Pyrenees first.
If it's still close by next Saturday - after the very steep uphill TT on Friday - the brutal stage into Superbagneres (which includes the ascent of the Tourmalet) should, you would think, give Visma a great opportunity to mug...
It will be a blow if Almeida is inconvenienced by his cracked rib, but Adam Yates has had an easy week so should be pretty fresh come the hills. It's hard to see where he could lose 1m18s.
The Austrian side in the morning was actually lovely. My legs were fresh, the views were spectacular, and it was relatively quiet. The Italian side had none of that. A thick mist descended so you could barely see 10m in front of you, and it was a...
The two sides of the Timmelsjoch neatly encapsulate the two countries. The Austrian side is wide, well engineered roads. The Italian side is like spaghetti dropped on the mountain. I think over 40 switchbacks, half a dozen tunnels, and roads a...
It wasn't too bad. A few motorbikes and the odd car. As I was scoffing a strudel at the top, about 20 sports cars turned up in the car park. Glad I missed that. There's a toll booth around a third of the way up, so that probably keeps traffic...
My Garmin got stuck in the dreaded "working...." state for the first bit, but I think around 1h20m or there about. Not super fast. I'll blame the altitude for that :D
I took the descent really easy. I think the entire climb had 7 switchbacks, so...