Schleck in yellow tonight? or will Contador/Astana take control. Must say I'm looking forward to today.

IMO Can't see owt happening today apart from maybe Wiggins / another fringe GC contender losing time if they majorly blow up.

The last climb is about 30km from the finish, so too far out to attack from (unless you're just after a stage victory rather than GC) – maybe Cunego / Vino might try something.

The main GC contenders will finish together – even if one or two lose a bit of time on the last climb, chances are they'll catch up again on the descent.

today will be good… cant believe contador was bluffing all the way up to morz'. My money is on andy… dont think cadel has the legs to podium, i want to see how sky / wiggo will do.

Armstrong for the stage win today. He has absolutely nothing to lose and wants to show that he still has it.

He has absolutely nothing to lose and wants to show that he still has it.

But unfortunately he doesn't.

Would be good to see sky team try to help brad pull back some time.

Would love to see a Wiggo offensive today. Contador looked weak the other day but Andy Schleck looked full of awesome. Could be interesting.

it depends on how much anyone who attacks can get on the other contenders. its 30k downhill to the finish, if someone loses 5 mins on the climb they won't make that up in the 30 mins of descending.

Armstrong for the stage win today. He has absolutely nothing to lose and wants to show that he still has it.

A Landis style comeback for sure

Van den Broeck – austublieft

Just wishful thinking. I hope he does nothing other than stick to the wheel of whoever is first to the top(s).
Schleck looked best on Sunday but then again Evans never looks comfortable. (face like licking p1ss off a thistle)

I want one of the following (in order of probability):

Andy Schleck to school everyone… again…

Wiggins to launch an attack and close the gap he lost on Sunday.

G to launch a solo attack and reclaim his white top?!

Sky to try and get wiggo back into it with armstrong tagging on teh back. Schleck and contador having a sunday club run out together with a cruise down the last descent to finish in the same time

No change until Sunday unless someone makes a suicide bid or blows up.

It would be nice to see Lance go for one last hoorah, but I can't see it.

Hope Evans doesn't win. He's too grumpy.

Wiggins will not attack. Next week _possibly_.

From the coverage on sunday it looked like Sky tried to stretch the peleton on the 2nd to last climb. But this left Wiggo with nobody on the last climb when he was looking dodgy. A tactical mistake? Someone explain their thinking please. Did they think Wiggo had more than he did?

llama, totally agree, I think they've made two big mistakes this tour. Sending wiggo out early on the prologue and forcing the pace on sunday. surely they should of sat up and let Astana push it?

Anyone know where i can catch a live stream from?

(I watched it all last year but can't remember the sites i used)

I wonder if Sammy Sanchez might fancy another go, he looked good on Sun. He might save himself for the Pyrenees tho'.

Armstong is spent, the old Lance would not have capitulated like that, crash or no crash.

trickydisco: depends on your location but don't ITV stream it live each day on their website (ITV4 – may be UK only though).

If not http://myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=80357&part=sports

pyrenees could be more decisive for the gc riders i guess. hope someone goes for glory tho. schleck was looking good on sunday.

Tricky call today, I think Wiggo will need to wait until the Pyrenees and hope he finds his form there (and also claw back some of the loss in the TT). I can't see him being recovered enough and finding his form after just one rest day and Sky isn't strong enough in the mountains to try and force anything anyway.

Think Contador and Evans are just trying to survive until the Pyrenees/TTs to so can't see them doing much unless one of them is suddenly feeling really strong.

Schleck will just sit in unless attacked – he can't descend very well so can't see him trying to launch another attack on the final climb.

I reckon Vino might give it a go, let Saxo Bank do all the work until the final climb then attack on the climb, he's a mental descender so would be hard to catch. Unlikely he'll get/stat away alone though so maybe Sanchez to go with him.

trickydisco,

itv.com/sport/tourdefrance/live/

from 14:30 everyday.

I paid £7.50 one-off for a month of the Eurosport player – it's really good. Worth it imo.

Contador was out of sorts on Sunday because of hayfever – it's not the first time he's had that problem and IIRC someone said that that summit is know for being bad for pollen.

I'm still in shock though that Schleck out sprinted someone, anyone, let alone Sanchez who has a passable kick!

It wasn't really a sprint though. Sanchez towed Schleck to the line and so should have been given the stage. Sanchez was angry afterwards, bit of bar thumping going on!

Even so… It's Schleck! He couldn't outsprint an asthmathic geriatric!

Sanchez towed Schleck to the line

Yeah, cos Schleck didn't tow him up the previous 20km of the climb or anything….

Yeah, cos Schleck didn't tow him up with other 20 km of the climb or anything….

what race were you watching? sky and then astana were on the front all day.

They'll let a breakaway go, even to the extent of letting yellow slip. Then Evans will have to watch the gap to keep the overall gc gap manageable, and everyone else will follow him. I think there will be sustained pressure in the yellow jersey group, but not outright attacking.

Unfortunately (I hope I'm wrong) I can see the pressure being enough to drop a few second-tier gc riders out of contention, including Wiggins. Hope I'm wrong.

what race were you watching? sky and then astana were on the front all day.

Sky went up the first big climb like a team possessed – think that was a mistake for them and Wiggins. Didn't see them at all on the last climb and I watched it all.

My point was more Sanchez was nowhere to be seen in the climb, Schleck was always in top couple of riders (normally behind Contador), it's a bit silly for people to complain that Sanchez towed Schleck the last 250 metres and therefore deserved the win himself. He wouldn't have even been in that position if Schleck hadn't made the break with 750m to go.

I'll be looking out for my man Kreuziger.
I mentioned him before the Tour started, he is very young and making the right moves. It could all go very wrong, in which case feel free to point and laugh.
At just 22 he is certainly slipping under the radar.

Edit, 24.

Yeah, good call but I'm not sure about him. I get the impression that he could be another Basso (hopefully without the cheating…) – eg a good rider but not quite at the level of Contador or Armstong (pre-retirement) that's needed to win the TdF – in the same way that I don't think Evans could ever win even though he's a very talented rider.

You mention Basso, Basso and Kreuziger isn't too shabby a pair to have on a team.
But like you say, possibly only nearly men. And Evans somehow reminds me of Roche in his Tour days.

clubber – those are exactly the qualities to win today's stage! Good rider, but not a gc threat. If anyone truly top drawer breaks away they will get chased down, but a deserving talent stands a chance of being let go.

Anyone know what the thinking behind today's stage is? Why have all the climbs, then neutralise the stage by having a descent to the finish?

Wiggins cannot react to the rapid accelerations of riders, so my guess is SKY set a high pace to prevent any attacks. It also wiped away Armstrong. He was also probably feeling pretty good at that point. I think the temperature played a big part in that stage. I saw even Contador was complaining of the heat and was apparently struggling to breath, and he's from Madrid!

Apparently the descent is so fast that a breakaway has a good chance of staying away.

The thinking is that it will even things out, mountains go down as well as up, so if you're good you'll get down as well as you got up. And downhill finishes are far from new.
They've done a good job so far this year, I like it that everyone has had to work.

I know it's not new, it just seems to me that today's stage could have been really good, but might end up a bit dull because no one of note is going to attack on the climbs.

That's what they want this year, when you think about it what youre saying is you want predictability in a way i.e the usual suspect battling it out. What you might get is top twenty riders having a go that can't be ignored.

No, I don't think I want predictability, the opposite in fact. It's predictable that none of the big guns are going to do anything today, but what I want is the best riders racing each other. Seems to me today was a good opportunity for that, but it's been negated, and I'm not really sure who benefits from that?

I'm not being deliberately obtuse, I don't know how these things are put together, what objectives they have etc. Do they aim to have a certain number of stages that let the minor teams/riders achieve something, for the good of the race as a whole? I guess if every stage was either the sprinters winning, or the GC contenders knocking seven bells out of each other, there might be less incentive for the sponsors of the other teams.

There'll be loads of reasons why stages are 'designed' like they are. Even down to the finishing town putting a good 'bid' in for the finish I imagine.

Don't want it too unfair – can't have every stage being either a bunch sprint or a beast of a climb – would always imply a climber would win the tour. They always like to mix it up – team time trials, longer time trials (not many this year).

Unless you descend like me, then getting over the top of the last mountain first is gonna give you a good chance.