Tour De France 2018

Tejay Guard's Van Deren

13k of fencing? Really? Then everyone moves to the previous mountain. Oh, I know, we can fence off the whole stage.

Pretty sure I know the bare arse guy.

Apparently a French fan was arrested and charged for punching Froome

Never despair. There used to be a barber's shop in Dalston called 'It'll Grow Back'.

Annoyingly, the building got demolished and I don't think it's coming back.

French fan punching Tour winner, crikey it's the Merckx haters still at it.

Nibali out

He’s won Paris-Nice, the Dauphiné, E3 and 3 stages of the Tour, plus numerous other wins and placings in major races. He’s also played a major role in Wiggins and most of Froome’s Tour wins.

Please explain how he is over rated.

Few golds too

Plus two Olympic, three world championship and one commonwealth gold medals...

Pretty overrated

He’s rubbish

IMO, G A-OK

So then this gridded stage whats going to happen now with so many out ?

Is that today?

The gridding will take less time.

No. Pyrenees.

Only two teams have three riders in the top 20, Sky and Movistar.

LottoNL-Jumbo have two, as do A2GR and Astana. It’ll be interesting to see if teams try to move riders uo the GC to have additional support on that stage.

No today is a stage for both the sprinters left in the race.

With only two sprinter teams motivated to reel in a breakaway, the beginning of this stage may even more exciting than the finish - everyone and their dog will want to be in that break.

I pity the FDJ domestiques who, having had to drag themselves through the Alps for three days, are now going to have to chase a break all day so that Demare can finish third.

The girdding is on a normal stage isn't it? I don't understand how splitting them up 50m or so over a 70 km stage will make much difference

It will be the equivalent of some echelon action, as a run in to a short mountain stage.

I suppose that's the plan, anyway.

It starts on a climb (the Peyresourde), could be quite interesting.

Test match day 4

it's a gimmick indeed, I think they will start easy and the teams will regroup just after the start. the stage is very short though, only 65km