DNS:
Lindsay de Vylder Alpecin - Premier Tech
David González Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team
Ben Tulett Team Visma Lease a Bike (crash injury problem from Stage 8)
Great memories indeed! The night before the ascent we bivvied at about 1800m. Though it was well over 30 degrees during the day our handlebars and saddles had frost on them when we woke at first light.
It was a great stage.
Wout got his stage, and Mathew B worked hard in support of Wout getting his win.
The apprentice had the opportunity to help the master today, and it was clear that there is a lot of respect and friendship between them.
Whilst watching the live progress on the official app site, i observed the lucky move of Mattias Skjelmose, 7:42 down on GC in 7th place but sneaking off within the breakaway, maybe the GC peloton didn’t think him a serious threat. However at the furthest stretch of the break, around 5 minutes, Skjelmose was in virtual 4th place.
However things from there on didn’t quite pan out well for the Dane, the large 40+ breakaway split-up leaving Skjelmose in a chase group - i couldn’t actually see what was happening but could guess too many rivals wouldn’t want to help his rise up the GC rank, and too many sandbaggers in the group too, the gap widened and at the finish he only gained a little over 2 minutes on GC, which is okay but remaining in the same 7th position.
Lidl-Trek have been very quiet in this tour, wonder if others in the team are suffering with whatever Mads has…
Mattias Skjelmose, now though, is in a much stronger position to move up the GC, as the TNT pundits observed, he actually didn’t expend much more energy than he would have in the peloton, whilst one or two riders from each of the chasing teams protecting their leaders’ GC position had to expend a fair amount of energy. So a good result for Mattias and the Movistar team, who pretty much had a day off, as the other teams had to work.
Yesterday Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) closed up 2:10 sec on all his GC rivals, today we will find out if he can improve from 7th place, …or maintain it, …or get dropped and lose it all again on the summit finish climb to Sierra de la Pandera.
It’s a tough climb and will bring some changes to the top ten GC.
I’ve been following the Tour of Britain live and it’s been enjoyable even on the flat/rolling roads in Lincs and East Yorkshire. Today they hit the hills in the Yorkshire Dales and we got a cracking race. Everything to play for in the final stage tomorrow in the Scottish Borders. Watching pro cyclists on familiar roads is especially enjoyable I think.
Jørgen Nordhagen (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) +0:39
Filippo Zana (Soudal Quick-Step) +0:43
Walter Calzoni (Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) +1:06
João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates - XRG) +1:09
DNF:
Jordan Labrosse Decathlon CMA CGM Team
Hugo Houle Alpecin - Premier Tech
Christophe Laporte Team Visma Lease a Bike
Oliver Peace Team Picnic PostNL
(150 riders finished stage 14)
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE 14
Enric Mas Movistar Team, in 49:28:12
Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +2:06
Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +2:10
Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +4:24
Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany-Ineos, +5:44
Jakob Omrzel (Slo) Bahrain-Victorious, +6:14
Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +6:49
Cristián Rodríguez (Spa) XDS Astana Team +7:01
10.Clément Berthet (Fra) Groupama-FDJ United, +7:19
Sepp Kuss Team Visma Lease a Bike +8:55
POINTS CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE 14
Wout van Aert Visma-Lease a Bike, 224 pts
Matthew Brennan (GBr) Team Visma Lease a Bike, 159 pts
Enric Mas 
Movistar Team
Wout van Aert 
Visma-Lease a Bike
Santiago Buitrago 
Bahrain - Victorious
Oscar Onley 
Netcompany INEOS
Ethan Hayter 
Bahrain Victorious, in 4:29:53
Tudor Pro Cycling Team
UAE Team Emirates - XRG
TEAM CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE 12
NSN Cycling Team (became unwell overnight)
Decathlon CMA CGM Team (crash injured & abandoned)
UAE Team Emirates - XRG (ongoing knee injury issue)
Alpecin - Premier Tech (earlier stage crash injury)
Uno-X Mobility (combative number bibs)
NSN Cycling Team (became unwell overnight)
Alpecin - Premier Tech