Tour de France 2016

To be fair to Froome, he has got a couple of important days coming up. Sagan, not so much.

That would have been great. Froome with his ketones drink and sagan with a beer.

Fair play to froome for bridging that gap though, he's going well. And for riding hard with sagan.

For sure @andyp, I jest really. I know he needs to warm down.

If it wasn't clear. I love the Tour this year.
Everyone is getting stuck in, the racing is some of the best we've seen in a long time.

Not a boring day yet.

not paying for wiggins and froome must have helped

Movistar, BMC, and Etixx...have they all just given up on their GC men? Seems like they're more interested in not losing time than winning the race.

Froome has made the others look like Cat 4 choppers. I still can't bring myself to like him though, even though his race has been almost flawless.

Maybe they're tacitly racing for 2nd place, although it sounds like Movistar are saving everything for the final week

Anyone got any good videos or guides to explaining watching a cycle race? Friend said he watched some of today's stage and didn't understand what was going on, though he wanted too.

It's possible that Sky know Froome has trouble in his third weeks, know Quintana seems to really show in his third week, and are therefore trying to capitalize on everything the can. They won the tour with a lucky echelon last year.

Ben, why don't you explain to your 'friend' what is going on?

Just direct him to watch all the old "How the Race Was Won"?

Mixture of busy/would want to do it in person. Plus a proper concise guide made by a professional is going to be better than my ramblings.

I hear andyps day rate is reasonable

You know Carlton Kirby?

trollololololol

Chris and ned did those "all you kneed to know outakes that where quite explanetery.
Bidon
Drafting
On the rivet
Bollard
Bunnyhop
Getting dropped
Sprinting
And our current friend echelon.

You've forgotten stage 3 already. Thierry Gouvenou didn't want to award the combativity prize, but had to due to keeping sponsors happy.

Tell him to check out Cyclocosm's How The Race Was Won videos on YouTube.

This 'Froome fades in the third week' fallacy needs to die. He was ill last year, hence losing some time to Quintana. But in 2013 and even 2012, he was strong in the third week.

*shrug*

I'm just hoping this doesn't turn into a procession.

Didn't he lose over a minute to Quintana and Rodriguez in the Alps in 2013?

He bonked with 5 kms to go on Alpe d'Huez, and lost over a minute. But he'd gained that on Quintana in the TT the day before (and had nearly 7 minutes lead on GC over both of them at the time).

I see tomorrow's stage is shortened by 6km due to high winds on Ventoux............maybe they'll have to start cancelling stages altogether because of rain!!

new Froome won't bonk, that's for certain

tomorrow will be the same as today but with an uphill finish. what a treat

Have you ever been on Mont Ventoux when the wind is blowing?

Thought not.

'high winds' as in 9 Beaufort, not too shabby. I almost got blown off my bike by much, much less wind near the top...

edit: plus what Andy says