Talossan Cycling Association Tour Season 5 Leg 2: Barcelona -> Paris

[Glüc]

Ayuso has dropped back to the group with Skjelmose a big blow to royal hopes. Maybe Van der Poel can do something tomorrow.

Cyclohexane still has Carapaz ahead, but will it be enough with the impact on GC likely limited?

Things are looking good for Menceis.

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 20  »  Le Bourg d'Oisans  ›  Alpe d'Huez

Couldn't watch as I was driving, so I'm just going to quickly copypaste the ProCyclingStats blurb:

A large breakaway formed on the opening climb while the peloton also maintained a relentless pace, quickly reducing the bunch. Pedersen was initially dropped but fought his way back and even managed to bridge to the break, securing enough points at the intermediate sprint to seal the green jersey. As the race wore on, only Kuss and Carapaz remained at the front. Kuss started the descent with a small advantage, but two crashes allowed Carapaz to pass him before the final uphill kilometres, take the stage victory and secure the mountains classification.

So Carapaz 1st, Evenepoel 2nd, Pogacar 4th, Del Toro 5th, Skjelmose 8th, Ayuso 9th, Seixas 10th, Johannessen 11st, Pidcock 16th. Stagewin goes to Cjovani for a second time, but Cyclohexane's second place is still enough to vault them to a (likely temporary) lead.

No changes in GC top 10, as Glüc hinted to, despite Ayuso's attempt at recovering some time. Johannessen did gain a place to 12th (which will be worth a meagre additional 12 points to GHS and VFL) but only because non-TCAT Van Wilder abandoned after a crash. Therefore, most of the end-of-tour analysis by Glüc should still be valid, but more on that later.

Standings after stage 20:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+2)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	9327	+793
2nd	(-1)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	9257	+589
3rd	(-1)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	9165	+567
4th	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	8762	+499
5th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	8116	+485
6th	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	7382	+385
7th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	7266	+540
8th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	7171	+862
9th	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	6875	+587

Today, the TCAT decider has been shortened to make sure the race is contained in Paris, and that emergency responders can be free to (sadly) deal with the wildfires nearby. Much like last year & the Olympic road race of 2024, it's not going to be a traditional Champs-Elysees sprint but rather 5 "short" laps of the Champs-Elysees + 3 "long" laps that also include an ascent of the famous Montmartre hill. Very likely hunting ground for classics riders and punchy sprinters. More on what that means for TCAT, again, later.

[Sir Lüc]

Gaps after adding current End of Tour points* and daily classification points for stage 21 (GC/PC/KOM daily points, and GC/TC assists):

MMM 0, CHX -178, REX -346

As things stand, the Mençeis are in the virtual lead of TCAT, with the only things missing being the points from today's stage (stage finish, intermediate sprint, breakaway points, stage finish assists, and maybe minor changes in the points classification).

Whether they actually do win TCAT or not depends on the stage outcome.

• Pretty sure the #1 candidate for the stage win is REX's Mathieu van der Poel, who last year had to watch this same stage from TV and no doubt has been waiting for this day for the last three weeks.
• However, the other two teams have Tadej Pogacar, who won't pass up any opportunity at having fun and placed fourth last year (last among a three-man sprint for second), which might limit REX's point gain to 100 at most.
• REX and MMM have Mads Pedersen, who also looks good on this type of parcours and may want to celebrate winning the points classification with a win.
• However, CHX has his teammate Mathias Vacek, who could perhaps be allowed to race for the win as a reward for helping Pedersen all Tour.
• REX has other legitimate top10 candidates too: Tom Pidcock and Dorian Godon could do well on this kind of parcours. And if it comes to a bunchsprint, however unlikely, they still are the one team with three sprinters (Pedersen, Godon and Bittner).

CHX and MMM don't seem to hold many other potential stage finish scorers, so most likely REX is the one who's going to score the most stage points. Whether they outscore the Mençeis by 346 is a different question; they'd need a MVDP win, and then (depending on what Pogacar does) 126 to 226 more points from Pidcock and Godon.

So that's REX's path to winning TCAT. As for CHX's path, Pogacar's result is going to be irrelevant because MMM also holds him, so they will really be rooting for Vacek to be given the nod instead of Pedersen. But even Vacek getting third and Pedersen not featuring at all would not be enough to overtake the Mençeis (and MMM can get triple Vacek assists by holding Skjelmose, Pedersen and Verona!), so either he does really well, or someone else comes in to help (Wellens, if he's not sick anymore? Baudin, for the sake of a French win in Paris? Kanter scoring maximum points at the intermediate sprint?). This all seems very unlikely.

TLDR: MMM advantage, REX with a chance if MVDP/Pidcock/Godon do very well, CHX almost hopeless.

*: EoT points per team were calculated by Glüc after stage 19, but the changes after stage 20 are minor

[Glüc]

Well that was a spectacular finish!

[Glüc]

Stage 21 (Final)   »   Paris  ›  Paris

The introduction of climbing Montmartre last year has made the final stage even more exciting. The winner of the tour may have already been decided, but winning the final stage is a massive achievement in its own right. The stage seemed almost designed for Mathieu van der Poel (REX/VFL), but it is a careful balance as a longer climb might favour stronger climbers while a longer stretch the finish might allow the peloton to back and result in a bunch sprints, so the stage promised a battle between climbers, puncheurs and sprinters. And we very much got what was promised.

On the second climb of Montmartre Pogacar (CFA/CJO/BDC/GHS/MMM/CHX) attacked with only Van der Poel being able to follow immediately. Evenepoel (CFA/CJO/REX/VFL) and Pedersen (REX/VFL/MMM) managed to close the gap resulting in a group of four. However the gap was small and the peloton, led by teammates of Kooij (GHS/BDC) chased the quartet down resulting in a reduced peloton with all the favourites starting the third ascent. This time it was Van der Poel who attacked with only Pogacar being able to follow. A chase group formed but was quickly swallowed by the peloton again led by teammates of Kooij, but this time also including Pedersen who also had hopes for the sprint. Van der Poel and Pogacar had a gap of less than 20 seconds and the finish was still far away, so there was no time for hesitation with a peloton steaming ahead behind them. Pogacar never hid behind Van der Poel but was not able to keep up and got dropped in the final stretch. With the finish in sight Van der Poel was only meters ahead of the peloton, already in full sprint. The sprint was won by Van der Poels teammate Philipsen (VFL), but at the finish Philipsen was not cheering for himself, but for Van der Poel, who had held on and finished just barely ahead, winning the stage.

Philipsen got second place ahead of Pedersen in third, Kanter (CHX) in fourth, and Kooij in fifth. Els Talossaes Rexhital won the stage due to Van der Poels efforts and climb to first place before end of tour points are considered. But will it be enough???

Standings after stage 21 (NOT including end of tour points!!!):
These are not the final standings

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+1)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	9779	+522
2nd	(-1)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	9605	+278
3rd	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	9537	+372
4th	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	9014	+252
5th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	8637	+521
6th	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	7650	+268
7th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	7365	+99
8th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	7285	+114
9th	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	7085	+210

[Glüc]

The final points are awarded based on the standings of the riders in classifications. Most points are awarded based on the general classification (yellow jersey), which was of course won by Pogacar, followed by Evenepoel and Del Toro. Then there are points based two side classification: the points classification (green jersey) won by Pedersen, and King of the Mountains classification (polkadot jersey) won by Carapaz. Finally there are assist points based on the team classification. The latter of these is particularly favourable for the Menceis, who picked only riders from the two strongest teams. A very succesful strategy as it turns out and the second time this strategy has lead to a winning result (after Spain 2023).

FINAL STANDINGS:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(+2)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	11557	+2020
2nd	(-1)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	11454	+1675
3rd	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	11395	+1790
4th	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	10534	+1520
5th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	9932	+1295
6th	(+1)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	9185	+1820
7th	(+1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	9015	+1730
8th	(-2)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	8755	+1105
9th	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	8265	+210

Congratulations to the Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis for winning leg 2 of the 2026 TCAT season!!!

[Glüc]

I'm sure there will be more statistics posted, but one very notable thing is this was both a very close and a very high scoring edition (despite several expensive dropouts) with the top 4 teams posting the 2nd to 5th all time highest scores.

We've never had more than two teams above 10K and only 1 team ever scoring more than 11K and now suddenly we have three teams above 11K and a high scoring 10K team as well.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Congratulations to the Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis for winning leg 2 of the 2026 TCAT season!!!

Oh my goodness... I've always loved participating in this amazing Talossan tradition, but this is such a special moment.

We need to get the team together for a group photo!  Wait, why's that president in the photo?  Someone get him out of here.  Gianni, get over here and... oh, well.

Thank you to the TCAT team for another amazing race!