You didn't really get a sense of the inclination of the slope until the spectator climbed down to assist him.

Absolutely. It gave me the heeby-jeebies. But that flattening effect was everywhere today; it was quite bizarre the way the helicopter cameraperson kept tilting the angle of the shot, so you had the weird impression of everyone standing up in the saddle and apparently crawling along an apparently flat road.

Schleck seemed to have rather a bad day today. His brother kept looking back at him to make sure he was still there. They seemed to be contolling it to keep it at an in-between pace - fast enough to discourage any attacks, but not so fast as to put him into the red.

I can't wait for tomorrow. I've told everyone I'm not available for the duration.

Yeah I think Toro has nailed it there. So far Evans has been gutsy but a bit jittery, he's chased everything and everyone down. He didn't really need to chase down Valverde on Prata N. the other day, so I think CSC's greater tactical nous will do for him tomorrow.
Tomorrow is going to be fantstic and I'm on holiday.

Yeah, I'm off to a festival tomorrow but I refuse to leave until the stage has finished, even if it means pitching my tent in the dark,

Excited? I am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7va4Amv5Ds&NR=1

For those who didn't see the crash yesterday.

Frank hasn't been making too many over-positive sounds, l'Equipe angle is that he doesn't have the reserves left to burn off his challengers. Ironically his bro. Andy seems to be steaming but is too far back having lost time at Hautacam due to a 'fringale'.
L'Equipe also highlighted that the Sastre-Schleck relationship isn't the best, they even compared it to the Lemond-Hinault 'partnership' (i.e. with friends like that, your enemies are to be greatly feared)

Gangster Octopus wrote:

QUOTE:
I just wish ITV4 were showing the full stages during the week as well as at the weekend.

And low! It came to pass...

Awesome ... won't spoil it for the highlights viewers, suffice to say it'll be difficult for the producers to decide which bits to leave out of tonight's programme

I must agree. Not a huge fan, but that was a cracking race.

SPOILER ALERT

Toro will be chuffed. Shame he couldn't take a bit more time. Don't think it will be enough.

...

there aren't any words

...

Can someone get this off my telly? I had to miss 20 minutes of an old ODI because YATR wanted to watch it?

The commentators kept saying stuff I didn't understand like "he really deserves third place", when there seemed to be lots of other people in the hunt for third place. Presumably they'd got a lift halfway round the course. Then there was a "look at him! He's on his back wheel waiting to pick him off!" Indeed he did, but the other bloke picked him back again. Apparently this was no embarassment to our commentator sages.

And they seemed unusually fixated on a pair of brothers.

You really do have to search for le Tour on TV. It's hardly dominating the schedule. It's on 2 specialist, minority channels.

Anyone see ITV 4's 20 greatest tour moments?
I can't quite believe Flecha's stage win and celebration wasn't in there. ;-)

I only take a very limited interest in cycling, but why do they have these time trials? It seems to destroy the whole purpose of the race. They spend days and days on complex, tactical cycling and then it all ends up coming down to who (of the leading riders) cycles fastest individually?

What old ODI were you watching Tubbs?

Jimski - in the first place, it's an important discipline in and of itself - the GC is supposed to be about finding the best all-round cyclist.

Secondly, the time gaps that can be opened up among the favourites in a TT are actually pretty small compared to those in the mountains, unless you're Miguel Indurain - even in this race, serious contenders, guys like Cunego, Valverde, and Schleck Minor, have dropped eight, nine minutes in a day. The only thing about the TT is, the gaps are more predictable.

Which leads us to the third thing - considerations about the Time Trial play a large role in the tactical calculations in the mountains. Were Evans not a far superior time triallist to any of the CSC contenders, there's no way Sastre would have done that today - he and Schleck would have ridden defensively, then maybe tried to pick a few seconds off at the end. It was precisely because he needed to build up a buffer that Sastre attacked from as far out as he did. So TTs paradoxically make mountain stages better.