Le Tour – Stage 8 – Repeat of Stage 3?

Have we lasted the week? (A little brief this morning so feel free to add some more 🙂 )

The stage is likely to come down to the painful slow-motion sprint up the final two kilometre climb above the town of Mûr-de-Bretagne. It’s a difficult climb to judge – not quite as steep as the Mur de Huy in stage three, but longer. It’s also dead straight for the first kilometre and a half, which makes it psychologically harder – riders on the limit often break climbs down to smaller targets, like the next bend, but that’s not possible here.

The straightness also makes the pace more difficult to control. On a bend, the rider at the front can take the best line and regulate the pace of the riders behind. On the Côte de Mur de Bretagne, the rider in front is horribly exposed. The climb is also steeper at the bottom, meaning that it will be easy to go too hard too soon and die over the final 500 metres. Patience is a virtue on a climb like this. It’s the kind of ascent riders can completely empty themselves on, but the skill is in timing that so that this doesn’t happen with 200 metres still to ride.

The finish could throw anything up,
1.
FROOME C.
SKY 26h 40′ 51”
2.
SAGAN P.
TCS 00′ 11”
3.
VAN GARDEREN T.
BMC 00′ 13”
4.
GALLOPIN T.
LTS 00′ 26”
5.
VAN AVERMAET G.
BMC 00′ 28”
6.
URAN URAN R.
EQS 00′ 34”
7.
CONTADOR A.
TCS 00′ 36”
If somebody gets a run on they could make up some time on yellow, Sagan being the possible who they would let run. Yet again 180km and all won and lost in the last 1.5

As for yesterday Cav finally got the Gorilla off his back and as pointed out in the other thread 100% proof that new bikes make you faster

The @etixx_quick_step team seems more unified than ever. Today, @markcavendish’s win on the new #VengeViAS felt like a collective weight off the entire teams shoulders. The first of many wins to come. #iamspecialized

The break that got caught.

Cav gets his record

Sagan waiting to turn his white into green

And the rider who might have partied a little too hard

All I have is I predict a break, either 4 or 7 in it, it’ll consist of 2 from Bretagne Sache’, Cofidis and FDJ.. As for the winner?
Dunno, but really want an unknown Fench guy, perhaps one from Bretagne Sache’ …?

😕

Break might go, TTT tomorrow, Sky/Tinkoff/BMC will all want to rest their big guns, Giant might chase if Debengolb is up for it maybe but is he up for it?!

Are EtixxFailStep (ha, autocorrect! I’m leaving it in there in the hope the gods will show me they’ve got some more wins in ’em) strong enough to chase? I desperately want to see the World Champ take a TDF win, solo enough to raise his hands will also be lovely, thanks!

Sagan is soooooo close to yellow! Is Tinkoff vane enough to risk a lead out for the big guy today? I reckon he can get over the climb but he’ll be a marked man when it flattens out!

And Gallopin??? Could we see a repeat of him in yellow, it seems absurd he’d get 17 seconds on Froome/TVG etc if he could also take the win but this is a strange tour that hasn’t been kind to the Maillot Jaune!

I’m excited!

Watching Mark in the British Champs and a lot of people pointing out his lack of speed (prior to yesterday) possibly pointing to some climbing strength… does he have it in him today might be his tactics after pointing out the lack of flat sprint stages… I know clutching at straws here!

Having said that my moneys on kristoff

No change in GC today I suspect but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Teejay in yellow after the TTT.

How steep is that finish? One for Valverde, Purito or GVA?

Stage 7 fantasy league, Cav’s comeback, Eritrean climbing, and Paolini goes out on a high

1: Team Michael Flatley Quick Step, DS Scandal42 with 432 points
2: Team Puncture Repair Kit, DS Chomp with 411 points
3: Team Oh okay, why not, DS Steven Ross with 407 points

In GC:
1: Team Durham Dynamo, DS Rich Harper on 23377 points
2: Team Michael Flatley Quick Step, DS Scandal42 on 2185 points
3: Alan`s Deep Bath, DS Andy on 2140 points
—
Sagan for the win today

Nice pic..

Another vote for a Sagan win today.

Vöckler looks like a 60 year old in that pic above. Housewives’ favorite transitioning into OAPs’ darling?

Valverde’s been very quiet. Expect to see him having a dig today

^^ Paris-nice pootle’idge 😀

Seconds up for grabs

They had disappeared since 2008. Bonus seconds will again be awarded at the finishes of the 2nd to the 8th stage. The bonuses will be of 10, 6 and 4 seconds for the first three of each of these stages.
Reading up on the rules…
This is the last time bonus stage so if Sagan goes clear and wins that 11s is gone. So there is a chance From could be back in black tomorrow. Should be a good finish.

There’ll def be time gaps today, no chance everyone’s getting the same time. If it wasn’t for the TTT tomorrow I reckon Froome would try and lose Yellow, not sure now, I’d like to see Sagan in Yellow and I reckon if he gets some support to catapult him up the climb it’s possible. I’d prefer to see kwiatkowski win through!

*Yellow goes last in the TTT, massive advantage for the GC teams to know hard to push!

Saxo tinkoff will want to make sure Contador doesn’t loose anymore time to Froome like on the Mur de Huy so a chance for Sagan to be up there. In reality it’ll be a free for all and looks like being an exciting finally.

I’m sticking with my prediction that Sagan won’t win a stage this year and I’m going to go for Rodriguez again with some GC fireworks with one of the big four losing time – I’m going to say Quintana getting caught out of position and dropping ten.

Of course thus far my predictions have been shit.

Some thoughts from the sky camp

Team Sky sports director Nicolas Portal reminded that the winner at Mur de Huy was Joaquim Rodriguez and warned against ruling the Spaniard out of contention in the GC. «In this stage, we should see roughly the same scenario as in Huy, even though it’s probably not as hard», the Frenchman told letour.com. «In 2011, we saw Evans win ahead of Contador so the favorites should again be in the front. On Mur de Huy, Chris took some time off the other favorites, but the winner was still Purito Rodriguez. He is often overlooked, but if he is in the same form as the 2012 Vuelta when he collected bonus every day, he could be a leading contender. Today, he will again be favorite in a finale suiting him and he also has a great team for the team time trial. You have the ‘big four’, but you should not forget Tejay van Garderen either and the whole of the BMC team, who will be clear favorites in the team time trial.»

What’s with Cav’s riser bars? is it new toy giving fresh legs time 😉

http://letour-livetracking.dimensiondata.com/

Live tracking seems to go live when the TV goes on.

also can’t embed the vids but my mate has done some for the LBS for the TV coverage (it’s possible down here in Tassie) all the stages are finishing about 1-2am here and it’s amazing how many people watch live (and look knackered in the morning for a month)
https://www.facebook.com/ridebellerive/videos Give them some likes

Well I was almost right with my prediction 😀

Oh has it finished? 😉

Round of applause for the driver of the jag. 😆

😀 @ Sagan’s description of the finish! Froome looks on it, Nibali is done. Dan Martin in positioning shocker…