I guess that’s what I’m not understanding. What is there in *anything * he did to be critical of? He seemed to time his ride and conserve his energy enough to blow away the competition. Certainly the commentators I listened to gave no hint that anything about it might be considered “off” in any way.
(noob warning - I’m only a fair-weather cycling spectator and not up on the intricacies and nuances of cycling tactics and etiquette)
I’m not clear on that part of it either and I’ve been watching cycling for longer than I care to admit. My guess is it’s either that he took time out of Froome or wheelsucked Dumoulin only to attack with a km to go.
I’m a Dumoulin fan and I don’t see any issue.
It says Sky on his jersey.
That’s all there is to it really - Thomas just rode the elite of world GT cycling off his wheel, so a comment like the one above would be taken as an ironic jest from someone knowledgeable, or total cluelessness from a noob. With Sky, though, you have the third option of some cycling fans hating them that much that no credit may be given ever. Silly, IMHO, as we all have our favourites but game is game, and must be recognised as such.
Cav and Kittel eliminated yesterday - Cav by miles and I think Kittel was just a few minutes outside the cut-off. Both having tough Tours so the writing was on the wall. David Millar wrote a nice piece on his blog about Cav last night here
Massive stage today - a Holy path over Col de la Madeleine, Croix de Fer and finally the inner sanctum of Alpe D’Huez.
Thanks for the input guys, I thought I was missing something obvious.
Today’s stage looks fascinating. I’m full of admiration anyone for anyone who can power their way up these mountains. I spend a lot of time in the alps and driving up the roads can be taxing enough.
My favourite cycle nutter was the chap I saw 2300 up the Grossglockner road in Austria in full racing lycra…on a unicycle.
I was referring to wheel sucking Dumoulin, he could have put far more time into the other and still win the stage fairly easily. Given how he attacked just before Froome caught up (why o why did Dan Martin feel the need to bring him back towards the others), he wasn’t really holding out for his team leader.
It would be funny if he ends up losing the tour by a few seconds from Froome. In the end it could be interesting to see what happens within the team… will they go for Thomas? I heard yesterday he has never ended higher than 15th in a grand tour.
In addition to that there is more than enough reason to hate sky. By far the most money, really only interested in one race a year and wining it in the equivalent of cattenacio (while being not quite as transparant as others with regards to doping etc.). The Giro (not just this year) was so refreshing without the Sky train, even with Froome winning it this time.
I personally don’t hate Sky so much as their domination makes the tour boring. I expect we will see the same headed up Huez today. It’s a smart strategy (putting 6 guys up front to drive the peloton at a pace no one can effectively attack), it’s just boring and they are able to implement it because they spend money (smartly).
People hate them because of the financial aspect but also because of how much they remind people of US Postal, Discovery, to a lesser extent T-Mobil and Festina. All dominant teams that the smaller teams had no hope of competing with. These four had something else in common as well…and that’s what those who hate Sky, I reckon, are most afraid of - fair or not.
I personally have watched long enough to be able to compartmentalize all of this. I want Froome to lose because Thomas winning or Dumoulin winning would be a much more interesting race.
Oh…I had no trouble with Thomas’ tactics. Save the longer attacks for the final week and let someone else work.
It’s carnage out there today, all the sprinters are gone.
For me, the most important question right now is simply whether or not Geraint Thomas has a bad day, which he has had in the past. If he doesn’t and his form is truly this good, it will be extremely tough given his TT ability. Tom Dumoulin is good, but he isn’t ‘take back 2 minutes’ good.
The only move I see is for Nibali, Dumoulin, and Bardet to attack on one of the downhill finishes. All three can descend like nobody’s business and with the three going together, no one is pulling them back. I don’t see any way in hell they agree to work together, however.
I guess you could say that whenever G has bombed previously he’s been burying himself for Froome day in day out. So with the MJ on his shoulders it’s a different game and he’ll measure his effort in different ways.
Hope so but think it’s optimistic, and Froome is still the bet. He’s looking human but is the team leader and just has that gnarliness to bring it every day through week 3. V Interesting race either way.
Tom D looks strong - like a rock in the mountains, expect him to be on the premises all Tour. Not so good for Nibali, though - he hurt his back in that crash with the moto today and was driven to hospital with suspected cracked vertabrae. So is doubtful for tomorrow. I guess that’s the Alpe - it’s part of the fabric of the Tour but is so chaotic [someone aimed a geriatric punch at Froome as he rode past, as well].
Nibs is confirmed out. 
Sky is looking pretty good for a 1-2 finish. If G doesn’t have a bad day, I also don’t really see how Froome is likely to catch him. This leads to a rather interesting dynamic - if Froome were to win, he’d be joining the 5-consecutive-Tour-wins club, as well as achieving the absolutely unheard-of feat of winning 4 GTs in a row. And the only man standing in his way is his teammate. Is it Lemond-Hinault again?
I didn’t see what happened. MSNBC reruns their coverage a few times during the day, maybe I’ll get to see it there.
This would be Froome’s fifth win, but not on the trot (as he would probably call it). He won the Tour in 2013, crashed out early in '14, won '15, '16, '17.
It’s interesting that Dumoulin is only 11 seconds behind Froome for second place. I’m not sure what Team Sky’s going to do. Do they craft their strategy around getting Thomas the win, and risk disappointing Froome? Or do they let Froome attack Thomas, but if Dumoulin can hold Froome’s wheel and then make up 12 seconds, Sky could see the Tour win go to Sunweb.
Tom is a pretty safe bet to take more than 12 seconds out of all the other GC contenders in the ITT, so yeah, Froome needs time on Dumoulin. There’s a lot of racing left, though, and both Froome and Dumoulin have the Giro in their legs. Either could end up with loss of form in the third week.
Couple of vids on twitter showing it was a spectator’s camera strap that brought down Nibali - goes down really hard, and then gets a helpful push on his back to get going 
What a mess - Hope he can recover OK.
Video won’t play in the U.S.
I’d forgotten what a disgraceful zoo the spectators are on some of those mountain climbs.
Ugh. I love the passion of the fans but there seems to be a large number of oblivious idiots.
Looks like nothing much will happen in today’s stage.
Here’s one view (with some NSFW language), but it’s really tough to see what happened. This article has another view of it, and again, you can’t really see what happened. But both links do show that “disgraceful zoo” doesn’t begin to describe the scene.
Did you see Phil Gil’s crash? Misjudged a corner and had a spectacular over the bars down a ravine - thankfully he was OK(ish), climbed back out and finished the stage. Believe he has pulled out of the Tour now as he hurt his knee in the crash.
Race is very well poised - have to say G looks really good and at this point I don’t think he’s going to crack and have a bad day all on his lonesome. He might if Tom D can put it to him but that’s easier said than done with no team help and Froome on his shoulder. If Sky want to guarantee the win then Froome should prob attack tomorrow as TD would need to pull him back solo and G could just sit on - whether that is feasible between the two Sky riders I don’t know. Otherwise, if G does indeed crack then Dumoulin is in the driving seat as he could take it all in the TT.
It’s a very short stage tomorrow - three mountain climbs but just 65K. It’s actually a gridded start, which sounds quite gimmicky but given the state of the race maybe we’ll see some explosivity!
All the doping scandals pretty much soured me on the whole thing. It’s almost as if the winner will be the guy they weren’t able to catch cheating.
Great post mate. Would read again.