What a descent. Should be able to hang on for the win. Great result!

What an idiot I am – just couldn’t resist, despite the title

Is the highlights show going to be worth a watch ?

Yes, well worth watching. Loads of action on the last climb too. Great stage.

Ta,

… and I’m out of the room

Sets things up very nicely for tomorrow too.

Some descent, as you say – even if everybody else was coasting a teeny bit

FFS, STW hates my phone this week, constant crashing! Try again…

It’s been a great race so far, even with my Bouhani hate! It was really interesting to see so many guys blow up big style very early on in the TTT!

Brilliant to see the young Bardet drift off over the top and smash the descent, awesome stuff!

Meh @ TJvG.

Nibali in a carbon copy of last year.

Froome was expecting the win and the yellow there, I reckon Sky will be tired tomorrow.

Tejay going well. Is he named after a motorway services somewhere or am I mistaken?

Great stage, really entertaining; sets things up nicely for the mountains.

Tejay going well. Is he named after a motorway services somewhere or am I mistaken?

You’re thinking of Diego Costa

That descent was excellent. I was shitting myself. The motorbike did well to stay with him. It’s been good but eurosport have been a bit hit and miss and I really wish they would stop “improving” eurosport player. Looking forward to today.

Watch it on ITV, David Miller is rather good if you can cope with his accent.

Watch it on ITV, David Miller is rather good if you can cope with his accent.

He has been very good – some brilliant “current peloton” insights and info’. However, Ned Boulting… please stop trying so hard; the racing is good enough, you don’t need to try and inject excitement all of the time.

I’m hoping Ned, David, Matt, Chris and Gary can between them oust Phil and Paul from the TdF. They’re sounding a bit tired these days.

Ooh good rides too yesterday from Simon Yates (up to 6th overall and Pete Kennaugh finishing alongside the likes of Valverde and Costa after doing a lot of work earlier).

I thought Nibali looked OK and then suddenly decided that he didn’t want to show his hand of sorts. Like he just decided, nah I don’t fancy pushing it today. I full expect him and his team mates to be practically invincible when the Tour comes around again.

Nibali seems to fancy pushing it today – away with Tony Gallopin, Alejandro Valverde, Tony Martin and Rui Costa. Pretty tasty breakaway group

I for one will be gutted if Astana dominate the Tour this year, absolutely gutted. I don’t mind Nibbles winning but an entire team bossing it for the whole tour and having 6 riders placed to 25 smells horribly late 90’s to me.

Watch it on ITV, David Miller is rather good if you can cope with his accent.

The accent I can cope with, it’s the innate smugness in every word I can’t stand!

I don’t mind Nibbles winning but an entire team bossing it for the whole tour and having 6 riders placed to 25 smells horribly late 90’s to me.

Or TdF 2012 for that matter.

Or TdF 2012 for that matter.

Sort of, but bar Froome and Wiggo, Sky had no-one else in the top 20 and the rest of the team spread across the GC.

I’m hoping Ned, David, Matt, Chris and Gary can between them oust Phil and Paul from the TdF. They’re sounding a bit tired these days.

I’ve tweeted ITV4 to say if they do this I’ll cancel my Eurosport – I pay £4 a month not to listen to Statler and Waldorf. “A bit tired” is an understatement – drivelled cliche from Sherwen (and you know…job of work…in this the sport of professional cycling) and wrong rider wrong mountain wrong race wrong generation from Ligget.

and yes, that was a proper watched-through-fingers descent, you could hear the camera bike decking out and scraping everything trying to keep up and there was no escape route if he got it wrong.

and yes, that was a proper watched-through-fingers descent

Interestingly he was described in the commentary as a “local lad” but he claimed at the end he didn’t know the descent.

Yay for Diego Costa 😳 – who’d have thought that a footballer would win

Interestingly he was described in the commentary as a “local lad” but he claimed at the end he didn’t know the descent.

Certainly didn’t know one of the corners today 🙁

Blimey how did they get away? Going to have to watch the highlights of that one.

I thought Nibali looked OK and then suddenly decided that he didn’t want to show his hand of sorts. Like he just decided, nah I don’t fancy pushing it today.

Did almost looked pre-arranged like he’d hit some training target.

Today was definitely his sort of stage though.

Be interesting now to see how he gets on when it gets properly steep again tomorrow.

Blimey how did they get away?

down a hill in the rain is my guess

Looks like Eurosport coverage started just after the break had gone clear. Sounds like they went off uphill on the Croix-Haute.

Is it just me or is the new Eurosport player a bit rubbish? Seems to be a massive resource hog and is a pain on Safari on OS X.

Oooft that was some stage!! Go Yatesy, bloody strong ride! Gutted to see Bardet go down 🙁 that was a heavy fall, hopefully he’s not too banged up. Lolz at Costa’s wee gesture eh!

My man crush is confused/disappointed that Nibali rides for Astana…

Lolz at Costa’s wee gesture eh!

what was that about?

He banged his chest (me big man winner, me strong) then pointed at his world champs stripes (me ex World Champ), Miller suggested that this was aimed at Nibali after the 2013 Worlds where it was suggested that Costa worked Nibali over and didn’t deserve the win.

ah, makes sense.

SPOILERS

Oooff that was a great stage to watch for the Froome supporters. Reminiscent of Ventoux, and you can see how much that meant to him. Awesome viewing. And crazy how much time the rest of GC lost.

Loving Millar’s “Yellow Jumper”!

Great stage…as they say, Froome put the hammer down 🙂

Watched yesterdays stage on catch up…..epic conditions

Tomorrow should be interesting, unless Froome just concedes and takes a rest – even then, one of the others might have another go

It’s a pity a weasel like froome hasn’t been banned yet, it ruins the racing when someone like him “wins”

I suppose you’ll be needing to provide your evidence, thedoc

The times I’ve really wondered about Wiggo & Froome have been when looking at their domestiques towing a peloton for hours every day. I have zero evidence for any naughtiness on their part though – and they were high calibre riders in their own right before they signed to sky

Not sure what you mean TheDoctor.

Froome comes across as someone who turned up to ride (as opposed to someone who just needs to raise their profile for the chat show circuit) – I like that.

His team mates are on record saying they don’t mind riding all day for him because they know he’ll try and finish the job for the team. That was as I recall Gerant Thomas – and the implication was that they’d deliver him to the last climb and he’d try and take time out of his rivals on it. I wondered if that was Sky saying they did what they had to with a previous champion but watching someone trying not to lose time on climbs and waiting for the TT just wasn’t inspiring.

Oh yes and given the way Wiggins repeatedly snubbed and disrespected Froome going back to that Vuelta, it showed remarkable disipline to assist Wiggins to that TdF. But he did – and then Wiggins failed to pay the win bonus for 12 months (allegedly – and Froome was singled out for that treatment, allegedly)

So unless you have some other dope on him?

TheDoc, would you be happier seeing Astana keep on winning? Or perhaps Bertie the Beef juicing his way to the top? Both have some proven history, yet you reserve your ire for Froome? Seems odd.

Unless, of course, you have some compelling evidence.

And yes, I know he could well be on the juice. After all, a certain Texan was. However, innocent until proven guilty. Astana and Contador are both guilty stains on the sport in a way that, as yet, Froome is not.

Suppose it depends on your stance on TUEs