jeirvine 

If anyone was superhuman today it was Tony Martin. He pulled the front for almost all of two grueling stages. Get that man a pint and a rest day.

lsberrios1 

Agreed, Ricky Martin was definitely ridin la vida loca! Tough dude.

bruin11

Seriously.

Leinster

Yesterday wasMultiple lower category climbs, lots of 2s and 3s with a 1 thrown in. Today had 4 Cat1s, including a summit finish, and a couple of bits of 18 and 20% grade, none of that yesterday.

bikemig 

I've ridden the petit ballon before but I had no idea it was a cat 1 climb. And I thought it hurt only because I was out of shape, .

Sucks to have Contador and Froome both out but this will make, as others have said, a more interesting and open race. This may be one of the more interesting tours in recent years.

Rhinelander

Btw, Contador fractured tibia (shinbone). I'm still afraid of carbon wheels in mountainous terrain...

Andy_K 

That may be true, but either way I'll bet somebody in the car got a call from Specialized when Phil and Paul were saying that the frame just snapped for no apparent reason. Frankly, having a frame break from falling off the car during a bike change isn't a lot better.

On a more relevant note, I was really impressed with Nibali today. I've been rooting for Teejay, but I had to admire the way Nibali finished. He looked strong. Of course, now it looks like his team isn't going to get a break from pulling the peloton after all. It will be interesting to see how well they hold up.

Rhinelander

Not the only one. I know them well, I grew up in the area. The Vosges mountains and the Black Forest alike have some "nice" climbs of 6 to 12 km length av. with a few grades here and there that have it in them...

chasm54

Porte will take time out of Nibbles in the TT. Not over yet, not by a long chalk.

Leinster

I was thinking that too. There's a suggestion that he may have hit a rock, but ultimately it's not a good look for Spesh no matter what way the bike broke. For a frame to be broken, you expect to see a pileup or somebody off the road. Contador was just sitting on the shoulder when the tv bikes caught up to him.

ttusomeone

Specialized posted this:

"We are concerned about the well-being of Alberto and will be keeping you up to date on information from the incident here. This is DS Bjarne Riis description of the crash, "“Alberto crashed on a fast and straight part of the descent. He was reaching for his pocket and the bike was swept away under him probably because of a bump or hole in the road. Alberto was in the shape of his life and the entire team had our eyes fixed on the podium in Paris and the work we would have to do to get there”. Reports from Tinkoff-Saxo are saying the team car drove over the frame and Alberto was given a new bike but, after riding 18km further with a broken leg he had to abandon. Please check back here for the most up to date information."

Get Well Soon Alberto

Granted Specialized isn't going to come out and say their frame just snapped when he was just riding along but seems plausible, although I'd think the guys driving the team cars would likely not run over a bike laying on the ground. But narrow mtn roads with tons of other team cars trying to get by I could see how it would happen.

Rhinelander

I have a hard time laying this at the feet of Spec, simply because freak breakage can occur out of left field for just about anyone. Still believe that carbon in spite of its advantages is partially to blame for the increased number and severity of crashes.

Leinster

Not 2'30, and it may be more than that by the time they get to the TT.

But it is not over yet, because there's 13 guys within 5 minutes of him, we haven't reached the really high mountains, his team have been working hard all tour and there's a long way still to go to Paris.

bikemig 

I'm not from there but I know the area well. Lot of great climbs both for riding and hiking. I've hiked the Black Forest several times. There are some really tough grades for bike riding as well.

dstrong 

Better to run over the bike than the rider. At first I thought Alberto HAD been run over by the car given his wounds. At one point, one of the people attending him grabbed the back of his helmet and pulled it apart...obviously cracked.

Andy_K 

VeloNews has a picture of Contador's broken frame.

Details of Alberto Contador's Tour-ending crash - VeloNews.com

As they say there, this damage isn't likely to have been caused by hitting a hole in the road. They seem to buy Specialized's story that two different bikes were run over by the Tinkoff-Saxo team car, which would be very weird but I guess not impossible.

Jakedatc

not sure how you can make that jump... I don't remember any crashes being caused by carbon failure in the tour.. sure there are bike failures as a result but they are put on new bikes when that happens.

Steephill.tv says the crash was caused by wet road not by a bike failure "as reported on tv" honestly, taking anything that those bumbles phil and paul say at face value is ridiculous.. they think guys going back to take a piss are "cracking"

I don't see where people are saying he was using a bike that fell off the car? why would he be riding a backup bike rather than his main bike anyway? (nevermind.. saw Andy's post)

Rhinelander

I thought that a few of the support cars got a bit too close to some of the riders, specially on the descents. Yesterday too. Today, one of then even tried to overtake a group on the last descent and had a few riders anxiously looking over their shoulders...

ttusomeone

Very true. I'm pretty sure one of them said yesterday that Tony Gallopan (Lotto) and TJ (BMC) were on the same team and with Tony being in yellow, it would help TJ since their team car would be first in the line.

lsberrios1 

I remember when Kittel broke the carbon handlebars on his propel just out of sheer muscle power. That seems hard to belive but it happened.

RJM

I would think that if the bike were run over by a car the damage would be more. It really looks like hitting a deep pothole caused the top tube and down tube to break. But whatever...conspiracy time.

laf

What a shame to lose Contador. I was hoping for a great battle today against Nibali. Another solid blow for the spectacle. The two best riders in the world out.
It makes a tour a lot less exciting. Nibali will win now, no other rider will outrun him in the mountains.

Ive lost a lot of interest.

Rhinelander

[QUOTE=Jakedatc;16937657]not sure how you can make that jump...QUOTE]

Sorry about that. I should have been more clear (and I didn't listen to Phil and co... lol). The first time I rode a carbon frame downhill at 50 km/h, I was scared to death and I was considered to have decent descending skills. Granted, I'm an old geezer that was used to 2 decades of alloy Colnago and Bianchi. The modern carbon frame is so much more direct, sensitive and unforgiving if you will, that a bad pothole can spell the end while an alloy fork that's a tiny bit softer just might save me some skin. I didn't think it was carbon failure so much causing the crash, more its characteristics. To be precise, more the carbon wheels under sudden heavy breaking when something unforeseen occurs.

uluchay

Highly unlikely.



You can clearly see the number plate on the frame. The bikes on top of team cars don't have number plates on them.

Leinster

So the real question is why was Roche riding with number 31!