Lawn chair guy was great.

Mads Pederson going diagonal across the peloton was scary. Could have been a lot worse.

Armchair quarterbacking course design, I'm not sure the final km is a great spot for a roundabout that splits the field.

That was chaos. Hope everyone's OK. Eddy Boss and Mads both down in that last crash. That Wallonie guy seemed pretty excited to get the win there, good for him.

You may be an armchair QB, but you would seem to have more common sense than the course designer does.

The last 0.5 km or so also appeared to be slightly downhill i think?

I had a first today; an injury from a trainer fall. I have a bike that's been on there for awhile that has horizontal dropouts. Today my workout called for a series of short sprints during one point of it. A few of them in and the back skewer must have finally loosened its way enough that the skewer left the dropouts. I flipped the bike forward off of my rocker plate. A bit bruised but otherwise bike and rider okay.

I'd love to say my enormous sprint power was the cause, but that certainly isn't the case. I hadn't checked that skewer in many months.

Yikes, sorry to hear that.

I had a similar experience, except it was out on the road. The shite Sram skewers worked its way loose, and when I stood on a hill, the rear wheel promptly got dislodged from the drop out and proceeded to jam against the frame. Fell over, which was bad enough; but worse was that it semi-shredded a knee warmer that I really liked...

I will sign the petition for Mrs. tb. Time for new bike!

Looks like it was Ethan Hayter that went down hard today. Interesting to see that Bernal is slated for Giro, GT named leader for Tour with the 27 and 31 km ITT's. Was looking forward to seeing him on last year's Giro course. Carapaz/TGH plan B.

I use to ride rollers, watching old races. I was watching the last 20k of an exciting Roubaix. Tommeke and the gang banked a hard left, so I banked a hard left. It's a long way down off the rollers......

You should probably get a new bike, just to be safe. It’s only reasonable after such an ordeal.

If it makes you feel any better (not likely), I had my rear thru axle back out during a long gravel race and seize the wheel. I was in the wining move with 5 others (almost 20 min ahead of group 2) and by the time I got tool out of seat pack my compatriots were up the road. To add insult to injury I got caught by a couple guys just a handful of miles from finish. Moral of the story: crank those things down (as you already learned).

Trying to visualize that "crash" it probably looked funny at first, but glad you're ok! Most of the time it's the "dumb" and slow falls that hurt you and not necessarily the ones at speed or whatever. Although that crash at the roundabout yesterday was quite serious.. Patch of dirt had Boasson Hagen wiping out the AG2R rider and I think van Poppel was behind him with Jordi Meeus. Pedersen getting really lucky, looked like he came awfully close to that small digger standing near the construction site or whatever it was on the other side of the road? The Bingoal-Wallonie Bruxelles rider that clipped his rear wheel went down hard though..

Nice victory for Timothy Dupont, a bit of an underrated sprinter in Belgium. He had to come from relatively far back. Good day for the team having Robeet in the break the entire day and then Dupont finishing it off in the sprint. I believe he got 2nd or 3rd in the Belgian champs when Merlier (surprisingly) won the Belgian champs jersey 2 years ago.

Yeah, pretty cool to see Dupont take a win! He rarely wins, but I bet that guy has more top tens than just about any sprinter bar Sagan.

I think suggestions about the new bike are warranted. I need Pantani's Bianchi.

All of the stories actually did help me feel better! Better yet was able to ride with just comfortability. In all of these years and hours, I've never once had an issue with skewers. I guess I'm more attentive to my outdoor equipment. Lessons learned.

I wish I would have seen it as I'm sure it would have been good fun to share. I distinctly remember pure confusion as to what was happening. It was not something I ever considered as a possibility.

That was a deserving win. I'm happy for him.

UCI announces ban supertuck.
*meanwhile Kwiato rips descents with it at Etoile*

And "Goin' Deep" Wellens continues his Vuelta form.

Wellens: BEAST MODE activated

And no one better to have in the chase group than Gilbert putting on the Parliament and throwing a block party.

Yup, great teamwork, should set him up for overall with such a short TT.

Give Bernal credit for chasing but he has about as much a chance of catching Wellens on the flats as Wellens does of dropping Bernal on Ventoux.

Phil Gil was GREAT today to set Tim up. Wellens is all class too. I always enjoy seeing him take wins.

It’s so good to have racing back. And T-minus 21 sleeps to Opening Weekend

Was one of the Lotto riders sitting up while Wellens attacked, thereby allowing the initial gap on the descent?

I think he may have. Who was the other rider there with Phil Gil and Wellens? Oldani maybe?

Yeah, it looked like Kwiat got duped a little bit by the "casual attack" technique. It seemed to take 5-10 seconds for him to recognize the situation and jump back to the front. Then he promptly over-cooked a turn (though apparently it was really slick), and that really let the gap open up.

Looked like a little race craft rust, letting guys from same team be on front with gap opening, and a smooth move by Lotto to do it. Especially when it’s Wellens pushing on. There was also a lot of baggage in that move so it could have been to make someone else close it up.

For a now old-timer, Kwiat isn't a natural at race craft. Neither am I, though, so I can relate.

If i were still running the pick’em, i’d dock you points for this :p

Kwiatek has race craft aplenty: his wins against Sagan in Italy, his win at 2014 Worlds, etc.

Probably just got caught napping more than anything else