Watching the highlights from today, it occurred to me to ask the consensus on…
– best individual rider. Sagan for his all-round performances? Froome because Froome? Yates?
– most disappointing team performance
-…and individual performance
– Ned Boulting’s commentary. Personally I found myself missing Phil Leggett, which is probably enough of a verdict for me. He wasn’t awful just… not as good.
– and ultimately, does the Tour need to consider a salary cap in the near future for teams? The quote I remember is Lampre-Merida saying that their highest-paid rider would be Sky’s seventh highest-paid, and there does sometimes seem to be an idea that Sky take riders who would be principals in other teams (Porte, for example), and pays them enough to act as domestiques, thus stifling the race.

Best all round? Probably Sagan yesterday’s effort was superb for his team.
Yates was a surprise and good on him.
Not a surprise but more a relief was Cav hitting top form, let’s hope he called it right for the Olympics.
Best team? Tough one but Tinkoff took green and polka dot.
Commentary for me was great by Robbie Mcewan and the other bloke for sbs in Oz but Phil and Paul have gone on a year too long now. It’s not what it was.

In the middle the bad… Safety for nothing but luck there will be the highest number of riders getting to Paris. the 2 bits that keep hitting the highlights is Yates and the arch and froome/Porte and the motorbike. If the arch had come down a little after we could of been looking at another tour with half the GC out early. Ventoux was a mess, the warning signs were there when Froome palmed off the first idiot and the kiwi in the break flattened the other idiot in the road with her back to the race on a corner. The tailing bike ran over froomes bike, could have been his leg and race over. The carnage ruined what could have been a defining moment in the race. Seen a lot of riders complaining about finishes having danger in then simply to keep the tourist board happy. They need to learn some lessons from this one.

On the salary cap idea, I think it could be a good thing. On the other hand sky were about the only team playing the GC game, at no point did they pop up for a sprint, or kom points unless it was in the plan. Looking down the list the field has some decent GC contenders and hopefully a few of them go over to Spain.
It’s a bit catch 22 if you are one of the top guys on Sky, Froome just had to displace Wiggins to be team leader. Porte knew that was going to take too long so either had to stay and be on the winning team or leave knowing he would be facing the strongest team who were 100% focused one one thing alone.
Taking the top 5 riders each of those teams apart from sky had riders in the break, going for stages and other jerseys. Orica had a variety of potential stage winners across the 3 weeks for example.

Bit rambling but find a way to mix it up a bit and how good would it be to have 5+ guys going into week 3 with it all to play for. Perhaps in the time after mass/institutional doping having more human riders means the playing field is more level. The gaps 2-10th certainly suggest it.

Bring on Rio

Been really disappointed with Nairo – on the podium but nowhere near challenging. Re Sky’s dominance – maybe reducing the team numbers a little may help?

I love Froome, think he showed what a great rider/ competitor he is this tour.

Nobody could get really close to him. If Quintana cant win it tho year with all the mountains, he cant win it. Was hoping he’d attack Froome a bit more for a bit if drama. But basically Quintana had the right tactics- stay on Froomes wheel.

Really happy Cav won some stages.

There’s an article about team sky on the guardian website and basically it is saying strategy, organisation and discipline is key. Is quite interesting about how they formalised the warm down process etc., use training peaks to keep track of riders, and how because they started it at the beginning there wasn’t a resistance to doing it unlike other established teams.

Classic quote at the end ‘TdF isn’t a popularity contest but if it was Team Sky would find the best way of winning it.’

I can’t help thinking it’s also the secret breeding of veteran athletes who they have continually doing z2 training up and down the nations cycle paths ready to be whisked off to service at a seconds notice 😆

Enjoyed the ITV4 team. Boulting will hopefully improve with experience.

I like the way Imlach looks at the camera like its the sun. And enjoy Boardman’s ride through segments. Millar has good peloton knowledge/ insight.

I think the commentary of ned and dave millar is really good. Much better than the previous and i like Phil ligett.
Would be even better if we got input from jens during the stage too

think the commentary of ned and dave millar is really good. Much better than the previous and i like Phil ligett.
Would be even better if we got input from jens during the stage too

I agree, Jens added a good balance of being critical of Froome when appropriate. Bosrdman is pretty good at that too though. The new young lads delivery wasnt great but he made some good pieces. Was it Matt Rendell who popped up in the live stuff, he was quite good too.

As for the race Sagan is amazeballs so was Cav. Froome just too good and Sky go all in, they were criticised too when Froome crashed out and theyvwere left with nothing.
I dont think a salary cap is the way forward, who would be able to pay for Sagans shampoo?
Smaller teams and no radios, thatcwould spice things up!

Hard to choose the rider of the Tour – Froome, Sagan, Cavandish and Yates, all performed great for different reasons and also Pantano and Dumoulin entertained as well.

I really enjoyed the TdF 2016 and watched every second of the ITV4 live coverage and the evening highlights programs. Sky dominated not just because they have the largest budget but because they are the most focussed on what their single goal is. That worked against them in 2014 when Froome went out which shows you just how much effort they put in to that one objective, not just in the Tour but throughout the year.

Contrast that with the all the other teams with dual leadership and/or sprinter aspirations and you can see what makes the difference. Having the most complete all-round GC rider in the World helps as well.

I think we can expect more of the same again next year unless one or more of the other teams decide that they are also going to concentrate on one rider for GC.

Sagan is an absolute animal, yesterday’s effort was awesome.
So many amazing rides this year to pick from though.
Steve Cummings usual breakaway, pantanos win. Bardets efforts, Simon yates for an amazing gc position.
I think it has been a great tour even if you ignore the gc it has been amazing.

It is strange that so many of the teams seem to be peaking for the vuelta or giro now, or is it just that sky and froome are just fat stronger at the tour than the others

Pantano is the rider of the tour for me. And Alaphilipe. Most of the others showed their form (or absence) earlier in the season. Sagan is the most entertaining and accomplished rider, but he was always going to be based on his form.

Cav coming good was great to see. Yates just missing a podium was a shame but he’s quadrupled his earnings potential, surely.

Quintana was a disappointment, but I’ll, apparently.

Poorte showed his class at last, TJ showed his absence.

Enjoyed the three weeks.

There’s an article about team sky on the guardian website and basically it is saying strategy, organisation and discipline is key. Is quite interesting about how they formalised the warm down process etc., use training peaks to keep track of riders, and how because they started it at the beginning there wasn’t a resistance to doing it unlike other established teams.

Also from the article it pointed out that Sky don’t bother with a sprinter, young rider, polka dot etc – they’re just out and out riding to win the Tour. Interesting point, and does make you wonder why other teams don’t seem to have the same single-minded focus.

Good call on Quintana being disappointing; he was expected to really challenge Froome this year, but it seemed he just couldn’t

I’m a bit disappointing overall really as I thought it would be a battle for Froome this year, but just ended up as a Sky procession. Obviously this means they were bloody good, which they were and well deserved their win. Froome is a machine and thoroughly deserved his win. But without ‘the crash’, Froomes new DH technique and the other Brits/Irish doing well, Especially Cav which was my highlight, it would have been pretty uneventful.

Hopefully the likes of Romain Bardet, Yates and Porte will spice it up again next year.

I really enjoyed watching the tour but I’ll be honest, the lack of fight for the outright leader made it slightly boring from a GC perspective.

There were other interesting races within the race but when the overall win is so uneventful I struggle to see how it’s good for the tour.

The romantic in me wants to see some classic style tours with 2 men fighting it out on the mountains without being surrounded (protected) by 4 team members.

SKY has always aimed to neutralise the race, everyone knows this. If you are riding at close to peak, no-one can attack. Jens summed it up, “shame on the other teams that know this and do nothing to prepare” Maybe they cant after all, at any level their is a performance ceiling.

The 2-5th placings were fun to watch but I wish there had been more of the penultimate stage racing, that was a classic for me.

I enjoyed the commentary, David Millar knows his stuff and is ‘of the moment’ and so makes insightful and intelligent comments about teams options and tactics at any given time.