I honestly cannot see the point of having Cavendish continue and doubt very much that he will. It sounds like a bad injury, and one that won't get better if he continues for a few days on the bike and rides through it. Ultimately, Omega-Pharma is there for no other reason than to support Cav in winning stages and he's not going to do that now. I'd love to see him continue, but I suspect that it's a case of "bye bye, Cav".

OPQS says Cavendish will not start today.

Gerrans will start though he feels like he has been run over by a bus. There is a spectator video showing him sliding down the road.

Over before it had barely begun. Bloody hell.............

Was Petacchi eliminated yesterday too? He came in well down.

I wonder what will happen to OPQS now. Who will the new leader be?

It does rather question the idea of teams throwing all their eggs in one basket. Don't think OPQS really have a plan B.

According to BBC sport cav has also apologised for the crash. Surprised to they waited until today to call it off. Won't he need minor surgery?

Doubt they'll know this early whether surgery will be required. If he's dislocated his shoulder, surgery can sometimes be necessary to tighten everything up and prevent a weakness in the future, but you generally won't know straight away.

Good interview with Cav at the beginning of today's coverage

well they've still got Martin for the time trial........it is quite a hilly one but he should be OK. That doesn't come up until stage 20 so I guess he hides in the pack for 3 weeks and is relieved of all 'rouleur' duties

The other guys will presumably try and get in breaks

In a way, it's quite ironic. At the team presentation on Thursday, Tony Martin didn't seem that enthusiastic to have Mark Cavendish as team leader. He was very diplomatic in his answer to Jill Douglas asking what Mark was like as a leader. It was a very strange situation.

David Millar's hat is scaring me.

Why are some climbs categorised and others not? The stage map has hills without any numbers on.

I'm a bit confused by the number of riders who have tweeted/commented, asking spectators to give them space. I've not seen anything that even came close to the kind of ridiculous crowding/antics seen on the continent. I'm all for giving the riders space, but don't understand why it's suddenly an issue. Is it a case that they think the UK public is more likely to take heed?

There weren't a lot of silly fellas running alongside as they do in France but there crowd was pretty near in places - some did give Jens Voigt a slap on the back as he went past.

And it's a bit confusing, because some of the riders/journalists who have recce'd the route and written articles have said that some of the uncategorised climbs are absolute bastards.

Yay! They got Phil on the tele!

There is a certain amount of artistic license around the categorisation of climbs........the basis is generally how long and how steep

But the categorisation is for awarding points........so they might not want to award points every 10K, they might want to spread the points out along the course even if it means not awarding points at some hills

Also you can get climbs where they go up a bit, down a bit then up again........they might count that as one climb even though the route profile shows it as two hilltops

In theory it's based on the combination of the gradient and the length of the climb, but I don't know whether there's a fixed weighting system between those two factors, plus the possibility of sponsorship and other "inducements" from local organisations affecting the decision.

They had three leaders in one sense with Martin and Kwiatowski who has a top 10.chance.

They will win stages. Terpstra and Fabian will be the favourites for the cobbles.

Renshaw would be a decent fantasy signing now, he will take up the sprints. Won't win any but will have the best lead out and place in a few.

There are about five uncategorised ones today.

I read a piece in the climbs once where there was a cat 1 climb that in the past was a cat 4.and an HC that in years gone by was only a cat 2 and was the same climb.

That wasn't to say they were tougher then as others were the other way around having been downgraded but you do get the exact same climb sometimes classified differently.

I felt that at some parts the crowds were extremely close but was only able to watch the very early stages. I did see some people actually patting the riders as the cycled past.

All of which is pretty common. Again, I've seen nothing that comes close to the insanity one sees on some of the mountain stages on the continent. I just find it curious that they're commenting now.

Off we go, big attacks already - it's all the small teams, of course.

And by the way Paul, all those church towers have stairs in them.

I might be wrong, but I can't see any of the usual big name climbers doing much today. I'm going to say: Sagan.