Tour de France Stage 10; Saint-Gildas-Des-Bois to Saint Malo
 

2.07 into NBCS's coverage, another moon sighting.

5 leaders whose lead has been whittled down to 3 minutes with 70km to go. Another sprinter day, as if nobody saw that coming on the flattest day of the tour.

Good lord the Tour is so boring. I have no idea why it's the most popular GT. Why can't all these guys race the Giro or Vuelta? I want to see the best riders in the best races and the Tour is so effing BORING! Day after day after day of flat stages and then one week of everything at once. We've already seen what happens to some of these guys after consecutive mountain stages. SPREAD IT OUT! STOP FORCING THE RACE INTO THE THIRD WEEK WHEN IT'S ALREADY OVER FOR FIRST PLACE ANYWAY! Jesus Christ wake me when the third week starts.

Anyone having problems with live feeds? The only ones that seem to work keep freezing up really bad. It's weird because on Saturday, the day that regular NBC carried the stage, the internet feed also never missed a beat.

From all of your posts, I have to wonder why you watch cycling at all...

Breakaway still in front, but getting caught soon. Should be a good finish on the narrow roads...

crash for Andrew Talansky not good for garmin sharp...not good at all.

Hear, hear. If his attention span is so short that he complains about "day after day of flat stages" when we've just had two days in the Pyrenees, no parcours is likely to keep him interested.

Wow, photo finish, Greipel and Kittel!

It's Kittel! It's Kittel!

Ouch! Dirty play by Cav?

He took out Degenkolb with a hard shoulder. Wiped him out!

Interesting shoulder technique by Cavendish at the finish...

I guess I don't know enough about the teams and team strategy, etc. but why would someone in the lead position just pull off to the side suddenly and give up his lead position to other riders like some of them just did about 1 KM before the finish?

completely. and no surprise, having read his autohagiography.

That's the team strategy. Some riders in a team will take the lead and mash as hard as possible for a certain distance at the end. He'll drop and teammate #2 will take over. Ideally, the last guy in the train pulls almost to the finish for the team sprinter.

They call those guys the leadout train. They are there to set there sprinters up for the finish. They are not expected to win because they are not as quick in the final 200-500 meters of a race like this...

Yeah, looks very bad.

Cav will say he was interfered with, but I don't think so...

wow yeah, I just saw that shoulder move on the aerial replay during the commentary with Dan Lloyd. That looked just plain low down 'n dirty to me.

I do. It may not have been deliberate, but he was effectively blocked from going on Kittel's wheel.

Marcel Kittel has really arrived in this Tour.

He will now be mentioned in the same breath with the big sprinters...

Think that crash might be why they sent Millar to the front with Martin? Keep their GC rider out of trouble as much as possible. It was a really impressive turn by Millar, he seemed to be on the front on his own for about 10kms, closing the gap on the 4 breakaways, and none of the sprinters' teams wanted to come around him!

Getting the wheel of your opponent is not guranteed. There is absolutely no reason that Degenkolb should give up his teamates wheel to Cav. Cav had no lead out, so that is his problem, not anyone else's...

Yeah, thought he got a bit lucky in the first stage win with all the crashes, but everybody was there today and he beat them all.

might Cav get disqualified for a move like that? hoping...

Just saw it. Maybe others know the rules better, but it looked pretty dirty to me.

There's probably written technical definitions of what constitutes obstruction, but Cav definitely moved his line and initiated contact.

DQ on the day, and a fine, is the usual punishment.

Sure. But what I saw was the Argos-Shimano guy peeling off into Cavendish's path. He's entitled to race, and not simply say "after you."

He's also entitled to be pretty pissed off with his team. That's the second sprint finish in a row that he's been left alone and both times he has been blocked - last time he lost his chance by having to go round someone on a wide line, this time by going through someone. There'l be tantrums in the OPQ bus tonight...

Can't wait to hear Cav whine about this one.

He needs to wonder where his team was. They were nowhere to be seen in an obvious sprint stage. Taking his frustration out on Degenkolb is just dirty pool.

Yeah, a DQ for that wouldn't be out of the question I would think...

Sorry chasm, we are writing at the same time!