The yellow jersey belting out Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You, We are the Champions and more? Oh, sorry, you meant Tadej Pogačar's upcoming performance on the Tour de France's queen stage... not a "mind-bender" showing at a Queen stage performance... got you...
There is still no ID on who 'Mou' is, the anonymous social media voice who shot to prominence within the cycling world this week amid suspicion they are a mole close to UAE Team Emirates, before they became increasingly outspoken online as old posts on Cyclingnews' forum surfaced, essentially predicting Pogačar's outrageously dominant season (from Strade Bianche to the Tour) step by step.
Mou had been scathing in criticism of Pogačar's old coach, Inigo San Millan, and since February has been spreading word online that the Slovenian's new partnership with Javier Sola would unlock his true potential — better climbing performances, less prone to bad days in the third week, less prone to bad days when the weather's hot, better TTing etc. etc. In short, he claimed: "Pogačar is a Ferrari in which diesel was poured for five years, now when gasoline is poured into it, we get what we are looking at in 2024."
Now, plenty of his predictions have largely come true and the anonymous 'mole', who also shared screenshots of Pogačar's secret training data as 'proof' he has inside knowledge, is becoming more and more confident, outspoken, and some would say "arrogant"...
For what it's worth, Pogačar addressed the rumours and social media storm, saying: "I have no idea who this guy is. But yeah, I've heard in the last two days he's getting a lot of attention. I think he gets some things right, but mostly he gets it also wrong.
"I don't know who this guy is and what's his purpose. I think he just tries to be important on Twitter and forums or whatever, but I don't follow, I just heard a lot. People are asking. Maybe we will all together find out who the guy is."
Fast forward to today and the queen stage of this year's Tour de France, a monstrous traversing of Alpine giants — three ascents exceeding 2,000m, including the 2,800m Cime de la Bonette — time to test Mou's claims out...
Oh, and they're not holding back with one final (well, until they get bored and need more attention in an hour's time) prediction...
Classy. Although if it is Pogačar's big day of dominance ahead, surely he's the "soon-to-be ex-two-time TDF winner". Sorry, Mou. We've got to be pedantic...
They added: "Some things are obviously still not clear to people: Vini [Jonas Vingegaard] is not better on the hill than Pog, Vini does not have a better third week than Pog, Vini is not better than Pog in any segment except in aerodynamic position on TT bikes.
"Pogačar's pain was high temperature and that drained his energy from stage to stage, that is no longer the case after the introduction of the Core device in training. Now that all his flaws caused by his disastrous training have been ironed out, you're looking at exactly what I said you'd be looking at back in March."
Perhaps unsurprisingly at the end of a long week, some have had enough...
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Sad read in the Graundia:
I can’t face getting on my bike after a serious accident – but I’d love to ride again
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jul/19/i-cant-face...
Interview in The Guardian with Laura Kenny
"Summer's well and truly arrived in the UK"
.... not in Scotland.... yet... every cloud... no midges with that wind... yet..
Would that be the Cairn Gorm for which "The warmest month on record is July 2006, with a mean temperature of 9.9 °C"?
In which case - it's a heat wave!
But yeah - it's certainly summer (here in Edinburgh) but not necessarily either a great one. Or "it's summer, captain, but not as we (from South of the border) know it".
Fixed the rattle on my wife's bike - turned out to be a small bracer on the rear mudguard where it screws into the frame. Bracer needed to be horizontal but had slipped.
Was convinced it was internal cable rattle.
Almost fell off on a test ride as I turned my heel out to detach the cleat only she prefers old fashioned toe clips ...
"There is still no ID on who 'Mou' is, the anonymous social media voice who shot to prominence within the cycling world this week amid suspicion they are a mole close to UAE Team Emirates"
Mou.. rhymes with Q. Makes you think eh?
(no)
It also rhymes with loo, which is where this whole story should have been flushed down
I predict it turns out to be an IT guy they've never even met, but who has access to their data.
Are they claiming inside info on the anti-doping agencies as well?
We have here 3 named super-astounding athletes, who are a bit better than all the other astounding athletes who ride the Tour, but the gaps between them are much, much less than the gap between them and us. This is a Golden Age!
Is Mou actually Pog?
No - he's head coach of Fenerbahçe, which you'd think would keep him too busy to indulge in this kind of nonsense. Maybe the summer break and international competitions have left him with too much time on his hands.
Have not read any Mou scribbles other than what is being reported but it's not a far-out prediction to say that Pogi will want to put on a show today. This stage with the big climb, Bonette @ 2800m, is being touted as the one where Vingegaard puts the hurt on Pogacar but really, how likely is that on the evidence so far? I think Pogi will aim for the stage win today.
Also, will be interesting to see how Evenepoel will do today, I wonder if he will try and put time on Vingegaard.
Vingegaard/Visma have to try something today, even if it seems unlikely that it will come off. I think it's great that they are keeping the faith and attacking.
Pogacar has been the strongest so far, but Evenepoel's form appears to be improving. Remco's descending is not great though.
Well, they let Jorgensen do his show instead of supporting Vingegaard, I was a bit surprised to see that! Maybe Vingegaard is not their leader anymore... And Jorgensen also failed to win, anyway, so... maybe tomorrow!
Pogacar is just incredible and he looks like a good guy, far from some 1990's tours winners, but his superiority kills the competition after a while... we can't ask him to let others win stages on purpose, can we?
I think they had a plan which involved the two riders up the road helping Jonas if he was able to attack. But it became increasingly clear he couldn't - not helped by the fact that the other Visma riders in the yellow jersey group were all dropped while Tadej still had four riders with him - so they then let Jorgensen do his thing.
Yes, I got that by watching again after the race. Quite unorthodox, Pogacar did it with Yates the other day, but it was more like some kind of trick...
My guess is that they were aware that Vingegaard could not compete against Pogacar, so they tried to win a stage with riders who were not dangerous in the general, "dumping" their leader. That said Vingegaard is doing a very good tour apparently, beating his previous performances, but that's just not enough.