Tour de France

Fantastic days racing with Frome blowing away the rest of them.

Porte in second and a fabulous ride by Peter Kennaugh to set it all up.

So far so good!

Watched that climb today, why would you put yourself through that, fantastic nonetheless.

Brilliant stuff from Froome yesterday and the Lions hammering the Aussies. Also Abu Qatada is in a Jordanian prison this morning
All we need is Murray to do the impossible today- then it ain't a bad weekend

Froome did great today, ploughed a loan furrow after his water carriers went down. Rest day tomorrow. Great coverage on Eurosport.

I love the tour. How amazing was the scenery in Corsica? France is such a great country and the tour is without doubt one of the best sporting events on the planet.

Hope Froome's rested nicely today?

Seems odd how the rest of the Sky team bombed out yesterday.

I get that they have been putting in the work for Froome but for all of them to fail - one of them not even making it home before the cut-off - whilst the gorilla that is Griepel and the rest of the sprinters made it - seems very strange to me?

Great riding by Froome in the circumstances but he can't do it on his own every day.

Rest day today and three sprint stages should give Sky a chance to put their house in order - shame Porte lost 15 minutes and second place - gives Valverde and Quintana an advantage now in the mountains.

Bad day for Sky yesterday really.

I like you reviews of the Tour, Sluffy, and do actually look forward to them each year, especially your in-depth analysis and trying to get other forummers as fans for the Tour.

Was a tad disappointed you didn't do your annual first post, but so far so good with the reviews already posted, and all too true.

  

From one Tour fan to another!

Sluffy, I think Kennagh has fell off two days on the bounce but I stand corrected. I think one thing stands out a mile this year, and that was how important Froome was to Wiggo last year. Porte needs to do the same this year for Froome to do the job. Apparently more was expected of Geraint Thomas till he broke his pelvis. All credit to him for carrying on but Paris is a long way off!

I think if Froome was riding for a different team than Sky last year he would have won the tour. 
It was surprising to see how weak Sky were on Sunday but Froome is so good that he doesn't seem to need his team like many others do.

It's weird though, I had no idea that riding behind another man made such a difference.

I think you'd shelter folk nicely given your size Mike!
BTW did you notice how they lie on the cross bar to reduce the drag and cut the shelter down for the tailing rider!

Thanks Chris.

I've tried to get people to get into the Tour for quite a few years now but I'm really only preaching to the converted I feel.

It's a pity for those who can't or don't want to get into the Tour as its uniquely different from all other sports and so wonderfully wrapped up in many different layers of strategies and goals that its parts are far greater than its whole - and its whole is one of the biggest sporting events in the world - so work that one out!

I'll give it another little stab to see if I can tempt anyone new to the Tour to get involved.

Very simply the Tour is a race - in daily stages - for someone to cover the whole course in the shortest time. Riders set off in teams of 9 - as although an individual will win the race - they can only do it with the help of a team supporting them.

In the race there are also a number of other competitions going on at the same time - namely the race for the person who is the best climber, the person who is the best sprinter, and the person who is the best youngster riding the race. Each competition, the leader of it wears a special jersey, so anyone can see at a glance which rider is in the lead.

The person leading the race is in yellow, leading climber in a red polka dot, leading sprinter green, and youngster white.

Ok so far?

Well one of the big things about the race is that the teams are totally dependant on their sponsors - the sponsors only sign up to get brand awareness - so many of the teams - there are 22 of them in the race - real objective is to win a stage or two - to get the picture if the rider - and more importantly the sponsors logo / name, on TV, the papers, news, etc.

Quite often teams will send riders who have little if any chance of winning right to the front of the race to break away from the main group (known as the peleton) so that they can ride for miles and miles knowing full well the cameras will be on them and their sponsors name.

Cycling is a bit like rugby in a sense in that you need to be a certain body shape to be good at certain things. The mountain climbers for instance have low body weight as they don't want to peddle a load of muscles up and down hills all the time, whilst the sprinters are all muscles, power and explosive energy who find their weigh a major hindrance in climbing the mountains - and I mean proper mountains - we are not talking Winter Hill here.

For that reason sprinters will never win the actual Tour - they will win loads of stages but lose massive amounts of time in the mountains.

So in reality only a small number of riders - those who are sort of a hybrid between climber and endurance rider - can win the Tour.

Bradley Wiggins last year was a fantastic Time Trialist - fast person to get from point A to B in the Time Trial stages - where you ride alone against the clock - and was also good (but not the best) in the mountains. To be honest Wiggins was really lucky last year in that nearly all of the best riders didn't ride last years Tour (most due to drug bans or injury) and all the best Tim Trialist were also injured or out of form - so really he had a clear run at the Tour. I honestly doubt he will ever win it again.

So to summarise you have loads of people in the race with different agendas - not all of them are to actually win the Tour itself!

This creates lots of unofficial collaborations between teams to work together when it suits them and race against each other as deadly enemies when it doesn't!

Sky's main tactic - the team that Wiggins (who is not riding this time) and Froome are in is to basically ride as fast as they can at the front of the race and burn the rest of the other teams away. It as worked well for them the last couple of years but seemingly went horribly wrong yesterday, presumably because they were all knackered having done so much work already - and there is still two weeks to go!

Froome at the moment is in the lead of the Tour but is unlikely to win it unless his team comes good again.

Why would this be so you may ask?

Well simply some teams have a couple of riders capable of winning the Tour itself. They will simply let one of these riders break clear and expect people like Froome to chase them down - because if they don't the breakaway rider will simply pick up enough time on the rest to go in to the Tour lead.

When the rider is finally chases down the other team rider will then make a break for it and will have to be chased down also. This continual chancing down will eventually tire out the others and eventually someone will break free to win a lot of time on the others.

Sometimes people like Froome will have to let others do the chancing down - in most cases they will - but not always - for various reasons.

It's a skill knowing who to guard against and who t let go.

It's wonderful theatre - add in the magnificent scenery and the ever present threat of another doping scandal and the Tour truly is a wonderful event to sit back and watch unfold daily.

Simple highlights can be found daily on ITV4 at 7.00pm or on ITV iplayer.

If you can get into the Tour you will be hooked for life.

It's about the best gift I can give you on an internet forum.

Give it a chance and you will love it.

Soul Kitchen wrote:Sluffy, I think Kennuagh has fell off two days on the bounce

He was a bit unlucky really.

Apparently someone tried to squeeze through on his left hand side and nudged his handlebars doing so - bringing him down - and so nearly out!

Watch this if you haven't seen it before!

I agree with you Sluffy, people who don't give The Tour De France a go are missing out so much. It is a magical event in an amazing country. 
I love seeing all the scenery, France is incredible for that. I love the racing, I love the sprint finishes, I love the breakaways and will they survive. I love the climbing stages and the attacks. 
Just a superb event.

Weather not too good today by the looks!

Steady ride by Froome today, time trial tomorrow. Cav got a bit nowty after the race, very amusing!

Was a bit nowry in it too!

I think he was lucky that no one made too much of a fuss because as far as I'm concerned he drove into the rider because he thought he was deliberately trying to block him and stop him from contesting the sprint.

Anyway this is the way to deal with someone trying to block you!

Headbutting is surely an illegal tactic?

Reebok Trotter wrote:Headbutting is surely an illegal tactic?

Yes, he got thrown off the Tour for that.

Good fun to watch though - I keep telling people the Tour is pure theatre - it is never the same twice. Every year is different!

Here's one where a policeman got involved - ouch!

Piss thrown at Cav, sad bastards!