2017 Tour de France

Peter’s appealing the ejection
I think the elbow “looks bad” because its pushing against air. Cav had his head on Sagan’s shoulder and was pushed off, but the elbow wasn’t much of anything. Lets see what happens.

But Demare is French…

Elbow out was just trying to hold balance after Cav ran into him and then into the barriers IMO

Hopefully appeal goes through, but cant see UCI backing down.

Summarises it well.

Fuckin Cav suiciding up the side as fkn always, sick of this grub. Sagan made bit of a mistake but Cav was reckless as fuck.

I was watching with my 7 year old this morning, saying “Cav’s gonna get boxed Cav’s gonna get boxed!” Then it was like - oh, no he’s just gonna keep riding into the closing gap and crash. Very good.

Sprinters have been throwing ridiculous hooks for ages and very rarely getting relegated. I think overall the commissaires need to be stricter, but Stage 4 of the Tour is not the time nor place to set the example. Relegate Sagan to last on the stage, sure. But boot from the Tour?! C’arn mate.

Anyway, stuff the sprinters, they’re all crybabies and whingers. Tonight it’s Planche des Belles Filles, which roughly translated means Des’s pretty girls go planking.

I reckon Porte will have a go. He needs to because with only 16 stages left, he has to make up time here.

i wish i had even an ounce of energy to try & stay up for tonight’s stage, but there’s just no chance.

Bit shit the appeal was denied.

How fun is suiciding up the inside though

SKCC style hey, love a good suicide up the side for 11th place B Grade
These guys wouldn’t last 10 laps at a Saint Kilda B Grade, that’s tru racing/rubbing shoulders.

Not really sure what to make of that performance last night. Richie looked good when Froome went and then when he went over the top but you’d like to see him trying to grab every bonus second given his position.

Froome in yellow, snooze.

Something I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere in the Stage 4 washup was how close Demare came to going down in that first crash. You couldn’t see it on the main race feed, but this dutch video captures the crash - which was 100% caused by Peter Sagan by the way - and you can see Demare THIS close to going down. Amazing recovery to win.

[video]http://www.steephill.tv/players/720/html5/?title=Slomo+Overhead+Angle+of+the+First+Crash,+St age+4&dashboard=tour-de-france&id=https://u.nya.is/jdkpym.mp4&yr=2017[/video]

Truer words have never been spoken.

You’d think with matty keenans profile he’d be able to get a newer bike from Trek (or someone else). Pretty sure the blue trek he is riding in the ever present SBS ads is the same one he has had for 3-4 years.

Also - I reckon whoever redesign sky’s jerseys to be white has to be pretty bummed that white is the new black for the Tour. I can just see them thinking “Ha! we will turn the jerseys white and stand out amongst all the dark colours… oh wait, Fortuneo, FDJ etc have all gone super light… DAMMIT!”

^ I’ve always been a fan of seeing who is wearing what Bicyclists Begin Formalwear Stage Of Tour De France

managed to avoid all results from last night’s stage so i could watch the replay at 1pm. glad i did. was good.

#spoiler - wasn’t sagan

So how many intermediate sprints does Mathews need to win green? I had the feeling last night that Kittel took pity on him and just let him get a little win.

Marina Hyde on Brailsford in today’s Guardian…
[i]
This week finds Sir Dave and Team Sky in France, where they have made an excellent start to the Tour, despite complaints from some teams about their new bubbly aerodynamic skin suits. Responding to disquiet over the use of said bubbles on time-trial outfits, Dave sniffed: “Go and get your house in order, shape up a little bit and then we can talk about it.”

Nice guy. He reminds me of the chap in The Big Lebowski who breaks into the Dude’s house, pees on his rug, then observes: “He looks like a fucking loser.” As the Dude is quite reasonably moved to counter: “Hey, at least I’m housebroken.” And so with Sir Dave. I’m sure he thinks those rival teams making representations to the UCI are losers. But hey – at least they keep basic medical records.[/i]