Tour de France 2016

Don't think it can be too much down to Kittel being off form - too many other good sprinters competing for that.

Honorary Frenchie.

Lol at Cav "Oh yeah, I didn't really think about that."

New Cav is sooo much more media savvy than old Cav.

Lots of good sprinters, means chaos and lots of bodies in the sprint, which work well for sprinters with good reactions and sense of awareness, i.e. Cav.

Loads of lead out men were looking around because they had lost their sprinters.

Where did Dan McLay come from, that was a great sprint, just a bit off on timing, but almost had both Kittel and Cav!

Waves Manx Flag!

Manxiter

Now that Cav is fully back, will he stick around to contest the Champs or retire before the high mountains and get back to Rio track prep as anticipated?

I'm still betting on Rio after he's had a crack at Montpellier.

Any chance of him over taking Merckx?

Do the commentators get exactly the same images as us? I'm amazed at Ned's ability to name riders based on a two second glance.

Although did anyone notice he called Geoffrey Soupe, "Jérémie?"

For that I hope he gets fired.

Before this Tour, I'd have said no. Now I'm not so sure. Cavendish is 31, so in theory he has another four Tours in him. He's five stages behind Merckx now, so it's definitely an achievable goal.

What else can he achieve... He has to go for it now :)

They can see all the camera feeds at once plus one that shows what the viewers can see.

I wonder if Lefevere is regretting not letting Cav ride track now ?

Cav now favourite for the world champs this year? Or will the olympics take too much out of him?

Omnium's not as tough as 3 weeks of the tour, if he is in good condition for omnium, he should be good for the worlds. A lot of strong British riders to support as well.

He's got E2 races to focus on.

Today nullifies my bet about Cav stage wins so it's all good so far. Now I just need France to win the Euros and I'm in the money.

http://www.letour.com/le-tour/2016/us/stage-7.html

Mountains!

This is going to be good, Quintana and Froome will hopefully give us a taste of what's to come. Quintana has been livelier in this first week than previously.

Contador must be worried today as its likely he may walk if he goes past a 8 minutes deficit. That last decent has valverde and quintana all over it .

71 times the TdF has been over the Col d'Aspin.

The climb looks beautiful.

It's going to go crazy on that ascent though, they all know whoever crests it in the lead has probably got the stage.

On the flipside, the non-climbers must hate a stage like this... it's not so bad in that they can go slow on the climb and still be in the time window of the finish, but... they have to spend the whole day riding towards a mountain range, with it in front of them, knowing all the while that this climb awaits them when they get there.

I am no climber, I would hate this.

Would be unfair to say they can go slow.

Today is almost a rest day for most of the non-climbers. Once the break goes, then BMC will ride tempo for most of the day, there'll be an increase in speed as they approach the foot of the climb, then most of the peloton can sit up as soon as the climb starts and ride tempo to the finish.

It's the mountain stages with 4 or 5 climbs that the non-climbers hate, as they have to ride hard to make sure they get inside the time limit.