I hate Sky and Froome too, I just didn't trust them to lose this race.

Well in my defense, Tom did look good the whole way imo. Froome just looked other worldly.

NMV...I misunderstood the context of the response

Where's Yates? I'm following the Giro live tracker and he's still not in after 26 minutes. It's pretty crazy that only 30 guys have come in so far.

He went home.

What a punk, he should have rode it out.

Tomorrow isn't going to be easy for any of these guys. There are going to be opportunities galore now that everyone in the top 5 spent a ton of energy today. It would be a shame if we didn't see Pink, or at least virtual Pink change hands tomorrow after today's stage.

Froome's going to have about a minute or so on Tommy D. He's so good at protecting a lead I don't see him losing the jersey. I guess with 4000m of climbing anything is possible though.....

80k solo TT to go in to Pink. Wow, what a stage!

puff daddy is back! he did a landis today!

OK, I'll say it...reminds me of Floyd ;-)

It was the perfect stage for Froome to go out on the attack, his team really would have done nothing for him anyway. First you have all that severe climbing which he is great at, especially when he just gets to ride his tempo. And then you have severe decents where he is likely one of the best if not the best at descending. He would have dropped any small groups there too, so really having his nose in the wind anyway.

So a smart and probably calculated weeks or months ago that this would be his day to just take off. The course rode like a very long tt anyway, and who is going to tt on up and down mountains with Froome at any time??

Yates rolls across.....38min down.

Incredible day, love him or hate him. It was as much a crazy effort as it was a crushing end for Yates. It happens, but I can't imagine. It would feel like Jean Van de Velde at the Open golf final day 20 years back. Watching that live was just horrible.

Wonder if tomorrow Sunweb basically needs does same thing Sky did today, on first climb. Get Froome isolated, then let him and TD settle it on the road. Or instead play the waiting game to see if Froome cracks on last climb? Either way seems like they need to make it as hard as possible after Froome's effort today.

But what does Dumoulin have left? While he wasn't solo for 80k, he didn't have a day in the park today either. I can't imagine how those guys are feeling with this much fatigue in their legs facing the stage tomorrow. Ouch.

Glad to see he stuck it out.

As for Tommy D isolating or dropping Froome tomorrow.......aint gonna happen unless Froome is feeling bad. TD simply can't climb like a 4X tour winner.

Haha, I thought he would get caught as well.

i don't think anybody has the formula for knowing how to feel good on a day after one like today. unless it's the actual *formula*. froome has had an up-and-down tour. or, he got to the tour not quite ready and raced himself into shape by week-3. dumoulin has ridden a great tour. if he has his average day and froome has one of his down days then dumoulin wins.

but tomorrow is different than today. no early climb to take off on. but, tomorrow is also a longer day than today.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Froome's descent off the Finestre was LEGIT!!! He added almost 1 minute more on his gap to Dumoulin et al, 12' 15" of downhill, wet corners, averaged 53.4 km/h with a top speed of 80k.

Oh dear...with Froome back on form we've got another Sky dominated TDF to look forward to..ugh!

Remember Froome lost almost a minute to Tom on stage 15 after going deep to win on the Zonc. I think Froome has better form this week, but I would give a 50/50 he cracks tomorrow.

I predict he'll put on a show of being vulnerable, but then somehow manage to not give up very much time.

Froome doesn't get due credit for being a complete, all-around rider. He can climb, TT, positions well, descends and has tactical noir--anyone remember going off the front in crosswinds with Sagan, Bodnar and Thomas? Froome's other questionable stuff aside, Nibali is probably the only other GC guy with that game.