Tour de France 2017

It's similar to the rolling shutter effects you can see. Have a look at this
video and bear in mind that a finish-line camera is a single strip of pixels taken as a sequence in time.

But as Kittel is a terminator sent from the future he'd probably just shrug it off.

0.0003 of a second in it apparently

So a draw.

Hea proberly on an all expenses holiday, as ever.

Technical term for this up north is a 'bawhair's width'

Tomorrow looks fruity. I think a break could stay away on that, no? Tommy V's swansong so I'm sure he'll be up for it, maybe a few punchier riders like Van Avermaet?

Cummings has got to be targeting one or two stages heavily, he's barely turned a pedal in anger, gotta be fresh as a fucking daisy, well as fresh as you could be at this stage of the race. He's got the form as the nationals showed, and he's got the guile as previous wins show. I'd put a small coin down on him getting in the break.

As close as dammit. Thought Dimension Data rode a superb race, Eisel and Renshaw were immense in their lead out. I doubt many expected EBH to be too much of a danger today, but he showed them. I love EBH, such a humble but hard rider, would be great to see him win more.

Kittel said he thought the line was further away, you can see him change pace as he realises how close it is.

Vibes from Sky are they don't have a problem giving away yellow tomorrow. Could set the cat amongst the pigeons. I reckon it will be bonkers from the off.

Would not surprise me if Froome launches up the final climb all guns blazing just to show BMC how tactics are actually done.

Normally you'd expect the first hour to be full of action, but so far this Tour most breaks have gone without much of a fight. Hopefully tomorrow will be similar to the start of Wednesday's stage.

I think a lot of stage hunter types have tomorrow's stage marked in the road book. I bet some of Van Avermaet, Cummings, Chavanel, de Gendt, Pauwels et al will be in the break.

Thing about the finish camera image is that the y (horizontal) dimension represents time not distance. A quick web search finds a system which does 2048 vertical pixels at 4000 frames (vertical lines) per second. In which case the interval between pixels on the horizontal represents about 0.00025 seconds.

And assuming finish line speed of 70 km/h, which is about 20 m/s, then 0.00025 seconds is 5mm ahead. Which isn't a massive degree of precision. Although maybe the Tour uses a higher fps system.

Edit: @Jimmy_Fingers implies my numbers are about right. So less than 5mm in it.

You think GVA may be held back to help Porte? If he isn't that's a very big difference between BMC and Sky.

De Gendt has seemed very keen to get into breaks, the opposite of Cummings. Looking to ride himself into stage-winning form? I've half-hoped he's targeting the polka dots.

For example you could look at that stage and say it would really suit Kwia, but you know there is no way

I heard 6mm but I thought that was too much

If BMC let GVA loose, don't leave solid support for Porte, like they didn't have at the Dauphine and Wednesday then Porte will get fried.

BMC have said publically that Van Avermaet will have freedom to hunt for stage wins on selected stages. I'd be astonished if tomorrow isn't one of them.

Not sure if you listen to the cycling podcast, but Francois Thomazeau relayed a conversation he had with an unnamed BMC DS, which can be summarised as too many cooks spoil the broth when it comes to their tactics. Apparently the team briefing on Wednesday made no mention of riding on the front all day, but instead a DS in the team car (and I don't know who was in the car) made the call in direct contravention of the agreed plan. Which makes sense, BMC have a long and less than distinguished history of strange tactical decisions.

Yeah there has been a lot of chatter about the disharmony amongst the many BMC DSs, and you sorta feel this why they won't win. Yes GVA has a very good chance to win the stage, but if your GC is really your ambition you'd use him as a foil for Porte.

Maybe that's his hair styling tekkers.
#dadsjokes

Waiting patiently for Trek-Segafredo to light this shit up motherfuckers*

*Laughs forever

They should be appealing Cancellara's retirement to CAS

Apparently they are going to activate the clause in Contador's contract for a second year. Meanwhile Fabio Aru is on the market.

Segafredo may provide money, but they don't appear to have much influence.

Pinot?