Cav is in (presumably to due Dibben's crash this spring, as well as said rider's disappointing ride in the national U23 ITT).

Pooley is in, so she has a lot of work to do. The decision to join Boels paid off for Harris - Lizzie may well have had a say in her selection, being world champ and all.

The men's road squad (Adam Yates aside) is all-Sky, to the detriment of Cummings.

Probably also due to Dowsett being better suited to La Vuelta's TTs (with less competition), and Movistar's team being dedicated to a Quintana win.


I thought Cummings win in the final mountain stage of the Dauphine would have swung the vote to him. He proved he was not just a powerful flatlander. A useful rider to keep the middle of the hilly road race tough for contenders like Thomas and Froome.

Pooley has signed to Lotto Soudal for the second half of the season. Not sure what happened to her responsibilities to her triathlon sponsors that were curtailing her road commitments.

Three Sky riders have withdrawn from the Sunday's National Champs road race leaving only Cavendish, and Dowsett as the top pro team names. Blythe, Fenn and Peters the other WT team riders. A third of the field is under-23.

Eurosport have revised their schedule for tomorrow. As far as I can see it is now

11:30 Closing circuits of women's race live
12:00 French men's race live
15:30 British Men's race Iive

But it'll probably be all snooker anyway.

Terrible news, only 26...http://lottosoudal.be/update-stig-broeckx/?lang=en

(ICYMI hospitalised after a collision with a race motorbike in a Belgium race at the end of May)

Oh dear.......the Eurosport TV Schedule page has been 'improved' so now it's more difficult to see what's on and it's sole purpose appears to be to get you to sign up to the Online Player

But it seems that the latest version of today's schedule is

some highlights of the GB time trials at 11 am
live coverage of the French road race from midday(scheduled for 2 hours)
repeat of time trial highlights at 3pm
live coverage of the GB road race from 4pm

Lizzie didn't start the women's RR due to illness, according to Cycling Weekly. It's a shame we didn't get to see the stripes in our nationals, but at least we got to see them in a couple of international races on home soil.

As for the results:

Blimey, not a good look for Mark Cavendish - Adam Blythe of Tinkoff outsprints him in a straight run to the line to become British Champion.

I thought Cav had a problem........a few kilometres out I noticed his left leg was stuck out at a strange angle then later he was bending down feeling his thigh or groin.......I wondered if he'd pulled a muscle or sprained something

Anti-mechanical doping tests for the Tour de France

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/36640870

Thermal imaging was rejected by the UCI in April. I wonder what changed?


http://www.uci.ch/pressreleases/uci-...l-fraud-tests/

Another Brit in the Tour this year - Daniel McLay at Fortuneo Vital Concept. Don't think we've ever seen much of him on the TV, but he's had a few wins on the French Pro-Continental level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_McLay

Full confirmed teams, barring accidents between now and Friday evening.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...-by-team-guide

Team Presentation Event is tomorrow 15:45, live on Eurosport. Us old-timers know it's usually pretty excruciating for anyone except lovers of contemporary French boy bands or whatever.

So does anyone know how we in the UK can listen to Paul and Phil on the Tour de France? I know NBC Sports is impossible to watch but is there any other way of getting the world feed?

You might be able to find a streaming site that has the NBC coverage.

If you have a really big satellite dish you will be able to get the world feed but I think that's a bit of a drastic and expensive step just to listen to them

Amidst all the excitement about the Tour de France, everyone is overlooking the traditional classic race of the first week in July - the Tour of Austria. Proper climbing, not just boring flatlands and sprints!

http://www.velowire.com/UCIcyclingca...f-austria.html

Actually, it's a bit shabby this year, Astana are the only World Tour Team, and mostly unglamorous eastern European teams for the rest.

http://www.oesterreich-rundfahrt.at/index.php/team

Highlights on Eurosport every evening.

BC lucked out as they gained an Olympic berth in the men's MTB race due to reallocation.

The Giro Rosa gets underway today with a prologue.

Cummings is the latest rider peeved at the Olympic selectors alleged bias and incompetence.

Comparing his performance over the past year with those selected, and his potential for the Rio course, it does look a strange omission.

http://www.procyclingstats.com/mob/rider.php?id=140584

Here we go then........straight in with a road stage of 188K. Should be a bunch sprint and a chance for one of the sprinters to take the yellow jersey and perhaps hold it for 4 days............there's no significant climb until stage 5

No prologue........there's not even a time trial until stage 13

A lot of the places they go through or past in the first few days will be familiar to anyone who's caught the ferry to Cherbourg and headed south......

Bookies view on the race favourites: http://www.oddschecker.com/cycling/t...-france/winner

Some good pickings should, as in 2014, the top two fall away for whatever reason. Bertie has a question mark over his form and probably does not warrant those odds.

Orica Greenedge have changed sponsor names to Orica-BikeExchange. They have changed their jersey colour to the Movistar blue and green.

Bouhanni was withdrawn from the TdF earlier this week for medical reasons. Sutures binding cuts in his hand before the French national championships became infected. http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/...ad-race-235090

The Tour start does not seem to have attracted widespread news media attention. Brexit is the top story when political news normally has faded for the summer. Drowned out today by Welsh success last night on newpaper landing pages and relegated from the top stories on the Sports pages,

Off we go in ITV4....Carlton fans will have to wait till 11:45 and Welsh language viewers still have a frustrating 3 hour gap.

Podcasts previewing (and subsequently covering) this year's Tour:

Cycling News https://www.acast.com/cyclingnews/to...oplay?autoplay
Cycling Podcast https://audioboom.com/channel/thecyclingpodcast
ITV Sport https://soundcloud.com/user-379492923

Hopefully we will get some cross winds off the sea, always makes it more exciting if they get in echelons, causing splits.

So is Eurosport Carlton and Sean Kelly? I might get out my credit card and subscribe. I'm not liking ITV4 already.

I assume so, not heard him yet, Carlton was on briefly before going back to the presenters.

Ausie guy doing the world feed but he often starts it before Phil and Paul start, they cant manage a long stage