KJ43

Alaphillipe. What can you say? Chef's kiss....just a great victory.

surak

Where's the outrage over MvdP and Merlier both pulling the same thing this year?

GrainBrain

Ironically I have gone with Ewan

... I think some push back was because he was leader of the points jersey, and he made the unfortunate mistake of honestly communicating his goals. Wait till a climber in polka dots leaves for the Olympics ...
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MinnMan

Oddly, Ineos benefits greatly from the crash. Porte and Hart lost enough time that the lunatic 4-leader strategy is now going to be a much more sensible 2-leader strategy, with their two strongest riders still in the running and now having 2 additional domestiques.

Lazyass

The riders who went down should sue the girl with the sign.

OldTryGuy

Maybe the TdF organizers >>>

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tou...stage-1-crash/

Caretaker

Reportedly the race organisers are planning to do just that.

Not sure it's the right way to deal with the issue, civil legal actions against individuals who unintentionally cause disruption to road cycling races seems excessive to me. If she isn't to be prosecuted by the state then it's just one of those things that's inevitable if you run cycle races on public roads.

She will have suffered enough already.

diphthong

not sure how this is different that the doofus that brings a dog to the proceedings and allows the leashed (or more likely) unleashed woofer to
wander/bolt into the race and affect it? unaware/irresponsible dude or dudette is endangering the racers and race vehicles.
how would f1 handle it if someone somehow got loose on the course and decided to cross the raceway because they wanted to be on the
other side of the road? guessing f1 wouldn't be too pleased-especially if one of the drivers were in the area and they (and/or the machine) got injured.

she may as well have dumped boxes of tacks into the roadway or driven the wrong way onto the course.
effectively ends up being a case of involuntary domestic terrorism. soler with two broken arms and dozens
of riders with assorted injuries...well done. but it was an accident...

diphthong

go! schelling! go! day two off with a bang.

GrainBrain

Definitely a great rider to watch! Laughed when he "sprinted" to the intermediate sprint yesterday. Again today, after Perez secured a one point KOM prize Schelling sprinted past him after the fact just because I wonder if he's going for most combative? I also wonder if this was the same guy throwing the "rock 'n roll" hand gesture to a friend in one of the earlier spring races when he got out front for awhile. I think it was

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MinnMan

Textbook mvdp. If he's in position, I don't think there's anybody in the peloton who can beat him in an uphill classics-style finish. Would love to see the power numbers from those last 700 meters.

KJ43

Some good racing on the first two stages. Todays win for Van der Poel was awesome.

I have a soft spot for racers that have spent time in the dirt and having Alaphilippe and Van der Poel win back to back on the first two stages was pretty cool.

diphthong

last horrible prediction wasn't so bad after all. shocker. stage three...démare or ewan ftw...looks like there's a double hairpin in the last few km's...
will be a lot of pressure to be at the front of that section...hoping everyone comes through it unscathed but history and it being the first week of
the tdf and all, the realist in me overrules the optimist. someone could go for a suicidal breakaway just beforehand and force the issue and
likely raise the prospect of a mass rubber side up situation, thereby stealing a win. going with ewan to negotiate that scylla/charbidis and snag stage three tho.

slcbob

If there is a rule #87 violation, the soft spot in this old broken man wouldn't mind seeing it be Manxish. But, yeah, Ewan.

diphthong

that was quite the donnybrook today. perhaps we’ll see some racing after half of the field crashes out…maybe by stage number nine number nine at this rate.

MinnMan

oof

USAZorro

Is Colbrelli going to get booted for knocking Roglic into the ditch?

canam73

Is there an overhead view anywhere of that? I've only seen the straight on shot.

Speaking of overhead, at ~2:38 you can see the overhead of Ewan going down. Maybe just a racing incident, but it looks to me like Merlier comes off his line to get around his team mate an initiates the wheel touch that puts Ewan & Sagan down. Stage 3 Highlights (2021/tour-de-france)

MinnMan

MinnMan

It looks to me that Ewan was a little off-balance after his shoulder bump with Sagan and couldn't adjust as Merlier moved right to go around his lead-out man. Even though Merlier was clearly moving right from the time before Ewan came 'round Sagan

Edit: Though the shift right by the Fenix lead-out made things harder for all - Merlier had to move further to the right and Ewan's opening was closed off.

USAZorro

His hand came up as if to protest his innocence a split second after Roglic was on his way down. To me it seems like he knew he was bumping him, but possibly didn't expect the end result to be as bad as it turned out.

GrainBrain

This was my worry when primoz opted not to race for an extended period before the tour. I think his instincts are dulled abit. It seems the whole peloton shifted quickly towards Roglic at that point.

OBoile

I don't see how someone can say this is, in any way, on Merlier.

Shadco 

From what little I could see it sure looked like that.

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Eric F 

Merlier did exactly what was expected - took the short line inside his teammate. It's pretty standard practice that the leadout rider continues to go flat-out until he gets passed by his sprinter on one side or another. Ewen put his front wheel in jeopardy in his battle to get the advantage on Sagan, and had no place to go when Merlier made his move to go around the leadout. I doubt anyone beats Ewan if he stays upright, but he cost himself the chance to win today. Unfortunately, it also cost Sagan chance, and the rest of Ewan's Tour.