Tour de France 2014

Jurgen Van Den Broeck is a remarkable rider. Always there and never mentioned. I think he has never won a professional race but has been top ten in all three GTs and fourth twice at the Tour. He's fifth at the moment and he could easily stay there and still never been seen on TV.

He won a stage of the Dauphine in, I think, 2011.

I read an interview with him where he said that he knows he can't win a GT so he doesn't try. Lotto must be happy enough with what he achieves, or the points he brings in. The way things are this year I imagine he has a good chance of going unnoticed again and being in the top five at the end.

A top five in the Tour brings a lot of World Tour points, more than Greipel will get for winning a few stages, so you can see why they keep him. The thing I find curious about him is that, at 31, he still doesn't seem to know how good shape he is in. I read an interview with him before the Dauphine, when Lotto were making noises about him missing the Tour if his form wasn't there, and he said he thought his form was okay but the race would tell him either way. You would have thought, in this age of ever more scientific preparation, that he'd know his numbers.

(bit late to the party)
I quite like him. His best chance was probably in 2011 when he abandoned after that nasty crash and broke a few ribs, among other things.

Then again, I am an armchair expert, so what the fuck do I know?