to watch every moment of the Tour de France

[stubbornhubby]

No, Wait!

...with the man Cavendish in real contention for Green, a British team for the first time in yonks, and Bradley Wiggins capable of getting on the podium, and a route that takes the peleton up the tourmalet not once but twice..

IASNBU

Lance Armstrong starts in 25mins...

Way hey! I am glad to have found you lot.

Mme Lindt - I am very of your ability to follow the Tour in person. We bunked off work a few years back (pre kids) and went to Paris for the final run in. It was ace - but I really would love to see some mountain stages.

I am also not convinced that Contador is clean - wasn't there a whiff of scandal around him following the major doping issue that took out Ullrich et al a few years back. I seem to remember Contador got a mention back then - or am I thinking of Basso?

I'd love Wiggins to finish on the podium but realistically I think a top 5 will be a great result for him. My heart belongs to him I think, but I do have a soft spot for Michael Rogers and Andy Schleck. And is anyone else incapable of talking about Jens Voigt without prefixing his name with the adjective "Big"?

Can't wait for tonight.

so, how do you all watch the TdeF ?
after some experimentation my pattern now is

At work in the day

• live web commentary at velonews.com
• letour.fr for running list of who is in each group

until about 30km to go, then I close down to the web and try and avoid any possibiility of finding out the how it ends

Home and watch highlights on ITV2.

Glad ou liked the photos. More to come tonight. We did not get as fas as the col. Think we would have had to be up there at 8am. Road was already closed when we arrived.

Watche from little town, the peleton whizzed past us like a swarm of honey bees. It was incredible.

@rubyrubyruby - and to watch your DH on Sunday as well..

We normally watch the highlights on ITV unless it's a weekend... but the boys get a bit bored of it after an hour or so...

good luck to rubyrubyruby's DP.

put aside your doubts...
.. and tell him to pedal hard

it is REALLY tough. I have not done it, but i know many who have, and the minimum speed is a killer.

As well as being very fit he needs to be handy changing a tube. A friend of mine had a fall (not injured, but a fall can really knock the stuffing out out of you) plus two fumbled punctures and the next thing he knew he was tired and extremely fed up at the roadside with bleeding knuckles, a twisted tube and and the broom wagon getting closer and closer...

Today was exciting - nice to see Jens voigt up there given He seems to have ridden every tour since the war.

Poor cadel- back to his usual luck. Wonder if he will start tomorrow?

And agree that contador suspect - operation puerto wasn't it and wasn't Astana banned two years back for various violations? There is something of the ronaldo about contador.

YANBU

I'm watching too. Just the hightlights on the flat stages, and live on the mountain stages.

Have been to see it live a few times - in Brighton many years ago, when it started in Dublin, and in Paris for the last day while on holiday. All pre-DC's though. Had to be stopped from going when it started in London in 2007 as DS1 was only 10 days old!

42 isn't too old

It was a bit of a Non-day yesterday, wasn't it. Go the sense that the big guns were trying to recover somewhat.

The Pyrenees are going to be interesting - Schleck will need to do something pretty impressive to put enough time into COntador before that final time trial.

water bottle in his spokes?

yesterday was disappointing... actually this whole tour could be a bit dull with the gc so spread out...

Today wasn't so dull, certainly not at the end.

I can't decide if it's fair or not, I'm too gutted about the impact on Cav... But yes, definitely not dull!

Like the water bottle in the spokes - need a pretty accurate bowling arm to achieve it!

I think that suspending Mark Renshaw was harsh. The spat with Julian Dean was six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-another but he did deliberately move onto Farrar which was dangerous. I think that nullifying his position would have been enough - its been 13 years since anyone was kicked off the Tour for that kind of infringement. Robbie McEwan has done pretty much the same stuff in his day - he was always aggresive.

YOu can see that Cav was devastated.

Oh, I meant to share the photos of the other day with you guys. Will see if I can get them uploaded. Was such a wonderful moment as the peleton flowed by us.

that was a VERY exciting last 5km yesterday.

Have the Tour organisers got it in for HTC and Cav? They took the green jersey off him last year, and now Renshaw. it was def unfait.

watching today, wow. Exciting finish coming up.

La, la , la - not listening.

Am waiting for DH to get home with fish-and-chips, then we can settle in for the highlights.

I'm annoyed Renshaw has gone.
The best LOR and pretty fantastic totty too!