Welcome back to the Lenton Rouge Cycling Podcast with Benji Nice and despite the false alarm on Twitter earlier I'm back for the recap of one of the better stages of this Twitter friends so far stage 16.

This show is brought to you by our show partner. Look old, that little rat thing in the corner thought it was going to, you know, get on the microphone today incorrect. I had a pre back crash.

This afternoon or around midday, just sending the robust descent down and or and lady walked out in front of me and I just went full mash front brake and slid out so I didn't break anything which is good but it's, you know, like at 5560 and basically I have no skin on my right side anymore but I've hopped up on on painkillers so I'll have some spice he takes at least maybe it's good. Yeah, but I'm all right and he did remind me that as like I saw

of employed person I guess already my own my own company like it's scary to think you know during the Twitter france I was like shit I can't I need to make money to live like during the two hours I like I get sick leave. Anyway, I was at the stage Benji's going to fill you in. This is the first big melt top finish we've had in quite a while finishing on called the portes some say the hardest climb in this year's Twitter france 180 K's long the stage flat for the first 115 then Petr Souda called a Valoran as it and then called the portes which is 16 17 K.

It's 8.5% the event you fill me in what happened with the brake formation. At the start of the stage it took quite a while before the brakeway started but we know that this is a very long run in so it's likely that a brakeway films in the initial 100 kilometers of the stage completely flat and we saw that the kerning was playing with that a bit was trying to control it a bit at the start of the stage probably making sure that matches are called really don't go in the brakeway stuff like that.

The gap was at the front looking at that and so forth but eventually a brake got away and it wasn't a strong brakeway was the kind of break where where you thought okay if they don't have 20 minutes by the bottom of the

Petr Souda they ain't winning this stage and I think that that became relatively clear as the race went on because some teams had the interest of setting a pace at the front of the

bullet on we saw that Israel was moving forward and also one rider from our chaos so about one third of their team that is left and they were trying to prep something for a potential K1 battle

most likely because also Kintana and woods were not in the brakeway it was basically paid as in a bunch of people including Duryonga the one such so not the strongest

brakeway. Petr Souda by the way he's the guy that lost here I think on one of the hill stages in the middle of the of the third of fronts was fighting against

Kothnaffa on the hills and Kothnaffa once in the polka dot jersey. Petr Souda took it over virtually in the stage and then his team car crashed him out somewhere in the

sand and that's how he didn't end up wearing it on the podium at the end of the day so actually a pretty sad story looking back at it

but it looks good to see him back on the bike and same climbing so well because he was arguably the strongest climber in the

brakeway today but let's go back to the bullet on because there wasn't an intermediate sprint just before the climb started and we saw the

kerning move towards the front and ready for action and I think that it looked like Kavnich was going to get it the way that they were prepping it but

Mathews actually had a very good lead out there he was let out on the right side of the road and they flew past the train of of the

kerning Mirko was not fast enough on the left side of the person in front of him to move forward and try and catch up with that.

Basically I think that they could have done exactly the same as Alpasin did at the hill the price they were faster than the

kerning and they didn't move to the left that's where they could have already made the difference but eventually the gap that

Mathews created what his lead out was enough because Murko was in the wheel of Mathews and Kavnich in the wheel of Murko and Murko just went to the left and

stopped he was done so Kavnich had to close the gap to Mathews as well before the sprint started then you know you're going to lose the sprint most

likely and Mathews wins the sprint there takes the points but let's be real it's one point difference or so it Kavnich so he's not that much closer from this but

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