34 year old Valverde has been speaking to cyclingnews:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/incycle-video-valverde-says-hes-stronger-than-before-his-doping-ban

Not watched it but the title is enough to depress me. Have he and Horner been to Antarea or something?:

sagan doing no hander wheelies – I would soooo laugh if he fell off

are the bookies paying out yet ? 😉

Yep, Nibali isn’t the best TTer, but neither is Porte.

Nibali won the second TT at the Giro last year. He’s not too shabby.

I hear the cheat Contador is out. Struggling to ride clean hey

Gallopin, what a ride!! Totally blew himself inside out, hats off to him.

Then Porte and Valvpiti in the top 3, amazing.

I’m sitting here in Vosges, having watched the climb out of Mullhouse where Tony hammered it, then this morning caught them not far from our hotel, it’s been epic.

Yep, Nibali isn’t the best TTer, but neither is Porte.

Porte’s a pretty good TTer.

Nibali won the second TT at the Giro last year

it was an up hill time trial

Struggling to ride clean hey

Well his jersey was filthy after that fall.

Porte looks like a number 2, a “true” gc contender doesn’t look round for someone else to take it up when your main contender goes up the road…..

Would you say the same if it was Froome?

Absolutely. It’s hard enough the pro cycling community trying to convince the world they are clean without DS’s knocking about who were convicted and unrepentant dopers.

I don’t agree that Froome should have blabbed about the lack of testing when Sky, Tinkoff and Astana were all on Tiede but I guess if he saw the improvement in Nibali before the public did, his query was a reasonable one – just didn’t need to be public.

I don’t know. It’s hard to quantify the improvement in Nibbles given the absence of Froome and AC now.

it was an up hill time trial

4th in the first long ITT too, not far behind Dowsett and Wiggins.

Sadly, I can get rid of the thought that he’s riding for the blood doping, gold medal stealing purchasing vino and it all looks a bit too easy.

In 2012 the only people who beat Nibali to the top of todays climb were Froome, Evans and Wiggins. Each one a TdF winner. Nibali was 20 odd seconds back and the time gaps behind that similar today.

Performance is never a good indicator of doping but this stage isn’t even a shabby indicator. It was just someone who was just slightly better than the other remaining riders.

Jeeez. Broken tibia for Contador, apparently. And yet he still managed to climb a few km before he pulled out.

Contador update over at cyclingnews.

Riis…

“Alberto has a broken tibia. It’s not a bad fracture but he needs surgery,” Riis told a small group of journalists at the Tinkoff-Saxo bus.
“He was going fast on the downhill at about 60 or 70km/h. It was a bumpy road and he lost control of he bike. Maybe he was eating.”

Alberto has a broken tibia

😯

I did my tibial plateau in Morzine. No ‘kin way was I getting back on my bike, let alone berating a doctor for not getting it strapped up quick enough.

Some great rides today, Tony Martin being a juggernaut after yesterday’s efforts, and brilliant timing and managing of effort by Nibali. Glad to see Rodriguez riding competitively now.

hear the cheat Contador is out. Struggling to ride clean hey

No. It was beef on the road apparently. Keep up.

Seen the pictures of Contadors bike, WT actual F? Was that from the accident?

Got any links to the pics of his bike?

Team claim it was not broken and that the broken bike seen was Roache’s bike that fell off the team car.

Specialized comment in Business Insider…

Specialized, the team’s bike sponsor, sent this statement to Business Insider:

“All of us at Specialized are devastated to see Alberto Contador withdraw from the Tour,” Specialized said in an email. “He is a true champion with the heart of a warrior and he had a great chance at yellow this year. We have spoken to Alberto’s brother as well as his personal mechanic (Faustino Muñoz) and the mechanic who was at the scene (Rune Kristensen), and contrary to some early, unconfirmed reports, frame failure was not involved in Alberto’s incident today.

“Nicolas Roche was involved in a separate incident today and while his bike was laying on the road it was run over by a car causing it to break, potentially giving rise to the initial inaccurate reporting,” Specialized told Business Insider. “Live race reporting is difficult and sometimes mistakes are made. We are continuing to research the events of today and will share any further details as we learn more.”

Cover up…? 🙂

The pics are on Twitter, it’s clearly Contadors bike as it’s got a 31 plate on it.

New photo just dropped in from AFP of broken bike which is definitely Alberto Contador's – see mounted race No 31. pic.twitter.com/1xyy1ww0Ay

— John MacLeary (@JohnMacLeary) July 14, 2014

I think its one of those situations where no one will know for a couple of days. Massive confusion, bikes being swapped, cars/motorbikes/people running round everywhere. Someone could easily have stepped on it or driven over it, maybe it fell off the car.

Its very unusual for a frame to break at the top tube/seatstay junction mid ride, much more likely that he binned it, it cracked then later broke or simply that someone dropped it.

That has really gone, bloody hell.
Can’t say I am surprised that specialized are trying to blame something else.

Planche des Belles Filles 2014 : Nibali 16’43
Froome 2012 : 16’23. Nibali 2012 : 16’30

ITV4 highlights show saying he actually had two crashes, first a minor one where he just jumped onto Nick Roche’s bike, second one the leg breaker where his hand slipped off the bars causing him to lose control.

Beginning to wonder if this Tour is simply going to be last man standing and there are some massive time gaps already.

There was an incident a few minutes earlier where a saxo tinkoff riders bike was lying on the left hand side of the road and he was stood on the right hand side of the road. I think it was Nikki Roche but the pictures were fairly poor with the weather at that point.
There were tons of photographers at the scene. It’s going to be fairly hard to lie about it.

It wasn’t so much nibalis speed on the planche it was the fact he distanced everyone else, rode a 20 degree slope and then was able to stick his thumb in his gob for several seconds. Try going at 90odd percent of max hr for 4 minutes then do that. Maybe he was indeed breathing through his arse.

I wonder whether this might be harder for Astana to manage as every one that might have been eyeing up top 10 now ‘only’ has to beat one of the 3 favourites. It’s going to be their best chance to win the GC so they’ll chuck the kitchen sink at it over the next week. Are Astana up to managing everyone on their own.

So is the thought that Contador crashed and Roche gave him his bike and then he binned it again? Would explain why Roache looked fine waiting for a bike

Still no reason why it has contador’s number on it though

Can’t see that as it’s got the 31 plate on it, but it’s not the one he was riding when he had the crash where he was patched up (that was orange) and the next bike he got didn’t have a number on at all.

I think Nibali has made Contador irrelevant.

Defo berties bike that was broken:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/07/news/timeline-details-alberto-contadors-tour-ending-crash_336328

Story seems to be that he had a problem earlier and switched to Nico’s bike. Then when Nico was changing bikes to get off of Contador’s bike back onto his spare, the team car somehow ran over Contadors. There are some photos that seem to support this.

Incredible that he rode on for 15k uphill though, passing other riders, with those injuries 😯

I think Nibali has made Contador irrelevant.

At least Nibali is making it look like he deserves to win the tour. Though I’m sure it’d be a better race having him battle Contador and Froome for the win. Now looks to be a scramble for second place.

that pic of the blue and yellow spesh isn’t the bike he was riding at the time of the crash. he was on a black and orange spesh. so that ^^^ is either photoshopped, or an old pic, or as mrblobby says was run over by the team car, which is what spesh are saying.

Just been having a squint at the itv highlights and I don’t have a high def telly but the bike in front of contador as he was being patched up was definitely that colour and looked to have a top tube that didn’t meet the seat stays very similar to that bike.

Does look like he was on this one…

… which isn’t the broken bike. Or was that the one he got back on after the crash? I think I’ve got the live eurosport coverage recorded. I’ll have to check it out later.

Based on the fact that bike has bottles still in place and the chain on I dont think its the one he crashed.

Just been having a squint at the itv highlights and I don’t have a high def telly but the bike in front of contador as he was being patched up was definitely that colour and looked to have a top tube that didn’t meet the seat stays very similar to that bike.

no yellow on top tube…

Based on the fact that bike has bottles still in place and the chain on I dont think its the one he crashed.

who’s is it then? no one stopped with him, and it’s got a number and transponder on it, and thats the one the mechanic picked up when he gave bertie the new bike. There’s no broken bike scandal here 🙂