Tour De France 2016 thread

unlucky timing for Yates, a second each way and he'd have been ok
https://twitter.com/Cyclocosm/status/751651269891153920?s=09

Very impressive win from Froome

yeah that was a pretty canny move

Human after all.

Froome already made my day punching some asshole in the face

any updates on LlamaWatch2016

(two days too late, but...) LBI - that 'commentary' was genius, thanks

Wow @ Froome today. Blasting down that mountain!

burst out laughing at david millar just now: "still trying to come to terms with socialist prime minister Françoise Hollande being a prince of famous tax haven Andorra"

in other news, i'm f'ing delighted to be having my first proper day of tour watching.

er françois. bit of gender confusion there.

what a crazy stage, that hailstorm was nasty

killer effort by dumoulin.

i really like quintana but i'm beginning to wonder when if ever he's going to attack. seems to be playing it boringly safe atm

At least he tried once or twice today, as opposed to whole of last year. Froome uphill not as good as last year imho.

Dumoulin killed it.

he went ahead so early, unbelievable that he held the lead uphill for so long

HI DERE,
Euro just finished, what's shaking over here on the TdF?

hailstones the size of cherry tomatoes is whats happening

With frogs inside?

pinot finished 6th iirc

Catching up on everything myself. (I hadn't realized how absolutely handy the NBC web package deal is over here -- $30 for a full year of coverage of most of the major races? I can live with that.) Today was nuts!

rip contador

what the actual fuck just happened

chaos

biggest WTF Tour moment in FOREVER

did Porte and Froome collide?? or did some angry Colombian fan steal Froome's bike

Froome running will make for one hell of an iconic photo

This is crazy! I don't think I've ever seen anyone try to run up Mont Ventoux before.

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/31118/31118_000_021_02.jpg

Froome upon the mountain

I'm guessing the motorbike had to avoid some twat trying to get some screen time and Porte etc were the unfortunate result. Had to do a double take when I saw Froome running up the mountain

wtf

at fuck

wt*

total madness.

Madness.

So Porte, Froome and Mollema all crashed behind a motorcycle. But what happened to Froome's original bike? Did it get run over?

Very stupid that other sky dude didn't give Froome his bike tho.

froome is 6" taller than henao, fit might've been an issue?

For those last 100s of meters?

Froome gets to keep yellow they're saying now. Not sure how I feel about that.

sounds like they've taken the times from 3km out, kinda bullshit tbh

1. Froome
2. Yates 47"
3. Mollema 56"
4. Quintana 1'01"

crash probably wouldn't have happened if they hadn't moved up the finish line to avoid the summit and then forgot to bring the finish line barriers to keep all the dummies off the road

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnVzU--XYAA42zu.jpg

looks like they readjusted the times again, Quintana gains some seconds

1. FROOME
2. YATES + 00' 47''
3. QUINTANA + 00' 54''
4. MOLLEMA + 00' 56"

Why were the crowd booing Froome when he got the yellow jersey again? Same thing happened at the British GP when Rosberg got 3rd. People are just fucking nasty all over right now.

Mollema has been 1st, 3rd and now 4th today. No doubt people are the worst (^) but it's the inconsistency that irks me. If it were anyone other than Froome I'm positive they wouldn't have done this. Which stinks.

*2nd, 3rd, 4th

Quintana's time was clocked from before the crash, Mollema's time from after the crash. Trek has protested. Travesty.

?

As I understand it, the times given were the finishing times across the line - Froome and Porte were given Mollema's time (as that was the group they were in before the crash), whereas Quintana was given the time of the next group on the road, even though he actually came in slightly behind them (the argument being that he was held up by the aftermath of the crash and that broke up the group he was in).

I wasn't clear, but indeed. Froome and Porte were compensated. Even Quintana, who had fuck all to do with the crash and was indeed behind the group they gave him the time of, gets compensated. But Mollema's 24 seconds he gained by getting up quick and riding his balls off got annulled. The rider who got up quickest is being punished here. It makes no sense whatsoever. As Mollema said after the race: I should have just taken it easy and stayed with Froome and Porte then.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that a motorbike brought down Mollema's group of three, but Mollema had the good fortune not to be the one who took the full force of crashing into the motorbike (Porte) or having his frame snapped with no replacement bike anywhere nearby (Froome), so it's not as if he Mollema was any keener than either of those two at getting back up and riding again. In reality, but for the crash the three of them would have stayed close together and would probably only have been separated by 2 or 3 seconds at the line (in what order, I couldn't say) and Quintana would almost certainly have lost more time to them than he's ended up doing.

what a time to be alive

xpost honestly i'm more cheesed that quintana is gaining off this than anyone else

Yeah, agreed.

Yep. Footage just resurfaced of Quintana holding on to the back of a motorcycle, whizzing by Porte trying to get back on his bike, does not help either.

(here)

I would have given Froome bonus seconds for the indignity of riding the neutral yellow bike for geeks btw.

Not the most exciting Tour GC wise but it's been a delight seeing Pantano and Alaphilippe blossom this tour. Yates too. The kids are alright.

It's strange really - when you look back at it, there have been lots of surprises: Cavendish rediscovering the form of five or more years ago, Van Avermaet attacking when in yellow and gaining more time when everyone expected him to lose the jersey, Froome attacking down a mountain, Froome in yellow going clear with Sagan in green on a flat stage, Froome running up a mountain....and yet, it still feels quite boring because we've known who's going to win for almost the entire race.

Otm. It'll be a short paragraph in tour history but a lot has happened along the way. Works the other way around, too: Quintana will be in the books forever with his third place, while he's had an absolutely terrible, invisible tour.
Ventoux stage will be in our collected memories for quite some time though. (and not because De Gendt won it, poor lad)

glad that it wasn't a crash-fest today. hopefully better weather for the ride into paris tomorrow

awesome that kreuziger made it into the top 10 on the back of today's ride with sagan.

O_O vid of iazguirre's descent during tour de suisse timetrial

https://twitter.com/cyclinghubtv/status/756868098758705152

Just remembered another surprise: the flamme rouge falling on top of Adam Yates.

I'm spotting a pattern with Dutch cyclists in the last three Grand Tours. At the Vuelta last year, Dumoulin surprised everyone by showing he could do it in the mountains as well as the time trials and heading into the final weekend he seemed certain to win - then got blown apart on the penultimate stage and slipped way down the standings (fourth? fifth?). In the Giro earlier this year Kruijswijk also looked certain to win, but then crashed into a massive bank of snow and ice at the start of a descent with just a few days to go and ended up losing minutes and slipping down to fourth. And now Mollema - OK, he never looked like winning, but he's gone from a comfortable-looking second place to falling right out of the top ten in the final days.

I think most people were expecting that with Yates too, so the fact he narrowly missed the podium is pretty encouraging.

yeah that Dutch pattern is quite irritating. even though Dumoulin was a total surprise to be in that position anyway. Kruijswijk made a stupid mistake, and undoubtedly deserved to win. He might win the Giro next year. (if it happens agáin, then it surely ís a pattern) Mollema always slips in the third week. I think the 2nd rest day might be the hardest stage for him! (and for a lot of riders)

Quintana will be in the books forever with his third place, while he's had an absolutely terrible, invisible tour.

yeah I wonder what this says about his talent. Weird stuff..

I feel so bad for Mollema. And the way he tried to break yesterday but didnt have the legs was very :(

welp that's it for another year, what an empty tensionless race this year for GC tho :/
sorry to see Rodriguez go, have always enjoyed watching him race

i am sure the Vuelta will be espectacular

also Purito might be there too, I assume he wil, to do another farewell lap :)

Any word on why Tony Martin pulled out?

knee pain, apparently

:(