Tour de France 2017

Micky K is going to have quite the classics season in 2018.

Col de Vars,
quite an uninspiring climb

I have equally bleak memories of that one. I started the day unable to eat and had to tap out Izoard and Vars in 35 degree heat on just water. Grim.

Not as grim as the ghost town ski resort near the top of Vars though.

Kwia is something else, literally pedalled until he stopped and had to unclip as came to a complete standstill. Cant imagine doing that day after day and then having to carry on to the end.

Col de Vars was our 3rd climb on day 5 back in 2007.
From La Grave-Lautaret-Izoard-Vars-Larche-Vinadio Italia
+3000m of climbing in 10hours, shit tired on the final descent, then up 5flights of stairs with bags sans passenger lift..

2010 went over Vars twice, due to some mountain passes being closed and had to loop on day 5..

I don't need to see that ghost town again.. even if the patisseries are epic..

Don't Annoy The Gendarme

http://www.giphy.com/gifs/l3JDCawl6HYo8weME

Where/on which stage did Barguil sacrifice time to give himself the opportunity to go for mountain points?

Looks like he could have been top five given the way he has climbed.

Stage 1?

1,5,6,8,12.
Up to +16'

This made me laugh.

https://twitter.com/michalkwiatek/status/888323401366077440

Bwahaha. I bet there was a well happy fan at the side of the road though. Sponsor must be pissed.

Give him a pair with the stupid string to stop them falling off.

Yeah

Stage 9

The gap between Froome and Uran is only 29 seconds. Barring any change today, could that gap foreseeably be overcome in the TT? What about Bardet, he doesn't look like he'd be a strong TT'er?

What confuses me is that equipment is supposed to be commercially available.

Even more overlooked than most of the UCI's rules..

The data above suggests no, but Uran seems to be on excellent form in this tour, so it's not inconceivable if Froome has a bad day or makes a mistake and Uran has an excellent day.

I thought you can run 'production' equipment that will be sold 'soon' or something. So yeah, no running prototypes. Of course not.

Last time I checked, fashion houses like Chanel have no prices in their boutiques. Cos, if you need to ask you can't afford it. Pretty sure the pro tour equipment works like this; it's commercially available but nobody can afford it.

Yeah, there's a time frame for public release but it's still supposed to be certified not just proto shit. There's also rules about specific equipment being used to attain records - rendering all the current Hour records illegal.

Given Froome's TT prowess I think it would take a crash or mechanical or some other problem. I don't think Uran will be able to close the gap through his own riding.

Bardet doesn't look like he'd be second in the GC either, but no he's no great TT'er. He's been working on it but lost out in the Dauphiné thanks to his TT performance.

I think we would need the perfect storm of Froome having an off day, and a bike problem like a slow puncture for uran to make up 30 seconds.

Yeah, hence the Slice RS frame costing $10,000

And you can 'buy' the British Cycling track bikes.

For about 200 metres.

Sky training camps (and probably everybody else's) look horrific; they did more climbing than the TDF in 2 weeks on Teide. I saw someone speculate they crank their training load so high before TDF that they might be recovering whilst riding TDF with sprint stages etc.

Bardet is only in second because the of the dishonesty of the commissaires so it would be fair if Uran overtakes him.

Teide is a fun place to ride too. A real mix of climates in Tenerife: the north is nice and cool if you don't fancy a scorching day. Got a wave from a Cannondale rider being motopaced in the north of the island when I was there in May too.

Eh?