Didn't even change his bike?

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Only if it’s delivered in a Jiffy bag.

Just missed perfectly parking his bike.

I might never get back on a bike after that.

Tejay dropped from break, which still has 15+ guys? Come on.

The French finally have something to cheer about at Tour in Alaphilippe. Panache.

feel bad for yates crashing there.

Julian is riding like a beast though

posthumously? LOL
bummer for Yates. great to see the non-GC contenders playing for keeps.
and kudos to Julian. he's for real.

He could well be a favorite for worlds.

QS and Bora have 7 stages and 2 jerseys between them. Not too bad for non-GC teams.

The worlds course looks brutal, i am not sure Ala has the endurance and or experience for arguably the hardest to date worlds course.

Today was boring as expected, tomorrow naturally neutralized todays efforts. Tomorrow do we see the grid start play a role with early attacks? If your Froome you can treat this like a TT and he is one of the best. Or do teams quickly group and the grid is just a publicity stunt?

I personally think if froome feels good he goes early tomorrow, Thomas marks TD. Sky likely do a leadout for the first half of the climb at a frenetic pace and Froome attacks.TD seems to struggle when the pace is very high and attacks occur, similar to the Giro attack. I think Froome will be in yellow tomorrow. Thomas sits on TD, burns him at the end. ROGLIC will be thr wildcard.

I hope it's your second bolded scenario, and not your first.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Watching the video it looks like it was spooked by a piece of paper or sign on the ground at the apex of the turn.

I'm curious to see tomorrow's stage. Seems like a hail mary to go from gun with Sky at full force, though some of the guys farther down don't have a lot to lose. My guess is Movistar will make it as hard as possible from the start and force a mano-e-mano duel with top guys.

I bet Specialized HQ will be celebrating big time by then TdF finish pending anything catastrophic.

That's the likely situation if Froome feels good. I'm just not convinced (yet) that he's on his usual top form. At least in the Giro, we saw some signs on the Zoncolon.

Anyway...I'm still hoping for chaos for entertainment purposes. I hope it's Roglic that goes early, and also hoping that the Sky train is burnt out early as many of them don't even make it to the front due to the grid start. The potential games that get played between Froome/Thomas/Dumoulin on who should lead the chase on Roglic would create drama.

Drama would be excellent to watch over the next few days. Time will tell!

Head case.

He is a good one week cyclist, otherwise lacks the endurance.

Tomorrow i suspect Sky will blow it apart and Froome goes over the top on the first climb.

except for the 2x he finished 5th in the TdF, yeah.........seems like its more about approach (motivation) and age and maybe, just maybe a dietary change

will be interesting to see what he does next

So with the grid start, are they going to blow it apart after regrouping? Some said their main sky train riders were in the 60's, so like 2-3 "groups" back, so how will they play it if the other GC guys just go for it?

Does anyone think anyone takes advantage of the grid start, or everything gets quickly regrouped? So more of a just for show move and the riders all themselves agree to essentially neutralize the start?

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I'd love to the GC contenders 3rd thru 10th form a breakaway at the gun and see how sky responds.
Movistar is leading the teams competition and could put in a fast pace early to keep it.
I have a feeling tomorrow the fireworks really fly

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res, non verba

I still haven't found any details of what the grid start and groups actually mean. Like how far apart are each rider in the group first group. Is it one bike length, or is it really like F1 where each car is spaced out pretty significantly...meaning the 20th guy is about 100 meters from Thomas sitting at the start line. And how far back are these "pens" where the next group of riders are held? If the pens are behind the last grid start line, are indeed 100 meters back, they only start once the 20th guy crosses the start line, and the next pen is only released when the prior pen crosses the start then that's huge. But if it's just 20 bike lengths from Thomas to 20th, with the pens lined up near the start line...then meh...it likely regroups easily.

If anyone not on Sky wants to make a big move in the GC, they have a vested interest to go right off the gun, not let the Sky train form, and force in fighting between Dumoulin, Thomas, and Froome.

Man I cant remember what thread, but I think cartsman showed the diagram. It's an "arrow" shaped, so that GT starts in middle of 3, Froome to the slightly behind left of GT, TD to the right and slightly behind Froome. I think it was like 6 or top 10 staggered like that. Then I believe it's 20 lined up in a pack then space and then 20 more and space etc until the entire race is covered. I would guess the stagger looked to be no more than 1 bike length so I would guess the entire bike race within 200m of each other.

Problem with Sky is I believe they have 2 guys in the 60's and I heard someone ranked like 130's. So how they ride through the peloton is anyone's guess....unless all the riders have secretly called off attacking and making this more of an "exhibition" start simply to please ASO.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

That's what I'm talking about. THAT'SWHATI'MTALKINGABOUT!!!!

To no surprise, Philippe Gilbert is listed as abandoning after the stage. Once the adrenalin wore off, he was going to be in an awful lot of pain.