I'm hearing that Dennis broke Boardman's TdF ITT average speed record from 1994!! I knew he was a dark horse, but I wasn't expecting that! 
No win for Dumoulin.
No win for Dumoulin.
The Pro Cycling Thread (Part 2)
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Originally Posted by Edward_Sloley:
“I'm hearing that Dennis broke Boardman's average TdF ITT speed from 1994!! I knew he was a dark horse, but I wasn't expecting that!
.”
“I'm hearing that Dennis broke Boardman's average TdF ITT speed from 1994!! I knew he was a dark horse, but I wasn't expecting that!
.”
Just looked it up. Boardman's time was set in Lille, so probably not quite as flat as Utrecht, but a much shorter distance only 7.3km.
Originally Posted by gemma-the-husky:
“I was looking at rohan Dennis for the prologue at about 25/1 also.”
“I was looking at rohan Dennis for the prologue at about 25/1 also.”
Did you take that bet?
I believe Dennis has finally broken his ITT duck since turning pro (average speed 55.446km/h!!). What a time to do it!
If the remainder of his season follows that of Boardman's from 21 years ago, he will be even more delighted than he is today. No prizes for guessing what that means. 
Stage 1 full results
The two European ITT greats finished 2nd & 3rd; Dumoulin 4th (and first of the three top-10 Dutchmen!); Cummings sneaked into 10th for GB with Thomas 12th and Dowsett 13th.
Stage 1 full results
The two European ITT greats finished 2nd & 3rd; Dumoulin 4th (and first of the three top-10 Dutchmen!); Cummings sneaked into 10th for GB with Thomas 12th and Dowsett 13th.
Much prefer ITV4's coverage sick and tired of Eurosport cutting the program with 1 km to go just go's against the grain to cut the race with a few Km's to go
ITV may make one or two mistakes but far better insight into the goings on at the Tour and other races
Sean kelly great rider but crap as a pundit
ITV may make one or two mistakes but far better insight into the goings on at the Tour and other races
Sean kelly great rider but crap as a pundit
Originally Posted by Party Animal:
“Sean kelly great rider but crap as a pundit”
“Sean kelly great rider but crap as a pundit”
Years ago Eurosport had Steven Roche and he was a fantastic analyst - although he always had it in for Richard Virenque for some reason - but sadly Kelly is nothing but banalities.
Originally Posted by Edward_Sloley:
“OGE have indeed included both twins in their squad (complete startlist).
Double-figure participation is unprecedented for the 'trade-team' era as the 1930-61 editions involved national or regional teams.
Good to see Kelly is still doing the Tour commentary, but I was rather hoping that Hatch would also get the Tour gig, or at least that Kirby didn't. It's a shame Harmon's relations with Eurosport are finished...
It'll be their last Tour gig on the syndicated feed - one of them (can't remember which) said so on Twitter IIRC.”
“OGE have indeed included both twins in their squad (complete startlist).
Double-figure participation is unprecedented for the 'trade-team' era as the 1930-61 editions involved national or regional teams.Good to see Kelly is still doing the Tour commentary, but I was rather hoping that Hatch would also get the Tour gig, or at least that Kirby didn't. It's a shame Harmon's relations with Eurosport are finished...
It'll be their last Tour gig on the syndicated feed - one of them (can't remember which) said so on Twitter IIRC.”
Can't see anything about them retiring? Be surprised if it was. That said enjoyed David Millars commentary on the dauphine and good to see he's providing punditry.
Originally Posted by grassmarket:
“Years ago Eurosport had Steven Roche and he was a fantastic analyst - although he always had it in for Richard Virenque for some reason - but sadly Kelly is nothing but banalities.”
“Years ago Eurosport had Steven Roche and he was a fantastic analyst - although he always had it in for Richard Virenque for some reason - but sadly Kelly is nothing but banalities.”
Yeah, it was Duffield and Roche I think when I started watching the full race live on ES - Bjarne Riis won that year
This is my 20th TdF..........
(I think I might have sporadically seen some of those 30 minutes highlights that C4 used to do in the 80s ?)
Roche always said Virenque was tactically inept.......he'd attack at the wrong time and didn't appear to be reading the race. I suppose a bit like Tommy Voeckler today
Sheesh........this is one hell of a roll out........it's been about 30 minutes since they set off !
Flag has gone down and they're finally racing......
Flag has gone down and they're finally racing......
Things now really intriguing, peleton is completely split, NIbali, Quintana and yellow jersey all distanced in the high winds and rain beside the North Sea. Gaps growing fast.
Real-time classification: http://www.itv.com/tourdefrance/stan...classification
Originally Posted by grassmarket:
“Things now really intriguing...........”
“Things now really intriguing...........”
........so we're going to leave the race and go to a pre-recorded segment with Greg Lomond......
How annoying is that !
Can you imagine if England were playing a world cup quarter-final and the BBC announced they were leaving the game for a few minutes to show us a film by Peter Beardsley explaining how to take a free kick
There'd be a riot !
Show us the damn race !
Tony Martin and Cancellara could be sprinting it out for time bonuses to get into yellow!
Nibali crevaison! A disaster. Has managed to get back on, but still well behind.
ITV have got Jens Voigt in the booth to explain it all.
Nibali crevaison! A disaster. Has managed to get back on, but still well behind.
ITV have got Jens Voigt in the booth to explain it all.
Originally Posted by grassmarket:
“Tony Martin and Cancellara could be sprinting it out for time bonuses to get into yellow!”
“Tony Martin and Cancellara could be sprinting it out for time bonuses to get into yellow!”
On a knife edge if Cavendish wins. 6 & 4 seconds for 2nd and 3rd. At 63 secs gap between groups, Dennis loses the virtual lead on Martin and Cancellara excluding time bonuses.
Nice lead out by Cav........
I switched over to ITV after the Greg Lomond fiasco above........and didn't switch back again
I switched over to ITV after the Greg Lomond fiasco above........and didn't switch back again
How were there no time gaps in that top 10? They were spread out over 150 metres.
Cancelllara had a second or two back to 5th, then more gaps around Froome. Contador looked a long way back on the finish.
Cancelllara had a second or two back to 5th, then more gaps around Froome. Contador looked a long way back on the finish.
30th year of the TDF for me, and even though I thought the addition of Juan-Antonio Flecha to Eurosports coverage of the Giro was excellent, I always go to ITV for the Tour, the problem of Eurosport having to cater for being a pan European channel is always an issue with me, and having the familiar voices of Sherwin & Liggett now joined in their NBC world feed booth by Jen Voight makes it a no brainer of ITV for me. Annoyed that Eurosport never bothered showing the final weeks RCS highlights of the Giro as the combination of Kirby and Dan Lloyd is a good one, no disrespect to Rob Hatch who along with Matt Stephens were great but Sean Kelly I just can't cope with.
Originally Posted by Cissy Fairfax:
“How were there no time gaps in that top 10? They were spread out over 150 metres.
Cancelllara had a second or two back to 5th, then more gaps around Froome. Contador looked a long way back on the finish.”
“How were there no time gaps in that top 10? They were spread out over 150 metres.
Cancelllara had a second or two back to 5th, then more gaps around Froome. Contador looked a long way back on the finish.”
The gap between wheels has to be at least one second. At 60kph, the sprint is running at 16.7 m/s. So, it takes around eight bike lengths before the gap registers.
Today's stage was incident packed but it was a shame that Quintana and Nibali lost time like that.
Hopefully, like the Dauphine, they can team up with Valverde and attack Froome and Contador but the Tour already seems like a straight fight between the big two. I would have liked all four to have gone into the mountains reasonably level.
Guess I am going to have to support Froome now.
Hopefully, like the Dauphine, they can team up with Valverde and attack Froome and Contador but the Tour already seems like a straight fight between the big two. I would have liked all four to have gone into the mountains reasonably level.
Guess I am going to have to support Froome now.
With cobbles, a team time trial (which Sky weren't great in recently at the Dauphine) and first week crashes all to come, the mountains seem ages away and the gaps not that significant.
Originally Posted by cmq2:
“The gap between wheels has to be at least one second. At 60kph, the sprint is running at 16.7 m/s. So, it takes around eight bike lengths before the gap registers.”
“The gap between wheels has to be at least one second. At 60kph, the sprint is running at 16.7 m/s. So, it takes around eight bike lengths before the gap registers.”
Ok, thanks. It looked about that between 4th and 5th but couldn't have been. Although there is a gap given between 10th-11th and Froome gained 4 seconds on Contador and TJVG.
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