Just champagne.

Google have made some great things, but that interactive Tour de France photo thing reaches Microsoft levels of cumbersomeness.

Just learnt that there will be no time bonuses in this year's Tour. Is that all of them (the bonuses for stage winners and runners-up, as well as the in-stage sprint time bonuses)? What was the reasoning behind the change?

A clear sign of the rise of British cycling and the decline of the post-Armstrong/Landis US entrants is that this year on letour.fr if you want the site in English you click on a Union Jack rather than a Stars and Stripes.

is there a live stream anywhere?

Try myp2p.eu

of course. There's me thinking it's only for football. ta.

Yeah, it's always worth checking there. Some of the baseball is superb quality even full screen, as well.

Sean Kelly's Waterford accent gets stronger with every passing year.

Oooh, think he'll keep it the whole way?

The accent? Yes.

The jersey? Nah.

He'd better not. I put £2 on Cunego today at 12-1 because of what you said earlier.

My time bonuses query from earlier on is all the more pressing now, isn't it? If they haven't stopped time bonuses, Valverde is already 21 seconds clear of his main rivals?

Go Garmin-Chipotle!

The lack of time bonuses are likely to favour riders like Cadel Evans who can just ride conservatively, sucking someone's wheel and not win stages with a bit of panache and style.
On the positive side it will keep things tighter, right up until the Alpe d'huez stage.

You have to feel sorry for Duclos-Lassalle , broken wrist after 100km and also Soler, already 3 minutes down. He should get that back in the mountains, but the GC is already out of reach.

I think Soler will be quite happy to be that far down at this stage - he was never going to be a serious GC challenger, but this frees him to do a big solo day in the mountains hoovering up KOM points without becoming a threat and being chased, a la Virenque and Rasmussen.*



*There's illustrious company, eh?