Sorry it’s late, been to Parkrun (20:45 as you asked…oh, you didn’t…). Anyway, here we are.

A stage from Blagnac to Rodez has been done before but on a very different course. Back in 1984, it was also a Tour of glory for French riders. Pierre-Henri Menthéour delivered the sixth stage victory for the Renault team that was also going to win the Tour with Laurent Fignon. Tony Gallopin is the kind of Frenchman expected to shine in Rodez but it’ll be hard for the whole bunch to keep Lilian Calmejane calm! The winner of stage 8 is the enfant du pays as he’ll pass very near his hometown of Albi. Two years ago, Greg Van Avermaet claimed his first stage victory at the Tour de France in Rodez where he outsprinted Peter Sagan and took a monkey off his back after losing so many races. It was the starting point of brilliant campaigns that made him a yellow jersey at the Tour de France last year, the Olympic champion and the winner of Paris-Roubaix this year. Due to the bad luck BMC encountered with Richie Porte crashing out, Van Avermaet is the hot favourite atop the côte de Saint-Pierre in Rodez. It’s a short one: only 570 metres but it’s very steep with an average gradient of 9.6%. Another occasion for Romain Bardet and Fabio Aru to gain a few more seconds onto Chris Froome before the Alps?

Who’s going to be in the mix? Lets find out.

The Contenders: Michael Matthews is the obvious pick today but almost too certain, rival teams know this so they’re likely to fire riders in the breakaway and force Tean Sunweb to chase knowing that few other squads will join them.

One team to chase will be BMC Racing because Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) won here in 2015 putting an end to countless second places he used to rack up. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) is good for these finishes too. John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) is an outside pick, this uphill finish can suit him but his problem is that if he’s in the mix then surely so are the two names above. UAE Emirates’ Ben Swift is another sprinter who is good in the uphill finishes.

Ag2r La Mondiale probably have two cards to play today, Oliver Naesen for the breakaway and Jan Bakelants for the uphill sprint.

If there’s a break see if Lilian Calmejane (Direct Energie) joins in. He’s the local rider today as the bunch goes near his home in Albi and if he got in the action early yesterday he shut things down. Winning is the hard part but the unmarked climb mentioned above is perfect for his power.

A few pics from yesterday, views to begin with.

Contador on the attack, Landa joining in.

A French win on Bastille day.

Can’t see it being a GC day unless one of them really blows (not likely) so it all depends on teams being committed to the break…. Maybe this is one for Cummings? Go solo on a cat3 ? Cote de centries is 40km out, this will probably be the fuse lighting point

going to Rodez in a short while .

Thanks for doing these, Lunge. Much appreciated.

Good time on your run this morning too – nice effort.

Rich

Yes, it’s about time we appreciated lunge for all his efforts !! Cheers man.

Right, been out this morning so I see a breaks already out there. I did have Pollitt as a choice in a break, de Ghent too and someone from Fortuneo as this is a really nice bumpy end to it. Didn’t think Tommy would be there, but the profile suggests it does suit him.

Breakaway to the end ? Yes but not this one, once the bumps come I think it’ll change and this could be a Cannondale rumpus or Bojic, Brajkovic or Bole (Merida) maybe UAE could show up to the party.
Van Avamart Obvz, BMC would hunt this one down.

So, break to stay. Different puncheurs up the road, GC to remain.

GVA for this one. He’s got the finish, they’ve got the team to chase it down, and they’ll be looking for stages to salvage their Tour.

Ha! great line from Boulting there – De Ghent going for the sprint “sees a white line painted on a road, so let’s have a bike race” 😀

Oh, and +1 on the well done to Lunge
(apart from the parkrun thing, that is – there’s no need for that sort of behaviour)

Nah, Michael Matthews has today in the bag I recon

Sagan, for me – or maybe Valverde

I miss (one and a bit of) those guys 🙁

As an aside, quite liking the Yorkshire tea advert

So, Voekler then, can he hold it?

interesting between Tommy and Thomas – is TV sandbagging? OOh, look, I’m gurning – this is reeeaaally hard

err, no, then

Nope, Sprint it is then. GVA for me.

Getting interesting now, attacks followed by attacks.

Aru ?! 😯

Great ride from Matthews, clever ride from Sky/Froome, tactical nativity from Astana/Aru, very good finish that.

I dont think Aru wanted to be out of yellow but is he better out of it going into the mountains given how weak Astana is?

At least 4″ recovered by Froome over Aru. At least 4.

Well Froome definitely wants that yellow jumper back ASAP – if there was any doubt there isn’t now.

I reckon froome back in yellow. Aru made a stupid error there

looked more like 29″ to me igm

Froome in yellow by 19″

(So 25″ then)

19 seconds clear again. All that work at the airstrip wasted because of a tactical schoolboy error

oof, aru lost much more time there than I realised

Clever riding by Froome/Sky there.

Can’t find full results and not clever enough to work it out – was Bardet a few seconds back from Froome?

bardet was 4s behind froome
aru 25s back

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2017/us/classifications.html

I think so. Froome was 7th over the line 1″ down on Matthews (and with a 4″ gap behind him).

Edit : Andy’s link has it. Official yellow lead is apparently 18″ now. Is it me or does that sound familiar to anyone else?

Watching the run in, Sky were thinking about that at least 10km out and knew it was possible by 3km. They were fighting for the front the whole way in and Aru wasn’t in the same shot on the helicopter shots and wasn’t visible at all head on.

tactical nativity from Astana/Aru

As if they were born yesterday.

(See what I did there?)

andytherocketeer – Member

bardet was 4s behind froome
aru 25s back

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2017/us/classifications.html

Thanks.. you’d have thought I’d have spotted the big stage tab when I looked at that webpage 10 minutes ago! 😳

all the other contenders were there or there abouts, sloppy stuff from Astana.

Aru getting thrown under the bus by Valgren, just what you want in a team mate

.

Valgren interview

Cant imagine Landa giving that interview

Wonder if Aru just pissed off Valgren or the whole team? Can see Michael Valgren getting a telling off for that interview 😀

Valgren to Sky next year, maybe year after. Plenty of chatting going on with him and Froomy over the last couple of days..

I reckon he wants to go, best option is to piss off your team mates to get out of your contract..

iMO, obvz.

Mathews was it, fine. I like Sunweb but not a huge fan of his.

Surely all Aru had to do today was sit on Froome’s wheel?
Uran and Martin managed it. Bardet just about managed.
Gap 1>2 exactly the same as three days ago, and Froome has got only one more mountain top finish to negotiate.
The rest have a 20k TT to think about.

Don’t see Valgren fitting in at Sky if his attitude is, if the team leader cant hold my wheel, stuff him

Bardet on Stg 17?
All in on Stg 18.
Last roll on Stg 20 ITT.

Can’t see much else making s difference – but then I didn’t predict today, so…

Feeling quite pleased with myself (even if it was just luck) as I only watched the last 2km 🙂

Arguably careless from Aru but that finish is tough