Tour de France 2012

I'm gonna break it down for youse guys

Wiggins in the second best climber in the Tour, the best TTer and the best overall.

Good enough for me
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I'm gonna break it down for youse guys

Wiggins in the second best climber in the Tour and the best TTer.

Good enough for me

why is he not in the kom competition then?

You think Thomas Voeckler is the best climber in the tour this year?

why is he not in the kom competition then?
Wiggins is going for GC, not King of the Mountains. Its a different race. Brad has a lead to defend, not going hell for leather on every climb to gain points, all he has to do is monitor his rivals.

You think Thomas Voeckler is the best climber in the tour this year?
I like Voeckler a very gutsy rider, he has ridden a great strategy being 1st over the 4 climbs yesterday & 3 climbs today gaining points & taking the KOM lead, but he cracked at the end today! What would be the point of Wiggins doing the same, then losing the Yellow jersey cause he blew his beans over the cols, pointless.. yeah great idea lose Yellow but gain the Polka.. no chance

shame cavendish is nowhere this year, guess sky had to re-order their priorities

shameless plug..

pre sideburns obvs

Who's the guy on the right. Al?

shame cavendish is nowhere this year, guess sky had to re-order their priorities

I think Sky are going to go mental in Paris for Cav.

^I really hope so, but they might not want to be too involved in the scrum at the sprint finish, all the elbows and jostling, wanting to protect wiggins and Froome. They might send a couple of guys forward to lead out cav, but hold the rest back?

Cav posted this on twitter an hour ago

Thanks to the dickhead who crashed me at 3km to go today by waving his flag so it wrapped round my handlebars. Bike's broke. Leg's swollen.

Why do the spectators have to be such knobs?

arrrgh. cunts.

^^ cunts.

^I really hope so, but they might not want to be too involved in the scrum at the sprint finish, all the elbows and jostling, wanting to protect wiggins and Froome. They might send a couple of guys forward to lead out cav, but hold the rest back?

Wiggins to lead Cav to the line. How immense would that be?

immensely unlikely. About as likely as Froome attacking and taking the jersey.

You think Thomas Voeckler is the best climber in the tour this year?

He's been the most consistent of those allowed into the breakaways in the Mountains... still hard to win the spotty jumper though.

dreams crushed.

I'm sure he will be involved in some aspect of the lead out though. He wants to thank Cav for being his work horse for the last couple of weeks. We shall see.

I think Sky are going to go mental in Paris for Cav.

^ this

p.s. am at 11 out of 10 in the excitement scale to be going Paris for Sundays stage. Anyone else from here going?

I think the adrenaline will make Cav forget his swollen leg. Probably means he won't be competing tomorrow though.

As for KoM is more of an individual rather than team pursuit. Monsters like Merckx can win both, but mostly its about getting away from the bunch and winning the lumpy stages and picking up a slew ofpoints, which is why the best climber Froome hasn't won it this year.

For me Voekler rode a canny race, conserving his energy for the stages that mattered. We saw when he was in yellow last year he was just hanging on on most of the climbs to cling to the jersey. If he was a better climber he would have won it overall last year. Not to take anything away from him, but it was a tactical attack on the polka dots. All power to him, he deserves it.

Watching the highlights just now it didn't look to me like Brad was holding Froome back, or even the team. He was riding for the team and would have liked Brad to have had more and overhauled Valverde for the stage but I don't think he ever wanted to leave Wiggo's side, despite what Michelle Clown might say on Twitter. He was gesticulating to him to gee him on.

nice to see the emotion from Brad in the interview. Looked like he was a hair breadth away from cracking at the enormity of what he should achieve in the next 3 days. I think this will be his only TdF win and he knows it. He will ride for Froome next year I reckon: Froome has the making of a multi-GT winning cyclist and has ten years to do it in.

And I'm licking my lips at the prospect of the Vuelta. I'm not sure what team Sky will put out alongside him, I'm guessing Rogers and Porte won't race, but Uran Uran and Haneo should be, and those two and Froome are arguably Sky's best climbers.

Cav tweet: No more mountains! No. More. Mountains. Only 400 flat(tish) kilometres left! And maybe some sprints. I hope. I can always hope.

I'll put money of Brad leading out Cav, mabye not last lead out man, likely to be EBH but certainly part of the train

Just watched the ITV doc on Wiggins. Anyone else worried about them all jinxing this?

You should of watched last night winging Vicky Hour.... she is the doomed to failure.
But to be back on topic Brad should of let Chris go and get the win today, sky ds people should be lambasted for not letting him go and being control freaks.

Cav posted this on twitter an hour ago

Why do the spectators have to be such knobs?

cos they're all hammered

But to be back on topic Brad should of let Chris go and get the win today, sky ds people should be lambasted for not letting him go and being control freaks.

I'm a say bullshit.

Brad could have punctured or snapped a chain, been pulled off his bike by a fan with a flag like Cav and Froome gives him his bike and MJ is safe and everyone's a hero.

But we don't know that because that's not a scenario we foresaw or even considered but Sky have and said stage wins are bullshit and we are here for yellow so Brad always has a rider with him.

Not saying it makes for a thrilling race finish but there is a bigger thing going on than just the TDF and Brailsford has his eye on the bigger picture of GB cycling, Olympic funding, Sky rides and fuck knows what else.