Le Tour!

[Verbal]

Anyone else watching, then?

[Annoyed Grunt]

Try and watch when I can.

Happy that Cavendish won the second stage.

[jimbo]

Yeah watching it compulsively. Good starts for Wiggo and Cav so far. Nice to see Cav win today without the leadout, though watching the flat stages without the HTC train driving the peloton just seems wrong! Hopefully Wiggans can survive the first week unscathed, and Cav can pick up a couple of stages along the way.

[Annoyed Grunt]

Yeah watching it compulsively. Good starts for Wiggo and Cav so far. Nice to see Cav win today without the leadout, though watching the flat stages without the HTC train driving the peloton just seems wrong! Hopefully Wiggans can survive the first week unscathed, and Cav can pick up a couple of stages along the way.

Know what you mean. Thought Cav might struggle without Renshaw to deliver him.

[seanworth]

Watching each stage but looking forward to the more mountainous stages in order to separate the real cyclists from the posers.

[jimbo]

Nasty day today. Some big crashes already. Need to keep our boys out of trouble at the front

[TANGODANCER]

Watching each stage but looking forward to the more mountainous stages in order to separate the real cyclists from the posers.

Don't follow the sport, but I doubt there'll be many posers in this race, or indeed in any of these type things. Is that just a figure of speech?.

[Verbal]

I guess seanworth is referring to those who'll be challenging for yellow rather than the sprinters, who will lose hours in the mountains as they are simply not built for climbing really steep fecking hills. But aye, there aren't any pretenders in this race. Any one who finishes it has my respect.

Tough going today, couple of people have crashed out in treacherous conditions. Sagan continues to impress, ridiculous considering how young he is. Just glad none of the favourites seem to have been affected much.

[seanworth]

I guess seanworth is referring to those who'll be challenging for yellow rather than the sprinters, who will lose hours in the mountains as they are simply not built for climbing really steep fecking hills. But aye, there aren't any pretenders in this race. Any one who finishes it has my respect.

Tough going today, couple of people have crashed out in treacherous conditions. Sagan continues to impress, ridiculous considering how young he is. Just glad none of the favourites seem to have been affected much.

Will be interesting to see Sagan in the real mountain stages. It's one thing to be cocky but to do that celebration, and look so fresh after that stage win today is pretty impressive. I looked more tired than him from my living room couch, mind you I was only on my second morning cup of coffee.

[seanworth]

Watching each stage but looking forward to the more mountainous stages in order to separate the real cyclists from the posers.

Don't follow the sport, but I doubt there'll be many posers in this race, or indeed in any of these type things. Is that just a figure of speech?.

By posers I mean that the flat land sprinters are in general not the serious contenders in the Tour. When the mountain stages arrive that is what separates the men from the boys. I'm about to go for a casual ride today and will be climbing more that they did today although not the same distance, and I'm not even in shape, way too old, and don't even concider myself anything more that a recreational cyclist. In a few days time when they hit the mountains I am blown away they can even cycle those climbs never mind race them.

[jimbo]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

[seanworth]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Have to admit I kind of like the crashes, at least when no-one gets seriously injured. A shame for Cav though as these are the type of stages that he gets to shine. Really doubt he was injured badly. Probably could have gotten back in the Peloton but considering it was too late to sprint for the finish there was no point. I'm kind of getting a little restless waiting for Saturday when the first real mountain stages begin. So far I think there has been only one change in the top 10 since opening the days race, and that was due to a crash yesterday if I recall. Really don't expect any changes until Saturday when the field gets a real shake up.

[Annoyed Grunt]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

[jimbo]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

I completely understand that. The fact is though they have the current world champion in their team and are hanging him out to dry in the finishes with just Eisel for company.

[CAPSLOCK]

Did somebody force Cavendish to sign for SKY?

[Annoyed Grunt]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

I completely understand that. The fact is though they have the current world champion in their team and are hanging him out to dry in the finishes with just Eisel for company.

I've not really seen much coverage to comment on that. Cav knew that was the plan. With HTC, he was the main man and that was the teams aim, get him at the front for the sprint.

[jimbo]

It'll be interesting to see what happens after this year. The long term plan has always been for him to win the olympic road race, which I'm guessing was a big factor in him moving to Sky so he could be around the British set up full time. When the Olympics is out of the way, surely he'll want to go back to challenging for green every year? That will never happen at Sky, as their team is all built around going for yellow with Wiggans and Froome in the future.

[seanworth]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

I completely understand that. The fact is though they have the current world champion in their team and are hanging him out to dry in the finishes with just Eisel for company.

I'm sure Cav is aware of this before the Tour even started. Really the sprints is more of a side show to the Tour whether you like it or not. The prestige is winning the Tour and with Wiggins the team has a real shot. Also you can't get a team to surround and protect a competitor who finishes in the bottom third of a Tour. Cav knows how to climb, but choses not to. He doesn't care about the overall title, nor does he care about helping a team mate to win that title. His concern and job on the team is to win his sprints.

[jimbo]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

I completely understand that. The fact is though they have the current world champion in their team and are hanging him out to dry in the finishes with just Eisel for company.

I'm sure Cav is aware of this before the Tour even started. Really the sprints is more of a side show to the Tour whether you like it or not. The prestige is winning the Tour and with Wiggins the team has a real shot. Also you can't get a team to surround and protect a competitor who finishes in the bottom third of a Tour. Cav knows how to climb, but choses not to. He doesn't care about the overall title, nor does he care about helping a team mate to win that title. His concern and job on the team is to win his sprints.

Yeah, I realise that. I'm questioning Sky's tactics as a whole. If they are so focused on yellow, surely Cav and Eisel are just wasted members of the team (already depleted after the loss of Siutsou). Surely it's evidence that you can't compete on 2 fronts. The team doesn't seem well balanced at all to me, whereas BMC seem really tight so far, with Hincapie and co giving Evans loads of protection up front. If they had Boassen Hagen as their main sprinter, he'd be up there on most of the finishes and has the ability to pick up one or two stages as he goes along.

[seanworth]

Gutted about today's finish. It was made for Cav and pretty sure he'd have blown the others away as per, but that crash looked really heavy. Hope he's ok and can come back fighting tomorrow. It's such a shame. No way that would have happened last year with the HTC boys driving it on. He's the best sprinter in the world and deserves the protection and the leadout train that his rivals are getting at the moment. Not overly impressed with Sky at the moment.

Thing with Sky is their main aim is to get Wiggins in yellow.

I completely understand that. The fact is though they have the current world champion in their team and are hanging him out to dry in the finishes with just Eisel for company.

I'm sure Cav is aware of this before the Tour even started. Really the sprints is more of a side show to the Tour whether you like it or not. The prestige is winning the Tour and with Wiggins the team has a real shot. Also you can't get a team to surround and protect a competitor who finishes in the bottom third of a Tour. Cav knows how to climb, but choses not to. He doesn't care about the overall title, nor does he care about helping a team mate to win that title. His concern and job on the team is to win his sprints.

Yeah, I realise that. I'm questioning Sky's tactics as a whole. If they are so focused on yellow, surely Cav and Eisel are just wasted members of the team (already depleted after the loss of Siutsou). Surely it's evidence that you can't compete on 2 fronts. The team doesn't seem well balanced at all to me, whereas BMC seem really tight so far, with Hincapie and co giving Evans loads of protection up front. If they had Boassen Hagen as their main sprinter, he'd be up there on most of the finishes and has the ability to pick up one or two stages as he goes along.

Can't comment that much on that, as I am not really that concerned about Sky's team. I know that their objective is not just to win the tour but to get a Brit to win the Tour. Guess they felt Cav and this dominance in sprints would fit in nice with this package. The main objective of teams is quite mystifying at times. Each day you see riders surge to the front knowing that they will be swallowed up by the Peloton before the end of the race. It seems mad to do this but the purpose 90% of the time is simply to get exposure for the team and the individual since they will get lots of TV coverage during these few hours of madness. Cav gets a lot of exposure for the SKY team as a sprinter even though he finishes nowhere near the front of the overall race. Therefore his precence is good for the team. To win the overall title though would get huge coverage in England, just like Armstrong got for the States, Evans did for Australia, and Ryder would in Canada if he emerged the winnner. One must have a strong team in order to win the overall title and I'm sure the Mountain stages. Not sure how important it is to have a very strong team in order to win the sprints. Not saying you don't need support just don't follow the sprints enough I guess to have ever thought about it much. I guess you will find the answer to your question as the race unfolds. Barring any accident, would have to assume that Wiggins has an excellent shot.