Wonder what kind of damage has been caused at the back of the field.
Just so long as Cav isn’t OTL. He can’t take his 35th stage win on the Champs d’Elysee if he’s disqualified.
And again the polkadot jersey is for a Dutchman. Yay us!
Sidetrack: I’ve always wondered where Dutch climbers even learned and developed this special skill. Do they go to Germany, Belgium or France already in their youth to train climbing?
Laps over freeway crossings, maybe?
Actually it’s not really a “skill” per se. Climbing steep hills is just being able to sustain higher watts/kg, which you can train for without ever doing any climbing.
Well, physically you can develop enough strength without really climbing mountains, but I think you only learn the tactics of climbing, for instance choosing the right moment for attacks, by actually doing it.
ETA: and then there’s downhill riding, which really can’t be simulated and only learned on the road.
Netherland is so small, whenever they go for a long bike ride they end up in another country. 
Gruppetto demonstrates some stellar pacing skills by coming over the line at 2’ before the time cut.
Lampe Rouge: GT and PR.
Fellow countryman I presume? 
True, they practice abroad and on the VAMberg, a compost heap that is being used for practice. In Leiden we have De Bult (the bump) which is also basically a trash heap but the cycling community practices there. There was a Dutch cyclist, Thijs Zonneveld, who advocate the building of a Dutch Mountain for cycling practice.
Honorable position. Look at Kenny van Hummel 
I’ve got family members from Holland. Me, I was rooting for my homeboy Woods today.
Eh! I have relatives in Canada as well 
Today I learned:
Dutch children learn to ride a bike after learning to walk. EVERYONE cycles here. And riding against the ever-present wind is a good practice.
Same Tour as good old Johnny Hoogerland who ended up in the barbed wire. Those were the days
Eta: Hoogerland was 2011. Still…
I remember when that happened. Nasty.
I know, I know, I’ve been many times to the Netherlands and having biked there. I don’t know what I hate more: riding against the wind in Holland or climbing the thousand mountains of my native Sauerland.
Yeah totally. He can be pretty nasty himself though. By rights, I must add
Sauerland!! My earliest memories on the campsite hail there. Meschede, Kessenhammer and Nassau.