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

[Panwearsjaune]

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Photo finish!!!

Or if he doesn't keep the rubber side down on a wet descent?

It's a funny old time isn't it. Yellow and green tied off by the looks of it - and it's probably a good guess to say His Nibs will pick up the polka dot as well?

It is pan in retrospect it would have been an epic battle if Froome and Contador were still in. The excitement is in cheering favourites onto the podium/top 10 and stage wins.

Yes it's a shame he has no competitors really - Contador beat him on the stage before he fell off. Froome may have challenged him too.

Who is the guy with the mutton chops and tache?

Jose Serpa of Lampre has some facial hair action going on and just appeared in my Twitter feed

twitter.com/TourDeJose/status/490470898332606464

That's him!

I just googled and he looks better with his helmet and glasses on

Slow race day isn't it.

I am all up to date. Yipes - its a bonkers old Tour this year.

Whilst all credit to Nibali (caveat that I too mistrust Astana), its such a decimated field that you can only wonder what would have happened had Contador and Froome still been in. Its Nibali's to lose now.

The interest is coming from the younger riders - especially the French (who saw that coming?!) and whether Sky can salvage any stage wins now. It will be interesting to see if G is let off the leash and what, if anything he can do. The big climbing stages are not for him but he is a puncheur so who knows? Having said that, the cobble stage would have been the one for him to go for and he held back for Porte. Gah. Sky's strategy has been all over the shop this year....

Pan I keep getting distracted

Apparently Arnaud Demare has the runs, that's why he nipped into someone's campervan. That's a whole multi page AIBU (or perhaps that should be Suis-je déraisonnable) thread right there.

Ned Boulting on the tweet deck :

"You stand there all day by your mobile home, waiting for a fleeting glimpse of the French champion, then he invites himself in for a poo."

"AIBU to poo in someone else's campervan?"

Better than by the side of the road I guess. Can't imagine having the squits on a bike is much fun.

I've just realised that today's stage is the closest to the bit of the alps that The Returned was filmed in. Time for zombie cyclists to appear ...

I'd like some of what Nibali is having for breakfast...

unfair, but maybe he feels he has something to prove with a show of strength demonstrating that even if Froomey and Contadory were still riding he'd still be ahead.

Really happy to see that tomorrow is a nett downhill stage. That last climb but one was horrible at 19km constantly uphill.

I also want whatever Nibs is having, as long as it doesn't contravene any of the laws of the game.

Maybe he's having some steak?

He's in danger of making armstrong's mistake of forgetting to appear human. Although may be we are being unfair.
Will have to wait for tonight - can't wait to watch the scenery even if the race is so so. I saw a rather pissed off G talking to ned on itv twitter. First time I've seen him anything other than upbeat

Paul Kimmage in his book Rough Ride, where he recounts his couple of miserable years as a domestique before he gave up and became a journalist, described how riders would sometimes have the scutters during a race - but have to carry on pedalling no matter what...

I watched the Armstrong Lie documentary last night. I'd forgotten that Armstrong & Contador were in the same Astana team in the 2009 tour. No love lost between them, apparently. So Nibali belongs to a team that has a very dodgy history - Armstrong, Bruyneel, Vino & also Contador. I hope Nibali is riding on pan y agua, and not 'steak'.

I think I must be rather naive - I hadn't thought there could be people taking things they shouldn't do.

Cycling has historically been riddled by drugs - they are pushed to the very limit if human endurance. But they also have rigorous testing and bans - so they get more scandals than most other sports. I'm always amazed that football doesn't have class A scandals - just think what amphetamines or cocaine could do to a players energy levels in a match. Or steroids to a tennis player's power, or EPO etc in long distance runners (or short distance for that matter - jamaica have been caught now!).
Ever sport has cheats...I'm just better versed in cycling's, especially as they have been facing a day of reckoning over the last few years with Armstrong finally admitting. My TdF wilderness years coincide with Festina affair and Armstrong's highest point as I got so disillusioned.
David Millar went through a drugs ban - but is one of my favourite orders, partLy because of it. His book is fascinating. You don't see his approach with Vino/Contador etc (unapologetic) which is what worries me.
I guess I love the sport all the more for its flaws and it's soap opera of ethics...you watch them ride through the mountains yesterday and it's just spectacular :)
(Can you tell dh is away...sorry we normally debate this after the highlights so you guys get it instead!!)

I was reading that last year's Tour produced nul positives, which had been the first one for many years, which was satisfying to a large degree.

For me I have moments of uncomfortableness eg the "communications difficulties" when Chris Horner switched hotels on the final day of the Tour of Spain, Vuelta, last year and so wasn't tested, and flew back to USA in an untested state. Cyclingnews.com had a slightly bewildering interview with him by phone.The context being that at 42 yrs old he was the oldest winner (by some way) of the race, and so perhaps should have gone out of his way to be tested IF he was riding 'pan y agua' .

I think His Nibs is being questioned (but they all get this, incl Froome last year) as his early season form wasn't the best, and yet weeks later he is gliding over the cobbles, and racing away up Jenkin Road, Sheffield, and producing bursts of speed at the end of tough, tough stages which should trigger slight s in people's minds. I really, really hope it's all clean and the authorities get some confirmation asap.

But I think we're all optimists, aren't we? I'm happy to enjoy the riding and the scenery and the dramas, until evidence says I've been duped by the riders. And surely the sponsors will be more attentive? Certainly Geraint Thomas was pretty dismissive of Tiernan-Locke this week.

and the magical jersey wearers this week will be...

King of the Posts goes to Pan!, for this post on seeing Sagan missing out on another stage win:
To quote Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman.."Wheel always have Paris."
The panel awarded merit for producing this on the turn of a bike wheel after the stage end. Apart from the obv. play on words...the French connection is in the fact that it's a line from Casablanca, where Bogart is referring to the time when he and Bergman were lovers in Paris at the time of the Nazi occupation of that city. Cleverly, the panel thought, this reference to a time past has been re-fashioned to refer to a future event, i.e. Sagan will be victorious in Paris next week.
But the clincher is more profound. The panel utterly adored the fact that in the film Victor Lazlo, the partner of Ingrid Berman, was a Czechoslovakian freedom fighter and on the tarmac in Casablanca it looked like he was going to lose Bergman to Bogart - but, like Sagan, a Slovak rider will in Paris, he wins the prize he cherishes most i.e. the love of Bergman/a win on the Champs Elyeese when all looked lost. The weaving of the historical, factual and fictional narrative was breath-taking.

The Most Aggressive Poster jersey def. goes to How! for this:

I still have to catch up on yesterday's stage let alone today. DH rode the Dunwich Dynamo last night and watched yesterday's stage in Look Mum No Hands. He is unbearably smug. I may stab him

The panel considered that there was no convoluted and half-baked analysis required here.