Tour de France 2016

At the start of the day he was 29 seconds back on Sagan so 11 seconds back on Froome and the other main GC contenders, 13 on Valverde if you count him.

For the second day in a row now I've caught a spoiler. Grrrrr. Sounds like it's a stage worth catching up on.

In other news, I didn't even realise Talansky wasn't riding this year. Shame.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/talansky-will-miss-tour-de-france-focus-on-vuelta-a-espana/

okay so there or thereabouts.
Hoping he does well, know he and Bardet and Barguil are dark horses but I'd really love it if Pinot won it, had a bit of a soft spot for him since his win a couple of years back when Marc Madiot was going mental in the car shouting encouragement to him....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMmyyEOeVTs

Valverde :(

You're all going to miss him when he goes.

Majka seems to be doing his best to come across as a pantomime villain, to replace Valverde.

Was it Majka who went from plucky underdog to smarmy twat within a couple of stages by repeatedly winking at the camera and so forth whilst in a solo break?

If Sagan had done it you'd be wanking on all day about it.

Kwiatkowski?

Yes.

But Sagan has an easy charm about him. Majka's mum probably has to think twice about maternal love when he does that wink thing.

^harsh

^^ fair

I retract my previous statement after another reviewing the evidence from Google images.

I knew it!

I really quite like the crop of French riders at the top this year. In fact now that Nibali and Contador are sinking out of contention, I'm having a hard time coming up with a GC contender that I'll be annoyed about if they do win.

Naturally I'm backing Froome because British and I'd like to see a defending champion actually defend. However I'd be happy for any of them to win. Not only that but watching all the other little stories unfold like Cav chipping away at Merckx, Sagan being Sagan, the photo finishes, McLay, I'm already excited by what has, so far, been quite a boring Tour. Yes, I know that Sky are going to try and boring their way into a win but with the likes of Avermaet, Voeckler, hopefully Cummings and some others, I'm think we're going to see some passionate racing.

And while we're talking about French riders, have you guys seen Alaphilippe pulling antics on live tv?

http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2016/us/stage-6.html

Last few KMs

Looks like a day for Cav.

I hope Vanmarcke et al can get Dylan Groenewegen to the front at the right time, his efforts are looking promising, he wasn't far off the mark in the 4th stage

Could be. I reckon he's going to be up there but I think the lumps might affect him.

None of the hills today should trouble the likes of Kittel or Cavendish. Plus the 50 km flat run in will allow the sprinter's teams to regroup.

Some of yesterday's hills looked tough!
Would like to see what Cav is capable of today when not boxed in.

Boring tour so far? It's only been 5 stages, most of them flat sprint stages. Do you want pave carnage every year? To me that is a bit boring. I'd rather see more stages like yesterday.
If you look at the profile, there will be plenty of excitement in week 2 and 3. I don't think Sky are 'boring' their way to a win, they're just aware that it's back loaded into the final week - so they're staying out of it.

Tinkoff team seems to have given up on Contador as of yesterday.