Looks pretty horrible today, tollah got out just in time. But I’m expecting a brilliant finish 😀

Thanks for starting this one 🙂

I dunno what they’ll make of this stage. It’s hardly hilly, and there’s a lot of flat for everyone to catch up again if they get spread out.. but then there’s that kick at the end. Someone who can hammer up a short climb…

EDIT: the letour.fr coverage reckons it’ll be a day for former MTBers – makes sense to be fair.

Horrible day out there. Really shite weather. Philippe Gilbert or Evans for todays win.

Slight hijack – what’s that bike that Chris Boardman is riding when he does the piece-to-camera of the stage finishes on the ITV coverage? It’s de-badged and looks quite ‘aero-road’ – one from next years Boardman range?

EDIT: answered my own question – debadged AirTT-9.8 by the looks of it

Horrible day out there. Really shite weather. Philippe Gilbert or Evans for todays win.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Contador go for it, to get some time back. I think he’s worried about how far down he is.

Did anyone see this? Just heard them talking about it in commentary. I missed the sprint cause my internet went..

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cavendish-hushovd-relegated-in-tour-de-france-sprint

thor wasn’t holding his line and cav held him off with his head rather than give up his line.

punishments a bit harsh, but not surprising

This too…

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/blazing-saddles-row-erupts-over-rider-positions-in-ttt

🙄

I think both riders were disappointed – neither felt aggrieved towards the other so why the commissaire would do this is a mystery.

Another slight hijack – anyone know whats happened to the BBC Sport live text feed for the TDF this year?

I saw they covered the first two stages but not yesterday or today by the looks of it. I rely on that to keep up to speed until I can watch the ITV highlights.

http://data.srmlive.de/TDF/

this is quite a cool gizmo, it will come into its own when the Tour hits the mountains I reckon.

ell_tell, try http://live.cyclingnews.com/

What’s with 5 live sports extra? Yesterday they had coverage, today can’t find anything.

Bugger.. Eurosport player forces me to listen in German in Germany.

I wish I had chaps in cars following me who could change punctures in a matter of seconds ! I can see the group being reeled in quickly if the peloton really wanted to.

And they will – they always do. These early breakaways are not attempts to win the stage – just TV time for their sponsors, and everyone knows that. Thanks to team radios breaks on flat stages never succeed 🙁

Ridden loads round that area as my mother lived just outside Carhaix (tomorrows start town) for 10 years, the riding is tougher than it looks on the profile as you dont have much flat its either up or down.

Bit sad she moved back to the UK as it was a great way of having cheap holidays 🙁

That bike with people as the wheels was cool ! better than the tractor one of yesterday

http://www.tvcatchup.com/watch.html?c=10

works for me

molgrips what are you doing listening to 5 live sports 😮 this isn’t footy, tennis or cricket. They can barely cover the Rugby without flicking to a footy commentary every 10 secs.

I love the ‘bicycles’ that the little towns and villages do with hay bales and tractors and stuff. Just bin one with loads of people linking arms being the ‘wheels’. Fantastic. Must take a lot of thought and planning to do them. Some beautiful flower arrangements and that too. So nice to see the people of a nation making such an effort for a cycle race. Biggup an nuff respek to the French dem.

Ooh! Close one!

Cuddle wins by a tyre width!

DaRC – in Germany my options are limited!

Great ride by Cadel, considering he had to sprint back into the peleton a few times….

Glad he beat Contador.

Yeah, thank God Contador didn’t win!
Just a shame that 2 dopey drugged cheats (Contador and Vinokourov) were 2nd and 3rd…

Bertie’s just pushing Cuddle to breaking point. Cuddle won’t be able to keep that up, and will suffer later on in the Tour. Bertie will then drop him. I can’t see anyone other than Andy Schleck staying with Bertie. Wiggo can’t, simple as that.

Just a shame that 2 dopey drugged cheats

Yawn. Enough already, eh? Don’t hear you moaning about that other dopey druggie cheat David Millar being in 4th place…. 🙄

Be nice to see The God of Thunder win the green jersey again, instead of The Spoilt Toddler. That will annoy many on here which can only be a good thing.

having avoided this thread all afternoon, i find an IE window with the Guardian in it – todays result proudly displayed at the top of the front page

thats four days so far, no highlights programmes watched :o(

what’s that bike that Chris Boardman is riding

AFAIK, it’s a Boardman bike, sans logo. Nice looking bikes once you’ve disassociated them from Halfords.

well the last 2 days its clashed with scooby do, my daughters fav show and the only tv she watches, made it to 15k to go today, fired up the laptop and missed it al by the time it loaded! to add insult to injury my other daughter is on a school trip in normandy and has turned down an option to see the tour tomorrow!!

Bertie looked knackered with 500 metres to go, great ride by cuddles.

wouldn’t read to much into this climb, or the result. Its a lot steeper and punchier than any alpe or pryneean (sp) climb.

The Spanish steak looked a bit panicked today. Great ride by Cadel and Thor. Shaping up to be a brilliant tour. Surprisingly normal interview by Cadel too.

Did like how Thor changed out of his team kit and into his world champs kit, including bibs, before going onto the podium. Casually Deliberate to the max.

Is Clenbutador off the pace because he’s clean or because of the Giro?

Great to see Evans get the win. I can’t warm to him as a personality but I do have the greatest respect for him as a clean athlete and think he deserves a bit of good form and some good luck to go with it.

Contador looked like he’d overcooked it with the first acceleration, can’t actually ever remember seeing him pull that grimace face that he did today. He normally looks like he’s not actually making any effort, could be the affect of his new low protein diet.

Funny that little arm in the air thing he did too. ‘Yeah look at me I’m the winner person that came second’

The Giro was a killer, pressure being off the GC so early must be playing on him. He will have to put in a massive one in the hills and they will all be watching like hawks.

muppetWrangler – Member
Great to see Evans get the win. I can’t warm to him as a personality but I do have the greatest respect for him as a clean athlete and think he deserves a bit of good form and some good luck to go with it

How do you know he’s clean?

I take a position of believing in the athletes performance until there is sufficient doubt to make me think otherwise and I’ve never seen or heard anything suspicious on Evans.

Obviously it would be very virtually impossible to prove conclusively that anyone hasn’t taken a banned substance but I’d put Evans very, very, very low down on the sliding scale of grey area athletes.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0sYegIccqM[/video]

How to deal with sprinters!

Why cant people give Contador a break. The amount of drugs in his system was nothing and would have made no difference performance wise. The farting around with hearings is really not his fault and he will likely get let off anyway when they get round to it.

Even if he was doping (which I doubt), its not like he is the only one.

I don’t like him cos I don’t like his media personality – doping scandals aside. I appreciate he may be a nice bloke really but how are us fans meant to make a decision on who to support? Plus he’s won what, three times now, so my natural tendency is to favour the plucky underdog, the Brit or the patient waiter-in-wings.

Clenbutador

That’s funny though regardless 🙂