Back to the mountains. On paper, the Grand Colombier is a monster. In my opinion, it is the toughest mountain in France, with sections at 12%. Nevertheless, its location 43 km from the finish changes the story altogether. Rather than a single devastating attack, I see a group of five or six strong riders break away and then come together before the finish. This is a classical but always exciting scenario, especially if one of the big names is missing from the breakaway. Look out just before the riders reach Bellegarde-sur-Valserine: we found a small bump which could very well make things easier for the finish line judge…

I can see this stage being nuts, but I can’t see anyone winning the tour here. This is a stage to lose a lot of time to a lot of riders, not a stage to gain a lot of time.* I’m hoping Tejay is gonna stay up and defend white, and I think Nibali is going to be under a lot of pressure to stay with Evans and Wiggins and Froome. Currently there’s a big break with a lot of names in, including of course, Peter Sagan 😀

*At least on the climbing, we could see some foot out flat out descending.

Some pretty cool pictures. And got to handy it to Martin, 12th with a broken wrist and a puncture. Definitely not his tour. He’s off back home now, and I think that’s the right thing to do.

http://www.steephill.tv/2012/tour-de-france/photos/stage-09/

Rorschach is proving to be very stubborn, but there’s always a silver lining. For example, I can now spell Rorschach without even thinking. I’ve cracked into the top 10, and plan to only move up from now on..

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/stw-tour-de-france

A few useful links

Live Cycling News Text Updates
Steephill
Official Tour Live Feed App
Velogames Fantasy League
Classifications
Withdrawals

Now that looks like a melon farmer of a climb

[Soilers]

Too many carbs?

would love to have a crack at a climb like that

oh and can someone tell me what happened to wiggins mirror shades halfway round the TT? thought they were built in to the helmet, are they rip off jobs?

Some of the big names in the break include: Peter Sagan, Jens Voigt, David Zabriskie (not sure about him, that dude’s weird), David Millar, Sandy Casar, Thomas Voeckler, Steven Cummings (BMC), Marcus Burghardt (BMC), Michele Scarponi, Luis León Sánchez, Simon Gerrans, and Matthew Goss.

I think some of those names are just there for the intermediate, but others are looking for the win. Jens to go for another long solo?

oh and can someone tell me what happened to wiggins mirror shades halfway round the TT? thought they were built in to the helmet, are they rip off jobs?

I heard he took them off. It was like 23 degrees or something, and he’s going flat out up climbs, so maybe they just started annoying him.

It was like 23 degrees or something…..maybe they just started annoying him.

well yeah, kinda guessed that, it was the design of them that I was really asking about.

ok we are having early spoilers today then
*views thread through hands*

time to cut myself off till tonight. with a plea to the news reader on r2 not to tell me the result or any important breaking news.

10 seconds on google..

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/kask-crono-tt-helmet-first-look-33310/

The visor is an elegant piece of work. It solves the problem of using electrical tape or less aero ways of attaching visors by using five magnets mounted to the visor and helmet shell. This means it fits snugly onto the front of the helmet and is also very easy to remove.

🙂

49km/h for the first hour, do they realise there’s a climb at the end? Or are thye going for the sprint then taking the climb slowly and getting caught.

I think I read that the visor is held on by small strong magnets.

Quite a cool idea, although of course if his fell off mid-ride, maybe not so good in practice!

Cheers, Rich

edit: far too slow!

looks like sagan is nominally in yellow with that 6:53 breakaway 😉

doh Im a div, looking at the wrong classification times.
ignore me. My wife does.

wiggo chilling out

It’s an interesting positioning of team mates up the road.

I can see the sprinters sitting up after the intermediate sprint but what impact will the two from BMC and RSNT have on things later in the stage? Will it leave Sky exposed at the end?

is that his legs on the table or a couple of golf clubs?

I would have sent Edvald Boasson Hagen on the break today.

I think Wiggo’s been spending too long on b3ta 😉

suspect everyone will sit around and wait for Sky to pull it back for them – maybe reducing their effectiveness when it comes to Colombier. And then BMC have 2 guys who can hang on for Cuddles to catch up and help him on the climb as well.

Shaping up to be an intriguing day.

There’s nobody in the break who is likely to worry the GC so someone gets a nice result and Sky and BMC mark each other in the peloton.

Not quite safe for work…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKO7v2vrZas[/video]

I’m getting awfully fed up of Francis.

lord praise the mute button.

smashing it up and down the river innit

smashing it up and down the river innit

I wonder how long it took Halfords to find someone with such an annoying voice.

Now thats an impressive road up that there hill.
So which one is Steve77?

the guy in the adverts?

you are just jealous 😉

“Jens Voight will chase anything with a number on the back!”

great to see voeckler’s nose sticking out the front again 😉

Just watching my first ever TDF stage. Couple of things:

1. Does anyone else find Carlton Kirby’s humour as amusing as Carlton Kirby and does he actually know any other languages or is he just winging the translations? I’ve had to suffer this guy for too many ‘Dakar’ rallies, IRC rallies etc. He’s a fool.

2. Does that advert actually make people buy Skodas? Is there a car that will crumble if one of your passengers is a big enough nobber to smash their door open into a wall/ if you throw a drinks bottle at it.

Other than that, scenery’s nice.

are you on eurosport?

Yeah, is it on somewhere that the adverts don’t show people abusing cars for no real reason?

why are lotto pushing the pace up on the climb? who’s their gc guy?

ITV4 now live coverage.
ch 24 on freeview

Merci beaucoup.

why are lotto pushing the pace up on the climb? who’s their gc guy?

Van Den Broeck?

Beautiful countryside on today’s stage. Go Tommy!

Nice bunny hop from Cadel

Voeckler trying to kill himself.

I’m expecting someone to crash.

Has VDB managed to stay away?

Sagan does a fantastic impression of someone dying.

Doesn’t look great for Wiggo at the moment.

At work at the moment but trying to keep an eye on things…how much has Nibali got?