Tour de France 2015

They're not spectators. Well some of them are but usually it's members of the team with wheels and stuff in cobbled sections.

Froome had started P-R before but not finished. He's also a stick insect and light guys don't tend to do so well on cobbles.

End of his Tour in terms of any GC aspirations.

Why was everyone saying Froome would do badly on the cobbles? He's
done Paris Roubaix before. He crashed last year, but was that even his
fault?

He crashed and abandoned before the cobbles last year. He abandoned then rather than trying to go any further possibly because he didn't fancy trying the cobbles with a broken hand. That didn't mean he could not handle cobbles when fit.

I have to confess that today's media coverage in the mainstream media was embarrassing. Froome Froome Froome Sky Froome.

These spectators holding up wheels, they aren't just random punters are they? They are from the various teams, right?

At P-R this year we got chatting to a Sky chap in the arenberg forest. Turns out he's the Rapha - Sky product liason guy, no real mechanicing skills. Just there with a wheel or two if it comes to it. No pressure, then :)

Why was everyone saying Froome would do badly on the cobbles? He's done Paris Roubaix before. He crashed last year, but was that even his fault?

Not built for it, not enough experience of it, to the point where the other riders who do have the experience and are built for it can make his life very difficult if they choose to. He was lucky, I think, that the weather was sympathetic and neautralised the power advantage the larger riders had to a degree.

Also, when Pino got a puncture, Ligget said something like "well that's the end of his tour then". Wut? He was only a minute or two off the back of the peleton by the time he got a wheel?

He was already three minutes down on GC, and lost another three with the two mechanicals he had - although quite why he didn't take a teammates bike I don't know. But yeah, ligget was over-egging it. Hesjedal was ten minutes down on GC in the Giro and worked his way back to fith. But I guess that's scant concelation if you were - optimisically - looking for a podium.

@Chalfie

I also don't understand why we're laughing at Froome objecting to people not pushing on with him.

I'm not sure there was anyone in that group with any incentive, at all, to work with him. His chastising looked comically optimistic.

IN P-R, I'm sure I've heard of the tradition that random spectators hold wheels up, with the tacit understanding if any of them are used the team will give them back one of the 'proper' ones from the sponsors. As the roads in P-R are difficult to get cars down, it would save the riders races to take one as it could be ages until a car could get there (if at all).