Tour de France 2014 - Au revoir Yorkshire and the south, bonjour les montagnes et les côtes!!

[Panwearsjaune]

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Photo finish!!!

Here's a pic of Contador's bike. Tht's a serious crash

velonews.competitor.com/2014/07/news/timeline-details-alberto-contadors-tour-ending-crash_336328

Now watching from Greece Yesterday's task was to get up early ( on first day of holidays!) on order to get the ferry across to Nidri to hire bikes . Soooooo much heavier than our "own" bikes . Dh and ds have mountain bikes with plenty of gears but mine is a city bike with only 3 gears .

And today is is raining .

Have to say I'm not heartbroken about Contador - never forgave him for bad sportsmanship with Andy Schleck - and that was before steakgate.

Nibali is looking strong - ds thinks he'll win. He's not sure if Porte will stay strong enough for 2nd - but I bet he never came into the TdF thinking he'd be contending for the podium!

At this rate, G will have a chance at the podium. It will be last man standing. Its the most exciting Tour for YEARS.

Just seen this:

blogs.bicycling.com/blogs/hardlyserious/the-day-i-got-six-yellow-jerseys

What a lovely thing for them to do!

Spartacus has withdrawn!!!! I'm gonna have to get me some new heroes

Oh no! Why? off to google

I do feel for Contador. Apparently he rode for 10km with a broken leg. Tiago Mechado got out of an ambulance to finish the stage, and Tony Martin's big diesel engine ran out at last. This rest day has been hard earned, I can't remember this hard a start to a Tour, it's been brutal.

Spartacus is off to rest up in preparation for the World Champs. Injury free so I guess he decided to cut his losses

Spartacus?

Cancellara is known as Spartacus but I've never quite worked out why.

Yes Sea Shells it's a sort of tactical withdrawal before the curse of falling-off gets him too!

Thanks Endo!

Will miss Cancellara :(

But the Jens's kids' jerseys has had me grinning all day :) I love that man so much, lol! You must have all seen this little clip of him?

"I'm mother fucking Jens Voigt"
Love that man so much too

Ha! Of course he is.

Nicholas Roche blog on Contador

www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/cycling/we-were-so-confident-in-alberto-we-didnt-have-a-plan-b-then-plan-a-went-out-the-window-30431225.html

The follow up rest day blog is also v interesting

That is interesting! Sounds like Nicholas Roche wrote Monday's blog without checking what the official story was

No, this picture of him in this article road.cc/content/news/123757-so-what-really-happened-alberto-contadors-broken-specialized-tarmac-yesterday shows him holding a bike that isn't in pieces. Although I can't find anything about whether any Belkin bikes were damaged, which I've been wondering about.

ITV rest day programme last night showed 2 bikes, one that he crashed on, one that got broken on the top of the team car.

Was a good highlights show if you didn't see it, it's on again today at 1pm.

Yeah, it was good - the Chris and Ned comedy double act is great And my kids all shrieked at "leg-shortening surgery"

Have really enjoyed the David Millar bits, sounds like he's going to join them again next year once he's retired properly.

The Vuelta is shaping up to be a bit interesting this year, isn't it?

I think David will make a wonderful addition to the ITV commentating team - a languidly lovely one, as previously mentioned!

Brave ride from Gallopin today - very persistent.

When they caught him the first time I really thought there would be a different ending. Feeling a bit sorry for Sagan.

I think David Millar is great, I may have a teensy crush on him ....
In our house tonight there was much shouting of "don't look back! Pedal! Just pedal! As hard as you can!" In the final few metres of the stage. Good to see courage rewarded. Talking of courage Talansky must have had a terrible day, in pain, riding without help, without the benefit of being in the lead.
They are tough these cyclists...

Look what I was bought yesterday by dd's mum! Inside is a fab map of France with the stages set out, the story of the first Tour, a video of some sort and a profile of the riders. IF I was a 12 yo boy the map would be on my bedroom wall by now!