dstrong 

dstrong 

A sting at the head AND at the tail!

diphthong

kom battle. van den broeck or pinot...

MerriwetherII

It's this stage or never for Evans to make this race a contest. I don't know what he'll do, but it seems all too possible that Evans will just ride beside Wiggins up the Toussuire. I hope not, but we'll see.

I can't really fault him if he just doesn't have the legs to win. He's got to watch his 2nd place. I hope we'll see a real challenge to Wiggins from someone.

Wiggins looks really strong, but this is a stage where a strong climber could put some hurtin' on him and grab yellow. Someone should really try. Maybe Niboli can get away here.

cthenn

KOM battle? Hardly. One of the longer KOM finishes of the tour...if Evans, Menchov, Nibali et al are going to do anyting, it's going to HAVE to start tomorrow. A break may get a large lead and could possibly win (highly doubt it though), but the GC contenders will duke it out, f'sho!

markjenn

I fear we're in for a Tour where Wiggins will simply nurse his small TT advantages through the days, meeting any attacks from other contendors without real issue. None of the other teams are strong enough to leave him isolated and straight-up, he's probably a stronger climber than Evans anyway.

I don't think it was intended but making the Tour even more TT-centric has made the Tour less interesting. I don't understand why they continue to do away with time bonuses for high stage finishers - at least this provided some extra incentive for riders to take risks and attack more. Get in yellow by a small margin through a TT and then defend is the strategy that is rewarded now. Makes for a very boring GC competition.

- Mark

cthenn

Guess you weren't around for the Indurain days...

markjenn

Nope. But I doubt Wiggins is/will-be in the class of Indurain.

- Mark

eja_ bottecchia

My friend rode L'Etape du Tour - Acte 1. It went on the same course as stage 11.

He said it was one of the toughest rides he has done (and he rode Paris - roubaix this year).

This is what they have to look forward to tomorrow:

GrandaddyBiker

I do love to see Sagan’s antics when he crosses the finish line. I want him to win some more stages so I can see what he does next. Imagine what he would do if he actually won the tour.

I haven’t done my ride today and I only have about an hour of daylight left. So I am going to go ride my bike and pretend that I am beating all of you guys in the Tour de France. I am going to take a big lead and you are not going to be able to reel me in. Hey, it’s my pretend so I can script it any way I want. Be back in about an hour.

MinnMan

I don't think that it's the organizers' fault that this is a boring GC competition. The extra time trial wouldn't make that much difference if there were a more exciting group of contenders.

Something said above struck me as right - Evans isn't hoping to win, he's just aiming to be on the podium.

Andy_K 

I'd love to see a high ranking non-GC contender like Pierre Rolland or Frank Schleck go in a breakaway in this stage just to stir things up a bit.

seanthebear

Schleck has zero form. Forget him. I expect Cadel and Nibali to team up on this stage. Evans already said he miscalculated in not following Nibali yesterday. Nibali alone up the road was a pathetic sight and I actually agree with him that some other GC contenders need to support him. Otherwise its game over.

xfimpg

That is an insane route.

And the Wiggins sideburns have got to go.

markjenn

I'd like to see more contenders too, but I do think the current system makes the status quo determined by TT very difficult to unseat. Perhaps folks like Evans and Nibali can make better progress by forming alliances, but the Sky team may be stronger than the best few from several other teams.

- Mark

MinnMan

Yeah. There are moments when I forget that all of these guys are unbelievable athletes (or unbelievable dopers, take you pick) and consider what it takes to do survive just one of those climbs, much less to race over all of them.

Laggard

Today we find out who's going to win this edition of the TDF.

Andy_K 

That's exactly why I think he could get away.

gpsblake

Wiggins is doing the Evans strategy of last year, just keep up with the "heads of state" and then blow them away in the TT. I'd like to see time bonuses brought back myself which might might make the GC race more often.

JayhawKen

In fact, I think the organizers very carefully designed this route to be optimal for the TT guys. At the time the course was designed and announced, Contador's outcome was uncertain. Given the controversy, I think they wanted to "facilitate" an Evans or Wiggins victory. Contador is not bad at the TT, but only because he rode the Giro last year was Evans able to cling to him in the mountains close enough to win in the final TT. That was too close for the Tour organizers, so this year with over 60 miles of TT, they pretty much ensured the winner will be someone with a monster TT game.

And since there are only 2 really tough mountain top finishes, there is less opportunity to put in time if a strong climber gets away. Most of the mountain stages have finishing descents, so even if a strong climber can get away, the peloton can bring back a fair bit of any time advantage on the descents. Obviously most of the GC climbers this year are diesels who don't have the explosive jump to easily gap the others on a tough climb (a la Contador and Schleck the Lesser).

So as boring as it is, I think the organizers are getting exactly what they wanted - a tour winner who will hopefully not be suspended for doping.

chasm54

I don't agree that it's boring, it has been pretty eventful so far. And if one looks back over the Indurain and Armstrong years, there are plenty of examples of predictable tours with the favourite defending their TT advantage.

Today should be a cracking good stage, it's a monster and it must make sense to attack Wiggins. I think the real trouble for any other contenders is that the current leader is probably Sky's second-best stage racer. If they crack Wiggins on the climbs, they'll probably find themselves climbing with Froome, who's a better time triallist than they are.

DropDeadFred

Man the first climb makes me want to puke and they're moving up it so fast

chasm54

They're all over the road. A huge break virtually from the start and the race fracturing into groups with two massive climbs to follow this one. I love watching this stuff.

fly:yes/land:no

and here we go!

reef58

I take back what I said about Cadel. Bravo mate