Darkglasses

Cavendish absolutely dominated today. Time for round 2, and this is important because it's the last flat stage before the Pyrenees. High heat and high winds are expected, so the injured riders (listed in the previous thread) will not have an easy day tomorrow.

The Cat 4 climb Col de la Vayede is not easy at 7%, but is too far from the finish to have any say in the stage result. Pan-flat after they get over.

The final 10km into Montpellier is a bit complex. Although the road is not too narrow, there are 4 difficult corners, long sweeping bends, and one bridge to go under where the road will narrow. There will be a major battle for road position, if they are going anything like the pace they were at today there will be several more riders hitting the deck.

Stage profile:


Cav again for me. Betting wise, Sagan offers great value at 12/1.

reef58

I will pull for Cav just to make the Green Jersey race interesting.

Mike F

Cav is a favorite but Griepel and Sagan are hungry. May the best lead out train win!

chasm54

Griepel may be hungry but he looked uncharacteristically uncompetitive yesterday. For Boasson-Hagen to go past him in a flat-out sprint is so unusual as to qualify as exotic.

Darkglasses

Jurgen van den Broeck is out. Got a text from a friend at Maussane Les Alpilles today, very hot and very windy.

Darkglasses

All rules on food and drink are suspended today because of the heat. They can take on 20 musettes each from the team car if they want.

Giacomo 1 

Well, Greipel made a bit of a statement on the intermediate sprint point. It looked like he went for it pretty hard.

Where oh where has Kittel been lately? Him and his team have become invisible...

Darkglasses

Bouhanni having a shocking day. It's probably time to get him into the broomwagon.

Darkglasses

Yeap, Bouhanni's abandoned. Sorry for him, he'll have many more tours in the future i'm sure.

Nerull

I wonder how long they're going to let Cav motorpace back up. His terrible luck with crashes struck again.

Darkglasses

Cav has hit the deck and fell some 50 seconds behind the peloton, just catching up now. Pace is frenetic.

Darkglasses

Crash - told you - Janez Brajkovic down and staying down.

Getting back on but he's a long way behind, and well outside the 3km.

Darkglasses

Greipel, Sagan, Kittel, Cav

Greipel the winner today, had the best lead-out and freshest legs.

Homebrew01

Sagan must be getting frustrated.... 2nd place again.

Darkglasses

Impey the new yellow jersey, Greipel the new green jersey.

Roche stays ninth.

rumrunn6

nothing is ever guaranteed, but yesterday's finish was classic and fun to watch, then even more interesting to watch knowing who would win.

I love the stage winning faces, always so stoked!

Giacomo 1 

The team will be happy with this.

And Sagan will not be happy with this!

Glad to see Kittel back in it...

Big Pete 1982

Sagan is still in green

mishmash85

Good race today, well deserved for Greipel and good to see Impey making history for SA.

cthenn

Was this stage even a bike race? The whole day with ZERO breaks? It's stage 6, and the riders are already making truces to have a day off (how else do you explain it)? Today's stage was weak, and the Tour keeps putting these very uninspiring stages in the race. Man I wish the Giro and Vuelta could get the same level of competition in terms of GC guys. Those races are so much more interesting, even their flat days have SOMETHING interesting in them. This was just like watching a Sunday club ride. The tour has the false belief that if they hold off any selective stages until the middle of week 2, and then pack it all into week 3, it makes the race more interesting, and keeps more guys in it. That's wrong, because I see it every year in the Giro and Vuelta, races can turn around at any point, as long as you have tough stages. But putting everyone to sleep for the first week does not change the fact that there's like 2 or maybe 3 guys who can win this race. That being said, the Corsica stages were watchable.

reef58

Did you watch the stage? I am not sure how you can call that a day off. Have you ever ridden a bike? Please advise who can establish a break when the entire group is pushing over 30 miles per hour? The stage average was about 27mph into a headwind.

Darkglasses

A day off?

What the **** have you been watching?

DXchulo

Such a classy move by Gerrans. Skip to 1:37 on today's Backstage Pass.

MookieBlaylock

I am new to professional cycling, but I find it odd there are lighter stages where riders can lick their wounds.

cthenn

Hi. Yeah, I watched the stage. Yes I ride a bike. I was watching the Tour De France.

Now, the stage was basically pan flat. In my dreams I still can't ride as fast as the pros, but the average speed doesn't tell the whole story. One guy got away, and was caught with over 100 K's to go. From that point on, they basically cruised to the finish. I don't care about the speed, the fact is it was one big group rolling along without even the hint of attacks. There were spells of crosswinds which did create some chaos, but apart from those few K's, it was a very mundane stage.

Maybe I'm just jealous that some of you guys find stages like this riveting. I just found myself drifting in and out of consciousness watching this stage. In fact, I had to sand and paint my front door today, and yes, watching the paint dry was more interesting than the middle of this stage. It was over ONE HUNDRED KILOMETERS of knowing the last 250m would be a bunch sprint. How anyone can think watching 2-3 hours of guys not racing is good entertainment is beyond me.

EDIT: NBC interviewed Vandevelde after the stage, and was asked if there was a "truce", and though he didn't use that word, he did say that no one wanted to attack. So, from a guy who was actually in the race, he is saying (in so many words) what I said, today was a "recovery" day.