Tour De France 2018

Yellow jumper can’t connect with the race today. Shy of these wonderful pave secteur names?

I appreciate it’s a different era, but it was normal for the top riders to ride all the major races 20 years ago.

That occurred to me too.

Perhaps it was an attempt to favour more rounded riders?

More gnarmobble in future...

Egan Bernal what a kid. He’s going to win them all isn’t he.

And what a stage, if you don’t think a stage like today has its place in the tour then you missunderstand what the tour is meant to be. It’s not a free ride to the mountains for the climbers, it’s to see who is the best all around racer and that includes hard cobbles as much as t does summit finishes and short punchy climbs.

Fantastic racing.

And what a win for John, so deserves.

so deserves

https://video.eurosport.de/radsport/tour-de-france/2018/tour-de-france-2018-john-degenkolb-gewinnt-ausreisser-sprint-in-roubaix-und-holt-ersten-etappensieg_vid1107792/video.shtml

https://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Sportschau/9-Etappe-die-letzten-drei-Kilometer/Das-Erste/Video?bcastId=53524&documentId=54217258

Great stage.
Quintana finishing 24th shows it wasn't too hard.

Wonder how much of a toe an extremely hard day like today took on GC riders. Maybe today's stage was great but in 2 days in the Alps we won't be expriencing the usually emotions because none of the riders will be able to attack on the ascent properly. Can't judge a very hard and unusual stage without looking at the whole race.

The race isn’t just in the mouantains!

People have some obsession with mountains, which can be seriously boring. It’s about the whole three weeks and today was very much a part of the show, with some incredible racing. Far more fun that a lot of mountain stages.

That last kilometre video is really excellent racing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95iHduSgj98

I didn't realise Gilbert (just) outsprinted Sagan, too.

Greg van Avermaet must enjoy his status as 'default yellow jersey wearer until the start of the high mountains', though. :)

People have some obsession with mountains, which can be seriously boring.

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

Would have been better if lampart attacked. Guess he didn’t have the legs hence QS chasing behind.

I inwardly groaned when I saw gva in the final km. Was very happy that he didn't have the sprint in him, wanted degelnkob to win.

I like it when it's bonkers racing, I like flat stages with a sprint finish, I don't like the TT though. Until the last hour or so. Is bit dull. It's the fucking tour! It's three weeks of nuts.

Yes, definitely. I think the other two would have closed him down, though. It might have opened it up for van Avermaet to win.

Greipel says this was faster racing then Paris Roubaix.

And what a stage

Yep - enjoyed that a lot.

And what a win for John, so deserves.

Yep, really, really pleased for him to get the win. He's had a really tough 30 months since his accident, and it's testament to his resilience that he's still racing at the top level.

He's now got the GT stage win full sweep too.

What time do itv highlights normally become available on catchup roughly?

It turns out that Greipel was actually in the crash that did for Richie Porte and he still came down only 27 seconds down and was eighth.

Up now

Somehow Bardet came in only 34 seconds behind the leaders. Proper hard day out for him, bet he's glad it's rest day tomorrow.

Somehow Bardet came in only 34 seconds behind the leaders.

Well, there may be a kernel of truth in that, but ...

[...] White, like Tom Dumoulin after last Thursday’s stage to Mûr de Bretagne, also accused race officials of turning a blind eye to some blatant drafting by rival teams.

“TV motorbikes were in the way today, and they’ve been in the way a lot this week,” he said. “When they tow multiple guys back on to the peloton – the group of Bardet and Mikel Landa came back through the cars inside the last three kilometres, that shouldn’t happen. You judge if it’s been the same for everyone.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/15/tour-de-france-chaos-cobbles-john-degenkolb-wins-stage-nine-roubaix-greg-van-avermaet

I don't know if that was the case for Greipel, too.

Less chance of Bardet or French riders getting penalised, and drafting an TV moto is probably the safest thing to draft to avoid sanctions.

If course, if it were Froome, he would have been sanctioned...

Christ 162km in 3h39m.

I was looking very closely at the time Bardet/Landa and Uran were loosing to the peloton as I was giving feed to a friend who couldn’t watch. I have it all write down because I was messaging him the times. Bardet’s group was loosing about 50s at 10km to the finish as well as about 40s 5 km to the finish. They were having a really, really hard time chasing. This is time to the peloton so Froomes/Majka’s group. Then when I saw he’s only 7 s behind at the finish like I was like “dayum, there must have been an issue with data tracking from individual riders”.

Perhaps that wasn’t the case.

And Greipel crashed at the 7th km with Porte. He got back on the bike quickly but had his right wrist looked at by the medical car physio.