Tour de France 2017

Can I just take a moment to salute Marcel Kittel's quiff, though?

Especially for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnJYlwo5DdE

Watch till the end when his team mates sing 'Du hast die haare schön' (your hair is pretty) :D

Haha, Die Jungs auf das Geld. He has spectacularly schöne Haare. :D

Philippa York, who as Robert Millar was first Briton to win a jersey at Tour de France, joins ITV4 commentary team

This deserves a mention. Good for her.

Still very glad UK commentary team is Millar and Boulting now. I do not miss Phil and Paul ugh ugh

OTM

Oh, I caught the headline about Philippa York this morning but hadn't realised she was joining the ITV gang! That is a really good thing.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/06/philippa-york-gender-transition-cyclist-robert-millar

Awesome

@petosagan come and ride some mountain bike races. Here you are more then welcome. Makes anyway more fun, or? 😜

— Nino Schurter (@nschurter) July 5, 2017

um, god, about that thing i asked upthread? this instead. more compelling.

http://i.imgur.com/EhMgDI1.jpg

Sagan woulda won. #petobrosaretheworst

Wow, he was only pixels over the line!

Looks like he won it by...

*puts on sunglasses*

...A HAIR!

Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

i was looking forward to seeing him fly around that mountain bike circuit at Rio olympics and then *sad trombone* :(

That was an insane finish today. Might as well have flipped a coin.

I'm two stages behind - my goal in life is to do nothing this weekend except catch up :D

A fine approach to life!

I have just caught up! Feel rather sorry for EBH, I like him.

Well that was a wild one today. But kudos to Calmejane, that was a nervy attack and hold.

Yeah great ride by Calmejane, and Gesink for that matter

Calmejeane & Gesnik, kings of the mountain for sure

legit teared up for calmejeane, he mustve been pushing through some legit pain

scary though, gotta hydrate buddy!!

Gesink is only pro whose feed I follow, good to see.

interesting to see what happens tomorrow after today's fast pace. i imagine there'll be a fair bit of fallout. 3 HC climbs ... hoo boy

no better feeling than settling down on the sofa for a day of the cycling but jesus wept this stage is absolute murder. can't wait.

Gesink out :(

wow this is incredible. never seen a race blown apart so effectively on a descent.

geraint thomas *again* :(

This is chaos

why are ag2r riding when vuillermoz is in virtual yellow?

unless they're riding at a neutral pace I guess

the initial double attack on the descent smashed the peloton and GC contender support so maybe it's trying to push that further. it's slightly difficult to tell, they don't seem to be going that hard, but are at the front, which does suggest they're riding...

oh wait they have dropped back now.

fffffffff

wow super snidey from aru. froome will be raging

lol aru.

shit

ugh that's not good

horrible horrible crash. gc carnage today.

jesus that was brutal

completely misread the line. feel sorry for martin.

rooting for barguil but he'll surely be caught.

barguil!

oof, uran on his two speed bike did it!

wanted uran, and i think yup

lol

plenty of great today but

So boss. https://t.co/fVEhy8KLJ0

— Cyclocosm.com (@Cyclocosm) July 9, 2017

plenty of great today but
🐦[So boss. https://t.co/fVEhy8KLJ0🕸
— Cyclocosm.com (@Cyclocosm) July 9, 2017🕸]🐦

yeah that's nuts. ag2r attack was highlight of the day for me. co-ordinated team plan which completely defined the race but, as is the way of cycling, couldn't ultimately control it.

it's really bad for general gc competitiveness that it's been such a brutal day. v hard to see quintana getting back tho i think he has the capability. porte going out is a massive shame as he would be combative and competitive. and always a shame to see geraint thomas going out - again! - as he's fundamentally likeable tho you do start to wonder if it's something more than just being ill-starred.

That Porte crash is going to give me nightmares. It's just hard to believe that a human being could survive that - and yet it could have been so much worse. Not what you wanna see when you're just learning to cycle!

really horrible. seeing him crash into the mountain rock at full speed is horrific. i think it was the '90s cyclist Gianni Bugno who had a horrific crash descending and then had to learn to descend all over again. He had completely lost his nerve (understandable when you see a crash like that) and learned to regain his composure by listening to Mozart when going downhill.

key thing when learning to cycle (for me anyway) was to look where you want to go rather than the direction you fear you're going. i still misread corners tho - and i don't mean racing, i mean going a little bit faster than usual (lol 14mph or something) around hyde park corner. go into them too early and have to compensate by drifting out. terrible technique.

nothing like hurtling down an alpine descent. starts getting a bit hairy at 40mph though. don't know how these guys touch 50 or 60... think dowsett even uploaded a pic of a ride where he hit 70mph once. 😶

thing is when i was young i used to love it. and now when i'm even close to touching 35/40 i worry that the slightest bit of eye watering or momentary confusion and boom. and so i start padding my brakes in a rather elderly fashion. need more mozart.

^^ It's the same for me but I'd file it under a desire to stay alive taking over.

and always a shame to see geraint thomas going out - again! - as he's fundamentally likeable tho you do start to wonder if it's something more than just being ill-starred.

Exactly the same goes for Gesink. Great yesterday, looked very promising, but something always goes wrong.

Such a shame for the GC though. Can't see Quintana doing anything proper any more, and Contador is completely gone. Probably only Aru/Fugelsang who could try something. It'd be harsh to expect anything from Dan Martin (who regained an amazing amount after the crash) at this point.

yeah, also dan martin said he was struggling to stay with the accelerations on the last climb. hard to see him being able to put the pressure on Froome.

that said, froome has lost his most able climbing lieutenant today so may be vulnerable, tho he seems more than capable of handling anything that gets thrown at him in the mountains and then some.