Tour de France 2012

Cancellara has his motor fitted again. Great performance sprinting up the hill

I think Gilbert got caught up in the effects of the crashes, so to be fair he did alright to finish where he did - 4th / 5th?

Oh I thought that was Evans

What a finish! Cancellara is a beast of a man.

its so hard for cancellara to time the attack so that no one follows him. I feel bad for him sometimes. He`s such a powerful rider. Still sagan is pretty ridiculous too. Looks like he might dominate the tour. If he can win on the flat stages too he might get a silly amount of stage wins

Does that put Sagan in green? Reckon he might keep it until Paris

Cancellara will take the green, right?

Sagan barely looked out of breath. Jesus.

Sagan will be wearing it tho

Who won the KoM today? Need to fill in my wall chart.

http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2012/us/classifications.html

Be sure to put the lids back on the pens please bombcup.

Thank you, have a merit point :)

Good stage: peloton fairly pedestrian for much of it, Jens put a long turn in on the front to reel in the breakaway, impressed with Radioshack,although not impressed with their Livestrong cuffs on the jerseys. In the last 10k it just went nuts, lots of fun. Bemused that Lotto sent Greipel to the front to put the hammer down, but as a Flemish outfit I guess they wanted the win. Good aggressive stuff from Cancellara, but he does need a haircut. Tony Martin's tour hasn't started well: hope there's no permanent damage to that elbow and wrist.

Thanks Phil. Over to Ned now to have a look at Bradley's used bidons and the skid marks left by Team Sky's bus.

Martin might have done his collarbone = Tour over

Sorry for the noob question, but why did the six man break stay 2 mins ahead all day long knowing they would be reeled in at the finish, when they could have taken it easier in the peloton?

tv coverage = happy sponsors + you never know, it might work

And Michael Mørkøv told reporters before the stage, that he was going for the polkadot jersey.

Loving Boasson Hagen hopefully be seeing a lot of him.
Not all of Sky will be finishing seeing as they didn't all order the same amount of kit

Sorry for the noob question, but why did the six man break stay 2 mins ahead all day long knowing they would be reeled in at the finish, when they could have taken it easier in the peloton?

As above plus chances to win Jerseys for tomorrow due to it being the first day.

The fact that they couldn't extend past 3'30" is also a factor of how willing the peleton is to let them go. This stage is a bit of an exception, but it becomes cat and mouse. If they get too far away, one of the director sportives will decide to shut them down. So once they got out to 3+ they took their foot off the gas.

But you'll see a lot more of that in the next few days as relatively unknown riders are given the nod to go on a breakaway and get some TV time.

Tony Martin out of the tour and london with a broken collar bone

Not all of Sky will be finishing seeing as they didn't all order the same amount of kit

tell me more please

Adidas only sent out 4 xs bibshorts and there aren't many extra small riders on the sky team...

Sorry for the noob question, but why did the six man break stay 2 mins ahead all day long knowing they would be reeled in at the finish, when they could have taken it easier in the peloton?

Long time in front of the TV cameras which the sponsors like, plus points of KoM and Green jersey comps, plus there are points for most combative rider, both daily and cumulative. And there is always a chance of making it stick and grabbing the stage win. You have to stretch out much bigger lead than four minutes and have a fairly disinterested peloton to do it though, and morelikelyin the later stagesof the comp than the first road stage