"I should have done it sooner": Cyclist turns heads with "no regrets" handlebar set-up, cutting off drops because "it just feels perfect"; TWO Tour de France Femmes stages in one day + more on the live blog

Defending champion, Demi Vollering, relegates Chloe Dygert to second place in the individual time trial, besting her time by a staggering 5.21 seconds! 🤯⏱️#TDFF2024 pic.twitter.com/CVQry7II1B

— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 13, 2024

You know what? I'm a fan of the couple of sprint stages into short, almost prologue-length, time trial that the Tour de France Femmes experimented with in the Netherlands (admittedly, as the teams would point out, having the latter two of those three on the same day does create a bit of a logistical headache).

Granted, also, the organisers have been somewhat limited by the pancake-like terrain on offer, but it turned the short TT into a sort of yellow jersey handicap race against the clock where the top sprinters get a bit of a head start due to bonus seconds won on the opening two days, and try to fend off the specialists and GC favourites.

We wondered if Charlotte Kool might be able to cling onto yellow for another stage, but alas not, Lorena Wiebes the closest of the sprinters to taking the race lead. However, ultimately it was, like we suspect a couple more days later in the week, one for Demi Vollering, the 2023 TDFF champ taking yellow before the race even leaves her home country or climbs a hill of note.

It continues the dominance Dutch riders have held over the race since its return to the calendar in 2022. Of 19 stages across three editions so far, 12 have gone to riders from the Netherlands, while the yellow jersey has been worn by a Dutch rider after all but six stages, Lotte Kopecky the only person to disrupt that GC dominance. You probably wouldn't bet against Vollering holding yellow all the way to Alpe d'Huez either.

Olympic champion Grace Brown gave her golden TT bike a first run today, a puncture deflating her chances. Of the other notable Olympic performers, Chloe Dygert was second, road race champ Kristen Faulkner fifth, and Anna Henderson 10th. Decent showings by many, but today (and maybe this entire race) is all about Vollering.

Positive signs? Labour's new Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has shared these photos on social media, reporting having spent the morning out cycling the Trans-Pennine Trail (N62) with Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman and road.cc contributor and active travel author/journalist Laura Laker. 

Comments section time...

A great story for getting followers who haven't actually read today's blog telling you on Facebook that hill climbers have been doing this for years. And of course said hill climbers sending in their gramme-saving sawing, this courtesy of Dale Wilkes...

As a couple of you have touched on, the remarkable thing about the drop-less wonder that made today's blog is that it wasn't done for hill climb purposes, just a gravel-riding preference. The other context we've heard people do similar is on a commuter if you don't want to buy a pair of bullhorn bars. In fact, ultra-cycling legend Steve Abraham replied to one of our social media posts saying he'd done the same "and flipped them upside down to make bullhorns for my fixie".

Mark Wynn-Edwards also told us: "Yep, did this years ago on one of my travel bikes. Best thing ever, doesn't get in the way and I didn't ever drop down there anyway."

Paul Ruffy: "Well I'd probably reach for them and eat tarmac. But seriously they are there for a reason. Adds another position to alleviate any pressure points, more aero (sometimes) and also I think much safer for descending at high speed."

billymansell: "Cutting off the drops will have been a great idea right up until the point when you're going down a really fast descent and you reach for the drops..."

Of course, my favourite comments were of the less serious kind...

hawkinspeter: "To enforce my use of the drops, I'm going to remove the tops from my handlebar."

slc: "I removed the wheels to get below the wind. Seem to work pretty well as I can't feel a breeze no matter how hard I pedal."

Anyway, if you get bored of riding without parts of your bars and need a new fix, try this one, courtesy of live blog favourite Chad Tavernia...

It doesn't get much better for Charlotte Kool and dsm-firmenich PostNL than this. Dutch rider in the Netherlands, in yellow, winning the first two stages of the Tour de France Femmes. SD Worx looked in control, launching Lorena Wiebes at what seemed to be the perfect moment. But, as her sprint went on, Kool closed, picking a gap between Marianne Vos and Wiebes perfectly, punching through and winning it on the line. 

Wiebes and Vos took second and third, this afternoon's TT is going to be very interesting to see if Kool can hold onto yellow for another day, the short six-kilometre course perhaps just about in the wheelhouse of the peloton's fastest sprinters. The yellow jersey has a 14-second advantage over Anniina Ahtosalo and Wiebes, 16 seconds on Vos and Elisa Balsamo, and 20 seconds on the rest of the contenders. This is going to be fun.

Local road race crammed into a weekend vibes at the Tour de France Femmes today, a morning road race followed by an afternoon TT. The AM action is well underway, 40km to go there, then the riders will take to the streets of Rotterdam again this afternoon for a six-kilometre-long individual time trial, two stages that I reckon even I could get through. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be in the time limit, but still a flat 70km in the sun sounds quite pleasant.

Stage two:

Stage three: 

Some more reaction to yesterday before today explodes into life, yellow jersey Charlotte Kool unsurprisingly called it the "best day of my life" after winning the opening sprint. For compatriot Lorena Wiebes it certainly was not, the pre-stage favourite explaining later that the mechanical, which was in fact not a dropped chain but her derailleur "breaking off in a race incident", gave her no chance.

"This is a disappointment. I am not looking for excuses. I had been looking forward to this for a long time, but knew bad luck," she said. "You work very hard for months and then you miss out."

The Tashkent team was also a popular interview last night, four of their seven riders abandoning on stage one, the team getting a place at the race by virtue of a top-18 ranking earned through points gained in races in its home Central Asia region, rather than at more competitive European events. When the team's riders were chucked in at the calendar's biggest event, several of those riders being young, inexperienced and clearly not yet at the level for such an intense WorldTour race, more than half couldn't make it to the finish on day one.

However, the team's sports director Volodymyr Starchyk hit back at criticism of the team's performance, telling Cyclingnews their presence at the race is a "victory" for the sport. 

"People can think everything they want. Everybody is able to think about what they want but we are here, it's something big for the nation," he said. "The first time in history an Uzbek team with all Uzbek riders so I think also for cycling it's a victory because a country completely outside of races in Europe, an Asian team coming here to Tour de France, it's never happened in history. So it's sad for results because we lose some riders today but at the same time, Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift shows people that cycling is open for the whole world."