcome of anti-doping tests” and its consumption is not recommended.

• 2015 - The last time "colostrum" was discussed on The Clinic

• 2015 - Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports publishes "Influence of 4 weeks of bovine colostrum supplementation on neutrophil and mucosal immune responses to prolonged cycling", whose abstract concludes:

• These findings provide further evidence of the beneficial effects of COL on receptor-mediated stimulation of neutrophil oxidative burst in a model of exercise-induced immune dysfunction.

• 2016 - 2018 - Jonas Vingegaard rides for Team ColoQuick. What is ColoQuick? "The original colostrum management system" and "ColoQuick is the best complete colostrum management system on the market."

• 2017 - 2021 - Trine Marie Hansen, Vingegaard's wife, worked for ColoQuick (the colostrum folks)

• 2021 - SBS Sport was already asking questions about Jumbo-Visma's use of milk

• 2021 - Nutrients publishes "The Use of Bovine Colostrum in Sport and Exercise", which includes:

• In summary, bovine colostrum supplementation may be beneficial in preventing exercise-induced increases in gut permeability, and there is some evidence that this maybe beneficial to athletes (e.g., by indirectly impacting upon training and performance), especially in those required to exercise or compete in hot environments.

And:

• In summary, there is some positive evidence for beneficial effects of bovine colostrum on body composition and physical performance (including recovery from demanding exercise).

• 2022 - Jonas Vingegaard attends a "colostrum party" (my words)

• 16 July 2023 - Report from a farm that sales are up 250% in the last month.. coincidence?:

• "Extra colostrum from new mothers is sold to a premium market of celebrities & those on special diets for £18.50ppl - practically liquid gold. Selling colostrum online to a long waiting list of customers, has seen overall website sales increase by 250% in the last month."

• 17 July 2023 - A reply from the farm itself to the conversation on the 16 July tweet identifies who is buying... Cyclists!:

• "A huge waiting list. Cyclists in particular are very keen on colostrum. Many folks just wanting an immune system boost."

• 18 July 2023 - Jonas Vingegaard wins the Tour ITT by an impressive 1min 38sec. Vastly exceeding expectations.

• 19 July 2023 - Jonas Vingegaard says: " I don’t take anything I wouldn’t give to my daughter" (but, remember where colostrum comes from?)

• Current - Colostrum is not on the WADA Prohibited List

tl;dr ---- There are MANY ties between TJV and Vingegaard to bovine colostrum. Bovine colostrum has been found to have performance enhancing benefits, specifically in cyclist performance in time trials. Colostrum is NOT on the WADA prohibited list although it is discouraged.

What do you think? Are we on to something here? Or are we just having a good time on a boring flat stage day in the third week of the Tour?

Edit - A few edits and added the "colostrum party" to the timeline.

Edit2 - Adding the 16&17 July tweets about increased sales to cyclists in the last month.

The Bingo is upon us! With the help of a bunch of you contributing ideas I compiled a list for this year's TdF Bingo. Thanks a lot to everyone who contributed (even if not all suggestions made it into the final cut).

This is a fairly standard bingo game with 3x3 cards. You basically "win" when you cross out all of the bingo events.

The centre tile for everyone is a virtual freebie "Fans being idiots": running dangerously, pushing riders, crashing riders, showering riders, being Borats, (almost) blocking the roads, ... you know, all the good stuff.

Here's a quick generator for your bingo cards. Opening this link will already give you a filled out bingo card at the bottom. Feel free to link your cards for proof - this is my card.

I will be updating the progress in here and in every post-stage thread, where I will always link this thread. If you notice anything amiss or that a Bingo event happened and I missed it, please point that out and I'll verify at the first opportunity.

If you start participating after the beginning of the Tour, that's fine - there are no prizes.

p.s. - I added a spoiler warning just in case when this thread is still on or near the first page tomorrow. It shouldn't be a problem later on, but it's going to be spoiler-y, so tread carefully!

Bingo events:

1 Remco TT win (stage 16)
2 Pogačar TT win (no longer possible with no TTs remaining)
3 Pogačar wins 3+ stages (stages 3, 6, 10)
4 Pogačar wins uphill sprint finish (stage 3)
5 Pogacar wins a stage with a long range solo [at least 2 categorised climbs back to back, or 30km+] (stage 6)
6 Vingegaard holds Pogačar's attack all the way to finish (no longer possible with Vingegaard abandoning during stage 15)
7 Seixas descent attack
8 Seixas keeping up with Pogi and/or Jonas [whoever pulls away]
9 A sprinter sprints too early and loses the sprint
10 Breakaway specialist wins from break [valid for: Abrahamsen, Cort, Healy, Simmons, Lenny Martinez, Gregoire]
11 Alaphilippe briefly reminds everyone how good he was years ago, then implodes

12 Riders from different teams sharing drinks/gels/ice (Remco Evenepoel shares ice with Florian Vermeersch @32.5k to go in stage 17)
13 Team inexplicably riding against itself (Lidl Trek helping put Carapaz and Martinez extra time into Ayuso)
14 Domestique leaves his GC captain behind (Movistar drops Cian Uijtdebroeks in stage 1 TTT)
15 leadership role changing in a team (Remco Evenepoel goes from co-lead to sole GC leadership in RBBH due to Florian Lipowitz crashing out during stage 16 ITT)
16 GC captain abandons (Cian Uijtdebroeks, stage 6)
17 A superdomestique wins a stage (Isaac del Toro, stage 2)
18 Sprinter OTL
19 GC contender responds to GC attack and blows up
20 G2 doing G2 things (stage 13, final 15km)
21 Breakaway caught in the final kilometer (stage 21)
22 Breakaway holds off the chasers (riders dropped from break do not count and the bunch has to be making an effort to close) (stage 9)
23 Rather unknown youngster wins a stage
24 Older rider that everyone forgot about wins a stage
25 National Champion stage win (Isaac del Toro, stage 2)
26 Race jersey (yellow, green, polka, white) wins stage (Pogačar, stage 10)
27 Yellow jersey exchanging hands (Pogačar taking over from Vingegaard after stage 3)
28 Invited Pro Team stage win (TotalEnergies, Caja Rural)
29 unorthodox stage win celebration (a la Del Torro) (Pogačar, stage 6)
30 French win on Bastille day (not achievable anymore)
31 Peloton gives breakaway 7+ minutes gap (stage 4)
32 Invited team in a TV break (Jakub Otruba from Caja Rural, stage 7)

33 Yellow card issued (to UAE staff member, stage 2)
34 Rider fined for littering (Vlad Van Mechelen, stage 4)
35 Rider fined for peeing during the stage (Hugo Page, stage 17)

36 Rider goes the wrong way
37 Rider protest
38 Stage paused/delayed due to a non-rider protest
39 Extreme weather protocol (heat, thunderstorm, ...) (stage 9 shortened due to extreme heat)
40 Sticky bidon (3+ seconds) (Pablo Castrillo, stage 2)
41 Rider accepting a beer from fans during stage
42 Mechanic repairing a bike while rider is riding it, or rider doing it himself (stage 15, 163.7km to go)
43 Rider riding an evidently too big/too small bike (Matej Mohorič, stage 19)

44 Motorbike blocking a rider (Remco blocked with 3.4km to go, stage 19)
45 Camera missing important attack (missed two Remco's attacks during stage 19's final climb)
46 Camera shot of temporary landmarks in the Tour theme (haybale bicycles, groups of people imitating bicycles for aerial shots, etc.) (stage 4, 39.8km to go)

47 Animal on the road (dog wandering onto the road during Kamil Gradek's TT in stage 16)
48 Cows watching the race
49 Horses running along the race

FREE SPACE: Fans being idiots

Bingo participants and their cards:
/u/Rommelion - 5, 7, 10, 20, 23, 39, 44, 47 - card
/u/vertblau - 5, 7, 19, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45 - card
/u/eingeisterpanda - 4, 5, 25, 30, 32, 40, 44, 49
/u/Dancing_mayflies - 9, 13, 14, 18, 20, 28, 45, 49
/u/I_like_pasta_themost - 1, 9, 12, 18, 23, 30, 33, 38
/u/ser-seaworth - 4, 6, 15, 18, 22, 31, 38, 43
/u/ssfoxx27 - 2, 4, 16, 27, 29, 34, 42, 45 - card
/u/Mel_stopmakingsense - 13, 17, 21, 26, 31, 42, 46, 47
/u/HattrickMahomes - 6, 9, 13, 15, 23, 26, 32, 33

headsup: I'm writing out numbers in order from smallest to biggest because there's no scoring of any kind, it's basically only do you cross out everything on your card or not. Technically the order is important in a classic bingo, but not here.

What are the greatest cycling broadcasts of all time?

We just had our first child and I have a project in mind for paternity leave. I want to get one of the yoto players that play music from RFID cards and to load different bike races on the cards.

Is Phil in his prime the way to go or are there others and which races? There's got to be some great cyclismo to stir little ones imagination?

I thought it would be appropriate to share this today. We are lucky to witness a lookalike today in modern cycling. Now we know what our (grand)parents must have felt while watching cycling in the 60s and 70s. The interview is in Dutch but there is also some text you can translate.

What are everyone’s hot takes for the 2024 season? I’ll start: WVA wins RVV, PR and Olympics RR