Michigan's Michael Woods Wins Stage 9 at TDF
Former Michigan track and field athlete, Michael Wood's, just won stage 9 of the Tour de France being the first to the top of the dormant volcano Puy De Dome, racing up double digit steepness grades. Great Victory. Probably the best of his career.
For the Yellow Jersey, Tadej bested Jonas to carve 8 seconds away from his rival. Jonas holds Yellow with a 17 second lead in what is becoming an amazing head to head duel.
Also American Neilson Powless in the Polka Dots!
Michael Woods is also of of the older riders in the Tour. Great seeing a fellow late 30-something haul up a 12% grade to take the win. I might have to try to exercise today.
If your going out today for exercise, I recommend riding 100 miles 20-30 mph and finishing it off with a race up a volcano.
Thanks for sharing that he ran for M. Just finished watching the stage, and while Phil and Bob noted his running background, they left out that most important fact!
Quite a brutal finish to that stage with 11-13% gradients and no fans to cheer them on due to the narrowness of the road. Going to be quite the battle over the next 2 weeks - Tadej looks to be the stronger of the two when the climbs get the hardest, but Jonas has the stronger team around him.
For lay folk like myself, what does a good team do to help its top guy/gal?
I am not the expert on team riding and there are many different strategies.
But saving your top riders energy is the overall broad goal in such a taxing endurance race. It is not uncommon for a rider to literally run out of sufficient energy to race to the end. They literally fry their legs or have no fuel to burn. This year, the current yellow jersey is strongly suited for the mountains, so his team is trying to let him draft (save energy in the team slipstream - 10-15% energy savings) as far as possible up the mountain (on mountain stages) and hope he has the gas in the tank to finish the climb by himself at a winning pace.
This is currently working with mixed results this year due to the strength of the competition.
I am sure there are people who read this blog who have spent a lifetime following cycling who know much more than I on the subject.
Supporting riders make the race easier for the team leader. The amount of power required to move a bicycle increases geometrically with wind resistance. Consequently, a cyclist expends much less effort when they can draft on other riders. When a team has riders who excel as sprinters, climbers, and all-around riders, that team can be sure to always have someone near the front of the race on whom the team leader can draft. That assures that the team leader is always in position to respond to attacks from other riders.
In addition, strong teammates can be helpful in both executing their own tactics or in controlling or defusing another team's tactics. For example, if Pogacar thinks that he can benefit from a fast pace in a particular stage, his team can send one or two riders out on an early, aggressive breakaway. The riders in the breakaway may or may not expect to win the stage, but their maneuver can make the whole peloton race faster than it otherwise might, setting the pace to Pogacar's liking. If Vingegaard's team wants to neutralize that tactic, it can send a rider or two along on that breakaway, for the purpose of drafting on the other riders in the break. That means that Pogacar's teammates have to tow Vingegaard's teammate, which makes their race harder and probably slows them down.
In addition to the above, teammates will drop back to the team car to pick up hydration and snacks/calories, and carry them back up to the team leader, which saves them huge amounts of energy.
Also, the leaders can often just relax behind their teammate(s) for long stretches and not have to worry about anything ahead, keeping them mentally fresh for closer to the end.
And finally (I think), if a team leader has a flat tire or mechanical issue, and teammate will give up their bike and wait for the replacement/tire change.
And just to finish it off, a strong team will also keep their GC contender near the front of the pack which minimizes the chance that said contender will get caught out behind, or worse, caught in, a crash at the back of the peloton. Further, a strong team will send riders into the break on a stage to be available in case the GC contender needs help late in the race. I think the other stuff has been mentioned.
The TdF as currently configured, though, lends itself to a strong team just drilling it up a climb causing teammates of other GC contenders to fall off the pace. This isolates other GC contenders who are then perhaps vulnerable to multiple attacks on a climb.
I heard Phil say he'd earned a scholarship to U-M, but he pronounced it "Mitch-igin."
You can always count on Phil to get the name wrong.
Not sure what the rules of the board are on this, but I'd really appreciate it if people could keep spoilers out of the titles, thanks.
That said, Go Blue! Go Woods!
Seconded. Especially because of the way that the Tour is broadcast this year. NBC has decided to put the live broadcast of the remaining stages behind the Peacock paywall. The daily stages are rebroadcast on USA at 2 am. So many cycling fans (who, like me, aren't willing to give Comcast any more money) will be watching each stage on DVR a day late.
What is someone supposed to post and when do the rules apply?
”Spoiler Alert: Stage 9 is Over”
”McEnroe and Borg finish Epic Battle”
”Michigan and Ohio Players Finish The Game in Close One Measured by Inches”
”Ali Fraser Finish Close Fight”
”Dewey And Truman Winner is Known”
🤷♂️🤦♂️
I don’t think so. Those are terrible headlines. In this case I watched the race and didn’t even know the winner went to Michigan. So this title was perfect.
In years past, people have just posted things like "TDF Stage 9 [spoilers]" or maybe (in the case of today) "TDF Stage 9 [spoilers - M-related]".
Sounds like a TDF only thing for people who want to watch the entire 3 hour + race in tale delay.
But in this case I think they still need to say Woods is a Michigan Guy in the header otherwise those that saw the race or knew the results wouldn’t have read it.
Excellent logic there. I can't say that the TdF is only for people who want to watch on tape delay, but I can say 100% of spoilers wreck it for people who are watching on delay. Because if they're watching live, they already know.
It feels like we have this same issue every year with people posting TDF spoilers before it’s been broadcast for most people, and a lot of us come on a Michigan blog not expecting to see unrelated sports spoilers for events we enjoy and aren’t able to watch yet. Last year someone even posted about Vingegaard’s cracking of Pogacar as their thread headline and spoiled the most exciting stage of the entire TDF for a lot of people.
It is truly not that hard to keep it more discrete with an “OT: Tour de France Stage 9 + Michigan connection [Spoilers]”. Please be a bit more considerate.
Back in the day, TdF was sufficient to indicate the event. Stay off my yard!
Head-to-head duel? Not sure about that, Jonas’ Jumbo-Visma team is much stronger than Tadej’s UAE team. But it was great to see the two matched up in the Pyrenees.
Agree.
There are so many mountain stages to come. Plus the time trial. Jumbo-Visma will need a better strategy to wear down Pogecar.
Epic stage with great battles for the stage win and for the yellow jersey.
5 bucks for Peacock is a steal even if just for the month of July to be able to watch the Tour live and on demand later in the day.
Phil did mention that Woods ran track at "Mitch-again" early on in the coverage.
Exactly. Can't believe the amount of complaining about paying $5 to watch something you love. Pay it and cancel it right away so you don't get autobilled. I do it for espn+, peacock and whatever for the golf majors.
"Trading spikes for spokes, Michael Woods finds a career in professional cycling"
https://www.michigandaily.com/sports/life-after-michigan-michael-woods/
Great for him! Go Blue! I love biking but can't conceive of what it takes to compete on those courses.
Can’t lie, was pulling for the American Jorgenson to win the stage. If he had to get beat though, glad it was a Michigan man. It was a well calculated and heroic effort.
I absolutely love Le Tour, and seeing 3 riders from North America in the top 10 of this stage was awesome. And Woods' ride was a masterful performance. I thought it would be a less exciting end to the stage without the typical mountain stage crazies lining the road, but I thought it allowed the beauty in the suffering to shine through. And the Pog/Vin rivalry is really fun to watch.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been watching every day since you posted and this head to head battle has been amazing. Especially today where jonas managed to claw his way back after tadej attacked. Great stuff.
I'd stopped following the tour due to the doping but this has got me back in and back on my bike!
Thanks again!