Cadel Evans crashes out on the way to Paris?? Would they still give him the GC? I Can’t understand how you can definitively win the event with one stage to go??

Was wandering this myself, he’s a minute and a half ahead, couldn’t the other guy beat him by, say, 2 minutes to take the tour?

On the Last day it’s a procession until Paris and then only the sprinters race; effectively it would be seen by the peloton as VERY poor form to attack the Yellow jersey today.
If Cadel crashed and could get back on they would slow until he rejoined the group

Ah, I see. Bit silly really.

Yep, the Shreks could try and attack but two things would happen;

1 – They would become very much persona non grata amongst ANYONE in cycling. As mentioned above, it’s very, very poor form to do that and they would lose what few friends they have in the peloton.

2 – It would fail anyway, as the sprint teams will all bring any potential breakaway back together regardless.

Not going to be able to watch the stage today. 😥 Will try to get some highlights tomorrow morning.

Is it worth watching if there’s gonna be no race?

Cav will be racing

Oh, there’s going to be a race, don’t you worry!

For example, the race for these two bits;

First man on to the Champs today? I’m going to say it’ll either be Millar or Tommy V, and am hoping it’s the latter. He deserves it!

First across the finish line at the end? With his lead out train in full, storming mood on the back of Martin’s TT win yesterday, I just have to say it’ll be Cav. And I really hope it is….!

When someone attacks, the rest of the peloton look at them – is it a GC contender? If so, the rest of the GC contenders will have to (try to) follow the move, put their teams on the front, chase it down. If it’s some nobody who’s an hour down on GC, they’ll let it go. Give the breakaway their moment of glory on TV then if it’s a flat sprinters stage, they’ll pull it back by the end. They can pull back gaps of 10 mins with perfectly judged efforts.

So even if it was a free-for-all stage (which, for the first part into Paris, it isn’t), how on earth are 2 GC contenders going to get 2 mins up the road and hang on?

Is it worth watching if there’s gonna be no race?

The last part of it, the laps on Champs Elysee are a full on race, averaging over 30mph. Proper thrilling stuff as the sprinters teams try to get their leadouts sorted and as occasional lone riders or small groups try to make a break off the front.

I understand that there won’t be any attacks, but what if Evans crashes and can’t finish?

I know this might sound like trolling but I’m genuinely curious and TDF clueless.

If that is the case why don’t they just turn up at Paris for the last bit, those who don’t feature in the sprint race just don’t bother, and the sprinters and their teams can slog it out.

Seems a bit pointless loads of folk riding along for nothing and it being in bad taste to try to win the tour on the last leg.

Not sure that’s ever happened has it? A Maillot Jaune crashing on the final day?
First part is basically just a procession, second part he’ll stay in the bunch surrounded by teammates. He’d have to be VERY unlucky to crash so badly he couldn’t finish and I think even with a broken collar bone he’d probably still struggle to the line.

No idea what the judges would do though if there was some mass pile up and Evans broke himself so badly he was unable to finish (or finished say 3 mins behind the bunch). No idea. It would probably be one of the biggest upsets in Tour tradition and history though!

It’s nearly as daft as riding a MTB over mud and hills only to end up in the same place as you started.

dangerousbeans: the whole thing is pointless! Of all the 190 riders who start, realistically about 5 or 6 have the chance of winning. The rest are teammates, sprinters, climbers, all there to help their leader acheive glory. He can’t do it without them. It’s like asking why Contador, the Schlecks, Evans and one or two others didn’t just do the whole race by themselves.

Everyone has to complete the course, even if some of them will just be rolling round following wheels and making the numbers up. There’s probably about 5 sprinters capable of winning todays stage but it’d look a bit crap if they just went head to head and the rest of the bunch thought, sod this, lets go to the bar!

I’ve been in Paris twice on the last day and its very much a race. They are going all out, there will will be attacks, breakaways, and riders will get dropped.
In recent history Rumsas and Vino both attacked on the last day. Rumsas was chased down, and was not successful. Vino got away and won. Both ain’t popular.

Evans won’t fall off, he won’t take any risks, and his BMC team will chase down any attacks from Leopard trek, as will HTC and every team with a chance of winning the final sprint.

If you never seen it, its well worth watching

Mr Austin,

I’ll problably watch it as me and the lads have been riding hard the last few days and Debs is at work.

Did she send you the pics that Zach took at Mountain Mayhem.

Tap.

You’ll be turning roadie next Beans!!

Only saw some of me and nik. Is there more?

IIRC armstrong crashed on the way into paris on a wet sharp corner. Nothing much really but could have been worse.

then again i could be just be rubbish 😀

Think Debs was gonna send a link to Nik for Zach’s flickr account – he’s got some great pics of your little un that you can download – better check with your missus, she may have already seen them but not shown you.

Regarding roads – only useful function I can see is to join up the off road bits – no chance of me becoming a roadie.

to be fair, this stage is only a short stage (less than half the distance of some of the previous stages), so even if there is a breakaway, on such a flat stage as this, more than 1 minute over cadel would be hard to attain, especially as cadel is a machine on the flat.

As for watching.. The one jersey that isn’t guaranteed is the Green. Cav could get it, Cad may lose it.. It’s worth watching it just to see whether a british rider is able to get a jersey for the first time!

I understand that there won’t be any attacks, but what if Evans crashes and can’t finish?

To answer the question, for evans to finish the tour he has to cross the line. If he does not cross the line he can not win.

But how he crosses the line is another matter. Look up Abjudaparov and how he won the green jersey in ’91?

Robert Millar a scot,won the king of the mountains jersey a few years back.

Robert Millar a scot,won the king of the mountains jersey a few years back.

Then ITV4 are lying buggers! They said that no-one has won a jersey from GB

By win, i mean hold it at the end of the tour.

They meant green jersey

the whole thing is pointless! Of all the 190 riders who start, realistically about 5 or 6 have the chance of winning.

Pretty much like every race (any sport) that ever happens – even the 100m at school.