Le Tour (may contain spoilers)

Froome in yellow means that Sky’s car will be first in line tomorrow – could be vital for the cobbles.

They can always let a break go later in the week so they don’t have to keep defending.

there were less riders on the deck in the DH at the weekend

to be fair, if they all set off at the same time there might be more 🙂

Froome in yellow means that Sky’s car will be first in line tomorrow – could be vital for the cobbles.

Oooh a very good point indeed there which may well explain Froome’s big push.

well as my local tv lot are doing the should they have stopped thing I expect about 30 different opinions by the morning.

No great shakes, he can easily give it up for a week or so if it suits.

Just watching the highlights now on EuroSport, missed all the live coverage. That said, I saw “the incident” on Facebook and the stage result.

Cancellara took one hell of a flyer. 🙁

Edit – I feel sick watching that, it’s horrific. 🙁

Well there’s gonna be some sore bodies tomorrow with plenty of road rash going on.

I’ve lost Gerrans from my team, and I’ll be surprised if Fabs toes the line, so that’ll be a lot of teams one rider down.

A slight re-arrangement in the STW overall top three:

1: Team Michael Flatley Quick Step, DS Scandal42, on 1133 points
2: Team Raleigh banana, DS Chris chaddock, on 954 points
3: Team daves dynamos, DS, kaney99, on 946 points

Roll on the pavë for more destruction.

There will be a few dns’ing in the morning.Beat up and sore and a day on cobbles is a different prospect than 40k once the adrenalin and pain killers wear off. Can’t see Fab or Michael Matthews starting tbh along with a few others.

Oooh a very good point indeed there which may well explain Froome’s big push.

Can someone explain the significance of the car starting position please?

The closer to the front the team car is, the quicker a new bike/wheel/food/bidon can be got

First in line equals quickest to get a rider if/when they need help. Being 10 plus cars back on single farm tracks means potentially losing a shed load of time just waiting around.

Not so vital when on major French roads, but tomorrow it could mean a lot

Neutralising the race was probably the right thing to do but there must be a lot of times in the past in all manner of races when there are 2 or more crashes which presumably take the medical team out of action and everything continues. Sensible to stop but it sets a precedent

Andy Schleck must be ruing the opportunity to race a Grand Tour where the race stops every time you crash. All those with Farrar in your fantasy teams can also hope for their fortunes to change 😆

Cancellara: Just left the hospital with a huge disappointment #TDF2015 is over broke some bones on my back again as in spring. #L3/L4right side

Thanks re car position

rode with broken back. like you do.

he must be gutted, i’m gutted, I’m sure he was going all in for tomorrows stage and well never get to see it.

Same injury, *fortunately* different locations to the one earlier in the year

Footage of the aftermath from the POV of the OGE mechanic – interesting and not crash porn…

On an not entirely unrelated note – anyone know how to embed videos?

he must be gutted, i’m gutted, I’m sure he was going all in for tomorrows stage and well never get to see it.

+1, really disappointing 🙁 I hope he recovers well.

That OGE video is unbelievable. Has a Saving Private Ryan feel to it despite obvious differences.

Brave riders and totally dedicated support staff. Amazing footage. Wishing them all a good recovery

Very helpful video and it completely shows why you want your car at spot 1

Crazy stage,

Ill take the yellow jersey in the fantasy league though.

Fabs oooot 😐

Is disappoint.

I was second on the stage 🙂
This may be my greatest moment.

my punt on OGE for big points in the 1st week is looking a bit questionable 🙁

Love the mechanic-cam, great angle of the whole aftermath

I can’t imagine cycling to the finish with fractured vertebrae. He’s a tough bloke.

Lotto Jumbo’s mechanic’s footage as well:

http://www.gijsbregt.nl/news/gopro-footage-of-the-lotto-jumbo-mechanic-after-the-crash-6925

Due to circumstances beyond my control I was forced to watch on itv player just now.

It’s still a bit buggy especially around the commercial breaks but I do believe that was an HD stream! What a refreshing find. ITV4 on freeview is still SD and looks pretty poor. Wasn’t expecting that.

Fark, that crash was brutal, bloody gutted Cancellara is out.

Go Froome and those elbows, I knew there must be a marginal gain somewhere for that ugly ugly riding style!! Almost thought he was going to take the win too.

Surprised @ Contador, he’ll lose more time tomorrow against Nibali (Who’s going to smash it tomorrow and take yellow…) but we don’t know how Froome will go yet, Geraint Thomas looks strong but not so sure about Stannard!

Pinot?? 🙁 what happened, was he involved in the crash? Disappointed to see him off the back.

“Shocked” Dan Martin did **** all, terminal also ran, 1 second again for his surname bruv, EtixxFailStep can’t catch a break!

Massive thanks to the Sky box for not bothering to record the highlights tonight and making me stay up ’till now to see it. ****!

Every vid link above appears to revolve around the first crash, but there was talk of a second major crash which affected race decisions there after, but no video of it?. Did the second big crash happen?, or was it all about the first/only crash. The commentators were talking about the race being stopped because A&E not being able to get thru to the second big crash, is that correct?

there was another crash further up the road apparently, saw a couple down after that. The info coming out was that the medics were all tied up at the back and couldn’t have got through to any further incidents.
Not sure if you can view this one but a good interview with Brailsford
http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/video/478112323765/Post-Stage-3-Sir-Dave-Brailsford
Mostly agreeing that this was serious enough to do something and they had to make a call very quick. Includes a dig about the Giro and applying laws to the letter where in this case common sense said hold until they knew what was going on.

Apologies if this has been posted before, or if I’ve missed any particular relevant news, but where is Realman posting his daily updates please?

Thanks.

He’s not. He’s away and busy, and without a reliable connection.

Awwwww… I’d been wondering the same. I liked his posts last year…

The bad news: 3 weeks on crutches and no work for me after Sunday mornings ride.

The good news: I’m going to have to watch all the live coverage.

Is that compass sticking his hand up for some daily posts 😉

Obviously been done to death but
http://sportteller.sbs.com.au/pain_of_the_peloton.html#Overview
The photographers in the middle of it all reminded me of a film

Not sure I’m going to have time for a daily post. What with approximately 4 hrs of tour watching, 12 hours of sleep, 4hrs of eating cake and 4hrs of browsing for N+1 my days are going to be pretty full.

A lot of talk online that Debenkolb caused the crash by veering in front of the FDJ rider and taking out his front wheel!

Stage 4 preview-

Tour de France Stage 4 Preview

“Shocked” Dan Martin did **** all

not sure that’s fair. he was fourth on the stage.