You gotta feel for Tejay a bit, this tour is truly a war of attrition.

It was just a couple of days ago the BMC race director was saying how Tejay has found his flow, after battling through a minor bout of bronchitis and crashing 4 times. Just goes to show that when racing against the best in the world being anything less then in top form really makes a difference. Hopefully he rallies with a strong TT performance and takes some time back from the leaders.

Agreed on your first point. Kwiatkowski looked like he was in no hurry at all.

In my view, today is where IF Nibali has been depleted it will show. And if he cracks at all today there will be blood in the water on the Toumelet, not that there's any water on the Tourmelet this time of year....the side they are going up pitches up pretty steeply through la Mongie. There will be blood.
Tejay is not made for these climbs. He's had a great tour but I'm thinking he's cooked.
Super hot weather today, apparently. For some reason I think this stage is going to get crazy and tomorrow will be epic and the TT will matter.
(Is there a font color for wishful thinking?)

Jens is in the break. i so love that guy.

Kiryienka having another aggressive day after putting in the work yesterday. Can't see him staying clear on that last climb though. Chance for El Purito to pick up a stage?

Yeah looks like he's crushing again.

Must be bittersweet for Contador, celebrating his teammate's success yet knowing he had his strongest support ever. Before the Tour I though Saxo was way stronger than Sky, and that's certainly proving to be true.

Great ride by Tejay. Balls.

However, the second and third places are really up for grabs and open between the 3 french guys and Valverde

I was wrong and König lost big time.

Indeed. Great ride by Roche.
Something about that stage just didn't feel right though. Nibali still hasn't broken a sweat. I want to believe, he's a great rider, and with AC and or Froome in the mix he might not look so invulnerable, but I have a bias against the Astana kit. Not fair perhaps, but there it is.
If I were forced to pick someone with a bad bio passport though, it would be Majka.

Please stop the madness....Nibali is not running out of energy, he is not getting worn down or anything of the aort. he has such a massive lead that he doesn't need to be right on everyone's wheel the second they gain a foot. There is no "overall battle" left and there hasn't been one since Contador left the race.

---

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If I were forced to pick someone with a bad bio passport though, it would be Majka.

why?

Clearly he's on some sort WED, winking-enhancing drugs.

I think because we've grown very cautious over the past decade or so. We've had many performances that simply looked too good to be true and were ultimately proven to be fueled by stuff other than grit and resistance to suffering.

Nevertheless, I'm holding out hope that the most recent crop of superhuman athletes in the last few years (Froome, Contador, Nibali, Majka, Martin, Sagan, take your pick really) is clean. That said, I'm not accusing anyone of anything. Just theorizing on why McNulty may be raising the issue.


*edit to correct ST member quoted name.

I've come around to thinking Nibali has the best poker face in cycling. It's impossible to tell if he's good or on the rivet. I had a teammate who was the same -- he'd appear to effortlessly put the hurt on everyone and then go out the back door, all without a change of body language or expression. I actually thought Nibali looked to be laboring a little but today but again, hard to say with that poker face. Also think just about every team has a spotty past so that alone isn't enough for me to raise my suspicion.

Hope Majka is just having an incredible coming out party, but concur. Tactics at this stage in the race make wins like that much more doable, and I also think that seeing French riders battling for GC points to a cleaner race. It is interesting that Saxo's plan B has seen riders rider to the occasion while Sky has simply wilted.

Those guys were averaging 380 watts up 8-10% gradient climbs today. How many watts can you cupcakes sustain up similar climbs?

He has been rock solid. What is interesting to me is that Nibali has gotten most of his time advantage in the last 3K of the final climb of the more difficult stages. Its almost if he is waiting to be attacked and it never comes so he decides to go. Nibali hasn't taken any risks to win. Maybe he is just that much better. It may be too late with one more Mountain stage but it seems that if guys want to win they would try some different tactics. I remember a few years ago, one of the contenders took off at the bottom of the climb and won the day.

I guess I would like to see someone go for the win versus protecting their spot.

It's been a great, if weird Tour.
I'm rooting for the French guys. That never happens.
The cobbles, the 2 biggies out.
One of the funnier things I've seen is the rider crashing into a Movistar feeder and then pushing him. Always funny watching GC riders "fight" with the emaciated upper body. Can they kick you to death?

Now we're hearing about more riders about to get popped for bad passport check ups.

I think the peloton is way,way cleaner. But not squeaky.

I tend to be more suspect of eastern European riders. I think these guys oftentimes are up against it financially and it is win or go back to not great conditions. I remember Sagan just riding away from the field at Big Bear Lake in the Tour of California in 2010. A prodigy for sure but not that prodigious. I'd bet the house that he hasn't always been clean. I think he's clean now. Hell, there was a Russian kid in the baby Giro who had been popped by the time he was 19. I was never a Vino fan and I don't like to see him basking in Nibali's success. I think he symbolizes the hardcore cynicism that still exists in the UCI ranks. Simply, I don't trust them. Or Tinkoff. Like I said, it's not fair. It's simply a gut bias.

So I see Majka grab a moto antennae and pull himself up the road and later say the moto was in the way. I think not. Then he's winking his way away from the field. Maybe he is that good. Or maybe the clean peloton benefits a guy like that who may well have Sagan like talent, enabling him to get away. I'd like to believe that.

When micro dosing and masking agents still work, and there's a lot of dough and massive egos on the line, people will cheat. As will a domestic Masters racer, looking for nothing more than past glory and a few hundred in cash.

All good points, and you can add Kwiatkowski in there as well. Are they just a super talented new crop in a much cleaner peloton or benefiting from their upbringing? At a stage race last weekend I had a long talk with a teammate about performances raising suspicion, but that if the peloton is clean, the more talented riders will flourish. Of course that also works in the inverse.

So what to think? I'm going to believe clean until it's proven otherwise--baring the "too good to be true" performances that seem to be more obvious these days. There have been a few on the cusp of that but not enough to convince me.

I rode through a flipping deluge of water coming down the Tourmalet in the Étape last Sunday, and it only got worse later on!

I don't find Nibali's performance thus far to be suspicious. At the start of the tour, if you told me that Valverde, Pinot, and Peraud would be 5-6 minutes down from the GC lead, and 2:08 of that (for Valverde and Pinot) or 3:28 of that (for Peraud) was due to the cobbled stages...I would not have been shocked. I would have figured they would have been somewhere between 4th and 10th for the GC though.

I hope this doesn't get interpreted as a troll attempt but as I watch this years tour I keep wondering something. In a world where we can't guarantee 100% a clean peleton, was it better when we knew everyone was doped and we just sat back and enjoyed seeing people crush a ride or do we prefer today where we want to believe most everyone is clean but we are pretty sure there are one or two that are not? Seems to me that this year people are suspicious of anyone who looks stronger than everyone else or who doesn't have a bad day throughout the tour. I feel like more of a cynic watching the tour now than I did 5-10 years ago and the cynicism is taking away from my enjoyment. Will we ever be able to rid ourselves of any lingering doubt about whoever wins the tour from now on?

 
i don't find the doped tours more entertaining. and i don't want athletes dying in their hotel rooms to entertain me. so i like this better.

He's Polish and rides for Riis. Enough said.