Author Archives: Patrick Santino

2021 TDF Stage 14: The Vanguard Battles into the Pyrenees

“The vanguard is the leading company or unit at the front-and-center of the battleline….In cycling, such terms of ancient and medieval warfare can often easily be applied to the peloton, but they are always in a way twisted. For though the peloton travels together like an army on an Odyssey, the wars the riders wage are not against the locals whose homelands they are invading, but are pitched battles of civil war between themselves.”

2021 TDF Stage 13: Hopping Off the Fence in Historic Carcassonne

“In order to keep my word I shall now hop off the fence and take a stance. The time for objective impartial viewing of both sides of the argument has been done, and now must be set aside. The road has met the rubber. The pushes have come to shoves.”

2021 TDF Stage 12: The Lesser-Knowns Fire Their Shots

“It was a fun finale to watch beyond the tactical racing itself. The gravitas of the Tour permeated this end game…Yes, whichever of these four men won: this—a Tour de France stage win—would be the biggest victory of their career…and we all had front row seating to watch it happen.

2021 TDF Stage 11: Double Vindication on the Double Ventoux Stage

“Should people have earmarked certain stages for Wout Van Aert to win, he could have been considered a strong favorite for about 15 of the 21, and this Double Ventoux stage was definitely one of the 6 he was unsuited for. But we are in the Second Golden Age of cycling because the generational stars, the top showmen of the sport like this Wout Van Aert still surprise us. “

2021 TDF Stage 10: Nostalgia and Fence Sitting

“After his second stage win this Tour, I had declared that we were all back on Record Watch. Even more so today, the Cannibal Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 Tour stages is no longer at all safe. So let us have a conversation that was probably taking place a decade ago in 2011, finally now is the appropriate time to rehash it.”