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Tour de France 2018


chrisjpainter
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2 minutes ago, Mice! said:

Has GT finished a tour de France yet? He always seems to get injured pushing it to the limit, hopefully this year he stays on the bike.

And i liked his comment yesterday, can we go to Paris now ?? 

He has. Unbelievably, he's only notched up a DNF once - last year as a result of a broken collarbone. In 2013 he finished the TdF despite fracturing his pelvis on the very first stage. 

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Wow!!! Go G!!

What a race.

I still think team orders will win out and Sky will want Froome to win a record-equalling 5th Tour (3 on the bounce). Chrisjpainter - I agree, I sincerely hope this is not going only Geraint's opportunity to win the Tour. Team leader next year? Or would Froomy want a record 6?

Edited by Penelope
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7 hours ago, Penelope said:

Wow!!! Go G!!

What a race.

I still think team orders will win out and Sky will want Froome to win a record-equalling 5th Tour (3 on the bounce). Chrisjpainter - I agree, I sincerely hope this is not going only Geraint's opportunity to win the Tour. Team leader next year? Or would Froomy want a record 6?

He had better not beat the record look what happened to Lance Armstrong, its not like Froome is popular to begin with, the French won't like that one bit.

8 hours ago, Gordon R said:

Less than happy about Froome's treatment. I am not a fan, but spitting and hitting him are pathetic.

Yep they should be locked up 4 &5 hours on a bike so some Muppet can try to smack you!! Was it Renshaw that once knocked a "fan" out the way.

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8 minutes ago, Gordon R said:

Given Froome's gripes in the past about Wiggins, he will surely accept defeat by the better man - Thomas. If Thomas has to move aside, it would make Froome a hypocrite of the highest order.

Only  if Thomas has got the engine to stick it out. He's never finished within 25 minutes of Froome in the TdF and his best placing is 15th. I don't think Froome's even tried to get into top gear yet this year and we know he's got all the tools in the bag to compete for three weeks against constant yellow jersey attacks. That is uncharted territory for Thomas. What I can't see happening is Thomas having to break off attacks to babysit  Froome because he's suddenly found climbing hills is tricky, as Wiggo did. Froome would have won the 2012 TdF had it not been for that. We'll see. In between now and the final time trial is Froome's real place of work. Brutal climbs, fast finishing descents and relentless attacks. 

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12 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

Only  if Thomas has got the engine to stick it out. He's never finished within 25 minutes of Froome in the TdF and his best placing is 15th. I don't think Froome's even tried to get into top gear yet this year and we know he's got all the tools in the bag to compete for three weeks against constant yellow jersey attacks. That is uncharted territory for Thomas. What I can't see happening is Thomas having to break off attacks to babysit  Froome because he's suddenly found climbing hills is tricky, as Wiggo did. Froome would have won the 2012 TdF had it not been for that. We'll see. In between now and the final time trial is Froome's real place of work. Brutal climbs, fast finishing descents and relentless attacks. 

Good points. G keeps saying about its three weeks and i didn't know about the 25mins so its going to be an up hill race ? 

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Can't really see that G has done any domestique duties yet ? don't get me wrong I like the bloke and hope he does win his handful of tours one day but he's not in the team as GC contender, and can't help but feel he's getting abit bit for his boots because he won the Dauphine when others were racing or recovering elsewhere..He seems to have benefitted from Froomes few attacks by sitting on Domulin wheel and then hitting the counter attack once Dumolin has closed the gap to Froome and is spent ??? ... If I was in the team car I'd be making G put in the attacks first for Dumolin to bridge so Froomes can counter, or for froome to snap the elastic and join him up the road... Just my 2p

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15 minutes ago, Mice! said:

I want to know why sagan is racing so hard? He's obviously going to win green so long as he makes it to Paris and yet he finished in 4th place yesterday??

Does he just like getting stuck in?

I think he genuinely loves a good brawl! If he were in a pub, he'd be the chap who'd break a bottle over someone's head, just to get the chaos going, then sit back, wait for everyone to get tired, and then finish the lot off. Makes for entertaining riding, but this is a brutal tour and final week. He only gets the green jersey if he gets to Paris. Makes for great tv though!

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12 hours ago, Poacher said:

Think sagans getting in the breakaways to ensure he doesn't miss the cut also as per Cavendish some of the stages are short and punchy so tricky for the grupetto to time their efforts 

Sagan get in the breaks to hoover up points in the intermediate sprints, that also go towards the green jersey and tends to be how be builds such a big lead in the points competition, the pure sprinters aren't strong enough to follow him up the road in the break.

He then drops back to the gruppetto knowing he can climb well enough to ride in ahead of the time cut on the mountainous days.

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2 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Why, what have the done?

Just as the peloton was approaching, they threw hay bales into the route, then sprayed them with something mildly obnoxious. The race had to be neutralised and halted whilst they sorted the mess out. The spray didn't seem harmful, just irritating, but plenty of riders were washing their eyes out

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2 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

Just as the peloton was approaching, they threw hay bales into the route, then sprayed them with something mildly obnoxious. The race had to be neutralised and halted whilst they sorted the mess out. The spray  didn't seem harmful, just irritating, but plenty of riders were washing their eyes out

Does it look like a protest against Froome/Sky or just French farmers being French farmers grizzling about something else?

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7 minutes ago, Penelope said:

Does it look like a protest against Froome/Sky or just French farmers being French farmers grizzling about something else?

No this is just french farmers being french farmers. A bit more info. It seems the spray was nothing to do with the farmers; they were just all about hay bales. The police, in their infinite wisdom, decided tear gas would be the thing to use against the farmers. This didn't really dissipate and so the riders then got caught in weak clouds of tear gas as they came through!

No idea what they were protesting about! no banners that I could see!

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19 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

No this is just french farmers being french farmers. A bit more info. It seems the spray was nothing to do with the farmers; they were just all about hay bales. The police, in their infinite wisdom, decided tear gas would be the thing to use against the farmers. This didn't really dissipate and so the riders then got caught in weak clouds of tear gas as they came through!

No idea what they were protesting about! no banners that I could see!

Fly swatting with a club hammer.

Friends of Macrone?

Edited by Penelope
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Yup. All very French.

As for today, the drama all came from the breakaways. I must say, i'm getting a bit underwhelmed thus far for the GC! We had the brilliant day where it was all team attacks, but since then it's been underwhelming. I was hoping there's be GC attacks with people forcing the Sky train to break up, but here we are, deep in the Pyrenees with only a couple of real stages for Tom Dumoulin et al to do anything before the time trial. I thought today would be GC vs GC with Team sky whittled down to barely any support. 

I can imagine sponsors of the other big teams would be a bit disappointed thus far - no one's even taken the fight to Team Sky! Still, two days of hard GC climbing could deliver the odd surprise

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