PTW

Crikey. I'm so used to the start being on the first weekend in July that I only realised it was TDF time when visiting Google today! Let's use this as a thread for chat, banter and to applaud Froome and Cav's wins in the Yellow and Green jerseys .

BTW great stage win by the Orica GreenEDGE team bus. Chapeau!

By all accounts the team have been fined 2000 Swiss Francs for the little bus misdemeanor, a little harsh one thinks.....There's an hilarious spoof twitter account set up https://twitter.com/OricaBusDriver

What a strange start to the 100th TDF. Some teams were geared up to finish at the 3Km sign, others didn't know. Then after a few teams used their lead out men to get to the 3Km sign, the organisers switched it back to the original finish! Then the big crash, with Tony Martin badly injured. All we wanted was 'Tank' to run out on the road with just a towel around his waist, and the stage would have been complete!
Rumour has it that the OGE bus driver is now driving the broom wagon, just to keep him well away from the finish line.

Stage 2 winner.

He who dares Rodney, he who dares!!

Stage 3 felt like it belonged right in the middle of the third week of the Tour and the Corsican scenery was amazing.

Not so amazing was the Polka Dot shorts worn by KOM Pierre Rolland. Really?

Agree with you there Alf. That Corsican coastal cliff road was awesome, all you needed was a tail wind to make it perfect. It would make a great route for the club run.
Corsica will probably see a huge increase in tourists after the massive TV exposure.
Excellent finale to stage 3, with a few riders having a go.
Geraint is suffering a bit, but hey, he's a cyclist not a footballer!

Polka dot shorts on order (NOT)!

Post Race Cavendish...

Style Guru or "should have gone to Specsavers"?

Great to watch all the big guns going head to head and Cav getting what's needed to stay in the points mix. Also, once again Europcar have been awesome to watch, getting in the majority of breaks, though may be more for maxing out the advertising for sponsor rather than real attempts

Better get that Europcar kit out that you bought last year in France mate.
Cracking sprint yesterday, but if only Cav hadn't crashed earlier. He had to use a lot of energy to get back on as the peleton was flying at the time.
Weather looking good all round for the next week or so. Off to France tomorrow to get some stress free cycling in!

is it just me or does anyone else think that chris froome's climbing style have a resemblence for Mr Burns from the simpsons ?

Reminds me of Striker.

Just caught up with the past two days...

I loved the 'matesmanship' of Simon Gerrans giving the jersey to his team mate Daryl Impey. A lot of bad stuff goes on in our sport (let's not go there right now) but stuff like this and some of the long-standing traditions (like not attacking the yellow jersey when he has a mechanical or a 'chute' or on the last day) are fantastic.

Moving onto yesterday, quite simply Froome and Sky were superb and threw down the gauntlet to the other teams. BTW am I alone in detecting that, within Sky, Froome is a more popular team leader than Wiggins?

Slightly OT but I'm loving the new TDF Skoda ad. They've come a long way.

Cav...

Entertainment Value = 10/10

Some classic stages in recent days with the highlights being Cav winning from a breakaway (reminded me of Cipollini in Gent-Wevelgem 2002-ish) and Froome winning on the iconic Ventoux.

Even better, in the past few days we've had Sherwin mention somebody's naarsty accident plus the classic Sherwinistic phrase "there's panic on board team xyz". My tour is complete.

I enjoyed watching the Mont Ventoux stage today having ridden it myself only a few weeks ago. It was nice recognising all the parts of it and impressed with the speeds they did it at. I could appreciate how fast they were going, I was pretty much in the lowest gear all the way up but I did it all the same.

Didn't we watch Froome vs Contador on several mountain stages in last year's Vuelta? And ISTR Froome had no answer to the various Spaniards. Things have changed since then. We just watched a British guy ride away from a Spaniard and a Columbian. That never happens.

I dun no guys - it was great viewing and i'm really chuffed a certain mr C*ntador got his butt kicked - I especially liked the bit where Richie porte kind of smiled after he'd smashed the group to bits and knew Froome was about to put the hammer down!!
Only trouble is that i'm still licking my wounds from a certain yank who managed to fool me for a decade! They all seem a bit too skinny for my liking........http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2962812/

I hope, for the sports sake they're clean! and Brailsford opens the books to WADA

Very True Andy. I too would like to think its because The Sky team have rounder wheels.
Is it True that Froomes time was faster (30 seconds) than the great climber and notorious drug taker that is Mario Pantani?
This could be down to different conditions, tail wind etc.
Anyway its nice to see that Athletics wants to come back to the drug taking party. Its only a matter of time before mainstream sports start testing!

Threads gone quite but I thought todays stage had a bit of everything.
Alpe d-huez at its best.
Two of the worlds best sporting venues on TV today.
Lords and Alpe D-Huez

dvlloyd wrote

Two of the worlds best sporting venues on TV today.
Lords and Alpe D-Huez

Nice to know that someone else appreciates cricket! That 'Packer' docu-drama brought back some memories.

Anyway, last week of the tour and I've had the tele in work. Today, I'm just wishing for the same rain that they're having....

"This is one yellow jersey that will stand the test of time."

Agreed. No doubt whatsoever.