GrainBrain

How frustrating for Dan, two days of doldrums only to lose a lot of time and get banged up on a crash towards the end.

Can't believe Griepl was DQ'd along with Gaviria? Funny to watch. Lots of passion on display. Groenewegen has got some power to him! Second win and making it look easy.

excited to watch the cobbles. Team sky has rear suspension that will be cool to watch. Hoping for a safe race and good placing for Uran. I feel like EF drapac are really prepared for anything.

Jakedatc

Interview with him said his power was right there but the other guys are faster.. he's not a spring chicken anymore. His wins used to be on another level.. just tearing away and leaving a huge gap. guys are much closer matched these days

Sagan jumped too early.. maybe he was worried about what ended up happening and didn't want to be caught in it if they crashed.

2cam16

INSANE stage as predicted. Poor Richie Porte.

GrainBrain

Terrible luck! Then Landa gets caught by a pot hole.

Bardet!? What happened? Like a million mechanical problems for them.


Uran giving up so much time, just a little slip then bang like two minutes down in ten seconds it seemed.

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2cam16

Yeah and Tejay too! BMC just had some dark cloud over them today.

diphthong

one4smoke

Yeah, Tejay 3 flats and a crash trying to make up lost ground.

Even though I was pullin' for Sagan, nice win for Degenkolb.

No way Van Avermaet keeps the yellow. Hoping Yates makes a run for it in the mountain stages.

diphthong

Caretaker

Tony Martin DNS Stage 9 after crash on Stage 8 that also involved his namesake Dan.
Good to see Dan up with the GC group today. Hopefully he can do the same in the mountains and move up into a top ten position.
The next three stages will be very decisive for whoever is going to be in yellow in Paris. We may not know who that will be after Stage 12 but it should be down to a select few.

slcbob

Are there really 18 GC contenders?

Mods?

O Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. Glad you bounce well and all the best, Mr. Martin.

For BMC (beyond GVA), I'm not surprised at the outcome, just devastated by the over/under. I had Richie in double digits of stages before his expected flamboyant egress, and TJV in at least double digits of minutes of team leadership before he succumbed to those demons. 0 for 2 there.

My prediction for Stage 10:

Caretaker

GC contender = Any rider who has a reasonable hope/expectation of finishing in the top 20
Yes easily, although one less since Stage 9.

diphthong

froomie
thomas
landa
valverde
quintana
roglic
martin
bojangles
nibbles
pozzovivo
dumou
majka
mollema
yates
kruijsin
bardet
z-man
fuglsang

diphthong

so pure...

diphthong

first name that popped into my head for a stage 10 victor was valverde, so i'll go with him as the winner. barguil was the 2nd name that rattled around. any takers?

Caretaker

Hopefully not. A 38 y-o proven blood doper to win a mountain stage in the TdF ????

slcbob

Honestly I was just poking at my good frenemy @ooga-booga, but OK, I'll bite @Caretaker. Not to be obstinate, just to explore out of legitimate interest. Does that come from somewhere authoritative? Or a cultural norm from somewhere, and are there are other acknowledged norms?

I have always taken it to mean reason possibility of a podium. That might be close to the same list of names as reasonable likelihood of top 20 (10, 15, 30?) but is a different metric. Maybe it's the American in me coming out.

Good list that you were up late working on. OK. Round it out with Barguil and Uran for 20. No Tejay? And be honest, back in the day, could you have put Talansky on such a list and kept a straight face?

Solid pick. I can't do better. Nibali is going to have to take a flyer on one of these downhills, but I'm not convinced this one is it.

Strong showing from Barguil to sneak in on the stage 9 top 15 and make the cut line on the TV list of finishers. We'll hear from him again. I assumed he was going to wreak havoc on the mountain points and picked him for my team with the evil corporate giants behind the demise of Velogames. I'm sad he didn't make the list of top 18 contenders.

Wow, Nairo! Well cobbled, small man. And Landa and Bardet getting back on, Bardet after almost as much bad luck as Tejay.

diphthong

pretty sure all these boys have either finished in the top ten of a gt or been in late contention before exploding in the last 4 years. sure...throw uran in there.
our boy tejay can stage hunt or start whittling down that 6 minute deficit on stage 10. he doesn't hafta go landis and get it all back in one fell swoop.
20 seconds here. a minute there. tejay is usually pretty strong the last week. it's his first 1.5 weeks that are the problem. oh talansky...where art thou talansky...?

my pre-start top six gc guys (in no particular order) was thomas, martin, nibbles, froomie, dumou and yates. i'll stick by that. sure, z-man or majka or uran or bardet
or a movistar bro could slip in. we'll know a lot more after stage 10 but i feel thomas and nibbles , yates and dumou have been sandbagging a little. time to be or not to be.

diphthong

seemingly ageless. disregard him at your own peril. not the fastest climber, sprinter, descender but a pretty solid tactician and
amalgamation of the previous three. who ya got to win stage 10?

2cam16

I'd like to see young Egan Bernal coming into play in the Alps.

slcbob

Well, like you say in your sig line, "history is the future."

slcbob

Great pic here on the Steephill TdeF race page today.

rutan74

First stage in the mountains on Tuesday. Good day for a breakaway to survive since most will have jello legs from Sunday after the cobbles. Remember though, everyone climbs well on day 1 of the mountains. With a downhill finish, a breakaway could survive.

Anyone else see the video from stage 9 for a very suspicious real wheel spinning slightly out of control after a crash by the polka dot jersey? With 17k to go. Lance was talking about it and had no explanation as to what was going on here. Just a short 7 sec clip on the incident but very interesting. If the link is busted, just you tube, "tour de france 2018 rear wheel". It should be like the second video that comes up on the search list.

You can judge for yourself here:
john

bikecrate

It would be nice to see the few seconds before the video starts. Was he perhaps turning the cranks to get his front chain back in line?

Is Geraint Thomas the sleeper for Sky? He is very close to yellow and it is unlikely Van Avermaet will hold on to it through the mountains. Will he be allowed to go for it or will he be working for Froome?

Caretaker

Stage 8 BTW, Dan Martin crash.
I've looked at full frame video of this several times (not on YouTube) and it looks to me like he uses his left shoe to spin the cranks as he swings the bike round. You can get the video on Steephill where they have two links, one restricted to U.S. and the other Europe. I went backwards and forwards frame by frame. 00.23-00,24sec in European video.

Much ado about nothing IMO.

rutan74

Thanks for the link. Haven't been on steep hill TV for a while since the tour is on NBC here, but I'll check it out. I agree that the you tube clip was a bit short on the just before, but that is spinning the crank at a very high rate there. That rear wheel is spinning pretty quickly. It just looks suspicious as it sort of comes out of nowhere from the ditch to spinning crazy just a second later. I give it a look at steep hill though.

I mentioned it because on Lance's podcast both Hincappe and he looked at it and could not figure it out. Yes, they did say it could be turning the crank to make sure the chain is OK, but they still had no real answer. I then went and took a look as did a fellow co-worker who did just happened to ride professionally some years ago. He did not see it as him turning the crank to clear the chain. He thought it looked very suspicious. Again, just something that had raised a few eyebrows.

john.