The Tour Of France 2021

[beesonthewhatnow]

I like Sean but I cannot fucking stand Carlton, and Rob Hatch is almost as annoying, but at least he knows something about the sport and doesn't just waffle his own boring anecdotes.

Carlton is best when they use him in the middle of stage, after everything has calmed down form the start and before it all kicks off for the finish. Then his ramblings and often bizarre musings on what you're seeing can be an entertaining way to pass the time. I like Hatch, but the best commentary pairing of recent years has been Dan Lloyd alongside Adam Blythe. It was like listing to two mates talking bollocks in the pub, only a lot more well informed.

That said, Carlton's book ("Magic Spanner") is well worth reading - lots of genuinely laugh out loud moments.

 

[stavros]

In the last 5km it looked like Pog and Rog were riding a tandem, so on each others' heels were they.

 

[Cid]

Yeah so far much prefer Giro commentary.

 

[twistedAM]

I gave ITV a quick try and never again.
I was watching it at the time Thomas crashed and just now I switched over to GCN where I found out that Gesink is out. All ITV crapped on about was Thomas and never mentioned that a key Jumbo dom was affected by that crash.

 

[David Clapson]

All this miserable rain in France, while Canada has 46 degree heat. The end times are coming.

 

[David Clapson]

Geraint should get a pay rise for being a nice guy. It's difficult to hate Team Chelsea Tractor when you see him in their jersey. Everybody's willing him on to get back to the peloton.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

G has a chance, assuming he doesn’t crash. Which is a pretty big assumption to be fair.

Well, he made it to stage 3 at least

 

[pbsmooth]

Team Chelsea Tractor

 

[Cid]

What a shit day for Jumbo Visma.

 

[Cid]

Another big one, jaysus.

 

[paulhackett]

Wow.. too much to take in today

 

[pbsmooth]

Chaos!

 

[DJWrongspeed]

Chaos!

Carnage!

 

[Cid]

Calamity?

 

[twistedAM]

Geraint should get a pay rise for being a nice guy. It's difficult to hate Team Chelsea Tractor when you see him in their jersey. Everybody's willing him on to get back to the peloton.

I think he’s okay on 3.5 million Euros and doesn’t even need to learn how to ride over speed bumps.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Holy crap what a day

 

[SpookyFrank]

Team Chelsea Tractor

Chelsea Fracktor

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Chelsea Fracktor

 

[hash tag]

Just caught the highlights. What a day again. The Sagan/Ewan crash left me cold.

 

[weepiper]

Caleb Ewan has a broken collarbone apparently.

 

[hash tag]

Ps. Did I mention that with such a strong team behind him, my outside tip is Carapaz?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

1	M van der Poel		12h 58' 53''
2	J Alaphilippe		+8''
3	R Carapaz		+31''
4	W van Aert		+31''
5	W Kelderman		+38''
6	T Pogacar		+39''
7	E Mas		+40''
8	N Quintana		+40''
9	P Latour		+45''
10	S Higuita		+52''

 

[1927]

Ps. Did I mention that with such a strong team behind him, my outside tip is Carapaz?

Not so outside really, especially now. He's probably the highest place contender of those with serious GC credentials.

 

[Cid]

G is +36” from Carapaz, Porte +2’03”. Tao way back… G I guess will be hurting, even if he does have ludicrous pain tolerance. Iirc Porte didn’t actually want the leadership role… I suppose they’ll try and keep it together tomorrow, see how things pan out in the TT. But yeah, difficult to think of Carapaz as an outside prospect in that context. Especially since they’ve barely touched a hill (well, at least from his perspective).

It feels to me like a very different team from the Bernal vehicle of the Giro. Less coherent.

 

[Cid]

Props to Greipel for making them go ahead with the protest.


Alaphallipe a scab?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Not really sure what the protest can achieve, given only one of the crashes yesterday was down to the route/roads.

 

[hash tag]

It's not like the teams didn't know the intricacys of the route months ago.

 

[Cid]

Sure, but as they're saying at the moment; power of the race organisers, influence over French teams etc.

 

[David Clapson]

Beautiful...Cav wins the sprint without breaking sweat! Very excited about the finish now.

 

[Cid]

Beautiful...Cav wins the sprint without breaking sweat! Very excited about the finish now.

They'd better crack on...