Day Three Check-In

SPEAKER_00 0:41

All right. That's right. It's time for day three of the Cycling Men of Leisure's Leisure Breakaway. And that's our little mini podcast to uh give you an update on what happened on day three of the Tour de France. I am Michael, and with me, as always, is Adam. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

And today, if you could see us, you'll see that I have True Americana for a golf polo today.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

A little red, white, and blue. And I'm wearing a uh cycling hat here, and it almost matches your shirt. We did not do that deliberately. It is the same color as blue and the same colors of red. Um yeah, advertising a French company, but that's you know, that's beside the point.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

So this is my uh annual golf polo I usually wear at this time. And just as we were going to record, I said, Oh, I want to wear something, and because I wore this golfing over the 4th of July, I thought today was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So

Heat Stats And Stage Distance

SPEAKER_00 1:40

I hope you washed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Oh, yeah, that's where it was. That's where it was hanging up in the clean section. So I'm just grabbing it real quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

As long as it's been cleaned. Not that I care, I'm, you know, hundreds of miles away. So 12-hour car ride away, but who's counting? Yeah, who's counting? Anyway, hey, uh, great day at the tour today. Let me just tell you. Give you a little rundown. Today was day three. They rode 195.9 kilometers to our American friends. That's 121.7 miles. Started at Grand uh Grand Oyeers, uh, finished at uh Les Angeles. Um here's something that's just incredible. The average temperature today, you have any idea?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Um 90. There, not not at your place. There. Well, I'm being serious. I know they're going through some record highs over there. I'm gonna say 95 uh Fahrenheit.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

The average temperature, and it fluctuates because they're going 120 some miles, uh, 32 degrees Celsius, that's 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Um, it actually exceeded 95 degrees early in the stage, but it averaged out to be 90. That is one long hot day.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

We've been paying attention to European weather. We're going there in September. Not that it's gonna be, I hope it's not anyway, but uh, but we've definitely been watching the record high. So it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Okay. Uh the average speed. Today's average speed was 41.216 kilometers, which is 25.6 miles per hour.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Oh, yeah, I do that downhill all the time.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Downhill.

First Real Pyrenees Mountain Test

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Well, let me tell you, today the stage three marked the uh tours' first significant mountain test as the race cross from Spain over into the French Pyrenees. Uh the day featured nearly 4,000 feet, uh, excuse me, 4,000 meters of climb and concluded with an uphill finish, uh, making it the first real opportunity for the general classification tender contenders to test one another. A strong breakaway. It was awesome today. The breakaway was incredible. Um that was pretty much uh animated by Alex Bowden, who uh collected enough points, mountain points, that is, to secure the polka dot jersey for tomorrow. So he'll be king of the mountain. Um I gotta say, the final climb, uh, UAE Team Emirates uh really just took complete control of the field. Um Del Toro was there, the winner of yesterday's stage. He really delivered a great, a great leadout uh for his teammate uh Toddy Pagaccia, which is exactly what he is supposed to do. Um Toddy just launched out at this great massive acceleration towards the end. Um Vinnegard tried, I'll give him I'll give him points. Um tried to uh to respond, but man, Teddy just exploded, couldn't keep up. Um basically it it shook up that that Toddy did take the the uh the win

Breakaway Battle And Polka Dots

SPEAKER_00 5:10

today. Uh Vinegard uh is now two seconds behind, followed by Richard Carapaz, uh, or at least not overall, but for today. Um Paul Cesas uh is two seconds behind. And then Tobias Johansson uh is four seconds behind. So the top five were only like four seconds um away from each other, but uh it was a great, great day. Now, a couple crazy things. You mentioned the weather. Yes, sir. There is they're going through a major drought in France, uh, lots of forest fires and things like that. Well, the ending was there was a fire that was several miles away, but close enough that the smoke and that type of stuff was creating a hazard. Um, they actually did not let anyone within like 30 miles of the finish line. And anytime you're watching like mountain um mountain segments of it, you just see tons of people alongside the roads screaming and yelling. Some of them cycled up, some hiked up, some take those big camper vans. Well, today it was like ghost town because no one was allowed up there. So it was really a bizarre uh mountaintop finish that you'd no one could probably ever remember watching the Tour de France. It was just just insane. Um excuse me. So that's where we're at um for today's race. Do you have anything you want to add?

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I did. Um

UAE Control And Pogacar Attack

SPEAKER_01 6:45

today I have two interesting pieces of information. So I want to first I would like to thank a community member. Um happens to be my family member, but that's not the point. He's a community member. Um my cousin Mark, who gave me an interesting fact about history, and he says that um back in the day that they would uh he said in early days of writing, riders would grab a newspaper at the mountaintop and shove it in their jersey to compensate for temperature. But also, back in the uh when they were accused of cheating, it would also legitimate their ride. And so I thought that was kind of interesting that they would grab a paper at the top of the mountain.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So um use use it as insulation, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

And then oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

No, um, the only thing is as far as as the cheating, and we'll we will talk, I'm sure, about this at some point. Cheating was very rampant back in in the early days. Um, but couldn't you just have somebody get the paper for you at the top and meet you somewhere along the road and say, here, take this, even though you didn't go over.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

I want to prove to you, because we did not talk about this ahead of time. I want to prove to you that I actually listen to you. I am sure through one of these next 17 shows, 18 shows maybe, um you told me about trains at the top and the riders cheating with trains. So we'll

Wildfire Smoke And Empty Finish

SPEAKER_01 8:15

get into that in one of the next ones, but I do have another interesting piece of information. So how many tires, if you had to guess on average, how many tires does a Tour de France rider go through uh throughout the 21 stages on average?

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Okay. Um you know that's interesting because I know if I compare like you and I to tire usage, it's it's there's a great there's a there's a big difference in how many tires you go through in a week versus me on average. Um but I know they have a lot of flat tires. So well, I I wasn't gonna say, I was just leaving it at we have a big discrepancy between the number of tires you go through. I wasn't I wasn't gonna go down the road either way. I'm gonna say they have a lot of flats, putting a lot of miles on those tires. I'm gonna say the average cyclist on a tour de France for the entire three-week period probably goes, I'm gonna say, through 38 sets of tires.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Well, according to this, according to bike radar, uh the source is bike radar, Trudor France, Tire Tech, Continental Press Release. Um, on average, roughly six to twelve tires per rider over the three weeks is the average, depending on how you want to count it. The math I was waiting. The team mechanics replace tires every 500 to 1,000 kilometers as preventative maintenance as the tour runs, which is 3,300 kilometers. So riders wear through about four to seven tires, two to three sets per mileage alone. And then if

Newspaper Trick And Old Cheating

SPEAKER_01 10:05

you add punctures, cuts, and special setups, um, gravel and time trial stages get different tires, then the real number lands around 10 plus continental says that the seven teams that supplies will burn through a thousand plus tires on the tour, roughly eighteen per rider. Once you include the spare tires and backup wheels, teams typically pack 100 spare tires for eight riders.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

There you go. See, I was I was thinking when you asked that, I started thinking maybe they're just gonna preventively replace the tires every single day. So that's how I came up with 38.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

That makes sense. You would think that they would, except for if they got you know a flat or something. But uh yeah, I I uh I was kind of interested in that. And so uh I have a few other pieces, but I can't let them all out on the on this third show. So I'll I'll be I'll be uh adding some uh interesting pieces along the way.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

So well, cool. We look forward to uh to those interesting tidbits that you're gonna add.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So do you have anything else, sir?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

You know, it was a great day. I'm a little concerned uh about once every, I don't know, four or five years, you have one rider who bust out and by like day six or seven of the ride has pretty much cemented that he's gonna win. And it occasionally happens this way, and I hope this year is not that way. I I mean, nothing wrong. I have no problems with Toddy. Um, but I like to see it a true race because a lot of times it's like by week two, it's like, well, this person's gonna win. The only way he's not gonna win is if there's some catastrophic, horrible thing that happens. Uh, you know, he falls off the side of a mountain or something, you know, something terrible like that.

Tour Tire Numbers And Team Logistics

SPEAKER_00 11:55

So I'm really hoping that you know they're able to keep this close because it makes for much better, much better uh watching. But tomorrow, stage four, give you a brief overview on that. They're starting uh at uh Cacasin, France, and they'll be finishing at Fauxwa, France. That is a distance of 113 miles or 181.9 kilometers. It's gonna be a hilly stage, and uh it should be good. I and if you watch it on part of the the coolness of watching the Tour de France, in my opinion, is they show you a lot of the old churches and castles, and then they give you, you know, Phil and and uh and the other guy. Can't think of his name right at the moment. Um, Phil Liggett, the main guy, will sit there and give you um like an update. It's like, oh, this you know, castle here was built by whomever in whatever years, and that's always cool. Well, um, the opening town that they start out in is a medieval city. Um, so I think there's gonna be a lot of really, really beautiful churches and and castles and things that you're gonna be able to see along the way. Um, the other thing I'm looking forward to, and that's not gonna happen in the mountain stages, but when we get out to the farmland, then you get into the farm art, where like farmers like decorate their fields with real intricate and interesting uh things. But uh the name I was looking for is Bob Roll. Feel like Bob Roll do the do the you know commentary.

Will The Race Stay Close

SPEAKER_00 13:35

But um, it should be very interesting tomorrow. Um, there's a chance that some other like uh Joanna uh uh Juan Flip, um Vanderpool, Van Art. Um, there's some chances that they can uh they can get in there and potentially win, but they're still looking for you know extreme heat, that type of stuff. So um tomorrow could be a good stage. So that's all I can.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Well, all right. Well, I love it. I love it. Uh I'll look forward to tomorrow. Uh and until then.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Welcome to the show breakup.