Tour de France - Stage 1, Jun 29, Porto-Vecchio - Bastia, **Unmasked Spoilers**

dastardly00

Ok folks, let's get this show on the road

Stage 1, Porto-Vecchio - Bastia, 213 km

No prologue to start the race this year, instead it's the beautiful scenery of the island of Corsica. The profile is rolling for the first 60km, and then flattens out for the rest of the stage. The last 2km are straight with only a few easy bends, and the final 500 metres are slightly downhill. The tempo will be ridiculously high, as we have come to expect in the opening stages of le Tour, and the sprinters' teams will be gunning to take the win and the first maillot jaune.

Andre Greipel, Marcel Kittel, and Peter Sagan all have a great chance of winning this stage, but I can't see any of them beating Cav. The sprint finish is going to be lightning quick, but nervy as well.

Btw, Nico is no. 97, and Dan is no. 175.





Final kilometre:



Live TV coverage on Eurosport1 from 10.30am, and ITV4 from 10.55am.
Highlights on ITV4 at 7pm, TG4 at 9.10pm, and Eurosport1 at 9pm,

Live text-ticker will be here.

Pherekydes

Made for Cav. We'll see how Sagan and he shape up for the green.

snollup

Can't wait! Tomorrow is going to be a very unproductive day in the Snollup household. Between Oz v's Lions & the Tour I can't see me budging from infront of the screen(s).

boege

Day 1 with 190 riders wired to the moon, Cav to get caught in crash near line and winner by lottery draw.

Not wishing, just fearing.

Craig06

OPQS will have this lined out making it impossible for everybody else. I'd expect to see Tony Martin putting the hammer down on the final 20km or so to keep Cav safe. The biggest danger is the other sprinters fighting to get on Cav's wheel.

Mint Sauce

Punture already for Chris Froome and a Bike Change for another Sky Rider in the Neutral Zone on Stage 1.

RamirezAuron

1st stage - there's always a high potential for a crash at the TdF...
so there is a good chance of an surprisingly winner...

Darkglasses

Ok Kirby, I like you, but did you seriously think that there was a word "Laiooeme" spelled out in a field?

La 100eme. The one hundredth.

*facepalm*

manafana

Enjoying this in HD this year along with the tennis thanks to trialling the new UPC horizon box.

For me I have gone for the outsiders of Bouhanni or Kristoff today,

Kristof is smart racer and that final bend with 2km to go is something he has habit o navigating well.

g0g

General question: how come with all the technology they have we rarely see things like current speed or whatever displayed on screen? How come they couldn't focus on a rider and estimate his speed and cadence? Or the current gradient too? I remember seeing it once or twice in the Vuelta, so how come never in TDF?

Inquitus

g0g wrote: »

General question: how come with all the technology they have we rarely see things like current speed or whatever displayed on screen? How come they couldn't focus on a rider and estimate his speed and cadence? Or the current gradient too? I remember seeing it once or twice in the Vuelta, so how come never in TDF?

If the teams agreed we could probably have real time Watts, Cadence, Speed etc. Only the teams won't.

g0g

Inquitus wrote: »

If the teams agreed we could probably have real time Watts, Cadence, Speed etc. Only the teams won't.

Yeah I was guessing teams might retain info they wanted to keep to themselves, but data like speed or gradient you could get from a motorbike going at same pace as them surely?

Inquitus

g0g wrote: »

Yeah I was guessing teams might retain info they wanted to keep to themselves, but data like speed or gradient you could get from a motorbike going at same pace as them surely?

Aye you could, not sure why they don't. The best they do is point the TV camera at the moto speedo from time to time!

Ole Rodrigo

Monfort putting an empty wrapper back in his jersey pocket - hope some W200 participants are taking note.

manafana

ror_74 wrote: »

Monfort putting an empty wrapper back in his jersey pocket - hope some W200 participants are taking note.

depends on riders and teams, some have policy to avoid littering. I think their are zones were they encourage the riders to dispose of rubbish as at least then its a small radius to clean up.

Disgusting i feel bad enough sometimes when the top of gels fly's away on me.

dastardly00

Seemingly a bus has crashed into the gantry at the finish line!

Rovi

Orica Greenedge's satellite dish, apparently!

Inquitus

Epic fail by the sounds of it.

dastardly00

Speaking of crashes, Johnny Hoogerland has fallen off his bike. He's back up now.

Inquitus

Mint Sauce

Photo finish at the 3km to go mark.

dastardly00

Another crash. Hesjedal was involved. He's being paced back to the peloton by a team mate.

NEW FINISH LINE. 3km before the original finish line.

Max_Charger

Where's the finish?! Chaos!

C3PO

Just as we'll that they still all have radios!!

Mint Sauce

JUst seen shot of the 3k marker.

:eek:

Mint Sauce

Bus is being cleared,

Edit

BIG CRASH!!

Anyone

Wopper crash............thats some farce at the finish, will they move it back now?

Max_Charger

Sagan is down

Pherekydes

Insane finish.

C3PO

What a fiasco!

Mint Sauce

Finish line is back at the finish line.

Inquitus

Total Farce

Ole Rodrigo

Jaysus..

Liamalone

What a shambles lol

Darkglasses

What's happening?

Mint Sauce

Liamalone wrote: »

What a shambles lol

And on the 100th Edition.

dastardly00

That was an absolute mess!!

homer simpson

That was full of drama... but for all the wrong reasons.

Inquitus

Apparently Contador went down hard.

Mint Sauce

Crashed riders have been told they will get the same time as the finishers, even though it was outside the 3k mark.

Reason, crash was within 3k of the revised finish that they were advised about.

Max_Charger

boege wrote: »

Day 1 with 190 riders wired to the moon, Cav to get caught in crash near line and winner by lottery draw.

Not wishing, just fearing.

You called it perfectly.

Ole Rodrigo

Darkglasses wrote: »

What's happening?

- Bus gets stuck at the finish line
- Decision to move finish line back by 3 KM
- Bus gets free, finish line moved back to finish line.
- Confusing comms possibly contribute to crash, Sagan, Cav & others out of sprint.
- Marcel Kittel takes the finish.
- Looked like Benny Hill does the TDF.

dastardly00

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Crashed riders have been told they will get the same time as the finishers, even though it was outside the 3k mark.

Reason, crash was within 3k of the revised finish

Fairest result

GetWithIt

Thought I saw Roche in the front group

Mint Sauce

dastardly00 wrote: »

Fairest result

What about the sprint points though.

Henlars67

GetWithIt wrote: »

Thought I saw Roche in the front group

So did I at first but pretty certain I saw him come in with Contador after that

Beasty

Mint Sauce wrote: »

What about the sprint points though.

Should be awarded based on placings across the line - no different to a crash within 3km of the finish. Those who avoided the crash should not be penalised

MPFG

Henlars67 wrote: »

So did I at first but pretty certain I saw him come in with Contador after that

Looked like both Nico and Dan were up in the front group at the end ...unless I am going blind.....

What chaos ...Tour de France never boring

Nico diary should be a good read on the riders view of the bus incident

Inquitus

As the Eurosport guys said, that revised finish at 3km looked way too sketchy to be used. That could have been proper dangerous.

Mr. Grieves

Kittel had no idea the finish was moved! :eek:

el tel

Lance Armstrong was driving the bus :pac: