[Closed] TdF Stage 11 - ITT - A Balancing Act [Spoilers]

well, after yesterdays outside the box prediction, I'm going for Froome today.

Pro tip: if you've never raced, don't get involved

sorry, but you can have an opinion no matter what your background or experience is 😀

[i]Pro tip: if you've never raced, don't get involved[/i]
sorry, but you can have an opinion no matter what your background or experience is

Never quite understood this attitude either - there are all sorts of things I have an opinion on which I've never personally experienced: violent crime, for example, or the merits of eating dog poo. So I, too, will continue to opine.

Back to the topic... not sure who'll win, although the likely candidates are pretty obvious: Froome, Contador, Evans... Stunning place to end the stage, too!

Stunning place to end the stage, too!

Hope they checked the tide tables properly! 🙂

martin ftw injury or not

Only one winner today...

BIG Tony Martin

And takling of TTing... on euro sport last night there was a nice little film on the UK TTing scene. It follow a young lady from the London area, a gent from Cornwall and fast becoming everyone favourite Essex boy (well my fav, anyway) Alex Dowsett.... Sorry don't know what the program was called but it's well worth searching out... It knocked ITV4's Bike Show into a cocked hat... (not hard I guess)

I kind of want Tony Martin to win this. The guy has had nothing but bad luck over the past couple of seasons and soldiering on after his bad crash in Stage 1 is pretty heroic. To be fair to him, he's been hitting the front of the OPQS leadout.

Cav must have royally thrown his toys out of the pram yesterday and demanded that they buy Renshaw! Lets hope it pays off.

The guy has had nothing but bad luck

ok 🙂 well the Tours de France then.

what happens if the tide comes in and covers the causeway?

Pro tip: if you've never raced, don't get involved.

I like your posts better when they aren't ranting about people enthusiastic enough to comment on a public thread. This isn't a sacred space, you know.

They could add colour by a final km transition to fat bikes and a last leg over the sands to the island.

when they aren't ranting about people enthusiastic enough to comment on a public thread

I think he was probably referring to the press and other forums rather than STW.

EDIT: Doesn't matter

sorry, but you can have an opinion no matter what your background or experience is

TTs are boring to watch tho, it's just sitting around chatting while waiting for the numbers to flash up on screen. Tried to get interested during the team TT but couldn't, might even skip the highlights today.

Martin is on good form this season and must be favourite if his injury doesn't hold him back. Surely Froome can't beat Martin on a flat TT.

Edit: TT's boring to watch? Fignion v LeMonde on the champs?!

Pro tip: if you've never raced, don't get involved.

One feature of this ITT is the ongoing uncertainty in Sky. The pressure is on Froome to take more time because he is possibly going to be very exposed in a few days time. The psychological pressure must be immense - he still has a lot of rivals to watch and that's not easy, especially if he has an off-day.

Edit: In other words, Sky have very much [u]not[/u] got this and still have one hell of a job to do.

Pro tip: if you've never raced, don't get involved
sorry, but you can have an opinion no matter what your background or experience is

Course you can but dont expect anyone to listen 😉

if i want an impartial view on cycling from an ex pro only one man springs to mind Lance [ you can trust me" Armstrong

As DONK notes you can have a view but , for those of us in the know it is like listening to our children explain things 😉

Lets stay on topic these tend to be a good laugh with folk explaining things to the noobs

Yes the TT is pretty dull - many stages are to be fair but when they are exciting boy are they exciting

wow! that Tuft time looks impressive - who is he? that's going to be one to beat.

Tuft 8)

Some good results in TTs ealier in the year, which is how he found his way into my Road.cc team.

Grrr

Tuft was almost in my road.cc team last night ... went for Castroviejo of Movistar instead... only to find out this morn he's riding with a broken rib

Froome isn't an amazing timetrialler. He can put in a decent time but he is not a specialist so I don't see him winning. He will however put some time into his rivals as most of them are more climbing specialists. I think Contador is out of the running unless this is a tactical master class and he is holding his nerve to take the yellow on one of the later stages so he does not have to defend it. His bluff so far looks good as he gives me the impression of a man suffering.

Tony FTW.

depends what you mean by amazing. third in the Olympics is pretty amazing, podiums in ITTs in grand tours is pretty amazing.

Martin looking to be c.90 seconds up on tuft.

Martin's first split pretty impressive. A minute faster than Tuft.

[b]ex-Road racer, qualified to post, my views are important[/b] 🙂

Anyone seen the pics of Tony Martin from behind after his crash? I'm not so sure he'll be on the form necessary to win though I'd like to see him do so if he has managed to recover.

As for Cav, I reckon he intended to give Veelers a little scare for deliberately getting in his way once he'd finished his lead out but that combined with the turn and him not expecting it resulted in a big crash... 50/50 for me - they were both at fault.

Come on Millar!!

[b]Matt Slater, BBC sports news reporter at Mont Saint Michel[/b]

"I've just had it confirmed that somebody threw urine at Mark Cavendish during today's stage."

Oh dear...

that's just taking the piss!

Thats story has been confirmed by the OPSQ team boss.

Cav is keeping quite at the moment.

Watch out any lead-out men who stray off line tomorrow 😆

Shocking "fan" behaviour there. Disgraceful behaviour whatever you think of the performance.

Chavanel going well, first one to get anywhere near Martin's time on the first split.

Has Eurosport player broken today? Or has my subscription ran out or something?

why has Porte gone so hard today? Currently in third place, surely he could have eased off quite a bit, to give him fresher legs for the weekend, given what happened this weekend?

why has Porte gone so hard today?

To provide technical info and benchmark times to Froome. Things like "is this hill doable in 53 x 16?"
If Porte dies half way up it, Froome will know that the answer is no. 🙂

aah, nice answer crazy legs!

Has Eurosport player broken today? Or has my subscription ran out or something?

Mine died. Switched to ITV4 stream

Has Eurosport player broken today?

poor from Evans, I expected better from him today.

Generally I'd rather not listen to Phil Liggett after his amazing revisionist support-defence-dropping of Lance Armstrong. The bloke is a solid gold ****.

Needs must though

Eurosport is back...

I cant get anything alse as go through a german server, so was in a pannick.

*Pokes head out of tea-pot*

What is a

revisionist support-defence-dropping of lance armstrong

Because I can't understand that sentence - what did the Ligno-got with the painfully striated voice* actually do?

(*to me, his voice actually sounds like a personification of Lactic Acid, which is quite an achievement really. He has managed this to my brain with his voice ever since I was a child)

Odds on stage win:

Martin: 1/8
Froome: 9/2

Doesn't look like the bookies are expecting Froome to topple Martin...

How nasty is that for Cav, that sort of behaviour is not on. They are not commenting on exactly what it was but its sounding like the "wee" leak could be true... (did you see what I did there?)

quintana looks about 15 years old in that close up

I've used cyclingfans to get a Eurosport stream, so it's just the official player that's broken.

There's a new computer game being developed, Mark Cavendish's Sprint Cycling. Exclusive to Nintendo Wee.

He has picked up sponsorship for childs bike seat, WeeRide.