{"id":166587,"date":"2018-07-31T07:16:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T07:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=166587"},"modified":"2018-07-31T07:16:39","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T07:16:39","slug":"tour-de-france-2018-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/07\/31\/tour-de-france-2018-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France 2018 \u2013 The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tear gas, disappointing retirements, and yet a new generation of cyclists look set to take the peloton by storm. This year\u2019s Tour was a mixed bag \u2013 so let\u2019s try to make sense of the results of the ASO\u2019s weird and wonderful 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ugly<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Sometimes it seemed like Chris Froome vs The World. Froome\u2019s staggering success has been met with accusations of doping, but his name has consistently been cleared. Froome has handled it with impressively good grace \u2013 but even Froome couldn\u2019t keep calm after a certain policeman\u2019s ill-judged intervention.<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

Remember, this happened after Froome fell hard early in Le Tour and, along with much of the peloton, struggled to make sense of the descent into Roubaix, was tear-gassed by riot control, and returned to face his demons on the climb up the Col du Portet on stage 17.<\/p>\n

Much of this Tour felt like the ASO were deliberately engaged in psy-ops against Froome \u2013 and it worked. Froome regularly seemed brow-beaten and cautious until eventually he found himself fighting just to keep himself in a podium position.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fortunately for Team Sky, Froome\u2019s co-captain was hungry to compete, and Geraint Thomas not only capitalised on ASO\u2019s mind games, but did so against Tom Dumoulin. If \u201cgood\u201d had a colour this Tour, it would probably be orange. The only people capable of bothering Team Sky were either Dutch \u2013 or cycling for a Dutch team.<\/p>\n

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How @rogla<\/a> became a top cyclist instead of a ski jumper\ud83d\udeb4\ud83c\udffc \u26f7
Watch our documentary \u2018The Roglic story: from Telemark to Tour Glory\u2019<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcbb\u27a1\ufe0f https:\/\/t.co\/e6I5yAolqu<\/a> #samenwinnen<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ISW07j5GaS<\/a><\/p>\n

— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) July 30, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n