Tour de Yorkshire, Cambridge...and oh yes France as well!!

[Panwearsjaune]

T minus 35 days and counting, to the Grand Depart from Leeds 5th July, with two stages in the White County, and then a third from Cambridge to the Mall in London. It's just soo exciting! It's the biggest biking event in the world, with approx 190 professional riders in about 20 teams racing across tarmac and cobbles, up mountains and down Dales and ending on 27th July on the Champs Elysee, Paris in the now traditional sprint finish there. So here's the thread to share in it all, swop info about accommodation for Tour watchers, road closures, the parcours (courses), peloton gossip, potential meet ups, tv coverage, who's got the nicest legs etc.. and everything to do with the thrills and occasional spills with the event that is a game of poker played out every day on 380 wheels. OF course if you are a newbie to all of this and are curious about the whys and hows of racing then ask and someone will pop up to answer questions. Hopefully.

So I'll depart here next with the routes of the UK 3 stages being taken so no-one gets lost and ends up in the dreaded broom wagon.

HowGood, your day sounds amazing! I watched the highlights yesterday and couldn't help but notice there were about 75% fewer fans watching. I wonder how the riders feel about that, whether they see that as normal and us Brits as an aberration or whether they miss the scrum like conditions they saw here.

Today will be interesting, with 16 x 1km lots of granite setts which are likely to be wet. Difficult to predict a winner, but I think Froomey might struggle due to his wrist injury. I reckon it'll be another sprint finish as it's so flat, but because of the cobbles a breakaway might just be able to stay away. Too difficult to predict.

Puppy 1 - Jens 0

OPQS will be commemorating the outbreak of WW1 with poppies on their sleeves, they are also using a special hashtag for today #wedonotforget

www.omegapharma-quickstep.com/en/news/show/we-do-not-forget-opqs-commemorates-world-war-i/1832

Marking my place...
I love the TDF and have watched it for years. We couldn't get to Yorkshire but we are going to see the end of stage 15 in Nimes. So excited!

I hope Froome's wrist holds up today on the cobbles, I don't envy him

(Pan, dp has a Spesh Roubaix but he hates it atm as he's training for a 300 mile in 24hr charity ride. 100 mile training sessions are no fun in torrential rain! :) )

It'll be a tough stage today, it's very wet out there, they've dropped 2 sectors of the cobbles apparently due to flooding. The word from OricaGreenEdge is ...

Brian Nygaard ?@nygaardbn

Today will be a mix of Glastonbury 2007 + Pamplona Bull Run + Bambi on Ice.

Andy Shleck has properly knackered his knee. In surgery at the moment. Just seen this from TFR twitter:

'UPDATE Andy Schleck: rupture of both the collateral and cruciate ligaments of the knee + a tear in the meniscus and a lot of bone bruises.'

I must admit I'm somewhat at the weather conditions in England compared to France...

How - what an amazing day!!! That must have been incredible to experience them split around you. Crazy.

That sounds career ending for Schleck, non? Whilst he can recover I imagine it would be hard to remain competitive on the grand tours.

I have a well timed day off. Waiting for coverage to start :D please remind me to get the kids later :)

Sea it definitely doesn't sound good. My DP used to play rugby semi-pro until he did his cruciate ligaments in on his knee and had to learn how to walk again. He had to give up playing after that. It sounds like a bad injury!

Have been using the Eurosport app - Froome has fallen again :(

They're also not using all the cobbled sections (think 2 aren't being used) due to the weather conditions.

Yup crashes coming thick and fast :( Froome doesn't seem to have luck this year.

Combination of both cruciate and collaterals means he's lost all integral knee joint stability. Not good. Sorry to hear it ended your dh's rugby...does he still do sport/cycle? Dh can cycle but not play football after just meniscus damage

It was a few years ago and he's only just recently started to get back in to sport again. He's part of a cycling club and says cycling seems to have less impact on his knee. He still can't join in 5 a side footy with the boys from work though!

It looks grim today. We were so blessed with the weather for our stages, I would love to know just how much of a boost to the economy 12 million people seeing Britain looking so fantastic has generated!

Poor Froome, can't believe he's fallen again.

Was it Froome who went down on the top side of the roundabout?

Froome has abandoned after yet anther crash. :(

No canute that was Kiryienka

Just watched Froome climbing into a car and abandoning - took the commentators on ITV4 about 30 seconds to say "oh, now Sky have got nobody who can win maybe they should have brought Bradley along".

Think I'm with OGE on this one, they're all over the place.

Keep the rubber side down....

I assume the Sky will now get behind Richie Porte. Just Geraint Thomas and Simon Yates waving the flag now.

Thanks Ariadne. Very sad for Froome and opens up the GC a bit. t There's a lot more could happen today yet given the weather.

Damn, decided to wait for the highlights tonight as so much to do before we go away and have missed what's obviously been an exciting afternoon. Tell me about Froome someone? So, is Contador the favourite now? I have to admit to not being that bothered about Froome being out, I didn't want to wish him ill or anything but I do feel that bringing out his autobiography and stirring up all the aggro with Wiggo when he did was a bit underhand to say the least.

Ho hum, who shall I follow now?

Contador should be favourite now but tbh its so close the top 38 are within a minute of each other. The mountains will sort them out I reckon.

Froome fell yesterday and hurt his wrist, then fell twice this morning, once on each side. He's sitting in the back of the team car, going off for checkups I suppose.

I guess Contador is now favourite, or Nibali?

Why isn't Quintana in it this year? He did well last year.

I wonder if Geraint will get the chance to try for a stage win at some point now?

Quintana won the Giro and Movistar decided to send Valverde as leader. I guess they didn't want two leaders in the team.