{"id":271778,"date":"2025-07-18T10:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271778\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T10:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:19:09","slug":"i-rode-up-to-visma-and-asked-the-boys-is-it-just-me-or-has-that-moto-been-there-all-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/271778\/","title":{"rendered":"“I rode up to Visma and asked the boys, ‘Is it just me or has that moto been there all day?’\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s exactly what INEOS Grenadiers<\/a> did too, getting five riders up the road. Sadly though, Thomas wasn’t one of them. “I made a few moves but drifted back. You know what it\u2019s like \u2014 since 2015 really, I\u2019ve always been close to GC, so you end up in that ‘too far back to follow moves’ zone. Then there\u2019s a split and you\u2019re like, ‘I need to move up.’ But it was lined out, so I just waited,” he explains. “Then I saw this group go\u201450 odd guys. I heard on the radio we had five guys in there. Carlos Rodr\u00edguez was best on GC, along with Connor Swift<\/a>, Tobias Foss<\/a>, Axel Laurance<\/a>, and Thyman Arensman. They did a great job establishing a gap.”<\/p>\n

Sadly for the INEOS lot and the entire breakaway however, the peloton kept a firm leash. Thomas though, wasn’t impressed by the tactics of some teams at the front of the bunch. “Carlos started the day five and a half back. No need to stress about that. Just let UAE do the chasing. They\u2019re going to do it anyway. But EF and Uno-X both gave two guys \u2014 seems like a waste to me. Protecting 10th place with nine days to go? Nah. Just let UAE burn through their guys,” he lamented.<\/p>\n

Another issue was the unfair advantage given to the peloton by race motorbikes. “Our group \u2014 the peloton \u2014 was still 100 guys, and it was lined out. The moto was maybe 20\u201330 meters ahead. At 54k an hour, you\u2019re getting a draft, no question,” he explains. “Everyone was complaining. I rode up to Visma and asked the boys, ‘Is it just me or has that moto been there all day?’ And they agreed. But it\u2019s not the rider\u2019s fault \u2014 if the moto\u2019s there, you\u2019re going to use it.”<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s an age-old problem in cycling,” Thomas adds. “The guys on the moto are just doing their job \u2014 getting footage \u2014 but it can change races.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That’s exactly what INEOS Grenadiers did too, getting five riders up the road. Sadly though, Thomas wasn’t one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-271778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114873733496322000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}