Tour de France Stage 1 – July 5th, Leeds - Harrowgate **Unmasked Spoilers**

Darkglasses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFT6vl822Q

Like last year, the first day will be a golden opportunity for a sprinter to wear the yellow jersey. There are three climbs to contend with, none extremely challenging. The final climb is over 60km from the finish, which should be ample time for any dropped sprinter to get back on and recover themselves.

Despite Marcel Kittel coming into this as the dominant sprinter, all eyes will naturally be on Cavendish. He will be desperate to become only the 7th Briton to wear yellow in the Tour, and on home-turf. There a good number of other sprinters who should not be ruled out, not least of which is Andre Greipel, who has probably the strongest train of all. See also Peter Sagan, Arnaud Demare, Sasha Modolo, and Alexander Kristoff.

Kittel the obvious choice for me. Although it would mean the world to Cavendish, I don't think there's any way Kittel can be matched for raw speed.

Oddschecker - Kittel 9/4, Cavendish 9/4, Greipel 9/2, Sagan 13/2, Demare 12/1

MPFG

Its Kittel for me today

retalivity

For some reason the kom points are only halfway up the climbs...not sure if theres a glitch with the cyclingnews app.

Would love to see cav win, although I think kittel or greipel will take it.

neris

those new tinkoff kits are very bright. wonder will cav have a strop if he doesnt win any of the three uk stages.

retalivity

Dafuq is this??

Darkglasses

:rolleyes:

thisonetaken

What a farce

dastardly00

Van Summeran sticks out like a sore thumb! He's so tall!

pauliemck

I didn't tune into Eurosport to see this. Start the racing already...

Darkglasses

ATTACK NOW CHRIS!

dastardly00

Ah lads stop whinging will ye!

retalivity

Did they have designated ppl at the front to meet and greet? Schleck maneovured his way in there!

MPFG

Watch the Jensie attack !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MPFG

retalivity wrote: »

Did they have designated ppl at the front to meet and greet? Schleck maneovured his way in there!

As a previous Tour winner he was put there

Darkglasses

dastardly00 wrote: »

Ah lads stop whinging will ye!

But could they not have done that nonsense at the start-line before the race...

mistermatthew

David miller is good craic. Bitta bants outta him

seany15

Even at the start froome is boring

MPFG

seany15 wrote: »

Even at the start froome is boring

Froome can't help being boring

David Millar is good on commentary

And yes Jensie attacks !!!!!!!!!!!!

seany15

THE JENSIE!!!

retalivity

Pity you couldn't bet on voigt to attack straight away!

Darkglasses

Much better effort by Halfords in the TV adverts. I'll never quite get over their awful showing last year.

Ole Rodrigo

Halford's have an uphill battle, in fairness, but its a good ad.

Still wouldn't buy a Boardman.

Darkglasses

Nico is number 37

Dr. Bre

loving this Yorkshire weather so far. hope it stays this way

Darkglasses

Clever bottle carrier design for TST. Stephen Roche is probably having a coronary though.

Darkglasses

pauliemck

Very impressed by the crowds and the scenery. Gutted that I couldn't make it over for the weekend.

I quite like the bottle carrier - makes the collection of bottles a lot easier for the domestiques that have to drop back to the team car. I wonder how long it will be before we see other teams adopting a similar technique...

Dcully

Going from utv HD to Eurosport SD during ad breaks on utv is painful ,I don't have all HD channels but cycling in HD is impressive.

acquiescefc

Wheres HarroWgate?

Are we losing ITV coverage when it switches to UTV4?

dastardly00

Yellow sheep :pac:

Pudsy33

You would think they'd edit Impey out of that.

EC1000

acquiescefc wrote: »

Wheres HarroWgate?

Are we losing ITV coverage when it switches to UTV4?

Watching on itv4 now, the whole stage is on there.... you wont miss any of it

ThisRegard

Darkglasses wrote: »

Much better effort by Halfords in the TV adverts. I'll never quite get over their awful showing last year.

It's a great ad isn't it.

ThisRegard

I want to have an ale in The White Lion Inn there.

pelevin

I think the most important thing in this Tour is that no one ends up having to wear polka dot shorts.

retalivity

Very excited for that 1 kom point there...

Dcully

Some skills there from Brice

acquiescefc

EC1000 wrote: »

Watching on itv4 now, the whole stage is on there.... you wont miss any of it

Not with UPC it aint.

Boscoirl

EC1000 wrote: »

Watching on itv4 now, the whole stage is on there.... you wont miss any of it

Cheers, was watching on tg4 and that is taking a break for the tennis

pauliemck

Go on the Jensie...

EC1000

acquiescefc wrote: »

Not with UPC it aint.

Can you not tune it in manually? Watching it on freeview here

gordongekko

EC1000 wrote: »

Can you not tune it in manually? Watching it on freeview here

Nope upc block all sports on itv4

pprendeville

is the only live ticker on letour.fr? no sign of one on cyclingnews or elsewhere.

Magically appeared just now.

thirteen.

Jens

BofaDeezNuhtz

Fuggin' great crowds there!

thirteen.

Those crowds are absolutely incredible.

Darkglasses

Brilliant crowds, well done Yorkshire

nomdeboardie

thirteen. wrote: »

Those crowds are absolutely incredible.

Kudos Yorkshire, Britain

blueser

Suzuki_TL1000R wrote: »

Fuggin' great crowds there!

Great turn out for them, surely. Spotted this on a football forum in England;



You'd have to understand the local dialect but it is quite amusing.

Mint Sauce

Unreal crowds. Unfortunately, some of them don't seem any more respectful to the riders compared to their continental counterparts, what with standing in the middle of the road, etc.

Talib Fiasco

Some effort from Voigt.

Great scenes: