After the relatively uneventful day yesterday, it’s time for, well, another uneventful sprint day I think. Anyway, here’s the plans ahead.

On the moon, St George is a crater, named with Anglicized spelling by the crew of the mission Apollo XV in 1971 after the bottle of wine that appears in Jules Verne’s novel “From the earth to the moon” written in 1865. It was a Nuits-Saint-Georges, from Burgundy. Starting in Troyes where Marcel Kittel made himself the most successful sprinter of the 104th Tour de France so far with two victories, stage 7 will finish in Nuits-Saint-Georges that never hosted a stage of the Grande Boucle before. Two stage finishes of Paris-Nice indicate the place suits the sprinters. They were won by Freddy Maertens in 1977 and Matt Goss the week before the Australian triumphed in Milan-Sanremo in 2011. But as much as stage 6 looked on paper like an inevitable bunch gallop at the end, the race on stage 7 might not be as easy to read as the previous one. The 50-km long conclusive loop in the vineyards, from Gevrey-Chambertin – a magic name in wine culture – to Nuits-Saint-Georges favors breakaways. Shall it be a sprint finish anyway, the 2-km long final straight will offer a great spectacle with the likes of André Greipel and Alexander Kristoff eager to challenge Kittel and green jersey holder Arnaud Démare who have built their confidence on winning early in this Tour. Nuits-Saint-Georges is a nice place for celebrations.

The Route: a gourmet stage. No chance for the riders to enjoy the local produce but there’s fine wine, cheese, mustard and more along the route. Otherwise there’s nothing of great strategic interest, more rolling roads as the race heads south. The Côte d’Urcy is gentle, 2.5km at 4.2%.

The Finish: a big wide road. There are some undulations and central traffic islands but it levels out and there’s not a corner in sight for the last 5km

Who’s in the mix, well, Inrng seem a little short on info, perhaps the flat 200km stages have taken their toll, either way, here it is:

The Contenders: Marcel Kittel is the fastest but can he get a clear run to the line? The finish certainly helps, a long straight line. No team seems to be imposing themselves on the sprint, nobody is pulling out the field leaving it to the sprinters themselves to open things up in the final metres and this can make things chaotic. Arnaud Démare again is the second choice.

And as ever, we look back to yesterday:
Froome, looking comfortable:

Corn fields, helicopter, a big peloton, text book:

Hell of a sprint from this man:

Hard to see past Dolph Lundgren after recent results.

Yip, bloke on a mamil bike I reckon.

Someone ought to fit him out correctly though, needs a rucksack filled with laptop/iPhone charger/clean shirt/spare pants/deodorant and wet socks.

But we will get to see some spectacular countryside that France does so well. Quite how they fit in such mesmerising landscapes is beyond us in overcrowded UK. More low helicopter shots of spinning legs and corn fields please.

For full Mamil effect he needs mismatched team kit and/or ankle socks.

But yes, unless something drastic happens, it’s hard to look beyond Kittel isn’t it?

The speed at which he came past Demare and Greipel yesterday… it’ll be Kittel.

He’s faster because he has discs.

Which member of Wanty Group will be in todays break?

Must be Degands turn soon

And Fortuneo .. don’t forget Perichon..

but Feillu has been really quiet…

But remember Dan McLay from last years heroic endeavours? Well, I’m rooting for an outside punt that if the bunch forget he’s there he might go long and hard.. it’s definitely in him to do that.

I’m going for a breakaway of five riders with at least one – maybe two today – from Wanty Groupe Gobert. I have no idea who they are, but WGG are getting their sponsorship value back in spades, I think they’ve had a man in every group break so far, plus Van Kiersbulck in that massive solo break

yes, but apart from everyone knowing the name who honestly can say what they do / are you going to buy a Wanty Group product as a result of their endeavours?

No googling (I did though, and I’m in the ‘unlikely’ category)

Yesterday was first stage finish I’ve seen bit of a yawn I confess. Giy doing commentary with Millar on ITV4 was hopeless I thought. Having spent a lot of time in Burgandy I am looking forward to the coverage today from a scenery point of view. Maybe I am just jaded but Sky are looking so strong crashes aside I can’t see any other result other than a Froome win. A bit like last year people are riding for second.

Maybe I am just jaded but Sky are looking so strong crashes aside I can’t see any other result other than a Froome win. A bit like last year people are riding for second.

Quintana admitted that after riding Giro, he is pretty much there to look for stage wins, which is a shame. TdF this year seems to lacking some lustre now, Sagan and Cav out and GC seems already stitched up (although Aru looked useful the other day).

yes, but apart from everyone knowing the name who honestly can say what they do / are you going to buy a Wanty Group product as a result of their endeavours?

You could say that about almost all of them. WTF is a Drapac?

I don’t disagree.

I think it’s a kind of bag, for keeping your dra in? In a lime green colour.

Why can’t they arrange it so the boring stages are on the w/e when people have stuff to do and save the good stuff for the working week 😥

Now we’ve got a w/e with DH, XC, two good stages and its going to be nice weather.

Whats a sunweb?
an Alpecin or an Etix?

Ahhh, I know that one! Alpecin is a caffeine shampoo

now, *why* you would want a caffeine shampoo is beyond me. My hair really doesn’t need any more stimulation or it might fall out

@ferrals 🙂 some of us have been known to arrange “meetings” for last hour of good stages … important to be able to watch in peace without being disturbed. Trickier at the weekend but mobile coverage is a godsend

I know Sunweb because I’ve used them once, daydo Holibobs.
Etixx make sports drinks, but that’s an obvious one.
Drapac are in Fund Management.

TdF this year seems to lacking some lustre now

don’t give in so easily. there’s plenty of time. we haven’t had any breakaway stages for Cummings to destroy yet, no proper mountains, no cross-windy stages, no epic downhills….

I’ve got a feeling that tomorrow’s stage might light things up a touch.

come on wind ffs everyone has got the cigars out 👿

What’s annoying is that this is the first day all tour that my boss is out so I could watch the stage at work.

Do my eyes deceive me? Back from the pub lunch, turn on the coverage and I can’t see a WGG rider in the breakaway?!

However, the World Tour version of Wanty IS in the break, Cannondale-Drapak

Does anyone happen to know if there’s an ITV4 audio-only feed?

Don’t really need video and it’s quite a hog on bandwidth here in the rural south

bbc does live iplayer audio coverage from 3 (5 live)

is their commentary any good, klunk ? I quite like a bit of Millar (incidentally on ITV they’re predicting some echelon madness coming up)

Pretty sure the echelon chat is just clutching at staws

is their commentary any good, klunk ?

not listened in a while.

Pretty sure the echelon chat is just clutching at staws

Astana were towards the front for a while.

Breakaway going past some flags giving it some action at the moment, we might yet see some echelon

As to commentary, I enjoy listening to Boulting and Millar. They;ve just had Gary Verity on, he was interesting

Looks like i might stand corrected…..

right, coverage turned off, down to some “proper” work for the rest of the afternoon, will watch the highlights tonight.

yeah, looks like a procession from here on in 🙁

Pretty sure the echelon chat is just clutching at straws

Help – I’ve become so roadie in the past few years that I’m searching for french words – bidon, chapeau, musette, echelon, peloton, souplesse etc. – in every road cycling related post.

And I’ve just spent 2 minutes wondering what term i’ve missed whilst trying to decipher what place a cat has in echelons?

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN0CkkY3_rQ[/video]

Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) was in a long solo breakaway move during stage 4.

This morning Cyclingnews asked the 26 year-old Belgian rider how he looked back on it.

“After 15 kilometres I thought about dropping back to the peloton. I knew it would never work out,: he admitted.

“My arms still hurt because I tried to lay down on the handlebars to be more aero. There’s marks on my arms where the hair is gone.”

“Today I’ll recover and save something for the weekend. The day after the rest day I want to try again.”

His teammanager Hilaire Van der Schueren told his riders not to attack today since they gained enough publicity.

On the subject of not knowing about sponsors: ONCE – it’s the Spanish equivalent of the RNIB. I think the team had moved sponsors before I figured it out!

That’s a bit close

VERY Close!