Cycling fan here, following closely the three grand tours for more than 20 years now. I remember the first tour that i watched back in '98, Pantani winning, he was absolutely amazing, believe it or not i haven't missed a single edition of Tour de France since then. I love everything about cycling, the fans, the history, the riders, and their passion, the doping scandals if you will...and so much more.
This years' race is a little bit different, we don't have a prologue, the first week is usually given to sprinters to take on each other. Now we have a few hilly/mountain stages for a start. Most of the stages seem shorter, only one over 200km and we only get one time-trial, note, it's not the typical tt, it finishes with 6km climb at 8.5%. That's great news for Bernal i guess, not so much for Roglic and Dumoulin. Some of the major climbs are missing also, no Mont Ventoux, Tourmalet or Alpe d'Huez, i only glanced Grand Colombier being included, that would suck.
As for the teams and who i expect to win, it's really hard to say. Ineos (SKY) didn't dominate as they used to do but Bernal was solid and won last year. Their roster is pretty good even without Froome and Geraint Thomas. Jumbo–Visma (the killer wasps) have a lot of talent themselves, no Kruijswijk for them. It's gonna be a tight race between those two, but i trust Brailsford more, he is a genius, so i put my money on Bernal to win the Tour.
Stage 1 and 2, well, the start was crazy/hectic, i don't remember so many riders hitting the ground in one stage. I think a total 53, some multiple times. Hope Sivakov is well as he fell twice, Ineos will need him down the stretch. In places where it doesn't rain so much when it does roads get x10 more slippery. It was so bad Martin had to neutralize one of the descents which is kinda rare sight in cycling, especially in the first stage but given the circumstances it was understandable. Tomorrow's gonna be a national holiday in France, the French are in yellow, great win by Alaphilippe!
So yeah, nice thread @tyKiwanuka, my next posts gonna be shorter i promise!