diphthong

slcbob’s pick of ewan was the correct one. nice!

my breakaway pick of calmejane held on for a while. oh well. there’s always stage twelve.

GrainBrain

Good on Ewan! I don't think we'll see any break survive if there's a chance for sunweb to win*. Too bad, it was good to see Calmejane in a break, saw him alot last year.

*On the flat stages

slcbob

You should feel downright good about that one. I was feeling overly smug when Naesen tried earnestly to make the break and get reeled in before they got away. Heck, Calmejane actually made this one, even though they didn't survive in a day that wasn't a prime break day anyway.

diphthong

stage twelve...thinking de gendt, nibbles or ben king. let’s go with nibbles.

slcbob

I had a small churning in my nether regions thinking it might be Nibali, and even briefly pondered a Bahrain Merida power move by him and Dennis to get away on the downhill and power home. Then I realized it's 30k from the peak to the finish, not a particularly steep downhill, and Rohan might be interested in saving up the hurt he's going to put on everyone on Friday.

So I've got nothing.

Why not Wout the Wunderkid? Or George Bennett if they don't send him out for water and snacks just before the hill. J-V is having a heckuva race. Almost.

diphthong

bennett would be a good call for the stage win with both climbing power and tt ability for those last 30 kms along with being 10+ mins down and no threat to the gc.
howevs...i surmised that team jv would be looking after kruijsin/the human coat hanger at least till the pyrenees endo. there are time bonuses at the finish...

one4smoke

Uh oh...

diphthong

^there’s a story brewing there...

GrainBrain

Sounds like Rohan just decided he was done biking huh? Almost sounds like he wasn't happy with something, I hope he wasn't that unprofessional. Why would you give up the potential stage win tomorrow?

Anyway I'm hoping Chad Haga does well in tomorrow's TT. Glad to see some EF love from the fans.

slcbob

Disregard my last.

I was wrong in Trumpian proportions.

2cam16

Drama within the team is not good for B-M. I wish Dennis would already freakin' just tell us why he quit. lol

diphthong

stage thirteen itt...looks like thomas and wout woot are the biggest faves. kung, martin, pinot and porte less so but still up there. gotta go with
thomas ftw to open the gap between he and bernal from 4 seconds to 25-30 seconds. hate picking against wout as it seems like a losing proposition.
does this guy know how good he is?

2cam16

Oh man, Wout!

SpinClassSara

thought I heard he had a disagreement with Management.

diphthong

well well well...surprises everywhere. alaphilippe rides an inspired itt to stay in yellow. thomas finishes second but a minute ahead of his teammate (that’ll come in handy). wout goes whoops and one ups the ghosts of rasmussen/menchov. and maybe most surprising of all? former multiple itt world champ tony martin finishes 163rd out of 165 riders-10 seconds faster than the last two riders. john lennon was right. strange daze indeed.

Caretaker

While an Alaphilippe win is a surprise that he did a good TT isn't for anyone who took the trouble to check his recent TT form. As for Tony Martin he was obviously riding to orders 'save your energy for the mountains where you'll be needed to help Kruijswijk in the GC battle'.

diphthong

considering the efforts alaphilippe has put forth since the start of the tour, it is a surprise he won by as much as he did. we'll see how far down the yellow brick road he gets
channeling his inner anquetil and hinault. still think the alps could be his undoing but i've only been wrong four times since breakfast. let's make it five.

diphthong

stage fourteen. yates. adam yates.

GrainBrain

Rigo is going to start clawing back time in these stages, I say he gets 30 seconds back against G. G and Alaphilippe will have a probable standoff. I'm wondering if Alaphilippe will try and play red herring so that Mas can advance?

I'm going with Ben King.

2cam16

Yes! Ineos team are human and exploded. That was an exciting stage watching the riders drop like flies. Congrats to Thibaut.

dstrong 

Yuge cracks in the Ineos armor today! Alaphilippe now 2 minutes ahead??? He even put 2 minutes into his teammate Mas...the climber!

No way he can stay in yellow tomorrow! ;-)

slcbob

Well, wow. Not what I expected to see.

Some crazy days on the road. I look forward to catching up on the DVR. The outcomes are quite a surprise.

It's getting tight at the top of the fantasy league. Uggh.

I'm sort of glad I haven't been around these last few days to make bad predictions. I've been riding motorcycles out in West Virginia for the last few days. Mostly out of cell signal. T boned a deer today. Uggh. She died about 20 feet from the accident. The game warden said it might be a record. I'm fine, have some bike repairs to handle. My great regret in this context is that may further impair my trash talking and/or excuse making, depending on how the next few days play out.

Blind pick, not really understanding the last few days -- Bernal.

diphthong

sorry to hear about the incident, slcbob. hope you and the vehicle are okay.

stage fifteen...on the heels of my not prescient stage 14 pick of adam yates, i’ll posit de gendt to win stage fifteen.

one4smoke

@slcbob Yeah man, glad you're ok after that! Did you take a tumble, or stay upright after the collision? Again, just glad you here to tell about it. I'll get over the deer fairly quickly...

diphthong

second rest day recap... dstrong (again, as tdf usual) at the top of the leaderboard with one4smoke closely and dangerously drafting without hands on the brakes.
slcbob still on the podium and within striking distance. tdf third week...the final frontier. could use more predictions-accurate or otherwise-to liven up the proceedings.
i loathe being the only one to pick the wrong brother a day late...