Tour de France 2018

realy curious as to how the sky team is progressing, G and Froom seem to be just getting on expecting one of them is going to have an epic day and put the stamp on where it is going to go. cant see G losing 1m40s in the pyranees seeing as he has seemed stronger than Froome in the alps. then the individual time trial yes froome is faster but not that much and G will turn his lungs inside out to hold on to time.

not sure about the team racist and the punching incident, juts best to let him go and leave it at that.
 
Still can't see Froome relinquishing the chance of winning all three grand tours in the same year.

Good fun guessing, my money is on Sky applying the pressure on the peleton and then the two leaders taking it in turns attacking to wear Dumoulin down.
Probably totally wrong, but think Froome has had a relatively easy ride and will be the strongest of the two in the Pyrenees.

We shall see very soon
 
I think G will keep out the way of Froom and Dumoulin and let them slug it out, maybe save a bit of energy for the later stages.
Dumoulin looks on paper to be a better time trial that Froome so he might be worried about that stage.
 
I think Wednesday's short mountains stage could be very significant. On the BBC website Mark Cavendish says "It will be full gas from start to finish, no matter who you are. ... I think you have to know what you can sustain for those climbs and every single rider in the peloton will be looking at their power meters."

It sounds to me like this is going to favour riders and teams who know exactly what they can deliver on the day, and I imagine that means it favours Sky because they're the best resourced and the best funded. Froome's astonishing ride to win the Giro showed a great attention to detail and planning, in terms of knowing how much power he could produce and how he would need to be fed to sustain that; I don't know whether the other teams have that ability but it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't.

Of course that doesn't mean it's a win for Froome or Thomas; on the day Dumoulin or Roglic or somebody might simply be stronger. But it seems likely to me that the Sky riders will be able to give 100% and know that they've given 100%, whereas for the others there's more of a risk of going too fast or too slow.

However it pans out, it's fascinating to see such an innovative stage in the schedule.


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French farmers spray riders with fertalizer. Lets hope the only riders effected are French. Now confirmed as CS gas sprayed by police to stop farmers from getting to riders. Not fertalizer sprayed by farmers.
 
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French farmers seem to demonstrate at the tdf every year, not known riders to be affected by noxious substances before though.

Hope the gendarmes nick them all, get the feeling President Macron is a bit more hardline dealing with the militant tendency
 
Not just the farmers all the French love a good strike
 
Mr Bump said:
Not just the farmers all the French love a good strike
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Didn't one French farmer get a strike in 1984? (Bernard Hinault!)
 
Appears the noxious substance came from the Gendarmes, so hope the farmers didn't get nicked, nothing wrong with a peaceful protest.

Mr Bump said:
Not just the farmers all the French love a good strike
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Indeed, still got some balls over there

Should be an interesting day on the tour, no idea how a 65km dash over the peaks with no flat will go.
Grid start should be good too, my guess is Froome will go on the last climb and take the overall lead.

.
 
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Interesting that at the weekend the bookies had Froome roughly evens to win, Thomas slightly worse odds. This morning it's Thomas slight odds-on (typically 4/5) and Froome slightly longer (typically 6/4). I guess the thinking is that we've had one more mountain stage where Froome didn't break Thomas and nobody crashed out.

Also interesting that the bookies have Dumoulin as quite an outsider (typically 6/1). Though it's hard to know whether that's a genuine assessment of the probabilities, or biased because these are all British bookies.

I still think today could be decisive.
 
I reckon G will stick to Froome to support him today against Doomalan, and if Froome goes for it then G will follow but only to so he doesn't lose time.
I don't think he will try to take time from Froome.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
So what’s changed since Stage 11 then?
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Because I think the team talk will all be about protecting froomes 2nd place podium finish now and G is after all his friend.
They will be looking to shut down doomalain today even he said on interview last night today was his best chance to take froome.
 
I'm Welsh and am very happy G is leading but I have watched cycling for years and have a strong feeling he is going to "blow up" as they say in the sport, on one of the very hard climbs and not only lose the lead but drop several places. Possibly today on the short stage I believe
 
I wonder if Froome will put in a ride today like he did in the giro, he seems to have had a relatively easy tour so far ( if you can call anything about the tour easy ) ..he could easily take back his time on G if he puts a big ride in.
 
Ready to go. Whilst ITV4 are faffing about with their competition, Eurosport have live images.
 
Well that was an interesting stage. I won’t name the winner as I don’t want to spoil it for those that are waiting for the highlights later, but I’m glad to have seen him take the stage.
 
Watched it from start to finish this afternoon, very enjoyable, not sure about that grid start though.

Wish I had a quid for every time Millar said the word "explode" over the last two days, even got a new word explodinary
Hope he is out of contract soon
 
tijuana taxi said:
Watched it from start to finish this afternoon, very enjoyable, not sure about that grid start though.

Wish I had a quid for every time Millar said the word "explode" over the last two days, even got a new word explodinary
Hope he is out of contract soon
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I actually like David Millar, he is an ex pro (I know he doped, so I shouldn't like him) but he is intelligent, but I wish they (him and Ned Boulton) would stop talking about the "nitro button" - it is "nitrous" as in nitrous oxide.
 
andy700 said:
I actually like David Millar, he is an ex pro (I know he doped, so I shouldn't like him) but he is intelligent, but I wish they (him and Ned Boulton) would stop talking about the "nitro button" - it is "nitrous" as in nitrous oxide.
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I also like his insights. However I did watch most of it on Eurosport though, that seemed to have fewer commercial breaks.
 
I loved when they had Wiggins commentating on ITV. Brutal honesty
 
Grid start was odd but i liked it and the short brutal stage was great, good result i would like that agin in next years tour
 
Geraint looking very good, see Froome is still very unpopular- booing at the the end.
 
nog said:
Geraint looking very good, see Froome is still very unpopular- booing at the the end.
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Out in France they spit, throw pee in their face, boo, shout obscenities, punch riders. A minority of course
 
What a great stage ,the short distance worked really well I think , don’t think the grid start was very good though . Yeah I thought Wiggins was good commentating last coupe of days too.
 
Mr Bump said:
Grid start was odd but i liked it and the short brutal stage was great, good result i would like that agin in next years tour
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and pointless given that within a 100yds of the start sky had a rider from mid pack sat on the front.

Not counting any chickens, froome pulled a worse deficit out the bag on the Giro, but really do hope G does hold to the end
 
AgentOrange76 said:
and pointless given that within a 100yds of the start sky had a rider from mid pack sat on the front.

Not counting any chickens, froome pulled a worse deficit out the bag on the Giro, but really do hope G does hold to the end
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the grid start was about getting rid of the pointless 5km walm up ride out behind the team car and for me it was better.
 
andy700 said:
Some of the spectators are absolute idiots and should be arrested, and it seems the Gendarmes aren't much better. We had the idiot with the mace spray, and then yesterday another Gendarme pulled Froome off his bike when the stage had finished and the riders were making their way back down the mountain.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/chris-froome-crashed-by-gendarme-after-tour-de-france-stage/
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bit more to it than that knew jerk report, the gendarmes are supposed to stop people riding down the stage as riders were still coming up to the finish.
Froome should have waited at the top a bit
 
Mr Bump said:
bit more to it than that knew jerk report, the gendarmes are supposed to stop people riding down the stage as riders were still coming up to the finish.
Froome should have waited at the top a bit
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Pretty sure its normal for riders to go back down the mountain whilst the slower riders are still on the way up.
Froome having the plain over jacket probably led to the confusion.
 
nog said:
Pretty sure its normal for riders to go back down the mountain whilst the slower riders are still on the way up.
Froome having the plain over jacket probably led to the confusion.
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maybe so, but the police are up against it on this occasion and it might have been more prudent for them to have gone down a bit more as a group.
bottom line froome fled the scene to get back to start his recovery process.
 
StewartR said:
You don't think he can take 2 minutes out of Thomas in the time trial?
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I’m not convinced that he can, plus he’d be playing a very dangerous game leaving it so late. IMO he needs to take time out of him today.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
I’m not convinced that he can, plus he’d be playing a very dangerous game leaving it so late. IMO he needs to take time out of him today.
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MMM. It is interesting though. Dumoulin had a few goes at Thomas in the mountains previously, but couldn't get away from him. Should he have another go today, with the obvious risk that he may fail? Or is he better off conserving as much energy as possible today, and giving it the full gun in tomorrow's time trial? Psychologically the latter approach might be better.....
 
I do not think that Doumoulin can take 2 minutes from Thomas in a 31K TT. Thomas used to be the British TT champion and a World class pursuiter - both team and individual.
 
I think Doumalin will go on the last climb today again and try to take some time of G but the biggest danger is Roglic and Quintana wanting Froomes 3rd place that is where todays battle is to be fought.
 
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