Tour De France 2018

duotone

Stage 13 Podcast

https://youtu.be/tN8pOfpPxLM

Stage 13 Highlights 

https://youtu.be/bF51XQmjHHQ

duotone

Stage 14 Podcast

https://youtu.be/U_MhG7jDwrs

duotone

Stage 15 Podcast 

https://youtu.be/h99bxoRKyDM

littlegreenman

Has Moscon potentially lost the Tour for Sky? Expulsion for punching another rider!

Gianni was undoubtedly going to be a valuable team-mate for both Froome and Thomas in the Pyrenees, will his absence cost them both?

joneve

littlegreenman said:

Has Moscon potentially lost the Tour for Sky? Expulsion for punching another rider!

Gianni was undoubtedly going to be a valuable team-mate for both Froome and Thomas in the Pyrenees, will his absence cost them both?

Let’s hope not! And I’m hoping Sky do the right thing and ride for G. They’ve got a real chance of buggering this up if they’re not careful 

joneve

Gilbert got lucky today! 

gutted for Yates, but just didn't have the technical nouse to take on the final descent without issue with on of the best descenders in the business breathing down his neck. 

duotone

Tom Demoulin made me laugh.  "today wasn't the day to attack , I need to keep my gunpowder dry"

ewal

Alaphilippe is my new favourite after today because he was willing to wait for Yates initially. He came across really well in the post race interview. I hope Demoulin or someone else makes a race of it tomorrow. Need something to really shake things up. Sky are like Man City or Real Madrid - their dominance is just so, so dull and predictable... Maybe it could get interesting if Bardet, Demoulin and Landa coordinate their efforts.

rolls1392

Pretty certain powder is going to be ignited tomorrow. 
Who knows what the GC will look like.
Alaphillipe is a star!!!

littlegreenman

Well that was a bit of a dramatic day! French farmers at the start, the massive breakaway, PhilGil giving me a bloody heart attack going over that wall (very lucky escape), Yates' attack that ended with that spill, and Alaphilippe just flying down for the win.

And yet despite all that, bugger all on GC.

Tomorrow's mad stage could prove to be decisive (set Turbo-trainers to stun!), but then they said that about today. It's certainly going to be interesting. And if not then Sky have to go all in for Thomas after that as they need G to have all the time he can get ahead of the ITT. 2 minutes may not be enough if Dumoulin has a good day. And Froome is unlikely to gain enough time to be in contention. But then again when I went to the Giro back in May I got on a plane with Yates seemingly having it in the bag and a 3 hour flight later Froomey had it!

Looking forward to a good few days of racing ahead, and I'm off work for all of it

duotone

Stage 16 Podcast

https://youtu.be/2EoLz1Cdq3k

BigLicks67

Anyone know what caused Moscon to punch the French rider. There was talk of some provocation.

the_jaffa

I know Moscon can be a bit of a loose canon but I doubt he’d punch someone completely unprovoked

crunchman

littlegreenman said:

Well that was a bit of a dramatic day! French farmers at the start, the massive breakaway, PhilGil giving me a bloody heart attack going over that wall (very lucky escape), Yates' attack that ended with that spill, and Alaphilippe just flying down for the win.

And yet despite all that, bugger all on GC.

Tomorrow's mad stage could prove to be decisive (set Turbo-trainers to stun!), but then they said that about today. It's certainly going to be interesting. And if not then Sky have to go all in for Thomas after that as they need G to have all the time he can get ahead of the ITT. 2 minutes may not be enough if Dumoulin has a good day. And Froome is unlikely to gain enough time to be in contention. But then again when I went to the Giro back in May I got on a plane with Yates seemingly having it in the bag and a 3 hour flight later Froomey had it!

Looking forward to a good few days of racing ahead, and I'm off work for all of it

Thomas is good at time trials.  I don't know if he has always gone all out in Grand Tour time trials when he hasn't been in GC contention in the past, but when he does go all out he can time trial very well.

He's the current British time trial champion, he finished 8th in the 2016 Olympic time trial, but most notably he won the first stage of the TDF last year which was a time trial.

I think this time trial is only 31km.  Dumoulin isn't taking 2 minutes out of a motivated Thomas over 31km.  If Dumoulin, or Froome, want to overtake Thomas, then they need to take time out of him in the Pyrenees.

crunchman

Edit: double post

guitars4you

crunchman said:

littlegreenman said:

Well that was a bit of a dramatic day! French farmers at the start, the massive breakaway, PhilGil giving me a bloody heart attack going over that wall (very lucky escape), Yates' attack that ended with that spill, and Alaphilippe just flying down for the win.

And yet despite all that, bugger all on GC.

Tomorrow's mad stage could prove to be decisive (set Turbo-trainers to stun!), but then they said that about today. It's certainly going to be interesting. And if not then Sky have to go all in for Thomas after that as they need G to have all the time he can get ahead of the ITT. 2 minutes may not be enough if Dumoulin has a good day. And Froome is unlikely to gain enough time to be in contention. But then again when I went to the Giro back in May I got on a plane with Yates seemingly having it in the bag and a 3 hour flight later Froomey had it!

Looking forward to a good few days of racing ahead, and I'm off work for all of it

Thomas is good at time trials.  I don't know if he has always gone all out in Grand Tour time trials when he hasn't been in GC contention in the past, but when he does go all out he can time trial very well.

He's the current British time trial champion, he finished 8th in the 2016 Olympic time trial, but most notably he won the first stage of the TDF last year which was a time trial.

I think this time trial is only 31km.  Dumoulin isn't taking 2 minutes out of a motivated Thomas over 31km.  If Dumoulin, or Froome, want to overtake Thomas, then they need to take time out of him in the Pyrenees.

Looking forward to today and is it Friday as well in the mountains ? - Thursday sprint stage finish so should not present any threat for QC - So 2 days left for QC guys to take G on, whoever fancies giving it a go - Hope he does it

mixolyd

Dumoulin and Froome will do well to take 20 secs out of G in the time trial - it’s today or bust for these guys, short of a disaster of some kind.

Im watching live today since it’s pretty much the deciding stage and well set up for drama throughout the GC top ten, but feeling torn on the streaming options.  ITV4 live seems to be a hyper compressed SD stream but I’ve come to like their latest commentary team.  An aceplayer stream of Eurosport on the other hand is resplendent in 1080p but I just can’t listen to Sean Yates “ughhhh”-ing through half the race - amazing that he gets paid to talk for a living.

littlegreenman

crunchman said:

Thomas is good at time trials.  I don't know if he has always gone all out in Grand Tour time trials when he hasn't been in GC contention in the past, but when he does go all out he can time trial very well.

He's the current British time trial champion, he finished 8th in the 2016 Olympic time trial, but most notably he won the first stage of the TDF last year which was a time trial.

I think this time trial is only 31km.  Dumoulin isn't taking 2 minutes out of a motivated Thomas over 31km.  If Dumoulin, or Froome, want to overtake Thomas, then they need to take time out of him in the Pyrenees.

Dumoulin did take 1:21 out of Froome at the last World's ITT which was also 31Km, so it could be close and if they're on the same times as now then Froome could well end up 3rd. But G has won quite a few stage race TT's of late and would have won the Criterium de Dauphine if he hadn't crashed.

Fingers crossed but we'll have to see how things stand after today and the rest of the Pyrenees.

Teetonetal

How often has Thomas performed in a tt at the end of WK 3?

crunchman

No more debate about who is Sky's leader.

Thomas extended his lead over Dumoulin.  Looked like 4 or 5 seconds plus 4 bonus seconds.