Tour De France 2015

it's started already but we need a thread so here it is

http://i.imgur.com/pHOA8Wn.jpg

first stage was the only individual time trial, stage 8 is team time trial
13km of cobbles on Stage 4 which is a whopping 221km long
bonus seconds for first 3 are back
penultimate day has Galibier and Alpe d’Huez
hooray for MTN-Qhubeka, the first fully owned, managed and sponsored African team

whoops didn't think the map would be that big

Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish)
06/07/2015 07:08
Well, today's a new day. Hope everyone has a good one.

everyone loves a Cav pile-on, he'll probably win four stages now. would've thought Renshaw would be more to blame for going early and pulling off too far out, tbh.

Meh, he never wins the first sprint of the tour, does he? Was quite glad to see Nibbly and Quintana lose time - I like it when riders have to play catch-up in the mountains.

For the love of god, can nobody pronounce 'mur' right? And one of the ITV4 graphics yesterday made it 'mûr'.

Well, that was quite a stage.

https://twitter.com/josselin_riou/status/618059001813696512

Horrible crash, gutted for Tony missing out on yellow by a second again.

Christ, that crash.

I've spent the last few years wishing they'd bring back points for places and now I wish they hadn't. Poor Tony Martin. He seems reasonably optimistic for tomorrow.

Cancellara out with two fractured vertebrae ;_;

Yessssssssss!

Damn, sorry to have missed that, sounds like a hell of a break to the end.

astonishing stage again. so competitive. colleague won £900 on a Tony Martin stage victory.

That's not to be sniffed at!

Really glad Martin got there in the end, but he definitely gained from the GC riders going "meh" and Cavendish not sprinting for the line. Today's stage is going to be quite boring, I think.

inside the Etixx QuickStep cars during the last minutes of the stage yesterday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7BCSpRasAU

http://youtu.be/NICDhi5I8Lw

quite the renaissance for griepel! he didn't do the tour down under this year to focus on being on form for july, "they" say.

that was a great win!

damn sagan was too far back but he had greipel on LOCK for a full click at least then somehow at 250m or so he got totally flicked off greipel's wheel by degenkolb. he then had to go all the way round the group and still nearly won, looked like he had a rocket up his ass.

The ad breaks get tedious pretty quickly during ITV4's TdF coverage but I don't think I'm ever going to tire of hearing Kittel and Degenkolb woodenly lie about why they use Alpecin Caffeine Shampoo. As an added bonus, Degenkolb is badly dubbed.

those ads are hilariously bad and already the basis of jokes with my friends

Martin out with a broken collarbone, what a crazy few days he's had. Who gets to wear yellow tomorrow (if anyone)?
Teklehaimanot in KoM jersey!

I like tony but that was some cat 5 shit there

The ad breaks get tedious pretty quickly during ITV4's TdF coverage but I don't think I'm ever going to tire of hearing Kittel and Degenkolb woodenly lie about why they use Alpecin Caffeine Shampoo. As an added bonus, Degenkolb is badly dubbed.

yeah good call. my brother and i have been totally confused by these ads. they seem like they are supposed to be funny but are delivered straight.

I like tony but that was some cat 5 shit there

Yeah, that was weird.

I cannot seem to find the shampoo at the local shops. this is a disaster, I was hoping for kittelesque hair by the end of the month.

Paolini's out after testing positive for cocaine.

he was doing coke at the Tour?!?

the party for puriitooooooo after stage 3 must've got well out of hand.

so uh, froome is on the fucking radio during the uphill drive to the line in the ttt, fuck this race.

bmc faster up the final 2km than sky by 6 secs? didn't expect that.

No hiding place from here on out, hope Quintana/Valverde can do something in the mountains next week cos I can't see Nibali or Contador coping that well based on the first week.

looked like roche was in a bit of trouble at the end and there was a lot of turning round in the last few hundred metres by sky.

nibbles is out of it for sure. hard to see where contador's going to get the time. still like to think of quintana using pure climbing skills to get time out of froome, but realise it's v unlikely sky will let him go and anyway froome just looks so strong.

van garderen maybe a threat.

Yeah, Sky were definitely focusing on their fifth man in the last few hundred metres. But goddam, is a team time trial very visually pleasing or what?

I have a feeling those gained seconds will turn out to be crucial for Quintana. That might just turn out to be the stage wot won it. Perhaps.

Basso drops out of the tour after being diagnosed with testicular cancer :(((

:(

and yes, Madchen, my brother and i both big fans of the ttt. partly because of the sadism of watching people dropped or struggling in their own team but they all look fantastic at their most disciplined as well. that fantastic team engine and momentum and then watching a part of go and the rest of it close up like some sort of strange irresistibly propulsive organism.

*watching part of it go

And the uniform: even Lampre start to look acceptable in formation!

Not totally on topic, but a great piece by Chris Boardman on tonight's ITV coverage on the way the Dutch integrate cycling in cities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/11737387/Tour-de-France-2015-Chris-Froomes-ride-for-glory-under-threat-in-data-spying-storm.html

ha that video tho

This is my first year watching the tour start to finish & i would like to say that I am all about ttt helmet/visor situation. They look like bob sledders!

V exciting stage, that.

US coverage = English commentator saying OMG (X) TEAM HAS THE FASTEST TIME TO THE SECOND CHECKPOINT NOW SHIT IS CRAZY RIGHT NOW and the other commentator saying SLOW YR ROLL U OLD TWIT THE MOST IMPORTANT TIME IS THE FINAL 2 KILOMETERS ... over and over and over and over and over

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xyt27_chris-froome-tour-de-france-2013-mont-ventoux-srm_sport?start=21

not much would've stopped froome there but movistar's great idea of burning off the entire team to leave nairo and valverde against ...five sky riders seems rather questionable.

sky riders seems rather questionable

fixed

cancel le tour, extend classics another month IMO.

haha g. mtn goat thomas puts his hand on valverde's back over the line, game recognize game, mate.

outside of sky, best ride of the day is gesink, that was impressive.

http://www.strava.com/activities/345923267

someone stole gesink's data oh no

that was just like watching Lance back in the bad old days :/

Lars Boom out with a fever, huh?

this Tour needs a big doping case :P

(first week was fun though)

(confident L'Equipe is working on it as we speak)

i feel naive even as i say it, but I'd be surprised and disappointed if sky were institutionally doping. individual riders are of course harder to control and it's impossible to be certain. also recognise "benefit of doubt" simply doesn't apply in this area.

Whatever happens next, that was a heroic gap-cross by Martin.

http://i.imgur.com/4AWWC55.gif

https://soundcloud.com/offtheball/ross-tucker-on-chris-fromme

Tucker's blog is always good

http://sportsscientists.com/2015/07/day-1-in-the-mountains-one-more-pixel-context-mistrust/

He's pretty convinced Froomey doped

i think the balance of evidence is probably on their side, but the arguments used aren't totally without slightly dubious methods too.

the "one more pixel" argument isn't great as it can involve "look at Astana in on this day" used to support "look at Froome yesterday". I don't feel enormously happy with the idea of saying that Froome's emergence at 25 in Kenya is too remarkable to be true - too sportsmen are always remarkable for different reasons (this doesn't hold for the wattage evidence, which is i think fair proof, though as continually said is *just* within the plausible and not in itself proof).

in a sport that's endemically doping do sky dope more, better than other teams? (that argument cuts both ways of course - in a sport that endemically dopes any team that does well *must* be doping.)

for me the convincing bits of their argument are that this is a sport where doping clearly still happens and that the doctors who were always involved are still involved at a team level and in individual winter "training camps". this feels like a sport that isn't institutionally reformed working in an environment where as always the dopers are ahead of the testers.

i do find the "oh oval chainrings and smoothies" response by sky irritating (and in itself almost more convincing than some of the arguments in the last two pieces.)

anyway, I'll be sitting down at the weekend to catch up on and enjoy the last two stages. always love the pyrenees.

Seeing a bit more of Peraud than we should 😳

fantastic finale

O_o

http://deadspin.com/man-throws-urine-at-tour-de-france-leader-chris-froome-1718824843

but yeah, great finish

last two stages have been pretty exciting in the final moments

aw poor TJ
tomorrow should be fun, sawtooth profile including for the first time "Les Lacets de Montvernier"

http://i.imgur.com/XWCnWmB.jpg

was part of the Dauphine course this year but the live coverage only started as they got to the top, d'oh!

"It could be a unique profile, classical doping - using haematological drugs, like EPO - or mechanical doping which is using a motor in your bike"

can't help but think there may be better terms to use than 'mechanical doping'

lol

Tejay ;_; Also I'm annoyed about Bertie, it's much less of a race now. Maybe there'll be a français in the top 10 now, hehe.

Those lacets look awesome.

yeah, i've watched many abandons and they are sad, but that was pretty moving.

Poor old Kwiatkowski too, that was some earbashing.

that is one fine looking road
http://inrng.com/2014/10/roads-to-ride-lacets-montvernier/

wow!

Tejay -__-

Lol On A Ragga Tip over the end credits of ITV4's highlights programme.

I've been out cycling all day long. Did I miss anything? I've recorded the highlights - can I liberally use the fast forward button or have I got to pay attention?

I watched the whole thing live and didn't regret it, so I reckon it's worth watching the highlights.

So from my last couple of posts you can deduce that I'm the saddo who watches both.

I did that yesterday. I'd be happy to do it every day if real life didn't intervene so much.

so 4real i have not really been following at all this year (not even blogs or nothing) and am wondering if it would be worth going back and trying to dig up highlights/stages and such?

24 July will be a good day to watch, there's been a lot of climbing this week which isn't typical. But unless Froome wrecks he will win again.

I am behind, just watching stage17 now

Tejay pulling out was so sad, when his team are hugging him & he's crying, poor guy

Sky are looking a bit worn out. This is shaping up nicely.

This is so exciting!

Gesink providing his Tour power profiles on Strava is so fun. Only pro in my feed.

sidebar:

can anyone recommend me a good book to read about the history of the tour? am keen to learn more