If the scenery is worthwhile, I can tolerate some long Tour days when nothing much happens until the last ten minutes. But I do find the time-trial stages the boring days of the Tour. Riders go out along, two minutes between each one, so even though the distance to be covered is much shorter than a normal 150+km stage, the whole event takes at least as long, and all it ever shows is one lone rider rushing along. It's a day I'm ready to skip, and I did yesterday.
But time trials are crucial to the competition. As the total elapsed hours of this year's Tour pile up (something over 60 hours in competition so far over 16 days, Jonas Vingegaard has been leading the Tour day after day with an advantage of literally a few seconds. Neither Vingegaard nor Pogacar have "cracked" each other on the big climbs that separate contenders from also-rans. These two stay very close, supported by their teammates and by their closely matched strengths. Putting in a large time difference has so far been impossible for either.
Time trials, however, tend to produce big gaps. Solo performance -- no support, no rival at one's shoulder, no sense of the overall pace of the contending groups -- requires solo decision-making about when to conserve energy, when to go all out, which corners to cut, what risks to take. The results tend to be unpredicable.
It has been assumed that sooner or later the explosive Pogacar would burst away from the steady Vingegaard and "put some time into him," as they say. But yesterday it was Vingegaard who mastered the time trial, with a finish over a minute and a half better than Pogacar's. Mountains yet to come between now and Sunday's cruise down the Champs d"Elysee, but it's gonna be hard for Pogacar to make up that much.
Still, it's been a terrific Tour to watch. Lots of competition, lots of lively breakaways, heroic mountain stages, crazy crowds, great landscapes and monuments all the way. Vive le Tour!
Update, July 20: Should add that while Michael Woods has not been very visible since his Puy de Dome win, his Israel Start-Up teammates, particularly Kris Neilsen, Hugo Houle, Nick Schultz, and Guillaume Boivin, have made themselves visible throughout by joining breakaways and hanging on at the front on many days. The team is owned by Canadian-Israeli Sylvan Adams, and has Canadian cycling great Steve Bauer as its directeur sportif, in addition to riders Woods, Boivin and Houle.
Also, Tadej Pogacar cracked yesterday on the hightest climb of th Tour ("It's over. I'm dead.") leaving Vingegaard an almost insuperable seven minutes advantage.
