Is not far off! 8)

Tour de France Guide

Who’s going to wear the first Yellow Jersey? Should be one for the Prolgue specialists but it’s a wee bit longer than What most would consider a normal prologue! I’m hoping for some brutal winds on stage 2 so OPQS can get their echelon on!

Gutted Kittel ain’t going to be there but the writing was on the wall all year.

Reckon Sagan will be in with a shout of winning the prologue.

It’s not far off…so they better fix the tunnel de Chambon quickly (once the rockfall into the reservoir has happened….) and they’ve agreed who is going to pay… Closed since April.

tunnel de Chambon news

I think they were looking at changing the route

G. Thomas for the Prologue. I think his track days still help him over that distance

Edit. Longer than I thought? Would probably suit a proper tester at 14km

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/galibier-cut-from-tour-de-france-stage-to-lalpe-dhuez

Cancellara must be odds on for the prologue but I fancy Chavanel as an outsider. It should be a cracking tour, four real GC contenders, the highest number in years and some really tough stages. That last week will be very punishing and I cant wait for all those mountains and this year we have time bonuses for the stage winners and a re-shuffled points jersey scoring system from 45-35-30 to 50-30-20

ah a July of late nights and tough mornings down under with that and the cricket it will be a good way to spend the cold month.
Sky FTW

I too will be watching from Aus, no idea how I am going to get to watch it though.

What times are the stages generally on? I’m in Sydney.

SBS have it live from about 9/10pm (Tas Central Time which I think is the same 😉 )depending on the route/action, there is also their app which does the live video and stats. If you drop off before the end then the 5-15min highlight vid over breakfast is good and there is a replay show normally up in time for breakfast.

Top tip is you can generally get an idea of which stages are going to be important/significant and decide if you are going to skip straight to the highlights.
I sat through all of Roubaix and some of the mountain stages last year till it got dull. Cricket on 9 WWOS too

Dont forget to subscribe to your Europsport Crowd pass TOMORROW so that the full month ends just after the Champs Elysee 🙂

£5.99

will miss the Real Man TdF posts 🙁

I’m going to have to watch it in Whistler

Has anyone set up a fantasy league yet?

stages usually start around 1100 local time and are usually about 5 and a half hours long.

Stages that could be interesting….
3 – some kicks in the last 30kms that could encourage attacking breaks, one big kick in the last 5kms
4 – 30 kms of pave over 6 sections
8 – first summit finish (though not a massive climb) could see GC contenders make early claim
9 – TTT – only 30kms long but GC contenders could lose a fair bit of time here
10 – Bastille day, first big summit finish after a rest day…
11 – Col de Tourmalet
12 – 3 big cat 1 climbs pretty much equally spaced throughoput the day, nearly 200kms long too….
17 – Another big mountain stage after a rest day so expect fireworks
18 – Col de Glandon, anyone suffering from yesterday will pay for it today and I suspect a few GC hopefuls will fade today
19 – Straight into a big climb from the off so there will be a break, then they summit Col de CdF so if the break stays clear it could really be interesting as they then summit La Toussaire…
20 – Col de Telegraphie, Galibier then Alpe d’Huez….

Thos last four stages will be epic, I think its the best finishing week to a tour in decades, do you go big early on 17 or 18 and hope to put time into your rivals and make them attack on the latter stages or do you just stick with them and hope you have something left for the final day?… of course that all depends on the whehter you have lost any time in the preceding two weeks….

Why? Wheres RealMan gone ?

Just read through the route and it does look an interesting one, not many sprint stages so the puncheurs should get in on the action early doors.
Some interesting summit finishes and that TTT could really shake things up.
The change to the Croix de Fer could actually be a good thing as that drag along the valley bottom caused a bit of intrigue a couple of years ago with Andy Schleck trying to get away and then seeing if he could hold on.

massivelymediocrerider was proposing Sagan to win stage 1 so I wondered if he was a realman sock puppet. I realize there could be someone else with a Sagan man crush but there are other riders I’d pick as likely winners of a 10 mile TT.

Try Steephill.tv for links to online coverage.

Tom Dumoulin for the first yellow.

RealMan hasn’t been active for 3 months!
His daily TDF threads are legendary – wont be the same this year without them. hopefully he’s just been saving himself

v disappointingly Kittel isn’t fit enough for selection….

http://marcelkittel.de/en/

At least Greipel is in.

Stoner – Member

Dont forget to subscribe to your Europsport Crowd pass TOMORROW so that the full month ends just after the Champs Elysee

£5.99 too lazy to look 😳 – does it offer retrospective playback as well as live streaming ?

the site tour suggested that you could, but Ive not subscribed before to find out.

EDIT

The “Videos” page http://www.eurosportplayer.co.uk/on-demand.shtml suggests that they hold footage for a while for on demand viewing.

MrNice,

I’m newish here, and I didn’t realize there was an approved list of riders to speculate on if one wishes to avoid being labeled as a sockpuppet. If you would be good enough to list those riders I can safely choose from it will help me to help you avoid confusion in future.

MrNice,

I’m newish here, and I didn’t realize there was an approved list of riders to speculate on if one wishes to avoid being labeled as a sockpuppet. If you would be good enough to list those riders I can safely choose from it will help me to help you avoid confusion in future.

That wasn’t meant unkindly. RealMan posted quality day by day coverage here but hasn’t been seen in a while, so I believe he was inferring you might be his alternate/new login.

Hope he does make a comeback.

Tom Dumoulin for the first yellow.

+1
He is racing isn’t he?

Eurosport online is pretty good. They do on demand, usually available the next day. You can also do live pause and rewind. If on a PC you can also skip back a few hours of coverage too. Newly updated player does seem a little flakey though compared to the old one.

I recall RealMan said he was being all busy with RealLife, and wouldn’t have much time for here, I really hope he does post though, top threads.

That wasn’t meant unkindly. RealMan posted quality day by day coverage here AND ALWAYS HAD A MASSIVE MAN-CRUSH ON SAGAN but hasn’t been seen in a while, so I believe he was inferring you might be his alternate/new login.

So has anyone setup a fantasy league?

Newly updated [Eurosport] player does seem a little flakey though compared to the old one.

+1

Rubbish update. Interface is annoying and the pictures are dodgy. Bring back the old one!

Hmm, are we all ignoring the elephant then? The only important question is surely whether the winner will be clean?

Are ITV4 doing high-light shows each evening?

Hmm, are we all ignoring the elephant then? The only important question is surely whether the winner will be clean?

Obviously not, we all know in roadie land winner = doper, even when the 2 favourites crash out and this person wouldn’t have been called a doper* if he’dgot 3rd.

*Not true ‘cos Astana but what evaaaa…

Are ITV4 doing high-light shows each evening?

Yep, 7-8, with live coverage at the weekends too.

I believe standard practise re. doping is to make your accusations based almost exclusively on the team they ride for, so picking the 4 favourites:
Astana – Definitely doping
Saxo Tinkoff – Probably doping
Sky – Probably not doping
Moviestar – Probably not doping

Other World Tour teams also fall into these categories:
Orica Green Edge – Not doping
Katusha – Probably doping
FDJ – Not doping
Etixx Quickstep – Doping but it’ll be recreational so that’s OK.

Please tell me it’s not Bill and Bob doing the commentary?! As annoying as Millar’s voice is he’s rather good!

I thought Sky were definitely doping (and doping the hardest) but only those that were true fans® of cycling since they were 6 could see it? Thus giving the real fans some doping conspiracy to froth over and sneer at the plebs who’ve only just started riding.

Whilst on the subject, first tour for a while without Riis. Shame he was just sacked by Oleg (probably along with a big bag of cash) and not flushed away by Denmark’s doping agency like the stinking turd he was. Probably just preempting the report on him that has now been published.