Tour de France 2013

That was a class finish. Credit to everyone on Fox's Nuclear ride for agreeing not to plot spoil the results. Made the highlight show great even with ITV's annoying format. Froome interview was indeed interesting. He's quite a paradox; all expressions and theatrical postures on the road and cards very close to his chest off it.

Mrs Wrongcog nearly choked on her Reisen Chocolate Chew during Bakelant's gut busting last 200m. Top guy too "You are English? Your queen must now give me the honour!"

Well.. What a fantastic start to the Tour. Stuck bus. Mass piles ups. Dogs in road. Attacking favourites. Mental skin of the teeth victory (Carlton Kirby commentary was fantastic) and gorgeous, gorgeous scenery.

Kirby does ramp it up in the final 500m, I liked that. Usually his delivery is a little bit smarmy, but when it gets to the sharp end he does inject suitable excitement.

From inner ring

Lieuwe Westra, Thomas de Gendt, Cam Meyer, Peter Velits all came in over 17 minutes down

Pretensions already blown apart. I will be interested to see how high Kwiatkowski can finish.

ouch, even De Gendt? I heard he was planning something big for the Alpe d'Huez stage, maybe that's why he doesn't care about the overall and let this one walk

Quite surprised both Vacansoleil hopes missed the split. Must have been badly positioned in the bunch when FDJ put the pace on. Or were they used to pace Danny Van Poppel? Need stage wins to salvage their tour.

Line in front of Sagan's wheel was the 1 second mark that would have got Millar yellow.

I'd concede alongside a lot of Gaelic names it's the not perhaps the most intuitive of pronunciation, but it's 'ken yak', not 'ken aw', 'ken oh', 'ken of', etc. I seem to remember fellow Manxman Cav gently pointing this out at the Olympics but commentators struggling again within seconds.

Well then he should've bloody spelled it that way.

Kenyak or >>>

Same goes for Kittel >>>

and any French, Belgian, German, Polish rider >>>

and everyone else >>>

Maybe Garmin should have pulled a bit more in the last 10k.

Well then he should've bloody spelled it that way.

Kenyak or >>>

Same goes for Kittel >>>

and any French, Belgian, German, Polish rider >>>

and everyone else >>>

Peter Sar-gon!

Maybe Garmin should have pulled a bit more in the last 10k.

Nah, it was the dog's fault.

Peter Sar-gon!

Say-a-gen?

owenslotTheTimes ‏@owenslot 21m Just watched Geraint Thomas attempt to swing his leg over his bike. Took two attempts and eventually required assistance. V painful

Geraint has a small fracture in his pelvis apparently. Ouchies

I still cannot believe that Martin is riding on. So fucking stupid.

ooof

I still cannot believe that Martin is riding on. So fucking stupid.

It's the Tour. You can bet he'd be insisting on riding whether his team wanted to rest him or not

I doubt Thomas will be in for much longer. If Stannard is also suffering Sky could be a bit underpowered for the TTT.

A few more stage finishes like yesterdays and this is gonna be one hell of a tour!

It's the Tour. You can bet he'd be insisting on riding whether his team wanted to rest him or not

Not if you've got concussion and passed out twice from it. It's just fucking stupid. We're not talking about manning up and riding with a broken wrist or collarbone, we're talking potentially life-threatening head injury - not to mention the danger a half-awake rider poses in a big bunch.

Just one of those occasions where cycling gets it so so wrong. The doctor should have put his foot down.

^ all I can think is the passing out twice thing is an exageration of the truth....

Yep, there's enough potential for injury in a fully fit rider without putting someone out there who's already sustained a significant head injury. You can be sorrowful and stunned with so called 'freak' tragedies like Wouter W's in the Giro, but if something happened to Martin yesterday it would be manslaughter at the very least.

^ all I can think is the passing out twice thing is an exageration of the truth....

You mean he might have only passed out a little bit?

^^ Exactly. There's already a thin enough line between "that was sketchy" and tragedy. Fuck doping - this kind of 'heroic' stupidity is the worst thing in cycling.

Not if you've got concussion and passed out twice from it. It's just fucking stupid. We're not talking about manning up and riding with a broken wrist or collarbone, we're talking potentially life-threatening head injury - not to mention the danger a half-awake rider poses in a big bunch.

Just one of those occasions where cycling gets it so so wrong. The doctor should have put his foot down.

Goldman Dilemma.

Just saying..