Tour De France 2018

Yeah that is ridiculous. He’s a monster.

What's Froome up to off on his own?

Booing and shit being thrown at them. Not cool.

movistar doing a great job of having three leaders and doing fuck all with them. I really thought they would put some kind of challenge to Sky but they've been totally absent.

Missed the end: nasty crowd by the sound of it?

Sports fans = sports fans

Roglic is coming

Gee, who would have thought it?

Gaps behind Thomas are 1:39s to Froome, then 11s and 48s. Froome isn’t really safe from Dumpulin or Roglic.

Sky go all-in for Thomas please!

Froome is never going to agree to ride for Thomas unless he has a bad day first and drops 6 minutes.

Do Sky have a choice? I'd guess it might come down to contractual obligation, I'd imagine Froome has something written in his contract that he is the leader and the winner. I doubt Foome would allow Thomas to win, if he were to come second. Thomas would have to pull over and allow Froome past, perhaps with a mechanical etc.

When Sky are doing their train-0f-death thing you'll see Froome is always behind G. Froome is still their best chance of winning GC.

Another clue? Froome's spare bike is still in the prime position on the roof of the team car.

Froome has form when it comes to riding-into-form. He usually goes great in 3rd weeks.

But Thomas has been awesome.

I guess the director is going to have to play this by ear and let them race each other if they go well clear of 3rd place? I hope so, it seems the most sporting thing to do (and should be good to watch).

meh. Sky's internal politics is as dull as their suffocation of every mountain stage for GC.

Winners for tomorrow? Alaphillipe? Barguil? Calmejane? Sagan?

What are the chances of Thomas blowing up in the final week, as Yates did in the Giro?

Wiggins basically saying that Thomas rides like a mamil.

"...Sits very far forward on his saddle and pushes a gear a couple of cogs bigger than he needs to. ... Almost ungainly..."

I expect GT's track background would make pedalling whatever gear he's in feel normal... At least Geraint looks less like a stick insect than Brad did in yellow.

Simon Yates is a better cyclist than Adam Yates. Discuss.

That seems pretty clear.
Worst discuss ever.

Hard to tell still - Simon has won more races as a pro, Adam looks the better GT rider.

Mitchelton-Scott have had a shit season. Discuss.

Their womens team are doing really well .

Very true, they've had a great season so far.

Adam Yates is sporting the worst helmet/glasses combo in the peloton. Discuss.

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I find it fascinating how received wisdom changes based on a rider's last performance of note. Before the Giro, Froome was considered to have one major weakness, backed up with some solid evidence, which suggested that he weakened in the final week and could lose time. His 2013 and 2015 Tour wins and last year's Vuelta win backed this theory up. After the Giro, where he made his race winning move on the final Friday of the race, he's now perceived as being an expert in winning GTs in the final week and this is why he remains the favourite.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the final week, Thomas has what would normally be considered a race winning lead, especially as he's shown he's the equal of his rivals in the mountains and is a strong time triallist so probably has enough of a buffer to hold off Froome, Dumoulin and Roglic. He has, however, never finished a GT without having a bad day, which is why Sky continue to hedge their bets on him and keep Froome in a leadership role.

Both Dumoulin and Froome have a tough Giro in their legs, so you'd expect the combined fatigue from that plus this Tour to be felt most over the final few stages. Roglic has been consistently excellent this year, but is unproven over three weeks, whilst Bardet and the rest have lost too much time to realistically challenge.

The winner, therefore, is likely to be one of the current top four but you can make a case for each of them as to why they'll win, but also why they won't. Hopefully it'll be exciting watching this unfold.

Exciting last week ahead, and it wasn't boring to start with! I'm especially curious as to Sky's further tactics because if they really want Froome to win (as Thomas himself said in the interview at Alpe D', and the prime bike position on the team car seems to indicate) there's not nearly enough time between him and Dumoulin at the moment. He'll have to attack.