Tour de France 2018 **SPOILERS**

[Beebo]

SKY won't be winning the TTT as BMC have just gone top of the list for now.

 

[smutchin]

GVA provisionally in yellow, then?

Dumoulin would take it off him if Sunweb go faster...

 

[smutchin]

AG2R lose 1.15 to BMC. Could have been a lot worse!

Movistar finished 53 seconds down on BMC, which is not great.

EF only 35 seconds down, which keeps Uran in contention (still ahead of Porte and Froome on GC?).

 

[smutchin]

Cofidis have lost well over three minutes. That's frankly a bit rubbish.

Sunweb are doing better but aren't going to win it. ETA: strong finish, only 11 seconds down.

 

[smutchin]

Oooh, QuickStep miss out on nicking yellow for Gilbert by a couple of seconds!

They dropped Gaviria quite early - he'd be in yellow now if he'd been able to hang on.

 

[smutchin]

Sagan and Majka off the back of the Bora train. That'll be Majka out of GC contention (if he was ever in it).

 

[rich p]

As Smutch says, that's levelled the GC field a bit.
Slight advantage Dumoulin and Uran but that will all change on the first mountain, if not before.
This tdf has not been without incident already.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Sagan and Majka off the back of the Bora train. That'll be Majka out of GC contention (if he was ever in it).

What about Sagan? Why doesn't he just keep riding really fast in the mountains? Surely he'll be able to catch them up easy like.

 

[mjr]

Because its been pulled due to a solicitors letter - Le Tour have set up their own.

Dopey gits ASO. At least other races are still on velogames. I wonder what was in the solicitors letter - other fantasy leagues are still up, but are mostly backed by much bigger companies. Who's going to be attacked next? road.cc?

 

[rich p]

Dopey gits ASO. At least other races are still on velogames. I wonder what was in the solicitors letter - other fantasy leagues are still up, but are mostly backed by much bigger companies. Who's going to be attacked next? road.cc?

I'm hoping Marmy will feel the force of Prudhomme. He talks the talk but can he marcher le promenade?

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

I'm hoping Marmy will feel the force of Prudhomme. He talks the talk but can he marcher le promenade?

I'd fry the Gallic nobber in olive oil with a hint of Provence herbs

 

[brommers]

May be, not will be.

Sunweb & BMC have good TTT, as do Lotto-Jumbo. My guess is it'll go to BMC tomorrow, so maybe GVA or TJ.

 

[mjr]

In ITV4's chat with Michael Rogers today, he's just claimed to have been literally a dead person on a bike at one tour.

Break of the day has 8 minutes, 140km to go. Paste from live.cyclingnews.com:

Dimitri Claeys
Cofidis, Solutions Credits

Jérôme Cousin
Direct Energie

Anthony Perez
Cofidis, Solutions Credits

Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Wanty-Groupe Gobert

It's every bit as exciting as an early flat stage usually is.

 

[smutchin]

Two Cofidis riders! Someone has obviously shot a rocket up their arse after their failure to get in the breaks on stages 1 & 2, and their dismal performance in the TTT yesterday.

 

[mjr]

Ned resumes commentary with "a million thanks, Matt". Is he going native French? Merci mille fois, indeed. (Yes, I know that gained some zeroes in translation. Must be exchange rates or something.)

Yes, it's that interesting so far.